The rest of his homily on female self-gratification flew from his head. Jenny reclined against the headboard, the sheet draped across her lap. Her braid fell over one pale shoulder and her breasts…
The artist in him noted that her left breast was ever so slightly lower and boasted a bit more fullness than the right, and yet both were beautiful and perfect, and both rosy nipples were puckered, though his room was warm.
The man in him cast anything approaching scruples far out into the Channel and frankly stared at the bounty before him. He’d seen her before, seen her nude, spent, and gloriously happy with it in his arms.
But he’d not taken even a moment to behold her, to caress the glory of her with his gaze, and to savor the way firelight cherished each curve and hollow of her naked body.
“Genevieve Windham…” He raised a hand, then let it drop before he’d cradled her jaw against his palm.
“I want it to be you, but a lady can’t do the asking.” The determination was still there in her voice, but she was pleading too, for him to capitulate, to comprehend—
The gentlemen in him, the perishing, damned, inconvenient gentleman in him grasped both the plea and the solution. So simple and so wondrous, to give her what she sought and what Elijah needed.
“I want it to be me too. It shall be me, and for me, it shall be you.” He leaned forward and kissed her, not touching her anywhere else, so he might savor the kiss sealing that vow.
“Elijah—” She sank a hand in his hair and hauled herself closer. “Yes, please and please again.” She became a woman possessed, dragging herself up to her knees, locking her arms behind his neck, and devouring him with her kisses.
“Genevieve, slow down. Slow—” His hand curved around her flank and pulled her closer, and yet, the angle was awkward. He was half-turned toward her on the bed, she was clamped around him, and the damned covers were so much linen seaweed, dragging about them in all the wrong directions.
“I want you so, Elijah. I could not have borne to leave here in the morning without—”
He rose off the bed, turned, and stepped away. “I could not either, but if I don’t get my damned breeches off, I will not answer for the consequences.”
She knelt among the blankets, rosy, naked, and smiling as if she’d just landed her snowball directly on his arse, which in a metaphorical sense, she had. Marriage to this woman was going to be wildly delightful.
“Let me get my breeches off, Genevieve, for both our sakes.”
She said nothing, her gaze riveted on his chest. From somewhere, Elijah found the strength of will to slow himself down. This night would mark a beginning for them, and Jenny relied on him to make it the best beginning they could share.
“You do it,” he said.
Innocent that she was, she blinked at him in bewilderment.
“My falls, love. I want not a stitch between us.” He wanted to give her summer sunshine on naked flesh, he wanted soft breezes, and he wanted long, sweet nights full of pleasure for them both.
She knee-walked to the edge of the bed, studying his falls. “I’ve never done this before.”
“I should hope not.” He couldn’t hide his amusement, but he did manage to stand there, hands relaxed at his sides, when her mouth made him think of things vulgar, naughty, and—with Genevieve, he dared to hope—within the realm of possibility in the not-too-distant future.
Her hands shook minutely as she unfastened the buttons to his falls. He could feel the tremor as well as see it as the flap gradually draped open.
Genevieve dropped her hands, sat back on her haunches, and worried a nail between her teeth. “Now what?”
Now came the time when the man, the artist, and gentleman would collude to make this experience everything the lady had ever dreamed it might be. “Now I bring you pleasure.”
Her smile was lovely, naughty, and a little worried. She moved to the center of the bed and scooted down beneath the covers.
“She hides her treasures,” Elijah grumbled to no one in particular as he shucked out of his breeches. He heard her draw in her breath, and in a fit of spontaneous martyrdom, readjusted his immediate plans.
Rather than launch himself onto the bed, he stooped to pick up his clothes. She braced herself on her elbows and watched while he gathered up the sartorial casualties of his earlier haste and folded them one by one on the clothes press.
“Elijah?”
“Tidiness is a habit,” he explained, though when a man’s cock was bobbing against his belly, tidiness was a ridiculous habit. The idea that Jenny would one day tease him for his comment pleased him.
He moved behind the privacy screen, used his tooth powder, and prayed for fortitude.
And stamina. A determined woman deserved stamina in her prospective spouse.
“I have missed seeing you like this,” Jenny said.
She would be seeing a great deal of him like this, and soon, if he could talk her into a special license. “Scandalous woman.”
“I am, aren’t I? My favorite session was when you took Mr. Jackson’s pose for Satan Summoning His Legions.”
A pose that illuminated the subject’s genitals nearly as well as his face, because all the light in Sir Thomas’s painting was from the netherworld at the bottom of the image. Then, too, Satan’s upraised arms required a pose that made the model’s arms ache abominably.
Elijah approached the bed, noting when Jenny’s gaze fell on his upthrust cock. She ran her tongue over her top lip, and he nearly vaulted onto the mattress.
“Shall I come to bed, Genevieve?”
A small, sensible part of him wanted her to fling back the covers, snatch up her dressing gown, and announce that she’d changed her mind. They were going about things backward, though many couples did. As much as Elijah wanted her, and wanted to please her, he also wanted her to know he’d wait for her.
