by Gaelen Foley
Pierson couldn’t even stay aroused the few times they had been together, and, of course, he called that her fault. It had always led to fights. God, she had hated lying there beneath him, the stale liquor fumes of his breath flooding her face. Those awkward nights had turned into naught but an unpleasant duty, an occasionally humiliating chore—for both of them. Their only motive had been to get a son.
Thomas was worth all the aggravation she had had to go through, but her scant experience of the marriage bed had left her with a barrage of anxieties that now taunted her.
It was one thing to know she had failed to impress her husband, but what if her ineptitude made Jordan lose all interest? Dear Lord, what if laughed at her? She knew his ironic sense of humor. But what man wouldn’t laugh, pining away for a woman, finally having her, then realizing she was not so great a prize, after all?
Her fears stampeded on, half terrifying her, even as she tried to hide her inner turmoil.
On all those unpleasant occasions, Mara reminded herself, Pierson had never touched her like this. There was no reason to think it would be the same with Jordan.
His caresses glided over her body, down her thigh, awakening wonder over all her skin, but she suddenly found she couldn’t relax. You are taking a huge risk here.
What if the beautiful new friendship they had salvaged from the past was ruined because of this momentous step?
No longer able to help herself, she reached down and suddenly stopped his hand. “Jordan, wait.”
His fingertips had been sporting at her ankle and remained there, clearly intent on traveling north beneath her skirts. He lifted a curious, rather drugged-looking gaze to hers, his eyes blue eyes blazing hot with sensuality. “What is it, my darling?” he whispered thickly.
“Um—” Mara sat up, her chest heaving.
The haze in his eyes cleared slightly. “Something wrong?”
She held his gaze imploringly for a second, then she looked away, feeling utterly stupid. “I—it’s nothing. Never mind.”
His eyebrow lifted. “Come again?”
She winced. “I’m sorry.”
He stared at her. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No! No. It’s not you, honestly, it’s me.” She lowered her gaze with a wince. “I’m so sorry. I know I sound like an idiot. But I think I’ve, um, lost my nerve for this.”
“Ah,” he said slowly, the portrait of a man confounded—no, a gentleman. “I see. Yes, of course.” He almost managed to hide his wince. He cleared his throat. Nodded. “As you wish, my dear.” He took a deep breath and forced a wry smile. “I shall need a moment if you wish to go inside.”
She searched his face, furrowing her brow. No disgust? No sign of anger or recrimination?
“I really am sorry,” she said. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you, I’m sure. A lady is allowed to change her mind. No questions asked.”
“Oh,” she said warily.
“If I frightened you somehow, I didn’t mean to—”
“No! You didn’t at all. It’s just—I’m so terribly nervous,” she admitted with a hapless shrug.
“Oh, sweeting, why?” he murmured, running his hand down her back. “You don’t have to be afraid with me.”
“I know. But, you see, I’m horribly out of practice.” She was blushing as fiercely as any virgin. “I haven’t—you know—in nearly three years, and the truth, I was never what you’d call an expert.”
“Oh, there, there, darling,” he comforted her in fond amusement. “I don’t care about experts. All I care about is you.”
“Well, there must be something wrong with me, because I never really enjoyed it in the first place.”
He studied her for a long moment, his eyes gleaming with tenderness. “Mara, my dear, have you ever had an orgasm?”
“What’s that?” she countered in a dull tone.
“My poor babe.” He kissed her neck, and whispered, “This is a tragic state of affairs.”
“You’re telling me.”
“You have needs, Mara. You’re a grown woman.”
“Yes, but what if I—can’t?”
“Are you aware it’s a skill one can learn? From the proper teacher, that is. Someone patient. Someone you trust. Do you trust me, Mara?”
She sighed as his lips skimmed the line of her throat.
“Yes.”
“Then don’t worry. Just let go. If you tell me to stop, we won’t do this. But in the meanwhile, you throw down the gauntlet like that,” he murmured against her skin, “you make me want to prove to you that you can enjoy making love. Immensely.”
