“Exquisite,” Jeremy said, his teeth nipping her right toes. “Were I a shoemaker, I would weep with joy to make shoes for this foot.”
Betsy began giggling, joy mixed with burning desire, which came back as if it hadn’t been quenched by mortification.
One rough hand circled her ankle. “Remember when Thaddeus proposed and your panniers flew up in the billiard room?”
“Uh,” she gasped, because his other hand was tracing a slow caress up the inside of her thigh.
“I could see your ankles from my chair in the corner,” Jeremy said, punctuating his words with kisses on her legs. “I nearly lunged out of my chair to smash Thaddeus in the jaw for being within eyesight of these ankles.”
“You did?” She raised her head and stared at him.
His mouth twisted ruefully. “Never underestimate a man’s primitive nature. If Thaddeus hadn’t instantly turned his head away, like the excellent gentleman he is, he would have had a black eye the next day.”
“I had no idea,” Betsy gasped.
“I tried to convince myself that my outrage was on behalf of your brothers. That I was merely a proxy for North.”
“North wouldn’t have paid any attention to my ankles,” Betsy pointed out.
“I couldn’t look away. The idea that any other man might share the pleasure swamped me with rage.”
His eyes holding hers, he slid both hands up her legs. “Remember when I told you that going to war burned the gentleman out of a man?”
She half gasped, half laughed. “Not true?”
“Very true. In proof whereof, you are here with me, in this bed, at night, about to be ravished, our marriage about to be consummated, though we are not yet betrothed.”
He dropped his head and kissed her thigh. Her inner thigh.
Betsy closed her eyes, embarrassment striking a blow again. With his face so close to her leg, he could see her most private parts. They should be making love under the sheets in the dark. She should hold herself still instead of quivering at every touch of his lips. Her legs went rigid.
“Bess,” he said, his voice encouraging.
“Just give me a moment,” she said, her mind rabbiting in fearful circles. “I just need to . . .”
“That’s not important,” he said. “Not between us, Bess.” But he ran his hands down to her ankles in silent, tacit acceptance of whatever she decided.
Betsy closed her eyes, listening to the sound of his breath.
If he was no gentleman, then she was no lady. At least when they were together.
She would never leave him; she knew that with every instinct she had. He was her Prussian, not her duke. Shared pleasure wouldn’t change her character and turn her to a faithless woman. Still, she had to conquer this insidious fear or she would diminish his pleasure.
“How did you know what I was feeling?” She propped herself up on her elbows, curiosity trumping mortification.
“I know you,” he said, pressing a kiss on her left knee. His hair slid over her bare skin, making her shake. His hands traced higher, caressing the sensitive skin of her inner thighs.
Betsy sank into mindless need, raw desire. She wanted him to move his hands higher. She wanted his lips to touch her thighs, and higher. She even wanted him to look at her.
To lick her.
Men and women did that service for each other, and according to the ceiling of the auction house, cherubs were intoxicated by the act.
“Are you planning to kiss me, ah, intimately?” she whispered.
“I was.” He met her eyes, the hunger in his making her dizzy. “We can wait until you are more accustomed to bedding.”
“I would like to kiss you that way,” she said, the words stumbling out of her mouth.
He froze, his fingers tightening on the full curve of her upper thighs. It gave her courage, because his eyes didn’t look scandalized. Quite the opposite.
“We don’t have any pillowy clouds,” she said. “I’d like to act out any number of angelic postures.” She began to sit up. “In fact—”
“No.” His hands slid forward, pinning her legs to the bed.
She cocked an eyebrow. “Dictatorial, are we?”
“Always, in the bedchamber.” He said it without apology, although he added, “If I do something you don’t care for, tell me.”
“Those two statements are in opposition,” she teased.
He growled and then rose on his hands and knees and moved to kiss her. Breathless moments later, Betsy returned to sanity to find she was shaking with impatience and muttering pleas under her breath.
