Chapter Twenty-One

“I want you, Lucien,” Jess repeated, as if there could have been any misunderstanding about why she was in his bedroom. To make her point, she removed her hair pins and shook out her hair until it fell loosely around her shoulders.

He didn’t move, didn’t say a word. But he kept his gaze riveted to her.

Her belly knotted. For heaven’s sakes! If he didn’t stop staring at her as if she’d just admitted to attempting to kill the king, Jess feared she might just scream.

But why should he be shocked? He might not be the irredeemable rakehell society pegged him to be, but he certainly wasn’t an innocent boy. The look she passed over him, noting the broad shoulders, hard muscles, long legs—the increasing bulge beneath his breeches that she didn’t dare look directly at—all certainly proved that. And the way he swallowed, so hard that she could hear it from several feet away, proved he wanted the exact same thing.

“I don’t want to be alone tonight.” She stepped out of her shoes. “I couldn’t bear it, not after all we shared this evening. I want to be in your arms.”

She reached beneath her skirt to untie her stockings, then rolled them down her legs and off, letting them fall away. She felt the heat of his gaze slide down her body. Otherwise, he didn’t move at all. Not even to drop his hand away from the waistcoat buttons he had begun to unfasten.

“I want to feel alive and desired, and I know you’re capable of making me feel that way. Because you already have.” She reached a trembling hand behind her back to untie the two ties at her waist and neckline. “The difference is that we won’t stop this time, if you’d like.”

She shrugged the dress off her shoulders. Lucien said not one word, but his eyes followed its cascade to the floor at her feet. She saw his chest flex as his breath hitched hard.

“If you’d like,” she repeated softly to make certain he understood what permissions she was granting, then removed her petticoat and corset. She stood before him now in nothing more than a thin cotton shift. “Would you like that, Lucien?”

Slowly, he stalked his way across the room to her, and she backed up, caught between his large body and the closed door. He put his hands against the door on both sides of her shoulders, then leaned in to bring his face level with hers, his mouth so close that the heat of his breath tickled her lips.

“I would like that,” he murmured, hoarse with desire. He reached behind her to flip the lock. “Very much.”

His mouth captured hers in a hungry kiss that plundered her lips, then teased them apart until his tongue slipped between them. His right hand held her cheek to keep her head still while he feasted on her mouth, and his left hand swept down the side of her body and heated her skin as if the thin cotton wasn’t there at all. He brushed his hand over her outer hip and thigh, then back up to cup her breast and tease at her hardening nipple with his thumb. A soft sound of need spilled from her lips, and he drank in the sound, leaving her breathless.

When she tore her mouth away to gasp back the air he’d stolen, he slipped his arm around her to pull her close as he led her across the room to the massive oak bed with its thick mattresses and heavy drapes. Every step was matched with a soft caress of his body against hers in a deliciously wanton waltz. When they reached the side of the bed, he pulled her close, and his pelvis pressed into hers. There was no mistaking the hard bulge that rubbed against her lower belly or what it meant.

“Do you know what men and women do together in bed?” he murmured as he brushed his mouth over her cheek and back to her ear, where his tongue swirled around its outer edge before plunging inside and sending an electric pulse out to the ends of her fingers and toes. “How they join bodies?” The masculine scent of him, of brandy, leather, and cigars, overwhelmed her senses and left her clinging to his solid body. “What pleasures they take in each other?”

“Yes,” she whispered, tilting back her head to give him full access to the soft skin behind her ear and her neck below. Her sudden yearning for him filled her with a strange exhilaration that left her lungs breathless, her pulse spiking, and the intimate place between her legs throbbing relentlessly. “But…”

He stilled instantly, his mouth remaining on her even as he asked, “But?”

She attempted to swallow down her nervousness. It didn’t work. “But…are there ways to keep from getting with child?”

She felt him smile with relief against her skin, then lift his head to stare down into her eyes. “I will protect you, Jessamyn. Always.” He placed a kiss to her lips so gentle that her eyes stung. “I promise.”

She closed her eyes and nodded.

His hands moved down her body once more. But this time when they swept back up, they brought the hem of her shift with them, over her belly and bosom, and off over her head. The cool night air tingled her skin—or perhaps it was from his nearness, now that she was completely naked to his eyes.

“Dear God,” he whispered, “you are beautiful.”

