Tonight they would come together as equals, as lovers, as two hearts showing their true feelings with their bodies.
His cock surged as he ran his palms down over her belly and down, brushing those dark curls with his fingertips.
Laurel didn’t know what to do with the flood of emotions his gentle touch ignited within her. He’d done so many things to her in the past, even in the past few days, and yet never once had she felt such tenderness from his touch.
What had happened to him? He was not the cocksure Jack of old, nor was he the shattered, beautiful man who had emerged from battle.
This Jack was someone new. Something of the old, something of the broken, which likely would never be completely gone, nor would she wish it. Within herself, the broken bits were part of her now, part of her world. Even Melody was a part of them now.
And now, inside Jack, coming from him in a deep and silent rhythm that seemed to resonate in the very deepest parts of her, was something new. He was no longer lost, no longer drowning, no longer swept away in a maelstrom of terror and loss.
Jack had somehow found his land legs at last.
It only made him all the more beautiful to her.
She tried to turn to him, to explain what she had only just realized, but at that moment his tender questioning fingertips had found their way between her damp labia.
With a gasp, every thought she had left her head.
There was only his sweet, seeking touch, only his breath on her neck, only his big, warm, solid body behind her.
He surrounded her, enfolded her. She felt like a treasure, guarded and protected in his arms.
Something of the old trust survived, for she simply let her head fall back upon his shoulder, permitting him anything he wished.
Evidently, he wished to please her.
His fingertips stroked up and down her slit, testing the dampness and spreading the slippery nectar up and down, up and down, a little deeper on each pass. She lightly rested her hands on his clothed forearms. He was still in evening dress. She was naked but for her stockings and the ribbon she wore about her throat. The difference plucked every erotic chord in her body.
His teasing fingers slid softly up to and around her clitoris. She jumped and shivered, but he did not stay. He went back to the slipping sliding rhythm. Each time his fingertips crested her slit, he gently caressed her clitoris in sweet little circles, then left it again. Her body grew slowly heavy with desire, a deep throb of want beginning inside her.
Her clitoris hardened like one of her nipples, which were already diamond points in the waves of chill that shivered her body, though the room was warm.
There was no sound in the chamber but the occasional crackling of the coals in the hearth and her own breathing, which was quickened with each inhalation.
His own breath was silent and hot on her neck, warming her shoulder and breast. Then she felt his fingers slip deeper within her. She gasped and gripped his forearms with her hands, pressing back against him in reaction.
She felt his cock rise then, a thick prisoner within his trousers, pressing just above her bottom. Once she had taken his cock inside her, had sucked him deep into her throat, had allowed and enjoyed every single inch of it.
Now she shivered. If she should lose herself to that passion again, she might never come back.
If she didn’t, she would regret it for the rest of her life.
She wanted Jack. She’d always wanted Jack.
Whether or not she could keep him was a question she preferred to reserve for another night, one of the cold and lonely ones that filled her future.
Her knees gave a little as her growing desire weakened them. Jack wrapped one arm about her waist and held her close while he continued his leisurely caresses. Slowly, slowly, he taught her patience. Slippery wet now, his big fingers stroked into her, then withdrew to draw delicate circles around her clitoris, ever smaller spirals until it throbbed to his touch. Dipping deep, taking her slowly and gently, one finger, then two, then back to her clitoris, circling, circling.
Her head tossed restlessly on his shoulder. He shushed her impatience and kissed her neck as he touched her, his lips finding that perfectly sensitive place at the base of her neck. Slowly, sweetly, in and out, up and around. His other hand joined the first so that she could have both together. Her knees wanted to widen for him. She wanted to fall beneath him and be filled with him. She wanted his hands on her breasts so badly that she put her own there instead, squeezing her full breasts, knowing that he watched as she teased her own nipples.
She heard her own voice, wordless little whimpering cries of want, tiny sighs of pleasure. The solid room absorbed the sound. She could scream in this room if she liked.
