Jo Beverly

by Winter Fire

  He looked at her. “I don’t know. Do you approve of this peace?”

  “It’s not my place—”

  “To hell with that. Do you approve? Did I do the right thing?”

  “Yes, of course!”

  He turned back to the fire. “How pleasant to be so sure of everything.”

  Genova bit her lip. “I’ll leave you now,” she said, and headed for the door.

  He caught her hand as she passed. “Why? The night’s still young.”

  “And you’re in a mood best served by solitude.”

  “Foul, in other words.”

  “Yes.”

  He let go of her hand but stepped closer. “I might be improved by a taste of a sweet bread from Genova.”

  He lowered his head and nibbled gently at her lower lip.

  Chapter Forty

  P erhaps wine and spirits still raced in Genova’s blood. Perhaps the solution of so many problems made her delirious. At the first touch of his mouth, reason evaporated and molten need exploded.

  She pushed off his jacket as they kissed, unbuttoned his long waistcoat. A waistcoat button resisted and she wrenched it off so she could slide her arms around his strong torso, feel his heat beneath fine lawn.

  Distantly she thought, I just threw away diamonds!

  But her mind was all on him and the fire his mouth, his hands, his body, ignited. She’d wanted this for days—for a lifetime, it seemed—and she couldn’t fight it anymore.

  Their mouths slid apart and she explored his jaw, his ear, his throat, his wonderful taste and smell that made her purr deep in her throat.

  His cravat. It was in the way.

  She jerked out the jeweled pin, tossed it away, tugged loose the knot and discarded the length of silk and precious lace. To unbutton, to kiss, to nuzzle hot skin, to inhale him. Him. The only man to create this ecstasy in her.

  He was laughing, murmuring, nuzzling, nibbling.

  She dragged his shirt out of his breeches and he stepped back to pull it over his head and discard it.

  She held him off with her hands over his flat nipples, letting her eyes feast. “Even to a woman who’s seen many naked chests, yours is remarkable.”

  “Is it?” He put his hands to the front of her gown. “And you do not disappoint me, pandolcetta.”

  With a rake’s skill he’d loosened her clothes as they kissed. Her gown slid off her arms at his touch, and her loosened petticoats fell to the floor. She was in her stays over her shift, and he stroked up her sides.

  “You’re magnificent, Genni.”

  “I want to be. For you.”

  She wanted to eat him whole, as if starving, but this was good, too. This moment of pulsing restraint.

  She stood still as he dug into her hair and found pins, as she felt her hair tumble. He drew fingers through it, flaring it around her shoulders. Then he buried his face in it against her neck, inhaling like a drowning man bursting out of the water.

  They wove toward the bed twined around each other, she licking his strong neck, he squeezing her tingling breast. He dragged back the covers, then picked her up and laid her on smooth sheets, sliding his arms away, watching her with hot, dark intensity.

  She could imagine herself, mirror to her vision of him. Laughing, disordered, half naked, and crazed with desire. Slowly, loving every stormy look from those heavy-lidded eyes, she unhooked the front of her stays bottom to top, until her full breasts sprang free, now covered only by the delicate silk shift.

  His eyes were fixed there, so she cradled her breasts in her hands and offered them. He fell, catching himself on his arms over her, then lowered his head to mouth first one nipple, then the other.

  Heat shot through her thighs to burst in exquisite pain deep inside her, so she thrust up against him, seeking.

  A flicker of caution stirred. Too late, too late, because she would not give this up now, not even at threat of the hangman’s rope.

  He switched to kneeling over her, pushing up her shift to reveal her nakedness. No man had ever seen her there, but it felt right in the passionate admiration of his gaze. She helped him lift her shift over her head, then lay back down, his, as he should desire.

  Please.

  He knelt before her, magnificent in candlelight and firelight, and unfastened his already bulging velvet breeches. Slowly, he opened them, watching, smiling, as she inhaled, exhaled, and licked her dry lips.

  He rolled off the bed and stripped.

  She turned to watch. “You put Rothgar’s statues to shame.”