For the three weeks necessary to cry the banns, he could wait for her.
She did not take her gaze from his cock. “Please, come to bed.”
He climbed onto the mattress. “You use the word ‘please’ a lot.”
“When I’m around you, and yet… often I want to holler it at you, Elijah. I want you to pause as you climb onto the bed, so I can capture the combination of eagerness and wariness I see in your eyes. I want you to hold a position over by the clothes press, because your body makes a perfect contrapposto pose angled to the firelight. I want to draw what I feel of your lips when we kiss—”
He remained on all fours on the bed and kissed her to shut her up. “And to think you couldn’t even ask me to remove my shirt.” Their marriage was not going to suffer from an abundance of clothing. The artist, the man, and even that other fellow were cheered by the notion.
She slid down farther beneath the covers, and that meant Elijah had to follow her, until he was crouching over her, the covers between them.
“You are an indecently good kisser, Elijah Harrison.”
“One grows inspired by the company. I have a title, you know.” This was a paltry gift laid at the feet of a woman who’d been Lady Jenny since she emerged from the womb.
She squeezed his biceps, testing the resilience of his muscles, maybe, artist fashion. “Earl of Bernward. You ought to use it.” She did it again, then levered up to press her face to his throat. “Elijah, I’m nervous.”
He loved her. The knowledge came to him like a whiff of her jasmine—unmistakable no matter how faint or subtle. This was not mere affection, not infatuation, not a passing preoccupation. He’d caught the love, well and truly. He loved her for entrusting him not only with her beauty and with her past disappointments, but also with her nerves and her future.
He cradled the back of her head with one hand and braced himself over her with the other. “Nervousness is to be expected with a new experience. Give your nervousness to me, Genevieve.” He was not nervous—this was the most right thing he’d ever done. He was aroused, though, and impatient to win her trust.
She
angled her head to peer up at him. “This is a new experience, isn’t it?”
“Completely, for both of us.” The first of many.
He let her subside onto the mattress, then climbed under the blankets with her.
“You are warm, Elijah.”
He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and drew her closer. “I’m on fire.”
In less than a minute, he’d ignited his lady’s passions too. He denied himself the pleasure of covering her, needing the check on his self-restraint to withstand another spate of kissing from his lover as they lay facing each other on their sides.
“I will forever associate tongues and paintbrushes when I’m around you, Elijah. I want to paint you.”
“You have.” He dipped his head and nuzzled her breast. “You shall.”
She hiked a leg over his hips and pulled herself closer. “I mean I want to apply paint to your naked body, put colors on you everywhere—” Elijah felt a soft, female hand trace down his midline, then close around his shaft.
“Wicked, passionate, imaginative woman.” He rolled to his back and prepared to be tortured. Of course she would want to see him. Male artists could inspect themselves in the mirror or gawk at models when they were working with nudes.
And yet, she surprised him by straddling him instead.
“We can do it this way, can’t we? I’ve studied those exotic prints in Louisa’s library, and last night—”
Marriage to her was going to be a scantily clad, glorious, exhausting undertaking.
Elijah treated himself to the feel of her breasts against his palms. “We can make love any way you please, Genevieve.” Though, pray God, let it be soon.
“I like that.” She closed her eyes and let her head fall back, her braid tickling Elijah’s thighs. He pulled it over her shoulder and dabbed the end around her right nipple.
“Do you like that too?”
She opened her eyes, expression puzzled. “I like your hands better. I love your hands, whether they’re sketching, painting, holding William, or touching me.”
He trapped her fingers and brought them to his mouth. He would take her to Paris. He would take her there as often as she liked, and stay for weeks at a time. When he might have shared these sentiments with her, she tipped forward as if to kiss him, and Elijah thwarted her by taking a luscious nipple into his mouth.
“E-li-jah Har-ri-son.” Her hand wrapped around the back of his head as he drew on her, and the heat of her sex so very near his cock burned at his self-restraint.
Because words were moving beyond his reach, he anchored a hand on Jenny’s derriere and urged her down. She obliged, her damp, warm, lovely sex sighing onto his erection.
“That… That makes me want to kiss you, Elijah.”
He switched breasts rather than tell her what it made him want to do. Without him asking, she started moving on him, a slow, wet drag and return that stole his breath and sent arousal spiraling out through his body.
She would not describe herself as a virgin, though to Elijah she was more deserving of consideration than if she had been. He gave up the pleasure of her nipple in his mouth and watched her face.
“Genevieve.” He had to say her name, so absorbed was she in the stroke of her sex over his cock. “Genevieve, take me inside you.”
Jenny stared at him, as if she groped for the sense of his words.
Elijah took her hand and wrapped it around his cock. “Take me inside you, now. Please.”
He fitted his hand around hers and positioned himself at the entrance to her body, then nudged up and went still. Her expression was fierce, aroused, and in some regard holy, like Lawrence’s rendering of the dark prince. In a dim corner of Elijah’s awareness, he wanted to paint her thus, poised on the brink of accepting both him and the pleasure that was her due, and yet he knew such an image exceeded his talent by leaps.