In and out. Around and around. His fingers drove her higher with such gentle ease that she was scarcely ready for her orgasm when it fell upon her. With a cry, she shattered in his grasp, bucking her body into his fingers, rolling her head on his shoulder, crying out his name again and again as she tumbled from the height, falling, flying, fluttering down, her heart pounding, her breath rasping in her throat.
Her legs gave out. He caught her, lifting her effortlessly in his arms. Still panting, she wound her naked arms about his clothed shoulders and held on, feeling her heart find its rhythm again, coming back to herself in little moments.
She could feel the buttons of his weskit against her ribs and breast. She could feel his clothed arms about her naked body. It excited her, yet she also wanted him naked as well.
He carried her to the bed. She thought he would lie down with her, but he did not. Instead he laid her gently down. Then he knelt beside the bed and pulled her gently toward him, his big hands wrapped around her knees.
She slid easily across the coverlet, her arms limp above her head, her body still humming with pleasure. When he pressed her knees wide apart, his hands spread over her thighs, she opened willingly, for she had no will left at all.
When he dropped his mouth upon her, she gasped. Oh, sweet heaven! She’d thought his hands talented, but they were nothing compared to his wicked, teasing tongue! He licked her slit, up and down. Then he dipped inside, thrusting his tongue deep. Then, he slid his big thumbs together up her wet valley and pressed her labia apart so that his mouth could service her clitoris.
Laurel grabbed double fistfuls of coverlet and held on for dear life as the pleasure stole her away like a hurricane wind. His mouth, his tongue, even the evening stubble on his cheeks and chin, his big gentle fingers, probing and pressing, his wicked, skillful tongue, lapping and licking, touching, probing, slippery and blunt, over and over and over her clitoris, until her hips pumped without her will and her head tossed so her hair covered her face.
He took her there and kept her there, suspended in constant exquisite ecstasy, yet not high enough to fly over the edge. She begged and pleaded. She said wicked, exciting words, trying to drive him to lose control, to enter her, to take her hard and fast and make her come at his command.
He would not but only drove her onward, only made her nearly weep for it, until the moment when he abruptly sucked her rigid clitoris into his mouth like one of her nipples and thrust two fingers inside her, thrusting again and again.
She shrieked in relief as her orgasm shuddered through her like a thunderbolt. It went on and on and she rode it helplessly, clinging to Jack’s clothed shoulders, driving her hands into his thick hair, flinging her arms wide to pull helplessly at the coverlet.
At last it left her, lying there like a bit of flotsam on the beach, abandoned by the waves. Her breath wheezed in her lungs and she shuddered on and on, unable to stop until he climbed onto the bed and pulled her into his arms, holding her tightly, giving her something to hang on to as she slowly regained herself once more.
He murmured things into her hair, though she did not truly hear them. Comforting things, nonsense things. “Laurel, sweet Bramble, shh, hold on. Shh, just breathe.”
Then she thought she heard him whisper,
“Marry me, Bramble.”
With a gasp, she drew back to look at him, seeking to meet his gaze, but he would not look at her. He gazed anywhere but into her face as he smoothed her hair upon the pillow and used his handkerchief to dab at the perspiration on her face and between her breasts.
She opened her lips to question him but then realized that she might not be able to handle the answer. Closing her eyes, she turned her face away and allowed him to tend to her instead.
Her heart returned to its normal pace, but for the occasional skip when she remembered those maybe-whispered words. Her breathing became inaudible once more though her chest went tight as she played those lovely, terrifying impossible words back in her mind.
Marry me, Bramble.
No, she did not want to hear him repeat them. She did not want to have to answer. Words were meaningless sounds, anyway. Instead, she wanted to feel everything she could possibly feel tonight. Abruptly she rolled into his body, pressing her breasts and belly and thighs against him. Driving her hands into his hair, she pulled his face down for her kiss, deep and hard and sure to keep any more words from hanging in the air between them.
