The hum was only louder and more insistent now that he knew her body.
“And you are a hundred leagues away,” Audrey said as she set her glass down.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I admit my mind wandered.”
“Where did it go?” she asked, spearing a carrot on her plate with her fork.
He took a long breath. There was no way to admit his thoughts in this moment without causing a great deal of anxiety. He had more than enough of that in his life. Wasn’t it possible that he could share these moments with Audrey without making them so dire?
After all, when he was with her, he felt so free. So in the moment. That was a remarkable thing.
“Estate business,” he lied.
She arched a brow as if she didn’t believe him, but didn’t press as she thoughtfully chewed her food and examined his face. “You know, I confessed to you the rather desperate reason why I have not settled on a husband yet, but I am realizing that you are older than I am and I have never known you to be even close to choosing a wife.”
He leaned back in his chair. “Are you calling me an old maid?” he asked, hoping the humor would diffuse the situation and eliminate the subject he most definitely did not wish to discuss.
It didn’t work, of course.
“Well, you are a good many Seasons past your debut,” she teased back before her face grew serious again. “Honestly, though, have you never thought of the future? Of a wife and children and a home of your own?”
He frowned. She was dancing around the edges of subjects that were more than a little painful to him. Subjects that would expose too much to her. But what would happen if he did show her that underbelly he so often protected? He doubted she could stab it. That just wasn’t Audrey.
And maybe if she understood how broken he was, even if he didn’t tell her all his secrets, she would know why he was not a good bargain for her. Perhaps he would break the spell of desire between them before it burned them both to the ground.
“Jude?” she whispered. “What is it?”
He cleared his throat and pushed his half-eaten plate away. “Do you really want to know the truth?”
She nodded. “I do.”
“It isn’t pretty,” he cautioned her.
“Life doesn’t have to be pretty. The ugliness is sometimes what makes it interesting.”
He pondered that a moment. “I suppose. Though I’m not sure it feels interesting to me.”
“No, in the moment, it only hurts,” she agreed. “So what hurt you?”
He slowly exhaled. “We talked a few days ago about the circumstances of my father’s marriage to my mother. Of why my family cut me off when he died.”
Her jaw set with anger on his behalf. “It was abominably cruel for them to do that to you both. Especially when you were grieving your father.”
He pursed his lips. “I did grieve him, of course, but there is a little more to the tale. You see, as much as he was driven by desire for my mother, as much as he might have loved her in the beginning, the more he was punished by his family, the more he came to…resent her.”
Her face twisted as her understanding became clear. “And what about you?”
He nodded. “I was also a burden to him. He isolated us more and more as I grew older, though he couldn’t stay away completely. He was drawn to my mother in some way—he loved her and hated her in equal measure, it seemed. When we were allowed to be seen in Society, my cousins and uncles and aunts all treated me like I was little better than a servant. My grandfather wouldn’t acknowledge me at all.”
“I’m so sorry, Jude,” she said softly.
He shrugged, though dismissing their actions had taken him years to do. Sometimes the memories still stung. “There is no need to be sorry. It’s the past and it’s over. I don’t see anyone on my father’s side of the family anymore, I don’t spare them a thought.”
“And yet you are implying that their actions, your father’s actions, are the reason you have never pursued a bride of your own.”
“You come from a close family, Audrey,” he said, meeting her gaze evenly. “Even when they’re broken, they’re bonded in some way. You don’t understand what family means to someone who was thrust out of one, held aside from it. I was taught that I didn’t even belong with those who shared my blood.”
She was quiet for a long time. Long enough that he began to question her thoughts on the subject, since she revealed none of them on her face. Finally, she said, “Didn’t you tell me not to fear passion?”
He cocked his head. “I don’t.”
She pressed her lips tight enough that some of the color left them. “No. You fear love. I think that might be worse. You know, you have always been considered part of our family. We are not so bad.”
He lifted his eyebrows and held back a cold laugh. “You are wonderful, but how do I repay that? I seduce your innocence away and I—”
He cut himself off by pushing back from the table and turning from her to look out over the grounds below. He had almost confessed far more than his past with his father’s family.
He’d almost told her everything.
Her chair screeched behind him and he turned to find her standing, watching him. “Jude, you aren’t seducing anything away. I went into our arrangement with eyes wide open. I wanted this. I still want it. It’s between us and doesn’t have anything to do with my family.”
“I think they would beg to differ.”
She dipped her chin, a touch of defeat on her face that told him she knew what he said was true.
He moved toward her. “Come, isn’t that enough maudlin reflection on my sad little past. We have a room to arrange, after all.”
She stared at him in shock. “How do you dismiss it so easily?”
He offered her an arm and she took it slowly. “I don’t, Audrey. I just had to learn to live with it. Now, come. I want only happy yellow rooms for the rest of the day.”
That sentence coaxed a small smile from her lips, but as they strolled back into the house, Jude had to force his own smile. Audrey had said he feared love, but she was wrong. He didn’t fear it.