A renewed jolt of awareness began unwinding the knot in her stomach. She could feel her tension easing, the heat returning to her cheeks again, though she lowered her lashes, watching her hands slide over his broad shoulders.
“Do you want me, Mara?”
“Oh, yes—so very much,” she breathed as his thumb slid over her nipple through the fabric of her gown. “But what if it changes things between us?” She felt weaker by the second. “Now that you’re finally back in my life…you make me so happy. I don’t want this to come between us now.”
He paused and gazed wistfully at her. “What an innocent you still are. So shy and nervous. I had no idea. Come here, sweet. Just let me hold you.”
She wasn’t sure how to take his observations, but when he smiled at her in reassurance, she accepted his invitation gladly. He put his arms around her in an embrace that offered safety, patience, kindness. The closest thing she had ever known to love. Mara slid her arms around his neck and closed her eyes.
They hugged for a long time in silence. He stroked her until a deep contentment gradually eased the anxieties that had gathered in her body—or rather, changed the quality of that physical tension, shifting its location…lower.
The tightness in her shoulders began melting away, dripping lower to become a tingle in her belly, a need that began thrumming in her blood.
Everywhere their bodies pressed together, she grew more acutely aware of him as a man, all the hard, smooth contours of his muscled frame…
“So, what do you think?” he murmured at length, kissing her forehead. “Do you want to go in now?”
She was silent.
He pulled back slightly and looked at her in question; he arched a brow when he read the hunger on her face.
“Well, there’s no hurry, is there?” she whispered.
He shook his head, staring at her in rapt approval. “Not at all. There’s nowhere else I need to be. I’m all yours,” he added, as the banked smolder in his blue eyes leaped back to full flame.
“Hmm, whatever shall I do with you, I wonder?”
“That is entirely up to you.” He sank back against the squabs in a reclining pose that invited her do as she pleased.
His offer was more temptation than she could resist.
Heart pounding, Mara leaned in and brushed her lips lightly along his cheek, beginning with the utmost care. His skin was warm and smooth, his clean-shaved jaw strong and square; she kissed it, too, bracing herself against his shoulders. He tipped her head back against the squabs with a low sigh of pleasure as her light, nibbling kisses moved to his earlobe. “You’re seducing me, Mara.”
“I’m sure I wouldn’t know how.”
“Trust me, you’re better at this than you know.” He led her hand gently to the throbbing evidence of his desire.
Her eyebrows shot up, her blood leaped, and as she cupped the massive bulge in Jordan’s trousers, she recalled her husband’s lack of interest in her, and thought in wicked approval, Now that is a cock.
There was no question that this man wanted her. “Most impressive, my lord,” she said faintly.
“Believe me now?”
“How can I not, with such…solid proof in hand, so to speak?”
He let out a husky laugh at her quip. To be sure, her shyness was definitely fading. It all but disappeared when
he moaned softly, enjoying the taut squeeze of her hand as she stroked him through his trousers.
Though her cheeks still burned in a deep blush, all her skin felt tingly-warm.
“So,” he resumed in a mild tone—such a courtly diplomat—“how may I be of service, my lady?”
“Hm…” She flicked a possessive glance over his muscled body. “Take off your coat,” she ordered with a pleasant half smile and a quickening pulse.
“Excellent idea.” In the close confines of the carriage, she helped him draw his arms out of the neat, tailored sleeves of his cutaway coat.
As they shifted positions, he stole a kiss on her neck. Mara quivered when his warm, silken lips lingered, offering several more in a delightful line that traveled down her throat.
She closed her eyes, a sigh of deepening restlessness escaping her when his lips parted against her flesh. She cupped his head against the crook of her neck, reveling in his open-mouthed kiss beneath her earlobe, raking her fingers through his short, soft hair.
