“In me.” She added gentle pressure to his scrotum. “Now.”
His hips jerked in response to her brazen touch, and then his mouth curled in a sinister snarl.
“You little minx.”
With a guttural growl, he grabbed her hips, and needed no guidance to find his way to where she wanted him. She inhaled, startled.
Had it been so long, that she’d forgotten how it felt, so tight and full, or was Mr. Banner just...bigger?
“My,” she gasped as he continued to push in. He stalled.
“Am I hurting you?” His gaze was no longer diamond hard and predatory but concerned.
“No.” She gave a little shake of her head. “It’s just been a long time. I...I forgot what it was like.”
He nodded. “Me, too.”
Maybe it was the softness of his tone or the sincerity of his words, but tears sprang to her eyes. She closed them then, not wanting to ruin the moment, and, hooking her ankles behind his back, arched her hips upwards and drove him in until she felt the tip of his cock against her womb, the firmness of his ball sac against her skin.
“Please go on,” she murmured. “And don’t stop. Whatever you do, don’t stop.”
She kept her eyes closed, fighting a bizarre urge to weep as he began to move, slowly, deliberately, deliciously. Each thrust and withdrawal was an artist’s brush stroking red and orange, white and blue, all the incendiary colours of a flame as he stoked her temperature higher and higher with commanding, relentless friction.
He shifted a hand to cup one of her buttocks, and with his other hand found her nub with his thumb.
“Oh!” she cried, as the delectable internal combustion she’d sought burst within her like a million tiny suns exploding. She dug her heels in, forcing him deeper, at the same time holding him fast with her thighs as she contracted around his length with agonising strength, brutal force she’d never before experienced. “Oh... oh... oh!”
He dropped to brace an elbow on the mattress and capture her mouth with his as he drew a knee on to the bed and, gripping her buttock with his free hand, increased his tempo. Harder, deeper, faster.
“Christ,” he cried out a moment later as he surged backwards and then forward at an angle to land on his side and direct his warm seed onto her abdomen. “Christ,” he whispered, head bowed to her shoulder as his hips bucked. “Jesus. Fucking. Christ.”
An exultant laugh burbled up her throat without warning. She clutched him as he shuddered, his lean muscled body taut as a bow drawn to it limit. Then he collapsed, half on and half off of her. She might have feared he had died if not for his ragged breathing and the thunderous hammer of his heart striking so hard in his chest it resonated in hers like a twin heart.
Biting her lip, she threaded her fingers through his thick hair and angled a kiss on his crown before falling back, physically drained and emotionally replete. Jubilant. Tingling with satisfaction and not a little womanly pride.
The movement sent a trickle of his still-warm seed over her side where it seeped damply into the bedclothes at her back, reminding her of his heroic effort to withdraw from her before his release—his Herculean effort to prevent getting her with any unwanted child.
Covering her face with her hands, she burst into tears.
Chapter 28
Time and Reason
JOE PUSHED UP ON AN elbow.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
Hands over her face, she shook her head.
He shifted off of her, his concern and confusion escalating when she curled on her side and tucked her knees to her chest. Moving to lie behind her, he drew her into his arms.
“Did I hurt you?” he murmured.
“No,” she rasped. “Not you.”
“Are you upset we—”
“No.” She rolled to look at him, green eyes watery and cheeks splotched. “Not at all. You didn’t hurt me. It’s...nothing. I should go—” She made to sit up, but he caught her around the waist.
“Don’t go,” he said softly. “Please. I understand. We’re both...rusty. Some unexpected emotion is not unusual.”
She closed her eyes, and fresh tears leaked down her cheeks.
“Stay. Please.”
She inhaled a jerky breath and then slowly, reluctantly laid back. He grasped a fistful of quilt to draw it over her, hoping to warm her and stem her shivering.
Her knot of hair had come undone during their exertions, and fiery ringlets bunched and roiled like unspooled satin ribbons under her head.