  He laughed. “I might be hard as stone, but I promise I’m anything but cold.”

  As he came back toward her, Genova realized she wasn’t naked. She was still wearing her stockings. She reached for one black garter, but he said thickly, “Keep them on.”

  He crawled up onto the bed and over her pinning her hands on the pillow as he lowered his head to suck at first one, then the other nipple.

  Her body surged again, even more powerfully for being restrained. Still suckling, driving her wild, he put a knee between her legs, nudging her open. She spread herself willingly, wondering through fever if her virginity was going to spoil this.

  Nothing must spoil this.

  Surely she could hide the pain.

  Could a man tell?

  She heard her own deep-throated cry of need and then the hard pressure of him, there, against her burning hunger.

  She was saying, “Yes, yes…,” and then She cried it—“Yes!”—as he thrust hard and deep.

  Had there been a sting? It had been nothing, and she was tight and full. They were locked together now as she’d longed to be.

  Then he pulled back and thrust even deeper, then again, and again. Startled by the force, Genova faltered for a moment, but then she matched it, loving it, exulting in the fast, slick pounding that allowed not a breathless moment for anything but pure, blinding sensation.

  When she thought she’d reached her limit, he drove her on and fire exploded in her brain, searing away all reality except his body surging with hers, and then his shattering release.

  Her head was still full of fireworks, and she had her teeth sunk in his shoulder. She released him as they tumbled slowly down, him heavy over her, her boneless, liquid, sated.

  She stroked him, inhaling and exhaling as if breathing was a novelty. That had been insane. That had been wonderful. Having thrown herself into the ruinous flames, she wanted to do it again. She knew men needed time to recover. How much time?

  They didn’t have a night. Thalia would miss her, and Fitzroger would return here at some point.

  She tensed. Had they locked the door?

  As if he picked up her thought, he rolled to one side trailing kisses over her, then left the bed. As lordly naked as when in velvet and jewels, he strolled over to turn the key. Then he looked back at her as if she were the most beautiful object in the universe, and promised wordlessly that there would indeed be more.

  He went to a small table and poured brandy into a glass. One glass? He brought it back to the bed with a look in his eyes that made her feel that she might swoon down through the bed into the room below.

  “What?” she asked, and some instinct made her pull the sheet up over herself a bit.

  Smiling, he sat on the edge of the bed, facing her, so at ease with his naked virility that she wanted to eat him. Her whole life seemed to have shrunk down to the present. To this.

  He dipped a finger in the glass and traced her lips. Brandy magic teased her nose, and when she licked, it tantalized her tongue. He drank, then kissed her, sharing brandy heat.

  Then he lowered the sheet and dribbled brandy just above her right garter, and licked it up.

  “I wish my stockings were gossamer fine,” she breathed, “clocked with flowers, and held up by lacy garters.”

  “They will be,” he murmured there. “You’ll take off silk stockings for me. You’ll swim naked with me in a warm Grecian bath.”

  He poured a tiny amount
of brandy into her navel and tongued it “We’ll lick cream and honey off each other as we lick brandy now.”

  He collapsed onto his back beside her and upturned the glass to empty over his chest. She laughed for the madness of it and set to lick him clean.

  “We’ll have long nights of love in a bed,” he said, hand playing in her hair and down her back. Playing, as a musician plays an instrument. “And we’ll slip away from entertainments to enjoy quick, silent passion in an alcove within hearing of the throng….”

  Arousal rippled through her body at that thought.

  “All in one night?” she asked unsteadily.

  “Probably not.”

  She stilled, scarce daring to breathe. Her swimming mind couldn’t quite comprehend what he was saying, but surely he’d just sketched out a life. A life together.

  “We’ll spend quiet times talking,” he went on as his fingers slid between her thighs, opening them as if he’d touched a spring. The spring of her need. “In bed and out.”

  He found the place that made her arch, his touch teasing, tantalizing. “I talk with you as I never have with a woman, Genova Smith, and that is precious beyond rubies.”