A half hour later, after Jeremy had reacquainted himself with her breasts, and began leaving kisses on the curve of her stomach, her pleas were breathless.
“Couldn’t we do that later?” she begged, looking down without a shred of embarrassment at the man who had positioned himself between her legs, and was doing things with his thumbs that made her breath catch and turn to cries.
Proving her own courage, to herself and to him, she put it in words: “I’d be happy now to find myself deflowered.”
He glanced up, eyes full of wicked laughter. “You’re rushing your fences, Bess.” Holding her gaze, he leaned forward just enough to lick her. A long, slow, lap.
Betsy tried to keep her mouth closed, but a needy whimper escaped her.
“You taste wonderful,” Jeremy said, his voice guttural.
She fell back, shaking, and put an arm over her eyes. He was holding her legs apart so he could lick her. She’d never felt anything so acutely in her life. Shudders wracked her body, and when one of his fingers slid inside, she called his name, clenching tightly around his finger, her legs restlessly moving against the sheets.
“What did you say?” Jeremy asked.
She dropped her arm and gasped, “More.”
“Like this?”
He eased a second finger inside her and she arched her back, breath shuddering in her chest, pushing against his hand because it wasn’t enough.
Jeremy said something in a low growl and his fingers slipped from her. She cried out, reaching down for him, but suddenly he was there, above her, and in a single, smooth stroke, he slid home.
For one moment, Betsy went still around him, her eyes widening with surprise. He was so much larger than his fingers.
“It doesn’t hurt,” she said, shocked. And again: “It doesn’t hurt.”
She daringly bumped her hips upward because he was still, his eyes searching hers.
“No?”
That joyful smile again, the one that she saw so rarely.
“Time to try for more than not hurting,” he muttered.
In answer, she nudged him again, her body burning to feel more. He drew back and claimed her again with a devastating thrust that brought fire in its wake.
A groan tore from his lips. “You feel . . . Bess, love, I’ve never felt anything like you.”
She tried to answer but words didn’t seem to have a part in a world narrowed to sweaty limbs and sobbing breaths.
He withdrew and thrust again. Betsy arched up, clinging to his shoulders, sucking in air, writhing in an attempt to get closer. She felt graceless and desperate, uncertain how to play her part.
He grabbed one of her knees and pulled it against his side, showing her. She was completely open to his every stroke now, and each made fire lick through her.
How could she ever have imagined she could lie still while making love? Every thrust made her nerves dance, and as he fell into a smooth rhythm, pushing deep inside her and then withdrawing, she kept shifting her hips upward, hanging on to him.
Behind her closed eyes, relentless pleasure was building like water trapped behind a dam, so ferocious that she was almost frightened.
“I’ve never felt like this,” Jeremy rasped, his lips brushing hers. “You were made for me. We were made for this.”
Betsy kissed him back, her hips rising to meet his thrusts, ragged cries escaping her lips. His movements were sm
ooth and relentless while her hands flew over all the parts of his body she could reach, caressing him, loving him.
Still the pleasure built and built, until the moment came when the dam cracked and broke. He bent his head just in time and his lips covered hers, his hips moving faster and harder. Her fingers dug into his shoulders as waves of pleasure shook through her body.
She came back to herself, finding that sweat had slicked the backs of her legs and her body was shaking.
Jeremy was braced above her, his shoulders gleaming with sweat. He smiled at her, eyes slumberous, heavy lidded. “That looked like fun.”
His voice sounded as if he was barely holding himself in check. Betsy had a sudden realization that Jeremy never let himself go. Perhaps that’s why he gave way when fireworks exploded around him.
No, that was too simple.
“Rapture,” she whispered. She turned her head and rubbed her cheek against his sweaty shoulder because tears were misting in her eyes. “I love you,” she whispered. She wrapped her arms around him and then, daringly, her legs, and let her head fall back so their eyes could meet. “You feel so hard, and so right that I ache.”