He lifted a few coiling tendrils from her neck and ear, intending to kiss her jaw, but she turned to him. Hauling her close against his chest, he rested his chin on her head and held her as her sobs deepened, a mournful sound that cracked his heart.
Whatever wasn’t hurting her, hurt a lot.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “This isn’t your fault. You were wonderful. It’s just...I... I’ve never—”
Never what?
His pulse quickened, and he racked his mind, trying to remember exactly how it had felt when he’d entered her.
She couldn’t possibly still be a virgin after two husbands, could she?
“I’ve never experienced it like that.” Awe, or guilt, chafed her voice. “I never liked it like that.”
Definitely guilt.
He pressed a kiss to her forehead.
“You did nothing wrong,” he murmured into her hair. “Nothing. Liking it like that is a good thing. The best thing.”
She angled a look at him, lashes damp and green eyes doubtful, shadowed by some emotion yet unidentifiable to him. “Really? Because it scared me, too. It was so...strong. You were so strong. Yet I didn’t want it to end. I didn’t want you to stop. I wanted it to go on forever.”
He might have allowed himself to preen in the glow of her complimentary if faintly remorseful admission were it not for guilt ballooning to quash his pride.
Any fear she’d felt was his responsibility. He’d acted almost savage, throwing her on the bed to plunge his cock into her without thought to her pleasure. It was only his selfish desire to torture her and make her beg for mercy—draw out the fantasy he’d been spinning in his mind since he’d first imagined letting down her thick hair and running his fingers through it as he now rubbed a silken section between thumb and forefinger, that kept him in check.
Not strength. Not consideration. Not integrity. Not anything wonderful. Just greed. Sadistic selfishness born of an indescribable want to possess her, a feeling not lessened, but exacerbated, by having succeeded.
Already he wanted her again, his cock hard and ready where it nestled between their bodies.
“It was wonderful for me, too,” he said, his voice a raw whisper. “I didn’t want it to end, either.”
I don’t want it to end now.
He couldn’t fathom this being his only chance to hold her, inhale her sweet jasmine scent, caress her velvet skin, taste her luscious mouth, suckle her rosebud nipples, and fall into the emerald depths of her clear green eyes. She was, quite possibly, the most complex, intoxicating, and intriguing woman he’d ever had fortune to know.
Something tugged in his chest, gratitude catching on regret, knowing he had judged her unfairly before ever having laid eyes on her. And even after he had. But now he knew that the iron façade she presented sheltered a tender, tender heart.
She was determined to honour her late husband—his friend—by learning how to keep the plantation viable for the future. More, she was determined to improve the circumstances of those whom she could as easily dismiss and replace as invite in for tutoring. She was even willing to learn a language she didn’t need and likely would never use except to assist Maisie’s education. If that wasn’t enough, she had no patience for fraud, or for fools, especially fraudulent fools like Barrister and Esther Griffiths, and that alone made him want to kiss her. Every tantalisingly succulent, strawberry sweet, petite square inch of her. But combined with what she wanted for Sugar Hill and for Maisie?
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She was exactly the reason he was still a bachelor despite being a tenured father. Because, until that moment, there hadn’t been another woman like her, one he could envision making his wife and, more importantly, Maisie’s mother.
And you can’t have her. You’re an indulgence. Paid help. A scratching tool for her widow’s secret itch.
Still, he couldn’t summon strength to roll away, to draw her from his bed and into her nightdress and back up to her room.
He wanted to freeze the moment, keep them there in an endless sensual loop, pungent with the heat and musk of their coupling, surviving on only what they could share with their bodies until they wasted away, locked in each other’s arms.
Now who’s the fool?
Her eyes widened as she returned his lingering gaze. Then she licked her lips, a hasty, furtive move that for some reason made him think of a mouse freezing in a barn cat’s shadow, and it roused his passion.
Even knowing he would never have her in the long term, he wanted to feast, lick and taste, nibble, and suck for as long as she allowed it. It was all he could do to not crush his mouth to hers, release the curling lock of her hair he was toying with, cup the shorter springy curls between her legs, slide a finger inside her—
He sat up and, caging the urge, slid from the bed and stalked to the washstand, where he filled the basin and dipped a washcloth.
