Chapter 27

27

Richard was kissing her again…She was kissing him… Distantly, she thought she should stop this. There were so many reasons to pull back, put some space between them—most of all, her resolve to keep him at bay.

And yet, she couldn’t stop. This heat, the brushing of his lips against hers, the burning need to keep herself plastered against him, inhaling him, was irresistible. His scent, so male, so heady, the feel of his hard, muscular arms around her, the heat of his body radiating against her heightened her senses.

The distant hum of the club under the floor and the voices, laughter, and yells that came through the street-facing window faded away. There was no one but him.

Nothing but this incredible hunger.

She’d wanted to reassure him when she’d kissed him, that was all. She’d seen what distress the news had brought him, and she’d hated to see him like that.

And she’d succeeded. He’d seemed to forget all about his distress.

Now, like Little Red Riding Hood, she was caught in the paws of the wolf.

And there was no place she’d rather be.

His mouth never leaving hers, Richard walked her backward, the scraping of their feet muffled by the carpet, until her ankles bumped against the low board of her bed. He pressed, and they both fell onto the bed, the mattress sinking under them. His weight was delicious on top of her, and she moaned right into his mouth.

“Janie,” he murmured. “Keep making sounds like and I’ll go mad.”

She wanted him to go mad, just like she was. He left her mouth and planted sweet kisses down her jaw, down her neck, sending shivers of delight through her. She arched her back as he went even lower, and when he traced the line of her collarbone with his tongue, something quivered deliciously deep inside her.

“You like that, darling?” he asked.

“Yes…”

“Good.” He kept kissing down the modest line of her bodice and towards the tops of her breasts. “Let’s see how you like this.”

He pulled down the edge of her bodice, and the busk of her corset, and took one of her breasts in his mouth. She gasped from the shock of it, watching the decadent image of him suckling her nipple, one hand cupping the breast, as the most intense waves of pleasure quivered through her like fire.

“Richard…”

She’d seen patrons grapple the sex workers’ breasts in Elysium just now, even kissing them, but she hadn’t imagined that would bring pleasure to the women, or that it would ever happen to her.

“Hmm,” Richard murmured and smiled up at her, his blue eyes dark as sapphires, his auburn hair ruffled on his forehead. “You like it.”

With that, he returned to her breast and started to circle her nipple with his sensual tongue, while taking her other breast with his free hand and doing the very same with his thumb. She cried out, her eyes closing, rolling inside her head as she took in this new pleasure, these new sensations, trying not to die from the intensity of it all.

He kept teasing her in that way—licking, sucking, scraping her nipple with the edges of his teeth—and then moving to her other breast and doing the same with it while playing with the previous one. She gripped the silky cover of the bed with her fists. Her hips moved and squirmed as her sex ached and burned and something within her squeezed, wanting more and more. She felt herself grow wet down there—very, very wet—and pressed her thighs tightly together.

Oh good Lord, had she just…had an accident?

Heat scalded her cheeks, and she sat upright, pushing Richard away.

“Richard, stop!”

He rolled on his side, his cheekbones flushed and his lips puffy from all those kisses, his eyes impossibly dark. “Why?” he asked and looked at her legs, one of which was pressed tightly over her other one. He frowned in confusion, then smiled. “What is the matter, love? Are you”—he licked his lips—“wet?”

She hid her face in her hands so that she didn’t have to see him. “I am!”

He gave out a long, rumbling sound of pleasure, then gently pushed her hands away from her face and lifted her chin so that she could meet his gaze. He slid closer to her.

“That is not the wet you’re thinking of, sweetheart,” he said. “That is the wet that means you want me. And”—he swallowed hard, suddenly looking like he was in pain—“that you’re ready for me.”

Something about those words planted a deep, aching desire in her very depths, and she stopped breathing. Suddenly she was hot for a very different reason.

“Oh…” she said. “Is it not—?”

He chuckled softly and brushed his hand up her thigh over the fabric of her dress, spreading warm tingles through her. “No, it is not what you thought it was. This wetness is nothing to be ashamed about, Janie.”

She would have felt quite silly now, for confusing whatever wetness she’d produced with the other bodily fluid, if his gaze, dark under his thick eyebrows, wasn’t burning her, consuming her. She inhaled sharply as his hand went down her leg. “Darling, you’re quite remarkable. You live in a whorehouse, and yet you’re so innocent. Let me show you exactly how good this kind of wetness is for you.”