Pleasure warmed inside her at the compliment, yet she protested, “No, I’m n—”

He silenced her with a kiss, then he nuzzled his lips against her hair. “You are beautiful, Jessamyn,” he insisted. “And I will prove it.”

He lifted her into his arms and placed her onto the bed. With one last lingering kiss, he pulled away to stand at the side of the bed. He yanked off his boots and let each one fall to the floor with a determined thud. Then the half-undone waistcoat, his braces that peeled off over his shoulders and dangled tantalizingly around his hips, his shirt that he yanked off over his head and tossed away… He stood deliciously bare from the waist up and paused to let her look her fill of him. She greedily did just that, letting her eyes trail over his broad shoulders and chest, then follow the dusting of dark hair down his ridged abdomen to where it disappeared beneath his waistband.

She let her eyes linger at his waist, too. She couldn’t help herself, utterly fascinated by the way his body reacted to hers, to the large bulge pressing hard against his breeches and the way it seemed to throb beneath her stare. Shamelessly, she reached to touch him—

A soft groan rose from him when her fingertips stroked the soft buckskin fabric, but he didn’t step away or push down her hand. Instead, he stood perfectly still, letting her curiously fondle him as she traced the outline of his steely length through the breeches. Touching him like this mesmerized her, and she stroked harder, then felt him jump against her palm as she cupped it over him.

With a low growl, he lightly snatched her hand up to his lips to kiss it. “Keep doing that,” he warned, “and I’ll be spent before I’m even in bed with you.”

A puzzled frown registered her confusion.

Chuckling softly, he leaned over to kiss her again, languidly and heatedly. Then he straightened to remove his buckskin breeches, his eyes never leaving hers as he stripped them off.

He was completely nude now as he stood in front of her. Jess could barely remember to breathe as she cast a lingering look over him, noting all the sculpted muscles that made him resemble of one Lord Elgin’s marbles, the breadth of his shoulders, the faint trail of dark hair across his abdomen leading lower still to… Oh my. Apparently, every inch of him was hard and sculpted.

She bit her bottom lip as she pondered touching him again, of letting her fingers play over his bare flesh and exploring—

“Don’t you dare,” he scolded gently as if he could read her mind.

She whispered, “Because it will hurt?”

“Because it will feel too damn good,” he growled.

Before she could question that logic, he crawled onto the bed with her. His heavy weight depressed the mattress and rolled her toward him on the satin counterpane, which she didn’t mind at all when it allowed him to wrap his arm around her and nestle her close against him. Being held was nice, and when he caressed her bare bottom with his rough palms… Oh, so very nice! The warmth of his smooth skin, the tenderness of his mouth on hers as he kissed her with a deepening yearning that left her nearly panting, the way his hands roamed over her body—she let out an unbidden whimper of pure need.

He rolled her onto her back beneath him, and her heart stuttered with nervous anticipation. His eyes glowed with desire as she stared up at his handsome face, darkened by the moonlit shadows.

“I told you I’d prove to you exactly how beautiful you are, my Jessamyn. You are beautiful here,” he murmured as he kissed her lips. “And here.” He trailed his mouth down the side of her neck and over her shoulder, his hot lips leaving a trail of goosebumps in their wake. “And simply breathtaking right here.”

He lowered his head to brush his lips across her breasts.

A long sigh escaped her when he placed a delicate kiss to each nipple, as if to soothe the aching that tightened them into hard points.

“And simply delectable.” He closed his lips around her nipple and suckled.

The pull of his lips penetrated into her and sparked an unbearable need through her limbs to her core. Jess couldn’t stop herself from arching her back off the mattress to lift herself up against him in wanton invitation. Her fingertips pressed harder into his shoulders, and she bit back a rising moan as his hard sucks pulled her deeply into his mouth. When he wickedly flicked the tip of his tongue against her in fluttering little licks, a liquid heat rushed all the way down to that throbbing spot between her legs, where he’d touched her before.

Despite the way she writhed beneath him, she still felt compelled to protest, “I’m not del—”

He nipped her gently in punishment.

An erotic jolt of pleasure shot through her and ripped away her breath, only for her to shudder when he soothed away the sharpness by laving his tongue around the nipple as if licking at a spoonful of cream. The unexpected mix of sensations left her trembling, panting, and aching, yet she could do nothing more than wrap her arms around his neck and wiggle her pelvis beneath him in desperate yearning for the pleasures he’d given her before. For an even greater pleasure she instinctively knew he was capable of granting her.

