19. In Which Grace Encounters Infinity

Grace was seven when she first learned the concept of infinity.

She had been given an hour to complete a page of problems before her tutor arrived. Because the problems were insultingly easy, she decided to amuse herself by taking all the answers and combining them to see how big the number would be. Then, because the number was not very impressive, she squared it, and then, because she felt a tingle of interest, she squared that number. Six more times.

“A question, Papa,” she’d said, entering the library, where he sat at his desk. She handed him her page. He pulled her into his lap and examined it. “What would happen if I kept doing this all day and night for an entire week, and never once slept?”

“The number would grow bigger and bigger.”

“Do numbers have a roof?”

“Do you mean to ask if a largest number exists?” She nodded. “Numbers go on forever, sweetheart.”

Grace was struck silent.

“Are you trying to imagine it?” her father asked. “Most minds cannot quite think infinitely.”

This raised a ne w question, one that made her even more curious. “How do we know something if we cannot think it?”

He gave her a tender smile. “I suppose we feel it.”

Kneeling on the bed, caressing the warm, candlelit skin of Luke Ashburton’s naked body, Grace felt infinity.

She could go on touching him forever and never feel her fingers were repeating themselves, because everywhere she touched, sh e changed him. Drew goosebumps, or unsteadied his breath, or brought heat to the surface, or caused his cock t o jump where it rested, hard and flushed, against the nest of curly hair that trailed up to his lower belly.

And so he was constantly new, and her need to investigate, re-investigate , only grew as he lay there, hands tucked behind his head, watching her with a hungry look but honoring their agreement not to touch her in return until she gave leave.

His cock was a matter of no small fascination. Very different from the only other she’d encountered. Longer, which made intuitive sense when one considered Luke must have five inches of height over St. George. And, while extremely hard at the moment, she would not characterize Luke’s member as pointy. Rather, it had a blunt heft to it, a heaviness in hand, with a head that flared and an unexpected, pleasing curve to the shaft.

She wrapped her hand around it now, exploring the way the skin moved over the organ, and Luke hissed, the muscles of his stomach tensing. His slim hips briefly bucked before he got himself under control.

“Is that a good sort of squirm?” she asked, moving down between his legs to consider the whole apparatus more closely.

Luke threw her a sardonic look. “If your presence had not required me to find release several times a day for the past week, I’d already have spilled in your hand.”

She giggled. “I wouldn’t mind. I’m rather interested in seeing that.”

“I have other plans,” he murmured, and his tone made a blush race across her skin. He saw it—he’d lit candles around the room, at some point between unbuttoning her dress with shocking speed and impatiently yanking his own clothes from his body. Technically, she still wore a chemise, though it was falling off both shoulders, and she was fairly certain he could see straight down it from his angle. “Does that heat in your cheeks mean you’re ready to let me touch you now?”

She shook her head, enjoying his flash of frustration. “Patience, love,” she said, and did not miss the surprise and longing that twitched his features when she used the word.

She ducked her head, and kissed the tip of his penis. His breath seemed to drop lower in his body. A drop of clear fluid had emerged, and she tested its texture with a fingertip, smoothing it over the head, and he clenched his jaw.

She gave the head an experimental lick. Silken skin, heat, sea salt. She took it into her mouth, a little thrill passing through her. And now he could not help it, he gave a short thrust, pushing farther in, and she gripped his hipbones, holding him in place so she could lick down his length.

“Christ,” he muttered. “So this is how I die.”

She hummed amusement, but did not release him from her ministrations. Spiraling her tongue, then taking him in her mouth as deeply as she could.

His hands were in her hair now, and she flicked him a scolding look, but his expression was unapologetic as he tugged, urging her to release his cock and slide up his body.

“Sorry, princess, that’s absolutely all I can handle of your mouth for the moment.”

“I wasn’t finished,” she protested.

“Oh, neither of us are.” He put his arms around her to roll over, so that they lay side by side, facing each other on the pillows. “I’ve promised you everything, after all.”