  Wasn’t there something about a good wife being more valuable than rubies?

  “Be my sanity, Genni, please.”

  Delirious with happiness, Genova cradled his head in her hands and blended their brandied mouths. “Yes, of course, Ash. I will be yours, forever.”

  He rolled her under him—hers, miraculously hers!—and slid his hand between her thighs. Her body responded immediately. As he built her desire, she touched, tasted, stroked, bedazzled that he was hers forever.

  Love and passion wound tight in her, and she wanted him in her again. She cried out, “Now!”

  “Yes, now,” he commanded, stroking harder, sucking harder. Tension shattered into pleasure that rolled on and on.

  “And again,” he said, thrusting into her still-shimmering body, and indeed, it happened again.

  Perhaps she fainted. It seemed that she returned to reality from a great distance, from a dark, burning, airless, wonderful place.

  But this was wonderful, too.

  She stroked his hot, sweaty skin all the long length of his powerful body, from shoulder, down back, to thigh. No wonder empires had fallen for this.

  And this, and he, was hers, till death did them part.

  Fitz was strolling along a corridor toward bed when he heard, “Fitz! Oh, Fitz!”

  He turned to see Ash’s dotty Great-aunt Thalia trotting after him, quite out of breath.

  “What is it, Lady Thalia? Is something the matter?”

  “The matter? No, dear boy. But I do so want you to partner me at whist.”

  She hooked an arm around his, giving him no choice other than to turn with her and go back toward the festivities.

  “It must be an age since we’ve been partners, dear boy. Come along. The night is young!”

  In the face of this ancient sprightliness, he could hardly claim exhaustion, especially when it was not yet ten. In truth, he’d left the company to avoid Damaris Myddleton. He’d done as Ash wanted and distracted her, but it had left him out of sorts.

  It was tiresome to be so obviously Ash’s substitute, but Damaris could be clever and engaging. He knew her father had been something of a rogue, though a very successful one, and he glimpsed that in her at times. As he was something of a rogue himself, it appealed.

  Most of the time, however, she tried to be the perfect lady—the perfect marchioness, in fact—and he wanted to shake her. He knew Ash probably would offer her marriage, even though he clearly loved Geneva Smith. Ash would see it as his duty, and he had become resolved to do his duty, suppressing all natural urges as necessary.

  That was Ash’s grave, and he could lie in it, but Fitz hated to think of Miss Myddleton trapped there with him, innocent except for an ambition that had doubtless been trained into her.

  Fitz had flirted with her and done his damnedest to distract her permanently, but though she played the game well, he knew her attention, like that of any predator, never truly wavered.

  He’d eventually abandoned her to lovesick Ormsby and retired to the billiard room. He was better than the other players, however, which made it boring. He’d sat out for a while, chatting and drinking, then decided to give up on the night.

  Now he was being dragged back.

  “Dear Genova can foretell the future, you know,” Lady Thalia said. “She’s very good at it.”

  He didn’t like the sound of that. He still wasn’t convinced that Miss Smith wasn’t an adventuress of some sort.

  “Such people use tricks to make their predictions come true.”

  “Oh, no, dear,” Lady Thalia said blithely. “I’m the one to do that!”

  Lord save him from them all. But he let Lady Thalia tow him into the drawing room, where she dismissed Dr. Egan from the chair opposite her. Thank heavens the man seemed only amused. Perhaps, thought Fitz somewhat morosely, the librarian would like a peaceful early night.

  Fitz settled down and sharpened his wits. Crazy though Lady Thalia was, she was a devil with the cards and had no patience with sloppy play.

  Ash shifted slightly, his hand sliding up to her breast. “Pearl beyond price. My sweetest Genni…”

  “That’s my father’s name for me.”

  He looked up. “Do you mind?”

  “No, of course not.” She told him then about her father, and Hester, the sweet and the sad. “It’s not her fault. It’s me.”

  “No, love, it’s just a mismatch. It’s good you’ll be away from there, however, in a place of your own.”

