by Jen YatesNZ
Her last two words felt as if they sliced through some vital organ, the brief pain of it intense, almost crippling. He stared at her in horror.
‘What?’ she teased. ‘Did you think I was going to be a clinging vine you couldn’t get rid of?’
Lord, was her opinion of him that low?
‘No, Jane.’
‘Then what?—Oh!—Is a month too long? It was just—’
She flustered to silence, her cheeks deeply flushed and the bright confidence from a moment before, dimmed.
‘No, Jane,’ he said again, as firmly as he could, considering the odd obstruction in his throat, ‘I doubt a month will be anything like long enough.’
If it was possible the color flared more deeply in her cheeks and spread beneath her bodice.
When she looked up at him again he’d have sworn there was distress in the dark orbs watching him across the desk.
‘I can’t stay any longer than a month—,’ she began.
‘How about we make a pact?’ he murmured, and when she waited in silence, he added, ‘How about we agree on—one day at a time?’
‘All right,’ she breathed.
He loved that look of ‘innocent awareness’ she often wore around him, taking inordinate pleasure from the fact her innocence was a gift she’d made to him, and her awareness was his reciprocal gift to her. And that gift was far from complete yet. So he added, ‘One wickedly sexy night at a time.’
The stomp of Rogers’ crutch on the hardwood floor was probably timely, Bax decided, as he rose to open the door.
***
Who was this woman staring back at her from the mirror, clad only in the gossamer folds of an oyster-white lace and silk gown and wrap, her hair a cloud of fiery curls about shoulders and breasts? Who was this woman whose eyes glowed with an unholy anticipation? Whose heart thudded frantically behind her breastbone, and whose body ached, and burned—and shimmered with excitement?
Mrs. Mutch. Hah!
Before she could convince herself the woman in the mirror wasn’t her, Jane snuffed the candle on the dresser. Hades would be watching from his vantage point in the garden.
Amend that to his vantage point on the terrace, she thought, as the handle of the French door rattled before she could cross to open it. With trembling fingers she fumbled the latch.
Then he was in the room with her, the door closed, curtains drawn.
‘Come here,’ he demanded, and held out his arms.
Slipping her arms round his huge frame, accepting his embrace and lifting her face for his kiss felt the most natural thing to do. In the light from the candles on the mantel his eyes gleamed down at her.
‘It’s been a damned long week, Angular Jane,’ he murmured, then fused his mouth with hers and Jane couldn’t control the soft moan of need and delight humming up from her throat.
She’d been craving this ever since their last kiss in the back garden of Brisco House when he’d walked her home though the back lanes after her visit to the Matrix Club.
It had been a long week, during which she’d blushed every time Sheri caught her eye, and had daily given thanks Lord Knightsborough was not in the habit of attending the fashionable affairs of the ton.
There’d only been a couple of days during which she’d had to act normal in Lord Baxendene’s presence before he’d taken himself off to The Chase. All light and joy faded from her world when he left and yet his presence had been an unbearable strain on every one of her senses, and on every proper, dignified bone in her body.
It had been a week made bearable only by knowing he awaited her at The Chase.
‘A very—long week,’ she agreed, between nibbles on his lip.
Lifting his head, he cupped her face in his hands and said, ‘All week I’ve been thinking about tonight. Wondering what you wanted, what you expected.’
What did he mean?
‘I thought—hoped—we’d do more than we did—’
‘But what do you want, Jane? I want you tell me what you want. What do you dream about? Wonder about?’
‘I don’t—,’ Jane began, then pushed out of his arms to survey his person. The brief glimpses she’d had of his naked magnificence had returned to tantalize her time and again. She’d lain awake every night berating herself for not taking more note.
***
Damn, she was beautiful with cheeks aflame and eyes filled with a desperate longing she couldn’t articulate, a hunger she couldn’t hope to hide from him. Thank God their paths hadn’t crossed while she’d still been wed to Rotherby.