His eyes flickered.
“In the best way,” she amended throatily.
He dipped his head and gave her a greedy kiss. The lovely sense of relaxation she had felt seeped away as delicious lightning crept back.
Jeremy began moving faster and then faster, his jaw clenched. Betsy tried to stifle wanton sounds by kissing his shoulders and his neck, but she ended up licking his sweat, and that made her moan. He somehow moved harder and faster until she clung to him with everything she had.
Their bodies moved as one, breaths shuddering, eyes locked on each other.
“Damn it, I love you,” Jeremy whispered, his voice strained and harsh.
She would have smiled. She would have answered in kind, or thanked him, or . . . something. Instead, she watched as his eyes closed, head rearing back, his breath hoarse. Something ferocious, delicious slammed through her.
He waited, sweat glistening on his face, cheekbones tight, until Betsy lay beneath him dazed with pleasure.
Then he caught her hips, pulling them up to him.
Letting go with a hoarse shout.
Chapter Twenty-two
Jeremy woke from sleep with a tingle of alarm. Dawn was creeping into the chamber, which was nothing unusual: He often watched the sky turn rosy in the morning.
Then his mind cleared and memories flooded back: the way Betsy’s hair fell around his face the second time they made love, when he coaxed her into sitting on him, the moment when she decided to play a naughty Cupid and licked him until he shuddered uncontrollably, hoarse groans erupting from his throat because the ache in his loins ruled him. That and the light in Betsy’s eyes that said she wanted him with no regard to his title, or his shame.
For a few minutes he savored that memory, letting healing grace settle into his bones. He had a wife (almost). And . . . thinking of the night, and his utter disregard for condoms, children. Possibly children. Probably children, given that she had sobbed his name, and then breathlessly told him that she wanted to spend every night like this.
Yes, children.
A girl with Wilde eyebrows and a naughty giggle. A boy . . . a future marquess.
Grégoire had scarcely disguised his disappointment when Jeremy returned from war unscathed. He wouldn’t welcome the children. Perhaps Grégoire, in his resentment, had spread rumors about Jeremy’s supposed cowardice on the battlefield.
He could imagine the kindling fury in Betsy’s eyes if he ever shared that suspicion. She already didn’t like his cousin. Grégoire wouldn’t be invited to Lindow for Christmas.
But Jeremy would. He had a family now. And he had his father, too.
Perhaps he could talk Betsy into a trip to Gretna Green. Lady Knowe’s scowl came into his head and he retracted the idea.
No Gretna Green.
But he’d be damned if more than one night would pass before he saw that blissful surrender on Betsy’s face again. That meant children would come sooner rather than later. Too bad he’d walked her back to her room—even if it was only next door.
Except when he turned his head . . . there she was. A rumpled pile of silky hair, a sweet upturned nose, an arm flung over her eyes, just as she did when she was trying to hide, to be the demure lady that she wasn’t.
His whole body reacted with a ripple of happiness.
He never intended to love a woman like this, or at all. But there it was. And here she was. He rolled over and slid his hand down her side. She had put on a nightdress before she returned to his bed.
“Betsy,” he said, leaning over to kiss her temple. Her closed eyes. Her rosy lips, pillowy and swollen after a night of kissing.
“Mmm.”
“Queen Bess, you must return to your chamber,” he said, kissing her chin. “Maids will be up and about, if they aren’t already.”
She turned her head away with a muffled protest and then tried to curl her body away from him. Desire was running through him again, a hungry throb. He only had to look at her to have a cockstand. He was fairly sure it would be like this their entire life.
“Queen of my heart,” he whispered, nipping the vulnerable place where her throat met her shoulder.
“Why are you calling me a queen?” Betsy suddenly said, turning toward him.
“You are a queen,” Jeremy said. “For one thing, you made your way into my bed against all propriety, so you clearly intend to change the rules in your kingdom.”