Twenty-nine
Jack kissed Laurel back, letting his big hands slide down to her buttocks, where he held her tightly to his erection as they ravaged each other’s mouths.
Jack’s cock was so hard he was quite sure his trouser buttons were in danger of flying across the room like bullets, but he was determined that this night would be for his lovely Bramble’s pleasure. When Laurel pushed on his shoulders, he obediently rolled back onto the bed, pulling her over him. Her beautiful mass of dark hair covered both their faces, hiding them, keeping their passion secret and safe. Her breasts pressed to his chest, full and heavy, her nipples so hard that he felt them even through his weskit and shirt. She straddled his body, her cunt wet and hot over the fabric stretched across his cock. It was torture, sweet and painful, to feel her so close yet be unable to enter her.
Torture, perhaps, that he deserved.
She sat up at last, mounted upon him like a lovely Godiva, her hair flowing over her full breasts, her mouth swollen and pink from their kiss. She ran her tongue over those full lips, making Jack’s cock throb in response.
Then she began to work at his lopsided cravat. Jack let her, watching her face as she concentrated on the mangled knot, watching her breasts jiggle delightfully as she tugged at the stubborn linen.
He slid his hands up her open thighs slowly, then merely rested them upon her shapely hips. This was Laurel’s command. He was naught but a sailor on her ship.
At last she smiled triumphantly and tossed the cravat from her with a flourish. “I outwitted it!”
In mere moments she had undone his weskit and pulled his shirt from his trousers. Taking his hands, she made him sit up so she could remove his upper garments. Naked from the waist up, lying beneath her, Jack wanted nothing more than to suck madly on her breasts while he drove himself into her hot, wet body again and again, but he forced himself to wait.
It was but the work of a moment to undress him. Smiling, she ran quick, questing hands over his body, making him shiver.
The rest of his clothing melted away without nearly so much effort and then she was upon him. She only faltered for a moment, when he maneuvered her thighs astride him. “Like this?”
He ran his hands up her rounded thighs. “You shall decide,” he said softly. “It is your will.”
Her tongue flicked across her lips as she considered this and Jack thought he might die a little if she hesitated much longer. Then she lowered herself upon his cock, enveloping him in wet, sweet heat, inch by agonizing inch, until she rested her hands upon his chest, entirely impaled upon him.
Gasping slightly, she followed his urging to rise and fall. Her pace was slow and torturous to him, arousing him beyond bearing, yet he made no move to hurry her. His hands were upon her only to aid her pleasure. He teased her nipples hard, pinching and rolling tenderly. She tossed her hair back and increased her pace then, riding him at a gallop.
She was so beautiful above him, wild and commanding and openly sexual, confident in her beauty, sure in his desire for her.
When he slipped his fingertips into the wet crevice where they joined, she cried out loud. Desperately holding his own ejaculation back, nearly biting a hole through his own lip, he used every bit of concentration he had to tease her clitoris into giving her an orgasm.
She rose and fell, faster and faster, arching and glistening with sweat, so beautiful, so perfectly animal with her hot gaze locked on his and her lips parted with her panting breath.
When she came, she cried out his name. The feeling of her cunt throbbing about his cock was too much for Jack and he lost control with a roar, grabbing her hips with hard hands and thrusting once, deep, spilling his seed into her even as she trembled and gasped above him.
Carried by lust, tangled by love, they rode the moment together, skin to skin, hard into soft, heart to heart, gasping each other’s breath into their lungs.
Laurel lay wrapped in Jack’s arms, her silken hair trailing over his chest and stomach, her smooth thigh overlying his hairy ones. He wanted it to go on forever, this moment out of time, this moment that might have been theirs always if things had not gone so horribly wrong.
It broke his heart to know that she’d heard him and pretended she had not. How badly he had damaged her beautiful, loving soul that she could not believe in what was freely offered to her.
He stroked one hand down the curve of her waist. “Will you wed me, Bramble?”