He didn’t like to think he could be the cad to steal another man’s wife, but he seriously doubted he’d have been able to resist her.
‘I’m yours to command.’
Her hands crept up to her cheeks and her lashes fluttered nervously.
‘Truly?’
Her eyes were as huge and round as the buttons on a dandy’s coat.
He sank to one knee before her.
‘You’re my Queen. I’m your knight. Command me!’ he growled.
His patience had worn almost to nothing, but he really wanted her to realize she had power, that this thing between them was about giving—and taking—on both their parts. He loved to play a woman’s body, command her, control her, but he’d discovered there were greater benefits to be had if the woman understood her own power and claimed it. So he remained on his knee before her, head bowed, waiting, and willing her to speak.
‘A—Arise, Sir Knight,’ she began huskily, ‘and—’
He rose and waited.
‘And?’
‘Strip, sir. Every last item—and stand by the hearth that I may—look.’
‘Certainly, my Queen,’ he growled, looking down at his boots to hide his smile. He’d bet his last quid when Jane got over her embarrassment and uncertainty, she’d relish the role of Queen to his sworn knight.
‘May a lowly knight inquire of his Queen why she chose his nakedness before say—his mouth on some needy part of her body?’
He glanced up in time to see her suppress a giggle and pull her features into something resembling haughty.
‘I wish to study the naked male form—oh, and sketch it. I’m certain my sketch pad must be here somewhere.’
‘Nude modelling doesn’t come within a knight’s duties, my Queen. For that you require a—rent-boy, which would incur an hourly fee. Clearly I’ve mistaken my mistress for my Queen! Madame has her purse to hand?’
God, he loved teasing her, causing the wild fluctuations of color in her cheeks, the dancing sparks of fire in her eyes, and the enticing motions of her limbs.
He held her gaze for a moment, then with a burst of laughter he closed the space between them to fold her in his arms again.
‘Undress me,’ he murmured huskily against her lips and to his delight her hands went straight to the knot of his neck-cloth. Shrugging out of his jacket he reached back to lay it on the chaise. Their fingers, impatient now, tangled over the buttons of his shirt and the falls of his trousers.
‘My boots,’ he muttered, falling back onto the chaise to pull them off.
‘I want you naked too, woman! Now,’ he growled as his second boot hit the floor.
Trousers and smalls rapidly following, he rose and stepped towards her, suddenly feeling an odd frisson of shyness at Jane’s open-mouthed, wide-eyed appreciation. Women had eulogized the beauty of his masculine form ever since he’d grown into his massive body in his early twenties. Never once had he felt as he did in this moment as he stood totally exposed to Jane’s innocently, curious gaze.
Why was this different? Why was she different?
Then she stole every smidgen of his breath when she loosened the ribbons of the sheer wrap and let it drift slowly off her shoulders, down her arms, through her fingers, over her hips to fall in a froth of silk and lace about her feet.
What had he been thinking about? Did it matter?
‘Oh Hades,’ she whispered. ‘You re magnificent. I really do wish I c
ould sketch you. Though I doubt I could keep my hand steady enough to—to—Please turn around, slowly.’
He’d thought her self-conscious under his perusal, then realized she wanted to view all of him. By the time he’d turned full circle his cock, already stiffening with eagerness, stood rigidly from his body pointing straight at Jane.
His body was telling him it was time to stop playing their old teasing games.
‘Now you!’ he commanded hoarsely. ‘That gown has to go.’
She blinked, blushed warmly all over her body as the gossamer gown fell to join the wrap at her feet. Goddess tall, creamy limbs, luscious curves and flaming red hair. She had his breath accelerating and his cock aching damnably with anticipation.
He started towards her but she held up a hand.
‘May I still tell you what I want?’
What would she ask for now? Every cell in his body ached to know.
He nodded, watching the candle reflections shimmering in her eyes.