Releasing the tidal wave of grief seemed to have propped some door open inside Luke, and when he had said kiss me , when he had started this, his eyes were like a lake so crystal clear one could see all the way to the bottom.

But she hadn’t imagined it would last this long. Sometime in all the undressing and murmured words and hands all over each other, she assumed he’d quietly withdraw, as always.

Instead, she was lying here with Luke. All of Luke. Entirely naked, the whole long stretch of him, and within that gray-sky gaze, entirely available. A wonder.

His hand skated between her thighs to her sex. He watched her. Intense, that gaze. Catching everything.

“Are you going to write it down?” she teased. “All your observations?”

“I don’t think I could do justice to what I’m watching.” His voice dipped lower. “I want to watch you come.” The flush spread over her whole body now. “I want to watch it while I’m inside you. So I can feel it.” His fingers were working lightly over her, now, and she was so wet, so ready.

“Well then. Make a bit of haste.”

He chuckled, and sat up, holding out both hands to pull her up with him. Then he hooked her chemise with his hands and pulled it over her head.

When he looked down at her body, there was a briskness to his expression; after all, he had pressing business at hand. But he stilled. Arrested by what he saw.

It made her tingle everywhere. His gaze. Finally, he exhaled. “Good God. Every thought fell out of my head.” He pulled her to him now, lowering her onto the bed, moving over her, braced up on his elbows. All that bare skin against her own took her breath away.

She wasn’t sure who started the kiss, but within moments it was deep, hungry, and she was wrapping her legs around his hips, feeling the hot, heavy contour of his cock against her. He shifted to glide along her wetness. And then the head of his cock found her opening, and in one smooth movement, he was inside her.

She heard herself whimper. The motion awakening places she’d never felt before.

Luke paused. His eyes searched her face. When he’d assured himself that he’d caused no pain, that she was well— very well—he caught her gaze and held it.

And then he began to mov e. She saw sharp pleasure on his face, saw him struggle to endure it. “Grace ... you feel ... I—” he shook his head, apologetic. “This might be over quickly.”

He’d been so focused on her each time he touched her, ignoring his need. She rather liked that now, he could not ignore it. She smiled slyly. “Well. There’s been a bit of build-up between us.” And she laughed, and he gave a laugh, and how strange it was, to be laughing with his cock inside her, and how lovely, to feel the joy move through his body.

And then he was kissing her, and they were moving together, finding their rhythm, discovering what had always existed between them, waiting to be freed.

He pulled all the way out, thrust in hard. The concentrated sensation made him curse, made her moan. “ Yes . Like that.” He obliged her, his movements growing rougher, less controlled. The breath rasped out of him, his eyes slipping shut, entirely inside the sensations.

That suited Grace perfectly, because it afforded her the opportunity to watch him, his features taut, curls fallen over his brow, breath rough. Beautiful . She pressed her hand to his cheek, and he turned his face into it and kissed her palm, and then opened his eyes—and his hips stilled. “Oh, Grace, with your eyes on me like that ... ” He sucked in a breath, shook his head ruefully.

“Don’t stop,” she whispered. “Do not hold yourself back.”

He gave a hoarse laugh. “Just long enough to make you—”

“I’ll keep,” she said, tilting her hips, eliciting a tortured sound. “I want to feel you come apart.”

The words made him moan. “Say it again,” he breathed, thrusting faster, and now his whole body quivered on the precipice.

She arched up to meet his lips. “Luke ... come inside me.”

A sharp inhale, a held breath, and then he was shuddering over her, into her, and she was holding him, feeling the storm of pleasure overwhelm him completely.

His body stilled gradually, heavily, and he rolled off her.

He let out a long, contented sigh. Then shook his head. “Grace,” he said, chiding. “That did not go to plan.”

“Your plan, love,” she said, unapologetic.

He took that in, expression serious. “Is it a thing you say to people?”