Returning to her, he studiously ignored his raging cock-stand as he carefully cleansed her abdomen and waist, paying careful attention to her belly button to ensure none of his sticky seed remained.
She had risen to her elbows when he’d abruptly left the bed to stare after him in surprise, and now she watched him silently from beneath red-gold lashes.
He felt her gaze on his face, curious and assessing, before dipping lower, still curious, still assessing, and willed himself to pretend he wasn’t self-conscious about his naked body or bouncing erection as he gently wiped and dabbed the glistening evidence of his passion from her pale skin. When he was done and made to turn away with the cloth, she grasped his wrist.
“Let me.”
She smiled when he frowned, and, plucking the cloth from his hand, she scooted from the bed and strolled to the washbasin.
He stared, hypnotised by her slender hourglass figure and alabaster-smooth skin, her long red hair spiralling like rivulets of red wine into the hollow of her back above firm, pale, half-moon buttocks balanced on shapely legs.
She rinsed and wrung the cloth and, turning around, strolled back, an impish gleam in her eyes, a dangerous smile on her mouth. He almost bit his lip through when she stopped, and closed the cool cloth around his swollen rod.
He shuddered as she carefully, and thoroughly, and infinitely slowly, cleansed his length all the way from the tip to his ball sac, and beneath. Fists clenched, eyes closed, he fought the beast howling within him urging him to take her again.
He’d scared her once. He’d not do it again—
“Jesus,” he blurted when she knelt and kissed the tip of his cock. He grappled for handfuls of her hair, intending to discourage her.
“No,” she said. “My turn.”
Tipping his head back, he prayed for strength as she cradled his cock in her hands and gently blew on the tip.
He lost all sense of place, and time, and reason, as she slid the pad of her thumb over the head of his penis, gently gliding it around using the seepage from his cock until he quivered, muscles rock hard with the strain of withholding his orgasm. But when she took him in her mouth, he lost it.
Her skull firmly but gently gripped with his fingertips, he anchored himself without directing her movements.
She needed no direction. In fact, she seemed to know exactly how to drive him mad with torturous pleasure.
Who’s the sadist now?
The thought was barely through his mind when he convulsed, his knees canting as he tried to shove her away too late.
To his surprise, she didn’t leap up and express disgust or rush to rinse her mouth with water or wine, but instead angled her head aside as she brought the cloth up to capture the remainder of his seed while she pressed her cheek to his groin. When the last of the tremors jerking his hips subsided, he sagged in relief and, drawing breath, forced open his eyes to find her gazing at him with the same impish look she’d given him earlier.
“I always wondered what that might be like,” she said.
He stared. “That was—”
“My first time?” she finished for him. Smiling, she accepted his help to get to her feet. “Marriage is no guarantee of sexual literacy, Mr. Banner,” she said and dabbed the corner of her mouth with her index finger. “Which I am only now, to my horror and poignant delight, discovering.”
She started to turn away, but he caught her and held her to him. She tipped her head back to frown at him and lifted the damp washrag that dangled from her fingers.
“The cloth—”
“Forget it,” he said taking it from her to chuck it the approximate direction of the washstand. “And call me Joe.”
Then he kissed her, hard.
MARGARET CUPPED HER wine glass against her bosom and closed her eyes, revelling in the cosy feel of his arm around her and the warmth of their intertwined legs. Any intent she’d had to get dressed and return to her chamber had burned to ash when he threw the rag and kissed her.
There’d been so much command and possession in the kiss, and in the way he’d told her to call him Joe, that she lost all interest in anything but submission to the clarion call of passion. To him.
So, when he deepened the kiss and laid her upon the bed, she opened herself to him, all of herself, unable—unwilling—to deter his explorations.
Who was she fooling? She hadn’t wanted to stop him. Hadn’t wanted it to stop. Didn’t want it to stop. Ever.