He reached to the edge of her skirt and slowly, very slowly, pulled it up, his hand caressing her thin stocking over her leg. Heat spread through her, her breath accelerating, as he moved higher and higher. Past her knee. And higher, past the garter, and now his hot palm was scalding the bare skin of her thigh. She clenched strongly, unable to breathe as his hand reached the crease between her thigh and her private area.

Oh goodness gracious, now he was moving his hand lower, right where her hair was. His intense, dark eyes never leaving hers, his full lips parted, he murmured, “Is this the first time anyone has touched you like this?”

She nodded, unable to say a single word.

“Good. I want to see your face when I touch you…” His finger moved to the very center of her, causing her sex to swell and ache, but she was still pressing her thighs together, her muscles burning. “Open up for me, love. Open your legs.”

As if enthralled, she did. Her thighs fell open, and his fingers went between her folds, dipping into her most intimate place. Pleasure burst through her body at his touch, and she circled her hips.

He gave a deep growl, closing his eyes for a moment. “How good you feel, Jane… You’re drenched. So ready for me.”

She was. She wasn’t sure what exactly she was ready for—anything with him. More of this touch that made pure sunlight pour straight into her veins.

“Let me undress you, love,” he said. “Turn around.”

He removed his hand, and she was left hungry for more, panting, achingly empty. She turned on her side and felt the fabric of her dress tug as he unhooked it and pulled the sides, and then unlaced the corset. She wondered why she did not protest, not feel ashamed or afraid he wouldn’t like the way she looked. He pulled her dress down and then the corset, and she was left in only her petticoats and her chemise.

“These need to go, too,” he proclaimed.

With shaking hands, she pulled her petticoats down, and with his deep blue eyes on hers, Richard lifted the two laces that tied her chemise over her chest and pulled at them. She bit her lip as cool air touched her skin.

“Off,” he said.

Still shaking, she looked him over. “In that case, you, too, my lord.”

A slow chuckle escaped one side of his lips. He lifted himself to kneel on the bed by her side, pulling his coat off and throwing it to the floor. “As you wish, madam.”

She pushed the sleeves of her chemise off her shoulders as she watched him undo the hooks of his waistcoat. He watched her with a burning gaze as she pushed her chemise all the way down to her breasts, and his eyes widened as she lowered it to her waist. He froze with the waistcoat around his shoulders, the powerful muscles of his chest visible under his white shirt.

“Jane…” he croaked out, his throat tight.

He looked at her with so much anguish, as though he’d die if he looked away. At that moment, she realized she was in control. She had power over him, although for the life of her she didn’t know why. And that power was her body.

For the first time, she felt seen. Truly, truly seen. Truly important. Truly significant.

She slid her chemise all the way down and flung it away with the tip of her foot, and now she was truly and completely naked in front of him.

His gaze crawled from her breasts down to her waist, to her hips. He bit his lower lip and growled again as his eyes lingered at the apex of her thighs.

“Goodness gracious, Jane,” he murmured as he proceeded to remove his waistcoat. “You will be the death of me. Breathtaking.”

He pulled his shirt over his head, and her breath caught. His body was corded with muscle, from his broad shoulders to his beautiful biceps to his lean waist that narrowed into his hips. The muscles made hills and valleys on his stomach. The wound she’d treated was still a dark line on his chest; the stitches were gone, perhaps removed by his proper physician. Soft auburn hair was sprinkled over his upper torso and the bottom of his hard stomach, and as he pushed down his trousers, Jane saw exactly where that hair led…

From between two thick, muscular thighs, his long, hard member pointed right at her. As he removed his trousers and moved to her, stretching by her side, she wondered briefly how a man’s sex organ could look so beautiful, and how it could make her insides suddenly heat up and ache even more…for what?

Her breath caught as this magnificent man leaned over to her and kissed her, his hand traveling down her body. He cupped one of her breasts again while his mouth leisurely explored hers, his tongue gliding and teasing. The need between her legs intensified to the point of ache, and his hand went down her stomach and found her sex again.

She moaned as he dipped his fingers between her folds. He circled with his fingers, teased, rubbed, explored. He found one spot that had her curling her toes and crying out from the intense sweetness. And somewhere in the middle of her, something was growing, tensing, building higher and higher… She moved her hips chasing it, shamelessly using his fingers to pleasure herself.

“Yes. Like so, love,” he kept murmuring to her. “Just like so.”

She reached out and clasped his hard, hot length gently in her fist. His skin there felt surprisingly like velvet. And, oh heavens, how hard he was, like hot marble.