He moaned in pleasure at her touch. She moved on, stroking his shoulders, running her hand up his chest—until she happened upon his well-starched cravat.
Without forethought, she plucked at one tidy fold of the square knot, freeing it. Jordan helped her; she slid it off his neck.
This was the first time she had ever seen him without his cravat. The deep V of his shirt fell open down to where his waistcoat remained buttoned. She pulled back to stare at him and was instantly entranced by the sweeping line from his bare throat down to his muscled chest.
Riveted by the wondrous new territory she had uncovered, Mara could not restrain her fingers from following her gaze.
As she touched him, his skin was hot and sleek; her fingertips skimmed the rough texture of his beard growth beginning to return many hours after his morning shave. She touched his Adam’s apple and the vulnerable notch below it, that alluring dip between the masculine elegance of his collarbones. And then her hand trailed down the sturdy center valley between the sculpted swells of his pectoral muscles. “You are…a beautiful man.”
“I’m all right,” he replied with an all-too-charming half smile.
She gave him a sardonic look, then leaned closer and kissed his neck, just as he had done to her.
Jordan went stock-still, clearly savoring the soft pressure of her lips against his jugular; he swallowed hard. She could feel his pulse pounding beneath her kiss, but he did not move—he barely breathed—as though he were afraid of scaring her away.
He needn’t have worried.
Long-dormant instinct was beginning to take hold, her body at long last responding as Nature had intended it to.
Hallelujah. Everything in her was coming alive again.
Her heartbeat was gathering strength as she slipped her hand eagerly into the now accessible regions of him hidden beneath his loosened shirt. In rapt admiration, she went exploring over his shoulders and partway down his chest, and after a moment, Jordan did the same, no longer able to help himself, it seemed.
He pulled her closer. Mara climbed atop him, straddling him on the carriage seat. As her attentions shifted from his neck to claim his mouth in a deep, consuming kiss, his hands clutched her hips through the layers of her skirts.
All of a sudden, they were on fire, two youths again, groping and fondling each other, all their supposed sophistication forgotten in a heightening fever of desire.
With her hands still inside his parted shirt, Mara continued marveling at the feel of his bare chest, warm, hard sinew beneath velveteen skin. Jordan’s hands, meanwhile, slid upward, molding her waist.
When he clasped her breasts, he got her full attention. She paused in kissing him, waiting to see what he was going to do. Then through her gown, a few slow, forceful passes of his thumbs across her nipples teased her into a state of crazed arousal.
She shuddered with a torrent of fiery need.
Under the drape of her muslin skirts, she parted her knees to sit lower on him, until her very core was in firm, restless contact with the throbbing hardness concealed inside his trousers. She was shaking, kissing him wildly, fidgeting on his lap in the most unladylike fashion, until, half-out of her mind, her frustration broke from her in a whisper. “Jordan, please!”
He paused, cast her a wicked half smile. “Please what, Mara?”
“You’re a devil.”
“Who, me?” With one elegant finger, he began lifting the hem of her skirts.
Her chest heaved. The man had her in the palm of his hand in that moment, and she didn’t even care. Sheer, unadulterated thrill raced through her blood as his hands disappeared beneath the billows of dainty fabric, reaching for the placket of his trousers.
His hips lifted slightly, a motion that roused an eager sigh from her. She stared at him in breathless anticipation as he freed himself from the constraint of his clothes. But when she leaned closer to kiss him again, a pained look of need flitted over his chiseled face.
“Oh, God, Mara, are you sure?” he whispered as he guided his long, rigid member to the drenched threshold of her core. “Is this what you really want?”
Her answer was a kiss full of trembling intensity. “I need you, my only darling, please. I’ve waited for you my whole life.”
He pulled her closer. All speech, all thought, all rational capability fled as he slowly entered her. Naught but a whispered groan of bliss escaped him as he glided in gently, taking her to the hilt, rock-hard, magnificent in size.
She was amazed at the ease with which he penetrated her after all the trouble her husband used to have. It sank in then, truly, that maybe she had never been the problem.