“And you’re so very beautiful…right… here .”

His hand slipped between her legs and caressed her, just as he had done at Vauxhall.

Joy crashed through her. She hadn’t been prepared the first time he’d touched her there, and the sensation had been simply overwhelming. But now, she knew what to expect. So she spread her legs wider in hopes of having his fingers soon stroking inside her again, so deliciously filling her with every plunge and retreat…

He groaned and teased his fingers along her feminine folds, caressing and tickling, until she felt his fingers grow slippery from her wetness. He murmured against the bare flesh of her breast, “So very beautiful.”

But he didn’t slip inside her tight warmth as he’d done before, and she lifted up her pelvis to beg him to claim her again. All the tiny muscles inside her throbbed keenly with anticipation—

Instead, he slid down her body and brought his mouth against her. Right there .

“Lucien!”

Her hands grasped his head as he lay between her thighs and began to kiss her there, just as he had kissed and teased at her nipples only moments before, sucking and nipping and licking to soothe away the unbearable ache. Then he pushed aside her folds and delved into the tight warmth beyond. It wasn’t his fingers that stroked into her now as he’d done before, that wonderful touch that had brought her to the point of unbearable release—it was his tongue, and every wicked thrust only went deeper inside her, as if he wanted nothing less than to devour her.

She melted like molten wax. Heat licked at her toes, teased at her breasts, and flamed up her legs until it burned right there beneath his mouth, but the little muscles inside her didn’t relax. Instead, they tightened around his tongue in a shameless attempt to pull him even deeper. Soft mewlings of need came unbidden from her throat and wordlessly encouraged him to increase this impossibly sweet yet agonizing torture.

He did as she bade and hooked her legs over his shoulders, rolling her higher onto her shoulder blades and lifting her from the mattress until he supported her beneath with his large palms on her bottom, which squeezed and released in time with each thrust of his tongue. He had opened her impossibly wider to the merciless assault of his seeking lips and thrusting tongue, and she moaned loudly in complete surrender.

“Do you like that, my love?” he asked, each word tickling her wet folds.

“Yes.” She squeezed her eyes shut against the rising wave of pleasure. “Oh yes…” And then—“Oh!”

She gasped as his lips closed around the sensitive little nib buried in her folds. Then, when he sucked—

“Lucien!” Her hips bucked against his mouth as a spark of pleasure consumed her.

He chuckled, and the sound reverberated into her like a low hum. “Shall I do that again?”

“Please,” she begged, shaking uncontrollably. She was on the verge of sobs, yet she had no idea why. “Oh, dear God, please !”

Teasingly, he circled her with the tip of his tongue and took one last, long lick along the length of her crease, and the wet sounds of his hungry lips against her folds nearly undid her. Never, never had she thought such sounds could be so erotic, but they only worked to increase the yearning need that gripped her body.

Then he sucked again.

She rose up, curling her body around him as the electricity that raced through her brought a wave of pleasure slamming through her, of tightening and release of what seemed like every muscle in her body. This was so much more than what he’d done to her before. A soft cry rose on her lips, and she collapsed back against the mattress. Every inch of her throbbed deliciously, and she could do nothing more than lie there and accept the bliss that spread through her.

With her eyes still closed, she felt him slip up her naked body until he lay over her on his forearms, resting his hips in the cradle of her spread thighs and compelling her to wrap her arms around his neck. He nuzzled her cheek with his nose and cajoled her to open her eyes.

When she gazed up at him through the shadows, she nearly lost her breath at the expression on his face… possessive, starving, wolfish. A look of pure desire.

He reached between them with his free hand. She felt something press against her folds, smooth and round yet hard.

“You are beautiful,” he assured her with a tender kiss. “And I don’t deserve you.”

“Yes, you—”

He lowered his hips and slid himself inside her.

Jess gasped at being stretched wide, at having him filling her so completely, and at the faint burn caused by the friction of his flesh invading hers. Lucien rubbed his cheek against hers and held himself impossibly still on his forearms as her body grew accustomed to his, and he murmured soft words that she couldn’t quite discern yet found comforting.

Then, he began to move with carefully controlled, impossibly smooth advances and retreats of his hips. Slowly, all her discomfort faded, all the tension left her, and she relaxed beneath him, allowing her body to mold to his.