It felt too good, too right, his tongue laving and teeth nibbling as he suckled and probed her to another teeth-grinding orgasm. It felt even better afterwards, when he tucked her into his bed and, after pouring them each a drink—wine for her, whisky for him—climbed in next to her. He hauled her against him and nuzzles her hair, tracing his fingers lightly up her arm and over her clavicle while they reclined against each other, propped on pillows, the mirror on the wall opposite replaying each languid stroke of his hand and sip of wine or whisky. It felt better than good.
It felt wondrous.
She sighed, content not to speak but to simply enjoy his company, as he seemed at peace to indulge in hers.
Lulled by the solid thump of his heart and gentle graze of his hand along her skin, she rejoiced in the private pleasure of knowing she had surprised—and pleased him—yet again.
Lifting the glass to her mouth, she edged out another sip without raising her head and rolled the tartly sweet liquid around in her mouth before swallowing.
He had tasted salty but not unpleasant as she might have expected. At least not horridly so.
It wasn’t a taste she was keen to indulge in daily, but on occasion...She slurped another mouthful of wine.
“Oops.” She sat up to wipe her chin and then grabbed a section of sheet to dab at his chest—and halted. Smiling at him, she held out her wine glass. He frowned, but accepted it, and chuckled when she bent to clean up the mess she’d made...with her tongue. Tilting to kiss him, she lingered, lips brushing his.
“I hate it when I spill good wine,” she murmured.
“Do you?” His eyes sparked with amusement. “Because you seem quite pleased with yourself.”
“Hmm.” She sank to her side to resume snuggling with him and reclaimed her wine glass. “I am.”
He chuckled again, the sound deep and resonant in his chest. “You should be. You’re a talented woman.”
The words didn’t inspire the pride in herself she suspected he’d intended. Instead, she wondered exactly how he found her talented: as a whole, or only naked and in his arms?
And why the hell did it matter what he thought? This was but a fli
rtation. An opportunity for them each to meet a need. He was a man. She was woman. Adam and Eve sharing an apple.
So why did it no longer feel simple or sweetly tart but like she could never—would never—again be satisfied with only a bite?
She wanted the whole damn pie.
No. That could not happen. She’d had her chance, twice, and ended up in a barrel of rotten fruit. She’d not fail and fall in thrice.
She arched away from him to finish her wine and then used the empty glass as an excuse to clamber from the bed.
He tossed the covers off his body. “I’ll get it—”
“I’ve got it.” She abandoned the glass on the desk to grasp her nightgown from the floor where it had ended up.
“If you’re cold, climb back in here with me, and I’ll warm you up.” Though offered in jest, she noted a hint of disappointment—concern—underpinning his words.
She pulled the nightdress on, and when safely within its shelter from ruffled neckline to bare toes, she forced herself to look at him and smile.
“It’s late,” she said. “I should get back to my chamber before Maisie or Miss Lisette, or anyone else, awakes.”
He glanced at the small clock on the desk.
“It’s not yet midnight.” Exiting the bed, he reached for her. “As long as I have you back in your bed before dawn, no one will know.”
She avoided his touch by turning and grabbing her dressing gown off the desk chair. Sliding her arm into the sleeve, she paused, her gaze catching on a pair of envelopes tucked between the desk lamp’s brass base, and the wall. One was the familiar yellow of Western Union Telegraph, and it had been slit open. The other, a cream envelope, was personalised stock and, from the looks of it, still sealed.
A quick scan of the desk revealed a portion of telegraph paper jutting out from beneath Mr. Banner’s stacked dinner plates. The message was obscured by the fine porcelain’s gold-rimmed and fluted edge, but the sender’s initials were visible: A. L.
She stiffened as Mr. Banner came up behind her, and relaxed when he only made to help her into her rail. But when he attempted to smooth her hair aside, likely intending to land a kiss on her nape, she faced around and, keeping her head bent, secured the dressing gown’s ties. Looking up, she met his bewildered and faintly hurt frown with a conciliatory smile.
My One True Love Page 26