“What—love? Are you asking if it is my common endearment for the men in my bed?” His expression turned mortified, and she added, “I know that isn’t what you meant.”

She rolled onto her back, and was greeted by the night sky, flickering in the candlelight. “Now I know I had hardly experienced anything, before you. Not for want of trying. I was curious. A problem, my curiosity.”

He rolled to his back beside her. Pulled her head onto his shoulder. “I would call it a gift.”

“In your vocation, perhaps. In a lady trying to discover what goes on between men and women, less so.” She sighed, thinking of it now. “I was too naive for one behaving so wickedly. The silliest mistakes can set the course of one’s life, have you noted?”

“Is that what it was?” She knew he meant St. George. His voice was very soft—trying, she thought, to make it clear his question held no judgment.

“I’d heard he was on the verge of proposing. Very charming, St. George, and not terribly bad at kissing—” she tilted her head up to shoot him a dry look. “You know, those kisses you witnessed, my reasoning was that one cannot possibly know if a kiss is good without another to compare it to.”

He hummed understanding. “Shameful of me to fault you for the adhering to the most basic tenets of scientific inquiry.”

“Indeed,” she said. “And in my defense, this was all before I discovered the truth that when one is kissed properly, there is absolutely no question of it.”

“Yes, I made the same discovery only this morning.”

She giggled. “If you’d slowed to visit my lips before diving between my thighs in the solarium, we could have known sooner.”

“That you’d even mention it proves you don’t comprehend how desperately I needed to taste you.”

That sent a warm gush all through her. “Well. And so we establish the many facets of my ignorance,” Then, softer, “I do understand why you thought my behavior scheming, at those balls. I cannot deny an aspect of the game. But it was secondary to my desire to simply ... understand.”

He was stroking her hair, now, and his hand was firm, familiar—the hand of a man who had touched her everywhere. “You need not explain a thing.”

“But I want to. I haven’t been able to tell anyone. Can you imagine people’s faces, if I admitted that I slipped into St. George’s house because I’d rashly concluded I ought to give things a test before I promised my whole lifetime?”

“It has the ring of logic.”

“It’s absolutely scandalous.”

“Well, society is in no small part built on nonsense.”

“True, but it was reckless to think I could skirt it. We were meant to be alone, but his brother returned. You ought to have seen the look on that vindictive little monster’s face when he caught us. Second only to the look upon St. George’s, when he realized he was trapped with a woman he’d only ever wanted that from.”

Luke made an angry sound in his throat. “I’m sorry.”

She shrugged. “As I said. I was an idiot.”

“Grace. You weren’t. Do not call yourself—”

“Unwise,” she amended, dryly. “And what was interrupted . . . well. That’s the irony. If we hadn’t been discovered, that certainly would have been the end of that.”

He pulled her tighter against his body. She felt his frustration. His sympathy.

“I did not mean to sadden you,” she said. “I shall be perfectly fine. I plan to make a glorious life with the man, with or without his assistance.”

Luke shook his head. “Astonishing. The good fortune wasted on that daft sack of hair.”

She giggled at that. And then they lay there, eyes on the flickering stars, his fingers lazily stroking her hair.

“It is not,” she murmured.

“Mmm?”

“A thing I say to people.”

His fingers went still.

And then he was pulling her onto him, his hands cupping her face, and he was kissing her so softly, so thoroughly, as if to make sure he did not miss any fraction of her mouth, the corners, the cupid’s bow, lower lip sucked gently between his, tongue coaxed into a slow dance, until she felt breathless and opiated. She could feel him hardening again, but he did not rush, did not move his attention from the kiss.

Finally, she broke it, to meet his eyes.

Still there—all of him, all of Luke, gazing up at her.

She encircled his cock with her hand. And gave him a pointed look.

The corners of his mouth hitched up. He reached down, wrapped his hand around hers, and together they guided his cock to her entrance, and inside.