She snugged her body down enough to start their joining. “There? Like that?”
“Exactly like that. Kiss me.”
She folded forward carefully, close enough that Elijah could fill one hand with the abundance of her breast and sink the other into the hair at her nape. “Like this.”
He synchronized his tongue and his cock in slow undulations, until her body was moving smoothly over him, taking him deeper and deeper into bliss, deeper and deeper into her.
He felt her arousal welling up, felt her slowing her movements as if she’d cower away from the pleasure—and that he could not allow.
“Be brave, Genevieve. Be greedy and strong. Be mine.” He took control of their joining, anchoring an arm low on her back, thrusting into her hard, and watching her face.
“Elijah—” She arched her back, her throat gleaming white in the firelight as her body gave itself up to pleasure. Elijah had to close his eyes lest the sight of her surrender send him past control. In some ways, that decision was ill advised, for he could feel her fisting around him, feel the one, endless spasm that wrenched a groan from her throat, and feel when desire eased its grip on her and let her sprawl in a boneless heap on his chest.
A boneless, satisfied heap.
For long minutes, he contented himself with stroking her hair, her back, her derriere. His passion was not sated, and yet he was content. As he drew a queen of hearts on her back with the tip of her braid, Elijah debated telling Genevieve Windham that he loved her.
Such a declaration might be better saved for their wedding night, or for when he presented her with an engagement ring. Or perhaps—
Along with the lust throbbing gently in his veins, along with affection for the lady in his arms and pride in her fearless passion, a quiet thread of joy coursed through Elijah.
He’d take her to Flint Hall after the New Year—after he’d been officially admitted to the Academy—and tell her there that he loved her, for even a stubborn, idiot man who’d wandered in a wilderness of pride for ten years was entitled—was required—to show his bride off to his family.
Jenny shifted on his chest, nuzzled his sternum, then settled again.
He was a better man for loving her, he was a better artist for loving her, and he would tell her that too when he brought her to their home.
“Elijah?”
“Love?”
She kissed him and peered at him with the sort of intensity Elijah suspected had to do with questions a newly engaged woman found difficult to keep to herself.
How many children did he want?
A special license or St. George’s or a wedding in the Morelands chapel?
Would they reside with his family at Flint Hall, or live for a time at Bernward Manor?
When would he speak to her father?
She brushed his hair back from his forehead, a wifely caress if Elijah had ever felt one.
“When I go to Paris, I will miss my family, but I will also miss… this.” She kissed him again, sweetly, gently. “I will miss you so very much.”
Elijah’s hands stopped moving on her back; his lungs stopped drawing in air.
When she went to Paris…
When she went to Paris, exactly as planned, as if this night, as if he, meant nothing more than a passing whim.
As if he’d completely misconstrued her words, her glances, her intentions, and seen them through a haze of lust and longing that had obliterated his judgment.
But not his pride.
Anger welled up, at her, at himself, at Paris, and following immediately after, like an undertow follows a wave, despair surged—for himself and for her. He did not want to go to Paris, much less in the company of a woman whose view of their dealings was radically different from his own.
Jenny would go to Paris, though he was coming to suspect something more than artistic compulsion drove her there, perhaps something she did not understand herself.
For the past ten years, he had wanted to go home, and home he would go.
* * *
Allowing intimacies with Denby had been stupid and disappointing but not tragic. Marriage to Denb
y would have been tragic. These thoughts, along with both satisfaction and loss, coursed through Jenny as she sprawled on Elijah’s chest.
Denby had been a selfish, inept boy, just as Jenny had been a selfish, inept girl, while Elijah was… a man, a skilled, generous, passionate, caring, talented…
Jenny very much feared that intimacies with Elijah Harrison were going to have consequences tragic for her, though she couldn’t quite fathom how. She could still feel him, feel the pleasurable fullness of him inside her body, and suspected she’d feel him in her heart for far longer than was prudent.
“Elijah?” She could not say these things to him, and yet she wanted to say something.
“Love?”
The sensation of him using her braid like a paintbrush on her back was peculiar and soothing. He gathered her closer, and she kissed him, kissed him with all the regret and longing in her, with all the sorrow and loss too.
“When I go to Paris, I will miss my family, but I will also miss… this.” She kissed him again, because the missing had already started. “I will miss you so very much.”
His hands went still on her back, and Jenny’s heart stopped beating.
He smoothed her hair back from her forehead and studied her, guardedness replacing the tenderness in his eyes. “You said you wanted it to be me, Genevieve.”
“I did, and it was, and I thank you for that.” One did not thank a man for indulging one’s passions. Jenny realized that as she watched the guardedness cool yet more.
“You’re pleased then, with this night’s work?”
Work? He’d emphasized the word slightly, or maybe Jenny had heard emphasis where none had been intended.
“I am—I was. I’m not now.” Their bodies were still joined—she was more or less lying on him—and yet, something was off, something was terribly, terribly off, and she was desperate to right it.
He closed his eyes, heaving up a sigh that Jenny felt bodily. “Why are you going to Paris?”
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