Betsy giggled. “I washed and went to bed, but it was lonely there. So I came back. You were sleeping.”
Jeremy shook his head. “I suppose you take responsibility for that.”
She slid one silky leg forward, over his hip. “Shall I prove it?”
He took a deep breath. “I mean to marry you, tomorrow or next week or whenever your family will give you up, but not in the midst of a scandal.”
“I don’t care if there is one.” Betsy rolled onto her side, her face on one arm, eyes peaceful.
He wanted to ask her more, but the day waited. He cupped her cheek with his hand and said, “I shall tell my father and my cousin today that I mean to marry you.”
Betsy wrinkled her nose. “I don’t like your cousin. I promise to try harder in the future.”
“Grégoire is difficult to like,” Jeremy said. “But he deserves to hear the news from me.”
Betsy scowled. “Why would he assume that he might inherit? Was it so likely you would die on the battlefield?”
“I thought there was a fair chance that I wouldn’t survive. I told him myself that even if I wasn’t killed, I didn’t intend to marry. I meant it . . . then.”
Her mouth softened. “Until I came along?”
“Knocked me down as neatly as you pocket a billiard ball,” he said, lips ghosting over hers. His emotions felt so naked that he had to phrase them as a jest.
Betsy saw through him. Her eyes were misty and she kissed him sweetly. She’d probably always see through him; his days of sardonic commentary were numbered.
“So you inform Grégoire that he needs to give up his dreams of a title, and I will inform Aunt Knowe that we must plan for another wedding,” Betsy said, sometime later. “I must write to Father and Ophelia as well. I’m not sure how long they planned to stay in Scotland, but it’s entirely possible they could get snowed in and stay there for months.”
“Our marriage must happen before spring,” Jeremy said, smoothing the tumbled hair from her brow. “No condom means babies.”
Thankfully, she looked happy at the prospect.
“You’ll only have had one Season,” he said, a qualm striking him.
“I disliked it,” she said flatly. “After I mastered the art of being a damsel, it all became remarkably tedious. If you want to avoid balls, I will never complain.”
“In its original definition, a ‘damsel’ was a virgin,” Jeremy said.
“A docile mouse of a virgin.”
He saw her mouth twitch.
“You are a wild woman, a wild queen. You gave me that, Bess, and it’s the best gift I was ever given.” He let the truth in his words shine in his eyes.
A smile eased her lips, but he wasn’t finished.
“We will make love until we know the feeling of each other’s skin as well as our own. So that we can arouse the other with little more than a kiss. So that the curves of your body are as well known to me as the angles of mine to you.”
He saw her wildness then, proud and true. Sure enough, she reached out and curled her hand tightly around his rigid cock. “You will know the stroke of my fingers as well as your own? Given what you told me about Etonian schoolboys, I will have to practice day and night.”
“I’ll never be satisfied by a solitary pleasure,” he said hoarsely. “Not after this. Not after you.”
“And I feel an ache inside myself, where you belong,” Betsy whispered, caressing him with a slow, tight movement. Her hips swayed, as if touching him was making her squirm with pleasure.
Jeremy swept a hand under Betsy’s nightdress and then around the sweet curve of her hip. Her legs fell apart invitingly. She was satin smooth, plump and wet . . . welcoming.
“I’ve never made love to a woman in the morning,” he whispered.
Her brow darkened. “You will never make love to another woman, morning or night,” she said with a touch of Wilde arrogance.
“That’s true,” he said peacefully. He rolled over and fitted himself to her as readily as an arrow to a bow, poised to fly. “Are you certain you’re not sore, Bess?”
She shifted under him, her hips moving in a hungry language he was beginning to learn. “No,” she said, and then cleared her throat. “Perhaps a little, but I want you . . . Oh!”
He rubbed the blunt head of his cock against her sleek warmth and listened as the breath caught in her throat.
“We can do other things,” he said, registering that his voice had dropped to a hoarse whisper.
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