Jordan was right. Maybe there was nothing wrong with her. She had simply married the wrong man, as a young girl under pressure to take a husband.
If she had waited for Jordan, the man she had really wanted, then she saw now she’d never have had such difficulties with sex. Indeed, she might well have had half a dozen sons by now, and daughters, too. The thought brought a wave of anguish amid the physical pleasure that enveloped her.
She let it pass. She had him now, as it always should have been, and her heart soared to know that, finally, this was the first time together.
By God, it would not be their last.
Meanwhile, after years of abstinence, she was as tight as a virgin, but there was no pain, only wonder.
And love.
“Jordan.” Pinprick tears sprang into her eyes as she wrapped her arms dazedly around him, still barely able to believe it was happening. A dream was coming true.
He whispered her name in heady tones, looking into her eyes with a world of emotion churning in his own, their blue depths haunted by loss but filled with the hope of renewal.
Yes, maybe this would change things between them, but for the good, not in any way they had to fear.
They belonged entirely to each other in that moment, the long account of bygone years swept away with the next kiss. The past did not matter anymore, for now they had the future.
She kissed him desperately, and in seconds, their fleeting sorrow had dissolved as passion overtook them.
His hips surged beneath hers as he began rocking her, holding her by her waist. She clung to him, and moved with him, arching, her breasts caressing his chest with every deep, rhythmic thrust.
So this is how it’s supposed to be, she thought faintly, every inch of her aglow.
But after such long anticipation, their joining overwhelmed her senses quickly. Spasms of pleasure threatened from the innermost regions of her womanhood. But she did not want this to end. She tried to hold back, quaking with the effort. But she had no control.
He seemed to understand.
“Just let go for me, darling. Come to me,” he breathed, his hands gliding up and down her back. “It’s all right. You need this. I want to make you come.”
She buckled at the slightest urging. With a small cry, she simply ravished the man on her knees, taking him greedily. Her whole
body was shaking as she rode him to a triumphant finish, fairly screaming with release.
He joined her with a rough cry and an even rougher motion, thrusting into her. She gasped at the rod of hot iron pulsating within her. Trembling with passion, he was no longer the civilized diplomat-earl that she knew. Here was a rough and wild side of him she had never seen before—and she reveled in it.
Lost to all reason, his famous self-control nowhere to be found, he grunted with pleasure, gripping and squeezing her rear end in both of his hands, pumping with a fierce abandon that shook the whole coach. He bit her on the shoulder when he suddenly “let go,” as he had put it. He clutched her hard, fairly growling with ecstasy, his breath hot against her ear, obscenities tumbling from him as feverish endearments.
She was fascinated as his feral groans faded to a disbelieving whisper. “Oh, my God.”
“Yes.” Trembling all over, she laid her head down on his shoulder. “Mmm.”
Beyond that, neither of them moved. They remained joined, both dazed, but loath ever to be separated.
In that spellbound silence, Mara did not dare to say a word. She did not trust herself to tell him anything except, “I love you,” but neither of them was nearly ready for that.
After a long moment, Jordan finally spoke, still sounding slightly shaken and blissfully out of breath. “I hope I didn’t leave teeth marks.”
“Really?” Mara smiled in satisfaction and let out a sigh. “I rather hope you did.”
Drake watched Emily feed the horses, unable to take his eyes off her.
The sky was bright, and the trees swayed over the meadow as she stepped up onto the bottom rail of the fence. Leaning over to shove away some of the greedier mares, she fed her handful of grain to a meeker chestnut filly who obviously did not rank as high as the others in the herd’s hierarchy.
“There you are, girl,” she murmured, her soft voice beguiling Drake right along with the animals.
Because he had remembered her on sight, his captors had started letting her take him outside.
Emily said it would be good for him, fresh air and sunshine. Max had finally conceded, for she was the only one who seemed to know where the devil to start with him.