He just knew he’d never have it. Because he’d never have her.
CHAPTER TEN
It was almost midnight when Audrey stood at Jude’s cottage door, her wrap pulled tightly around her and her hands trembling. Even though he seemed to have surrendered to the fact that they were carrying on this affair, she wasn’t certain he would let her in. Physically, of course, but also let her in on a deeper level. And she found she wished he would, even if this affair was only going to last a few weeks.
He opened the door and smiled down at her. “I wondered if you’d come.”
“We’re not back in London yet,” she whispered, her whole body seeming to vibrate with desire now that he was right in front of her.
“Is that your robe?” he asked, eyes growing wide as he looked down at her. “Come in before you get a chill.”
He stepped back and she passed him into the cottage. He shut the door. “Great God, it is your robe,” he said with a laugh.
She turned on him. “Don’t you tease me, Jude Samson. I can only explain that I fell asleep in my gown so many times before Ursula suspects I’m the biggest liar in the county. So I let her help me into my nightclothes and slipped out down that unused servant stair again.”
He frowned. “Do be careful, Audrey. It’s one thing to use it during the day, but it is very dark.”
She couldn’t help her smile. “Worried about me?”
He nodded without hesitation. “Of course.”
Inside, she melted just a fraction, for his face was filled with honesty.
“Would you like tea?” he asked, walking away before she could say anything either one of them regretted. “I also have a good sherry.”
She laughed at his act of playing host. “Sherry would be lovely.”
As he poured, she took a moment to look at the cottage around her. The last time she
’d been here, she hadn’t the time, what with being swept off her feet and thoroughly made love to. Now she looked. It was a small lodge, but with a fine space. There was one large living area that they now stood in, with a few comfortable looking settees and tables situated before the stone fireplace, which currently crackled with a roaring fire. A soft deerskin rug was laid on the floor.
She also sought out the little touches which claimed the cottage as Jude’s. Beside the settee were a few letters, ones written to him and one he had obviously been working on before her arrival. His hand was masculine and certain, but of course it would be.
There was also a small portrait framed beside the fire which she recognized as his mother, a soft but rather sad smile on the face that so reminded her of Jude. Now she understood why Mrs. Samson had sometimes held that air of melancholy around her.
She glanced up and gasped. Above the fireplace was a magnificent mount.
“My, that is a beautiful stag,” she said, stepping forward to examine the fine red deer. “Is that from my father’s collection?”
Jude moved toward her, drinks in hand. As he gave Audrey hers, he looked up with her. “No, that is mine. I got him three years ago on a trip here with Edward.”
Her lips pinched. Three years previous had been such a benchmark for her brother that anytime someone mentioned the number and Edward’s name in the same breath, she couldn’t help but flinch. “You mean after Alice…”
“Yes.” Jude wrinkled his brow, his expression reflecting his own troubled thoughts on that painful subject. “She had just died and he needed an escape from her family’s accusations and his own anger and grief. He didn’t get anything of his own, but he was mightily pleased by my catch. I found this mount waiting for me the next time we came here. He paid for it.”
“I told you, he looks upon you as his own brother.”
“But not you.”
She drew back at the teasing in his eyes. “No. I don’t see you as my brother. I never have.”
She reached out to touch his cheek and his eyes dilated with the same passion that flared there when they were near. Had it always? Had she simply been too blind and afraid to see it? He said he had wanted her since she was seventeen.
She turned, breaking the spell that both drew her in and terrified her. She faced the small dining table, situated in front of a tiny kitchen. “Do you cook for yourself often?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I am capable of doing so, but if I am not up at the house, I am usually brought a supper by one of the servants.”
She arched a brow. “And you have not been sharing supper with me since our arrival.”
He bent his head and there was no playfulness in his face or voice when he said, “I know. I’m sorry.”
“Why?” she asked, now as serious as he was. “I know why at first, but why not tonight?”
“Seeing you but not touching you is…increasingly difficult. I think today proved that fact.”
He frowned and she could see he was thinking of their swift, rough coupling against the door, of the few stolen kisses they had shared in the same parlor after lunch.
She shivered at the memory and the thought that she stole so much of his all but legendary control. Could she truly have that much power over him?
She loosened the robe tie and shrugged the garment off her shoulders, standing only in her thin nightshift in the middle of his parlor.
He swallowed hard and set his drink aside on the closest flat surface. “Audrey,” he whispered.
“You can touch me all you’d like now,” she said, putting her own drink down so that she could pull the straps of her nightdress away and make it pool at her feet with her robe. Now she was naked, and unlike the first time she had been this way with him, much of her embarrassment had faded. Especially when his expression grew dark and hot with desire.
“All I’d like could very well be too much,” he growled as he moved toward her. He crushed her naked body to his still clothed one, his heat seeping into her bare skin as much as the fire’s did. His mouth lowered to hers, but despite the power of his embrace, his lips were gentle, teasing her, tasting her, and finally letting his tongue dive in to explore her. But there was nothing desperate to the touch, nothing driven and mad.
