Her declaration had taken him completely by surprise. The words rushed in his ears in a sudden sweet flood, threatening the walls he’d constructed to protect himself over the years. It was terrifying. It was wondrous. And it was maddening, because he didn’t know what to do.
“Now, if you could take a look at this chart. Have I missed any of the crucial moments when it might have—”
Raven turned her in his arms.
He heard the paper crumple between them and her soft gasp of surprise as he lowered his mouth to hers. He had to tether himself to something grounded, something real, something logical. And Jane was all those things.
Smart as she was, she knew exactly what he needed. She pulled him into the welcome of her slender arms as they twined around his neck.
At once he was engulfed in her powdery scent, her body rising to meet his. Yet, somehow, he could still feel her words as if they were branded in his ears and scribed on his lips and tongue. Every tender press and soft sigh caused another deluge of this terrifying, wondrous thing to ram relentlessly against his fortress.
His heart pounded back with equal force. It felt like he was surrounded by a rising flood beyond his control. So Raven clung to her tighter, lifting her off the stone tiles. If he was going to drown, then he was keeping her with him.
He’d never had anyone love him. Never had anyone of his own before. And Jane was his.
According to her rules, he’d claimed her the day he’d introduced her to his grandfather by using her given name. And who was he to argue with propriety?
“You’re mine now,” he growled, needing her to understand.
Against his lips, he tasted her smile. “If I am yours, Raven, then you are mine.”
Chapter 27
Jane was lost in Raven’s ardent embrace. There was something desperate and fierce in the way he held her, his hands fisting in her clothes. And he’d never kissed her this way before, taking possession of her lips in searing passes and deep, fathomless pulls as if he were branding her.
How could she focus on her chart when her entire being was fully immersed in the love she’d only just discovered today?
So she gave herself over to it, slanting her mouth beneath his. The chart could wait until later. Much, much later.
His skin felt smooth against her lips and chin, smelling clean and freshly shaven. And his tongue tasted sweet like brandy as he held her tighter against him.
He growled in appreciation as his hands roamed down her body, claiming every inch he touched, splaying into the dip in her spine, molding over the curve of her waist, and the plump flesh of her bottom, delighting all her senses. After experiencing the map table, her body responded with eager pulses that descended quickly to the cradle of her thighs.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked, feeling the shift of their bodies with his sure-footed steps along the path.
“To your napping spot.”
His voice was so low and deep that it sent a flutter directly to her midriff. Breathless, she asked, “Planning to tuck me in, or are we napping together?”
“Whatever you like. But first, I’m hoping to . . . expand your research.”
He lifted her higher, just enough for her to feel the hard outline of his flesh. There was no mistaking his meaning.
A thrill trampled through her, along with a hint of trepidation. “And are you going to be thorough?”
“Quite,” he said resolutely and nipped lightly on her chin. A silver glint of wickedness sparked in his gray-smoke irises.
But any qualms she may have had were abandoned the instant he commenced a scorching path down her neck. She surrendered her throat to his openmouthed kisses, loving the way he laved the tender pulse that throbbed helplessly and wantonly for him.
“How shall we begin? And will I need to take notes?” she asked when they reached the secluded chaise longue.
He lowered her feet to the tiles in one sinuous slide of her body over his, awakening thousands of tingling receptors. Lifting his hands to her hair, he deftly withdrew the pins holding her coiffure in place, loosening the silken strands to fall softly against her nape and shoulders.
“I’m going to start off by sampling every inch of your delightful little body,” he said tilting her chin up for a kiss. But then he stopped and frowned in speculation. “Why are you biting your lip? What is it that you’re holding back?”
She released her lower lip and shook her head. “Well, for you to have access to every inch, I could not be wearing any clothes. And that thought reminded me of the first time I was naked in the conservatory. It involved a study of an ant colony that went awry, and an unsuspecting gardener who has never been able to look me in the eye again.”
Raven laughed, tilting back his head and holding her close. “There is no one else in the whole world like you, Jane Pickerington.”
With a smile lingering on his lips, he cupped her face and kissed her so tenderly it was as if he was telling her something else altogether. Something true and earnest. It drifted inside her with every caress, floating down into the deepest part of her heart in a secret whisper.
He didn’t draw back to speak the words aloud. That wasn’t his way. But she felt the promise in them all the same.
He continued this rare kiss, his fingertips skimming lightly over her buttons as the coolness of the air contrasted with the heat of his touch. Her dress soon became a puddle on the floor, followed an instant later by a ripple of her petticoat and then her chemise.
She was positively shameless. Naked aside from her stockings and slippers, she felt no shyness, only fascination with the ardent hunger in his gaze. And it was because he was looking at her. Her!
“Jane,” he murmured on a hot breath that rushed over the crest of her shoulder and fell lightly against one pale pink nipple. It pebbled against the airy sensation. He cursed in appreciation and this breath took the same path, too, drawing her flesh tighter still, her small breasts feeling heavy and ripe. “You are a living fantasy. I don’t even know where to begin because I want all of you at once.”
“Hold that thought, glutton,” she teased, lifting her hand to his cravat. “After all, if you’re planning to be thorough, then so am I.”