“I want you to feel this pleasure, too,” she said, looking into his hooded eyes. “I want to share this with you.”

“Oh, Jane…” he murmured, his jaw tightening. “Oh, Jane…”

As he kept pleasuring her, she stroked him up and down, and he gave a long, deep moan.

“Am I doing this right?” she asked.

“Yes…” he said in a strained voice. “Heavens, yes.”

As she saw him share in her bliss, the need to be one became so strong she couldn’t breathe.

“Take me, Richard…”

“What?” he murmured, his eyes opening.

“Take me. However it works, I want it. I want you. You said I was ready for you. I’m wet for you. I want to know what it’s like. Whatever it is I’m ready for, I want you to do it.”

He cursed under his breath. “Janie, you have no idea… If I do it…I want to, God Almighty, I want you so much, I’m about to burst. But I’ll be taking your virtue.”

She slid her hands over his hard chest. She was ready to give anything for him to lie on top of her again, to feel those hard muscles covering her. “I know. Take my virtue. I wouldn’t want anyone else to take it.”

He cursed again, oaths even more foul now. “I’m a bad man, love. I shouldn’t do it. But the truth is I want you too much. I want to have you all for myself.”

He towered over her, the locks of his dark auburn hair hanging over his forehead, his eyes as dark as the night sky, unwavering on her. He looked so intense, he appeared as if he may be both in pain and experiencing the greatest pleasure of his life.

“Spread for me, love,” he said gently.

She wrapped her legs around his hips, her sex clenching impatiently. With his erection in his palm, he positioned himself in front of her entrance and circled her wet sex with the tip, spilling liquid pleasure through her. She moved her hips, chasing this pleasure. She could burst, just from this.

“It might hurt, Jane,” he said. “But it’ll only hurt for a short time. And if you want me to stop at any moment, just say so.”

She licked her lips and nodded. She didn’t believe it would hurt at all—how could it when everything he had done up to now was pure bliss?

He pressed into her, stretching her. The hard muscles of his arms strained and bulged as he supported his weight. Then he started to gently, slowly, with very tiny thrusts ease himself into her. He kept stretching her, and she kept wanting him deeper, deeper, deeper inside her. She longed to be one with him…

And then there was a small pinch, and he was inside, and she was full, so deliciously full of him. He grunted as he entered her fully. Their eyes locked—his were so deeply blue and so incredibly beautiful, she could sink in them and never return. There he was, letting her in, deep into his soul.

“Are you all right?” he asked. “Should we stop?”

The pinch inside her dissolved and became part of this pleasure of having him for herself, and she was still aching and clenching around him, wanting him to move, to bring her more of that bliss only he could provide.

“No, whatever you do, Richard, do not dare stop,” she said, wrapping her arms around his back and bringing him closer to her with her arms and her legs.

“You will be the death of me,” he murmured.

And then, finally, blessedly, he began to ease in and out of her with deliberate slowness. She moaned, adjusting to this new source of pleasure and pain, bringing her hips to his with every thrust. He angled his hips so that he was now moving against that beautiful spot in her sex that made her see stars, and now he was speeding up. His weight, his scent, the feel of a hard, hot, beautiful male moving inside of her, taking her, owning her was sublime.

He kept moving, thrusting, grunting like a wolf. Locks of his hair fell on his forehead.

And then, all too swiftly, that pent-up sensation within her unraveled, showering her with intense pleasure. She cried out, unable to think as she was consumed, wave after wave crashing into her, rapture pulsing through her.

He pulled out of her and bucked over the bed, his seed spilling on the cover.

When they had calmed, he scooped her limp, sated body into his embrace, and pulled the blanket over them both. She planted a soft kiss on his chest.

Her sex ached.

“I won’t marry anyone,” she said. “You’re my only chance to have this…to have a man touch me…have me as a woman. Please, do not regret that you did this with me. Since I’m not a virgin, there’s no danger for anyone to marry me anyway.”

Richard looked at her with a frown. “I want to marry you,” he reminded her. “Me.”

“I know, Richard,” she said and nestled against his chest, listening to his strong, steady heartbeat under her ear. “We all have our faults.”

He kissed the top of her head. “You don’t have any.”

As she sighed out, she realized they had accomplished their mission. They had learned all Thorne’s men knew about what had happened to Spencer.

Now, according to their agreement, they should break off the engagement.

And, despite herself, the thought made her stomach sour.