With a strangled sigh, he began to increase his pace, and she wrapped her legs around his waist, desperate to keep him with her, exactly like this… forever if she could. Instinctively, she tilted her pelvis and rose up to meet each of his thrusts. Their bodies moved together in a rocking, steady rhythm.

The momentum of their movements built until a sheen of perspiration formed on Lucien’s back, with his eyes squeezed closed and his jaw set hard, and Jess thrilled that she was able to create this reaction in him. Yet she suspected he was still holding back, that the shaking in his muscles came from restraint and not from concern that he might hurt her. She knew the truth—

“You’re a good man, Lucien,” she whispered in his ear as she tightened her body’s hold around him. “I never knew how much until tonight, when I was finally allowed to see into your heart.”

He stilled, and he opened his eyes to gaze down at her in the moonlight.

She stroked his cheek. “You are a good man. No matter how much you try to hide it, I can see it now, all the way down to your not-so-black soul.” She leaned up to bring her lips to his ear and confessed in a breathless whisper, “And I think…I love you for it.”

A long, haggard breath seeped from him, and the restraint she’d felt in him dissolved. He unwound both her arms from around his neck, laced his fingers through hers, and then pinned her hands above her head. She caught her breath at being captured beneath him, so completely vulnerable, until he brought his face level with hers. As he stared down into her eyes, he began to move inside her again. This time it was more than for simple physical pleasure. This time it was a search for absolution and healing.

She arched herself beneath him as much as the weight of his body pressing deliciously into hers would allow, but she never broke eye contact. Not even when he wickedly swirled his hips against hers to plunge himself impossibly deeper into her tight warmth, and she gasped from the overwhelming sensation. Not even when a senseless plea fell from her lips, one he answered with an animal-like growl of his own.

His thrusts came hard and deep now, so intense in their strength that she felt compelled to place both feet flat on the mattress and rise up to meet each one. Electricity tingled at the tips of her fingers and toes, and the aching at her core threatened to devour her. She squirmed beneath him, begging for more—as if she could somehow will him to crawl beneath her skin, join with her soul, and never leave.

He released her hand and slipped his down between them, to the place where their bodies joined so wondrously. Not stopping in his steady thrusts, he teased at her the way he’d done earlier with his tongue, and she knew what was coming if he touched that one perfect spot that now seemed to pulse in time with her heartbeat. She gave a frustrated whimper and writhed her hips, begging for the pleasure he’d given her before.

He touched her, and she broke against him, all the tiny muscles inside her bearing down around his hard length. He smothered her cry of passion with his mouth as he captured her lips in a blistering kiss, and she fiercely clung to him, losing her breath and all her senses. Never had such joy filled her heart as it did at that moment, never had she soared so close to heaven…and never had she loved anyone the way she loved him.

As she slowly came down to earth, Jess buried her face against his neck as the pleasure pulsed through her and lapped at her toes like warm waves in the summer sea. Her hair surely stood on end, and goosebumps covered her suddenly hot flesh. The pulsating ache inside her was still there, no longer a burning need but a residual pleasure fanning out into her limbs.

She’d expected pleasure, but this—oh, this was simply exquisite! Sheer bliss. A feeling of complete satisfaction consumed her, and she closed her eyes, wanting to imprint this moment on her mind forever.

“Jessamyn.” Lucien nuzzled her bare shoulder, her whispered name bringing her back to him.

When she opened her eyes, he began to move inside her again. His body was tense, every muscle taught and hard, and he thrust in a steady, strong, quick rhythm. He swirled his hips against hers…once, twice… A fierce growl tore from him, and he pulled himself from her warmth, lowered his belly to hers and pinned his still-hard length between their bodies. His hips jerked, and she felt warm liquid spurt across her belly. His buttocks clenched as he strained to spill every drop of himself against her, and a satisfied groan sounded from his throat. He collapsed upon his side next to her, utterly spent and, finally, completely relaxed.

Jess nestled against his side, and his arms slipped around her to pull her tightly against him. She prayed he felt the same exquisite happiness she had. Perhaps he did, because his heartbeat raced beneath her fingers as she rested her hand on his bare chest and his breath struggled to calm, all as much as hers had.

Then she heard it, his soft whisper that told her the world would never be the same again—

“I love you, too.”