‘I want to touch you—all of you. Would you lie on the bed and allow me to—touch?’
‘Dammit, woman! You’re killing me here! There’s nothing I want more than your hands on my body. I can’t promise however to keep mine from you. You’ve no idea how you tempt me, standing in that circle of frothy silk and lace, a goddess rising from a foaming ocean.’
Her breasts rose and fell more noticeably now, his words obviously affecting her breathing. Had any woman ever tested his forbearance as thoroughly as Jane?
Lying back on the bed, he invited her closer with his eyes and she knelt at his side and placed her hand in the center of his chest. Leaning over, she began a sweeping, massaging type of movement down his biceps, back up again to the bulging muscles of his shoulders to the hard sculpted flesh about his male nipples.
Her hands stilled, caressing his hard nubbins, then she ducked her head to taste, to suckle and he couldn’t suppress a groan of need.
‘You’re sensitive there? Like I am?’
‘Hell yes!’
Her hair fell in a silken swathe across his chest as she lowered her head and began to suckle deeply.
‘Jane!’ he growled, twisting his fingers in the fiery locks. ‘Dammit, woman! You’re driving me crazy. I’ve been anticipating this all week and I’m running—out of—patience—’
‘But—I haven’t touched all of you!’
His groan was long and torn from deep in his vitals as her hands swept down over his hard stomach, following the trail of black hair down to where his cock jutted unrestrainedly.
As her fingers closed around him, he rasped, ‘You have—ten—seconds—Jane!’
She pressed her lips to the weeping head then her tongue darted out and licked him.
Before she’d more than tasted the sexy emission he erupted from under her, flipping her onto her back. Holding her wrists in a punishing grip above her head, he closed his mouth over her nipple, taking her instantly to that edge they both craved.
‘Please, Hades—please—’
‘Now, how may your knight serve you, my Queen?’ he demanded roughly.
‘F—fill me! Please, Hades!’
‘My Queen would like her knight to fuck her?’
‘Yes!’
‘Say it.’
‘F-fuck me, my knight!’
‘Certainly, my Queen!’ he growled, rising up between her thighs to thrust deep.
Her cry was somewhere between a moan and a desperate plea for more. He responded instinctively and her limbs curved around his body, her ankles locking below his buttocks.
He drove deep, her ankles came undone, heels hitting the bed. Gripping frantically at the pumping muscles of his arse she began crying out his name, over and over.
Close to losing any semblance of control as her inner muscles contracted around his cock and her body bucked and writhed beneath him, he withdrew, spending on her belly in a rush such as he’d never known.
How long could he keep her here at The Chase? How long would be long enough to burn this need for her from his being?
As he dropped to the mattress beside her and engulfed her in his arms, he forced his brain to shut down. He wasn’t ready to face or deal with the possibility he might never get enough of this woman.
***
Sunlight pierced her eyelids and Jane opened her eyes, staring around the strange room and slowly re-orienting herself from the dream of Hades arms about her naked form, his long legs entangled with hers and his—cock—
It wasn’t a dream! She’d had his cock inside her—more than once—last night. Rolling to hide her hot face in the pillow, she noted a slight ache from being well-used and a stickiness on her inner thighs.
And she was naked! Heaven forbid Dolly should find her thus!
Guiltily she leapt from the bed to find her gown and robe on the floor where she’d stepped out of them last night. Swiftly dragging the garments on, she cast a glance about the room to ensure no evidence of Hades’ presence remained, dropped to the stool before the duchess mirror, and dragged a brush through the wild tangle of her hair.
This is what a fallen woman looks like, she decided, studying her image in the glass. Skin flushed, lips plump and rosy, eyes bright with remembered pleasure. The state of fallen woman, was supposedly wicked and undesirable.
If she had to choose between being a fallen woman and reverting to her proper, chaste, decorous ‘Lady of the Manor’ self, nothing could make her choose the latter.