Though, having little experience with undressing a male over the age of four, she fumbled a bit with untying the length of raw silk. His coat was slightly damp, and only then did she hear the soft pattering on the glass.
“You rode in the rain,” she said inanely, blinking up at him with worry. “You must be dreadfully cold.”
Though he didn’t appear cold at all with the slashes of burnished color over the crests of his cheeks and bridge of his nose. And his gaze smoldered down at her when he said, “Then you’d best make haste to get these wet togs off.”
She did her best. But the tailored superfine wool clung to his broad shoulders and the sleeves turned inside out along the way. She unfastened the buttons of his waistcoat and leaned forward to nudge the garment down his arms. Then she gasped as her nipples grazed his shirt, the linen abrading the sensitive rosebud flesh into taut peaks.
He grinned against her lips at her discovery. His hands splayed over her back to draw her flush against him, teaching her the delicious lesson of contrasting textures of fabric against bare skin.
“Oh, I quite like that,” she breathed, rubbing her shivering flesh against the warmth rising through his clothes.
On a low growl, he swiftly stripped out of his shirtsleeves, letting them fall unheeded to the floor. She nearly chided him for skipping through one part of her research, but then he gathered her back into his arms and . . . oh, sweet anatomy!
He was so firm where she was soft. So enticingly coarse where she was smooth. The dark furring of crisp, springy hairs across his chest abraded her nipples to pleasure-stung peaks that sent a quickening to her womb.
“You should have told me about this. Had I known, I might have stripped you from your clothes while you were still pink,” she rasped huskily, inhali
ng the delicious spice of his neck as he tilted her head back to take her mouth again.
He smirked as his fingertips skimmed over her shoulder blades, along her spine and over the ample globes of her buttocks, arousing her in gently gripping passes. “My naughty little professor.”
She felt the hardness of him pressed thickly against her middle, and she slid her hands down his torso on a slow exploration to the waist of his trousers. But she paused along the way to appreciate the firm breadth of his chest, sliding her fingers through the fascinating curls. His brown nipples hardened to taut discs beneath the attention of her lips. And the muscles along his abdomen quivered slightly as she splayed both hands over him and slid around to his narrow, tight waist.
Unable to help herself, she pressed her nose against the fine trail of hair dusting his stomach, above and below his navel. She breathed in the intoxicating scent of male skin and heat and musk. And since she was already there, she peppered his flesh with kisses.
His hands caressed her shoulders and arms and ribs, and stole underneath to cup her breasts. She straightened then, arching into his palms, breathless and greedy. Fascinated, she watched as his thumbs gently circled her nipples, every rotation exciting the pulse between her thighs as if connected by the same mechanism.
“I’m positively shameless. In all the novels I’ve read about women suffering scandalous male advances, they always faint to save their virtue.”
His lips rasped against the shell of her ear, nuzzling gently into her loose curls. “If you want to save your virtue, you’d better tell me quick.”
“I wouldn’t dream of asking you to stop. Not when I’m thrumming from head to toe and waiting to become a firework again.” She knew she sounded wanton but she didn’t care, not even when he chuckled. “I’m simply wondering why they never write novels where the heroine is brave and admits that she is curious, too.”
He nipped at her earlobe as her hands drifted to his fastenings. “I knew from the moment we met that your curiosity would be my undoing.”
She blushed at the compliment. Then, without even looking, the buttons slipped free. She was amazed at her own deftness. And as she turned her head to press her lips to his, she let the fall front . . . fall.
The heavy heat of him reared out through the opening and lay thickly against her belly. He snaked an arm around her slender waist and pulled her firmly against him, biting out her name on a groan of unabashed pleasure.
She pushed away, but only far enough to steal between their bodies, to find and explore the silken flesh. His phallus was fascinating and hot. She ran the tip of her inquisitive fingers along the granite-hard column, sensing the rush of scorching blood inside the engorged tissue. Her small ivory hand investigated his dusky length, the thick veined shaft and mushroomed head. Then her thumb rolled over the glistening bead resting at the top. She heard his breath shudder, felt it flow through her in throbbing, liquid beats.
“You’re wet, too,” she whispered, but soon found herself lifted off her feet.
He enfolded her against him as he laid her back on the chaise longue, his hands coasting over her body, touching, teasing, stirring. However, when she moved to reciprocate, he issued a short grunt, took both her wrists in one hand and lifted her arms above her head.
“Did I do something incorrectly?” she asked.
Poised over her, he shook his head in a brush against her lips. “No, Jane. In fact, you’ve been an exemplary pupil. You’ve earned the high marks for today and now it’s time for your reward.”
“Then I want to touch you more.”
“If you do, then our lesson will end far, far too soon,” he said with a rueful smirk. Then gazed down on her with something akin to wonderment, his free hand tracing the wispy arc of her brow, the slope of her nose and the outline of her lips. “You’re always surprising me, you know. I think that’s just one of the reasons.”
“One of the reasons for what?”
He answered her in a kiss—a kiss that was apparently meant to obliterate her ability to think because that’s precisely what it did.