And why should there be? They had all night. And Audrey was so very happy for that fact.
As he kissed her, his hands slid down her back, sending tingles to settle between her legs, making her shiver with sensation. Then he cupped her bare backside and she gasped with surprise.
He kneaded the flesh there, pulling her against him in a rhythm she was beginning to recognize immediately. She arched along with it, grinding against the hidden hardness of his cock as she sought relief that would not yet come.
He smiled against her mouth and pulled away to stare down at her. “Do you know what you do to me?” he asked, his voice rough.
She slowly dropped to her knees on the rug. “Show me,” she murmured as she stared up at him.
Instead of joining her, his eyes went wide and he swallowed hard. “Did you—did you like when I tasted you yesterday?”
She blushed at the memory of his mouth on her. It had been such an intensely pleasurable experience, and had haunted her thoughts in the hours since.
“Yes,” she admitted. “So very much.”
Looking down, she realized she was almost at equal level with his cock, straining against the flap of his breeches. She glanced back up his tension-coiled body. “Would you like the same?”
He nodded. “Yes. But some ladies don’t like—”
She interrupted him by smoothing her hand along the front of his trousers, stroking the hardness beneath. His breath left his mouth in a long hiss and she smiled.
“I think I would like it,” she murmured as she unbuttoned him slowly, taking her time, watching him from her position below him. She could see she was driving him mad and was surprised by how much she liked doing it.
This was power, true power, over him. Him! A man who could dominate her with his strength any time he wanted. And yet he trembled as she tugged the trouser flap away and let his hard cock free.
Close up, she noticed the darker color of his skin, the strong vein that throbbed along the underside, and when she cupped him in her palm, she was shocked to find that the flesh was silky smooth over the steel of his desire.
She examined him closely as she slid her hand over him. She was going to put him in her mouth. The very thought sent an erotic shiver through her, an electric need that made her clitoris tingle and her sex flex in preparation for his invasion of her ready body.
She darted her tongue out and gently licked just the tip of his cock. He sucked in a breath and his hands came down to tangle in her hair. He didn’t hold her or force her, but the pressure of his grasping fingers did urge her to slowly draw him between her lips, further and further until he hit her throat. She withdrew, and in that moment she realized that this act was very much like when he took her body.
She began to thrust with her mouth, cupping the base of him to hold him steady as she took him in and out of her mouth. To her shock, she found she loved performing the act. To feel him filling her in this new way, to look up his body and watch his neck strain and his lips part with pleasure. It was amazing. And it made her own body wet and needier than ever.
“God, you are a natural,” he groaned as he pressed his fingers more firmly against her skull and increased her rhythm.
She smiled against his flesh and took him deeper, swirling her tongue around him, sucking him, stroking her hand over his wet flesh, doing anything and everything in her power to push him over the edge. His legs shook, his eyes squeezed shut and she felt him try to pull away.
“Audrey, I’m going to—I can’t—”
But she wouldn’t let him. He would never be able to spend inside her sheath in order to prevent a pregnancy that would ruin them both. But she wanted him inside her when he found release, and this was the best alternative.
He burst within her, sending hot liquid down her throat. At first she was surprised by the sweet-and-salty flavor, by the heat of him, but she swiftly learned to like it and swallowed every drop until he went soft inside of her.
She withdrew him from her mouth and stared up at him with a smile. “I think I like that,” she whispered.
“Yes, the feeling is most definitely mutual,” he grunted as he dropped to his knees before her. “You will kill me with all these things you are learning to ‘like’,” he chuckled. “But now it’s my turn to give you the things I like.”
He cupped her cheeks and kissed her deeply. And just as she had tasted herself on his lips, she knew he tasted himself now. He drove his tongue into her mouth as he lowered her back on the soft rug. He only broke the kiss for long enough to struggle out of his clothes, and then he pressed his body to hers.
“All day, I was so hard for you I could have exploded,” he said, his voice low and seductive. “But now…oh, now I can take all night.”
Her eyes went wide at that sentence. Was that possible? That all night he could make love to her, all night give her such pleasures?
She didn’t have a chance to request clarification. He began to kiss her neck and stole her ability to make any sound but incoherent whimpers of pleasure. His mouth glided to her breasts and he pressed them together to lick from one nipple to the other, stoking his tongue in the channel between as if it were her sex.
She lifted her hips against his stomach as he pleasured her, seeking release without asking for it. Trying to find a way to rub him just right and ease the ache he was building.
He smiled and moved lower, lower, and she sighed. She was so ready for his mouth on her. So ready for the pleasure he would bring. Only when he reached her sex, he didn’t kiss her. He propped himself up on one elbow as he spread her wide and simply looked at her.
“You are so sweet,” he whispered, ducking his head for one very unsatisfactory kiss between her legs. “So tight and perfect.”
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