  “It will be heaven.” She pulled him close for a kiss. “Especially because I’ll be with you. We can be happy, even if things aren’t perfect. I’ll prove it to you.”

  He nuzzled her. “There’s nothing to prove. It will be as perfect as I can make it. You’ll have everything you want. Jewels, silk, even clockworks, if that’s truly an interest.”

  She laughed. Economy was going to take time. “I will want nothing but you.”

  “And food once in a while?”

  “And food,” she conceded, smiling.

  “And perhaps a bit of wood in winter?”

  “Yes, I suppose I’ll need that.”

  “Just possibly a scrap of clothing?”

  Laughing, she pushed him and they fell to tickling, tangling themselves in brandy-stained sheets.

  When they came to rest again, he said, “I want to give you precious things, Genni. I want to give you the moon and the stars.”

  “And I want you to spend your money on your land and your people, but I’ll try not to nag.”

  “I can think of nothing better than being nagged by you.”

  She shifted to stroke his chest. “Not even this?”

  He smiled. “Yes, perhaps that.”

  She kissed him. “Or perhaps this? And this…” She slid her hand down and found him, delighting in the softness, smiling when it began to change beneath her hand.

  “Certainly that,” he said, lids lowered. “You win. You need never nag again. Speaking of nags…”

  He shifted, encouraging her to straddle him.

  Genova understood. Enjoying watching him, she rose and slowly guided him into her core, alert for signs that she might be doing something wrong. She couldn’t imagine how when it felt so beautifully right to her.

  She was deeply sensitive, but it still felt right. She settled slowly, filling herself again. “I’d certainly rather do this than nag,” she said, her voice husky.

  “I’ll remember that.” His lids were almost shut and she knew his attention was on one place only.

  She leaned forward, testing the sensation deep inside, the shifting fullness, the pressure against sensitive places. Her hair fell forward and he cupped her breasts in the veil of it, thumbs working her nipples. She gasped and tightened around him, already hovering near ecstasy.

  He slid his hands
down to her hips and moved her up and down. She began the moist movement (herself, slowly, watching him. His eyes shut tight.

  “Perhaps I need to nag to provide contrast,” she said, trailing her hair across his chest.

  “Beloved, you could nag with a razor-sharp tongue and I wouldn’t care right now.”

  She closed her own eyes and joined him in that hot, wet whirlpool of a place, loving doing it, controlling it, making it happen for him.

  Later, sticky with sweat, she said, “I’m sure I can improve my skills. At nagging, I mean.”

  He simply laughed, and she knew how he felt. Too exhausted to even think. She never wanted to move, never wanted her skin to be separated from his. If only this night could last forever.

  But there would be other nights.

  An infinity of magical nights. She could hardly believe it yet, but it was true.

  Perhaps they dozed. The clock chimed and she idly counted.

  “Eleven!” she exclaimed, sitting up. “We’ll have been missed.”

  Chapter Forty-one

  H e pulled her back down. “Everyone’s too drunk and merry to notice.” When she frowned at him, he sighed. “All right, we can return if you want, love.”

  Since he was tracing circles on her belly, his words had little impact.

  “I’m curious about something,” he said.

  “What?” She tensed, fearing something might break the magic.

  “Barbary pirates.”

  Ah. She pushed him to his back and traced patterns on his belly to distract him. “It wasn’t as daring as it sounds.”

  He captured her hand. “Tell me, Genova.”

  “A command?”

  “I’ll pay you with a kiss.” But then he added, “Because you hesitate, I want to know. Tell me, love.”

  She pulled a face, but couldn’t refuse him anything. “My mother and I were sailing on a merchant ship to join my father. It was well armed, however, and the corsairs would probably never have attempted an attack if we hadn’t been limping after a storm. As it was, it only needed a little resolute resistance to drive them off.”

  “And your resolute resistance was?”

  She didn’t like to speak of it, because some people treated her as a heroine, and others considered her unwomanly. Thalia wouldn’t have known about it if her father hadn’t told the tale. He was one who thought it heroic.