She didn’t bother to struggle against the hand that kept hers locked above her head. She simply gave herself over to the pleasure of his touch as he navigated every slope, curve, and contour of her body until she was writhing beneath him, urging his palm to cup her sex. And then he did. His hand was a welcome shield against her, his fingertips teasing softly through her damp curls.
She wanted that sweet explosion. Wanted to feel the plunge of his finger stroke the slippery, sensitive lining of her walls.
“Please,” she begged against his lips as his finger caressed and teased her into a frenzy.
“All in good time.” Then he withdrew, and nudged her thighs apart, settling the heavy weight of his erection between them. She tried to slip out of his grip, to guide him back to where she wanted him, but he chided her with a nip on her chin. “But first, clasp your hands together and keep them up here for me, hmm?”
She pursed her lips in speculation. “Will I like this lesson as much as the other one?”
“Even more,” he promised, rewarding her acquiescence with a wet kiss . . . on her breast, and flashed a wicked grin when she gasped.
He gave ample attention to both her breasts, teasing them to sensitive peaks before blowing a cool stream of his breath over the budded, damp flesh. She quivered, the sensations throbbing low between her thighs. If he continued like this, she might have her explosion without even having the aid of his hand.
She whimpered in protest when he stopped that, too.
But then she forgot all about her pique when he began trailing hot kisses down her body and she felt the glide of his tongue circumnavigate the rim of her navel.
Lifting her head, she watched him with fervent curiosity as he descended further. But the lower he went, the harder it was for her to catch her breath. Her stomach issued a nervous shudder and he laid a soothing hand over her as he blew gently into the triangular thatch of sable curls.
“What precisely do you intend to—ohhh.”
He nuzzled brazenly into her sex. Breathing in deeply, his eyes closed on a low, prolonged growl that vibrated to her core.
She gasped from the yearning he created. She was so taut and eager and lust-addled that she thought nothing of his broad shoulders prodding her legs further apart. She simply obeyed. Her eyelids felt heavy as she watched his dark head poised at her sex.
Holding her gaze, he opened his mouth over her. Then his tongue slid along the seam of her flesh in one . . . slow . . . lick.
“Mine,” he murmured savagely against the tender crevice, laying claim to that part of her as well.
The warmth of his mouth settled over her again in a deep, indecent and thorough kiss. She blushed even as her body arched against the swirling of his tongue and the slow, tender suction. She trembled, her hips tilting of their own accord. He slid his hands underneath her. Lifting her off the chaise, he feasted, his tongue sliding in long wet strokes, mouth suckling in tight controlled swirls.
She gripped the curved molding above her head. Her back arched, hips hitching against the undulations of his tongue. A quickening rush danced through every nerve ending, ready to erupt.
Strangled sounds escaped from her throat in soft moans and pleas. Jane never knew anything could feel like this. The scientist in her couldn’t be bothered to think about research at the moment. Her inner scribe was fanning herself with blank pages. But the artist on her portico had a series of very scandalous paintings underway.
“Raven,” she rasped, hoping to convey how much she needed him . . . to stay right there . . . always. He seemed to want her complete surrender and he had it. She was his.
Then he slowly slid a finger inside her and she spasmed at once in a choked explosion, every limb tightening. Her skin tingled in a cool rush on the surface, a cascade of molten heat below. Her womb clenched and quivered. Her inner muscles gripped him greedily, trying to drag him deeper.
The
next thing she knew, her thrumming body was gathered into his arms as he pressed wild, urgent kisses over her brow and nose and cheeks. She felt his body tremble with the intensity of his desire. The vibrations brought her to the awareness of his unassuaged erection. It felt even more imposing now as it prodded thickly against the tender, swollen niche.
But he did not thrust inside her. Not yet. He drew in a breath, exhaling it slowly against her temple. Then he eased his mouth over hers and lingered for endless minutes.
Tasting a salty essence that wasn’t there before, she blushed. This was her. Even after all the intimacies they’d shared, she was shocked by this discovery while, at the same time, it caused a new ripple of arousal to quicken her womb.
She sighed, wrapping her arms around his neck. “If I didn’t love you before, I would most definitely love you now.”
Electrified silver filaments gleamed in his eyes as he gazed down at her beneath the drowsy hood of his dark lashes. And he kissed her again as his hot, hard flesh nudged her. But the snug entrance did not yield immediately. It teased them both in promising throbs and residual pulses, leaving her panting. Even so, she liked the feel of him there against her sex, the weight of his body over hers. The comfort of his surrounding embrace.
He soothed her in slow passes, his hands skimming down every curve and into every hollow. He urged her knees up against his hips, first one, then the other. Open for him, she felt the broad head of his erection pass between her labia, and it excited her to feel that he was bathed in her own warm fluids.
He inched inside. His breath hitched and he cursed, murmuring against her lips about how soft she was. How much he wanted her. Needed her. Only her. And her heart rejoiced. But her body barely yielded before it closed around the thick flesh, pushing against the invasion.
He withdrew and took the bolster pillow, positioning it beneath her hips. Then he settled over her and kissed her again, teasing her mouth as he edged inside her body in a series of slow, shallow thrusts.
My Kind of Earl Page 26