Being fallen felt too deliciously fulfilled, and she could only hope she had further to fall yet, so long as His Lordship of Baxendene was the one enticing her down the wickedly wanton slope of ruin.
She’d not regret one moment of it.
Chapter 16
Bax couldn’t remember a time when life had felt this good.
Easing his back against the tree trunk he added more strokes to the outline on the sketchpad on his knee. Jane had been five days at The Chase and it concerned him a little he was counting. Five days in which she’d charmed every last resident of the rambling old manor house with her music, her comical sketches, her medicines and her caring, happy demeanor.
She’d even charmed Captain Dorset. He’d talked to her as to no one else; given her the key, he hoped, to unlock the stasis in the man’s mind.
He’d told Jane he’d died with his men in the bloody battle for Hougoumont Farm at the Battle of Waterloo. His mind was trapped on that unholy hillside, his last bloody reality. All thereafter was illusion in Captain Dorset’s damaged mind.
He believed himself to be an illusion, a ghost.
Jane had got the man to talk. Bax had tried for nigh on a year, getting little more than the occasional grunt in response. Lady Barbara had tried—and usually left in tears each time she failed.
He and the Captain had been in the habit of riding about the great Park until they found a pleasing vista to paint. Regardless the natural beauty of the backdrop, John’s paintings always contained horses, saddled and ready for battle, lacking only the riders.
‘Where are the riders?’ Jane asked, while watching the meticulous strokes of his brush.
‘Dead,’ John had answered, his concentration not wavering, his expression stoic and lacking animation.
That conversation had taken place in the common room at The Chase yesterday afternoon, where John often worked in the big south-facing bay window. When he’d admitted the background was a scene in The Chase’s Great Park Jane had waxed enthusiastic, asking the Captain to go with her on the morrow to show her.
‘Captain Jack—,’ the man had begun to mumble, but Jane had cut him off.
‘Captain Jack will come with us,’ she’d readily agreed, ‘but I want you to show me. There’s something magical in the way you’ve captured the essence of the scene. I want to see what you saw when you painted this. And it’s not finished, I think. I’d like to try and capture it too.’
And here they were, the remains of a picnic lunch under a cloth on a large flat rock. Bax w
as the only one still working, and that in a desultory fashion for his entire self seemed to be floating on a cloud of well-being. The last thing he’d imagined when he’d volunteered for a treatment with the crystals, was feeling anything, let alone this—Goddammit, he didn’t know how to describe how he felt, for he’d never experienced such—quietude within.
Jane had carried the crystals on their painting expedition and arranged them on a large rock, several of which dotted the area, then set about sketching a mystical scene with crystals, fairies, unicorns, faux castle ruins and the ancient oaks.
John was fascinated by the crystal points, especially the largest, shimmering with rainbows along its fracture lines.
‘Where did you get them, Mrs. Mutch?’ Bax asked.
Jane explained, for John’s benefit, about her Aunt Beatrice.
‘Do you know how to use them?’
The gruff question from the usually taciturn Captain Dorset startled Bax. Jane showed no reaction.
‘I do, though I haven’t used them much. Some people think energy flowing off inanimate objects to be evil or the work of the devil. Why is beyond me, for they’re naturally made in the earth; created by God. Aunt Bea always stressed they couldn’t harm anyone if they were used with love—even if they didn’t help! Sometimes the person’s desire to heal is enough.’
Jane said no more, simply went on sketching. John too, had returned to his painting, but his gaze was frequently drawn to the shimmering rainbows in the largest crystal. Bax had been holding his breath, the sketch on his knee forgotten, when John asked, ‘May I touch them?’
At Jane’s nod the man had gone straight for the largest point filled with rainbows dancing in the refracted light of the sun. Reaching over to pick it up, he’d jerked back and let out a startled grunt as the palm of his hand passed above the sharp apex.
His gaze flew to Jane’s and for the first time in over a year his blue eyes shone with animation.