He felt her freeze even as he said the words. Her sudden stillness reminded him of a rabbit trying very hard not to be spotted by a hawk.
“Bramble?”
She shivered at the nickname. Then she pulled away from him, drawing the coverlet with her. She ended up as far as she could get from him and still remain on the bed. She was covered from breastbone to feet with the cover and she clutched it to her as if she feared he would rip it from her body.
“I . . .” Her breath sounded panicked, as if she fled a great beast. “I can’t.”
Jack sat up and gazed at her with the sheet just puddled at his hips. “What is it? What has you so terrified?”
She shook her head. “No. I’m fine,” she said tightly.
He reached a hand to her. She drew back. “Laurel, you are shaking with fear. What is it?”
Brushing at her face quickly, she raised her chin and looked away from him. “Do you know what my parents did when they learned I was with child?”
He nodded. “They told you she died.”
She laughed, a small sound like breaking glass. “They locked me in my room.”
Jack frowned. “Well, I can imagine they were upset—”
Her face came up and her eyes were hot and full of hatred. “They locked me up for more than six months!”
“Oh my God.” Jack’s gut went cold. “Oh, Bramble—”
Then it hit him. Oh no.
He had done the same.
“They said they would let me out if I told them who the father was. They said they would let me out if I drank the nettle tea and lost the baby. They promised me that everything would go back to being the same if I let some old witch kill my baby with a knitting needle!”
You told her you would let her go if she gave up Melody. It might not be what you said, but it was what you meant and she knew it.
“My mother! My father! The last two people in the world I could have dreamed would harm me!”
And me. Don’t forget it was I who left you there.
“So you might forgive me, my lord,” her voice was choked, as if her throat were too tight to speak, “if I don’t believe a bloody word anyone says to me while they’ve locked me in a room!”
Jack passed his hands over his face. It occurred to him from a strange distance that he might like to vomit soon.
Her breath hitched in her throat. He could feel the depth of her trembling thro
ugh the bed itself.
He cleared his throat. It was time to give her everything. “I found the midwife who delivered Melody,” he told her. “Your parents ordered her to kill the baby, but she kept her instead. For three years she blackmailed your mother and father in order to support Melody in secret.”
Laurel gazed at him with wide eyes. “She . . . she seemed kind . . . that night.”
Jack nodded. “I think she was. She is dying, or I think she might have kept Melody forever. She loves her very much and Melody seems very attached as well.”
Laurel let out a breath. “That’s good, that she loved her.”
This part would not be so simple. “Nanny Pruitt tried to find you when she learned she was ill. She spoke to Amaryllis, thinking you were one and the same. Your sister sent her packing, empty-handed. That was . . . more than three months back.”
Laurel’s gaze flared with the blue heat of the center of a flame. “I have no sister.”
“Nanny Pruitt remembered that you said, ‘He’s at Brown’s.’ She left Melody here with naught but a note pinned to her coat. I imagine she was frightened of being found out for blackmail.”
Laurel pulled her knees up high and wrapped her arms about them. “Perhaps I should have told them,” she murmured. “They might have been able to find you when I could not.”
Jack shook his head. “They would not have. I had been at sea for more than three years, never stopping for more than a few weeks in any port. Of the many letters sent to me, only the merest few reached me at all.”
Laurel closed her eyes, remembering. “I wrote you letter after letter, but then I burned them. My mother kept a tight rein on her staff. The letters would never have made it out of our house.”
“Why didn’t you tell them?” he whispered.
She dropped her face into her knees. “I was so horrified when they locked me up, when they beat me—I couldn’t bear to cooperate with them. Then, later, when I cried and begged and pleaded . . . when I became a silly, desperate coward and promised to tell them everything, to do anything, my mother sneered and said it was too late. I was already becoming large. There would be a scandal no matter what and there could be no scandal allowed to interfere with Amaryllis’s wedding to her precious earl.”
Scoundrel in My Dreams Page 24
