by Gaelen Foley
“Oh, Jason, I really don’t feel like talking.” She pressed herself against him, running her hand down his side. “Why don’t we get out of these wet clothes, hmm?”
“No—Felicity, there’s something you need to know first. If I don’t tell you now, you’ll be angry at me later,” he said softly, leaning his head back against the door.
She furrowed her brow and looked askance at him. “Very well. What is it?”
He took the towel from her and wiped his hair. The expression on his face alerted her that he was not really keen to impart whatever it was he had to tell her.
“I, er, I made a mistake, Felicity. Well, it’s just…I’m pretty sure I caused a scandal tonight after the ball,” he said. “Concerning us.”
Her eyebrows rose. She took a small step back. “Oh?”
“But maybe it wasn’t really a mistake,” he amended. “Because it seems to have brought so much into crystal-clear focus for me. Things…I didn’t really see before. Wouldn’t let myself see. Like the fact that I’ve been in love with you for as long as I can remember, and that’s the truth.”
She quaked at his darling confession but folded her arms across her chest, searching his face. “What happened, Jason?”
He sighed. “Well, for starters, I got thrown out of my club. After the ball, I mean.”
“For what?”
“Punching a few people. Burning the wager book.”
She arched a brow and searched his face, baffled and slightly amused. “Is that why you were walking in the rain? You were angry at your friends?”
“No, no. Not really. I just needed to think. And I needed to see you.” He hesitated. “You’re not going to like hearing this, I must warn you.”
“All right,” she said cautiously, and waited.
“There were a few chaps speaking about you at the club in a manner I didn’t appreciate. Admirers of yours, of course, but they were being rather too lewd for my liking. And, well, let’s just say all London knows exactly how I feel about you now. Nearly before I did,” he added. “Honestly, I don’t know where it all came from. I just…I heard their crude remarks about you and it seems I went berserk.”
“Oh, Jason, what did you do?” she chided fondly.
“Got into a milling match. Thrashed a few chaps. Got thrashed a bit myself. And like I said, I tossed the club’s betting book into the fireplace. I think I’m blackballed for that, but I’m not entirely sure. Didn’t wait around to find out.”
“You did all that just because of me?” she asked, ridiculously flattered. “Defending my honor?”
He scowled. “You’re missing the point, love. They made a wager over you—who would win you!”
“Me?” she echoed in surprise.
“Yes, you, and I wasn’t going to countenance that! I don’t know what came over me. I suppose…everything I’ve been trying not to feel was just suddenly there. And it all came barreling out in the most…disgraceful fashion,” he said with a wince. “The point is, in hindsight, my reaction may have been worse than the wager itself. That’s why I had to see you tonight. I had to warn you, Felicity. By morning, the whole ton will be gossiping about us, and—me being me—some will probably speculate that we’ve already…you know.”
“Made love?” she whispered in anticipation.
He nodded, and she could see in his eyes that he wanted it as much as she did. Perhaps even more.
But then a worrisome thought managed to pierce through her haze of desire. “So, we have to marry, then? Oh, Jason…” She suddenly closed her eyes. “Please tell me that’s not the only reason you proposed.” She flicked her eyes open in distress. “To shield my reputation? Out of duty? Respect for my brother?”
“No!” he whispered fiercely. He leaned closer and stared hard into her eyes. “Felicity, I’m in love with you. What happened at the club merely forced me to face it. This has nothing to do with your brother; it’s about us. I’m here because you and I belong together. I know that as well as you do, and I’m done hiding from it.”
Relief flowed through her as she held his gaze. How could she be angry at him when he looked at her like that? When he spoke so frankly from the heart?
“I have to thank you for your patience with me,” he continued in a softer tone as he reached for her hand and drew her to him. “It seems some of us males are just too thick or too stubborn to admit how we really feel until it slams us in the face. Literally.”
“Poor thing,” she murmured with a tender smile, lifting her hand to his brow. “Now that you mention it, your left eye does look a little swollen, I think.”
“Kiss it for me,” he mumbled with a playful little sulk. He leaned down to let her brush a very light kiss to his brow, where he had apparently been pummeled.
She shook her head wryly. “I can’t believe you got into a brawl over me. A duke!”
“Dukes get angry, too,” he grumbled.
“You promise you didn’t propose tonight just because you feel obligated?”
“Felicity.” He slid his arms around her waist and gazed into her eyes. “I’m here because I love you and I’ll wither up and die if you don’t marry me.” He lowered his head. “I am sorry I caused a scandal, though.”
She caressed his chest. “Ah, don’t worry, I knew what I was getting into with you, sir. But, really, if they’re going to accuse us anyway, don’t you think we might as well be guilty of the crime?”
“Oh, I agree,” he said, running a hand down her back. “But there is the small matter of your reputation. That is, won’t you be ruined?”
“Hmm, it seems fitting for a girl set to marry the Duke of Scandal.” She chuckled when he grimaced at the nickname. “Darling, first of all, you’re standing in my bedchamber. I’d say I’ve been teetering on ruin since that day in the parlor, and I regret it not a whit.” She bit her lip and smiled at the memory.
As did he.
She walked her fingers down his chest and continued. “Secondly, girls who are engaged to dukes don’t get ruined, you see. It’s socially impossible.”
“It is?”
“Indeed. We’re far too important,” she teased. “As long as your little heir doesn’t arrive too far in advance of the usual nine months—as best I understand it, mind you—dukes and their future duchesses are fairly well immune to such rules.”
“Is that so?” He lowered his head.
She searched his face, noticing the deeper angst that briefly seemed to flit behind his dark eyes. “Jason, what is it?”
“I’m afraid there’s something else I have to tell you.”
She shook her head. “No. No more talking. Take your clothes off, now.”
“I beg your pardon?” he asked abruptly.
“You heard me. As your future wife, I want you out of those wet clothes before you catch your death.”
He narrowed his eyes. “You are a saucy thing, you know that?”
“That’s why you love me,” she said sweetly. “Besides, you need a firm hand.”
“Hmm. I’m beginning to think you know me too well.”
“But not yet in the biblical sense, which I’m very keen to do. Strip, Duke.”
“Yes, ma’am.” A roguish smile spread across his lips as he apparently decided that, whatever else was troubling him, it could wait. They had more pressing matters to attend to. “But, darling, you’re wet, too,” he chided, plucking at her night rail.
When his touch grazed her nipple, both their flirtatious smiles faded. All that was left was the raw need so long denied. He took hold of her elbow and pulled her up against his big, hard body.
She stepped into his arms as his lips swooped down onto hers. His tongue plunged into her open mouth; his hands captured her face, caressed her neck. She grasped the lapels of his ruined black tailcoat and pushed it almost roughly off his shoulders, suddenly trembling with the craving to feel his bare skin against hers.
Likewise inspired, Jason slipped his hand inside the vee-shaped neckline of her ni
ght rail. A pained sound of lust escaped him as he cupped her bare breast in his warm, large hand. Her chest heaved as he fondled her. Kissing him endlessly, Felicity fumbled with the buttons on his waistcoat. Heady moans escaped her as she worked, and before long, she had stripped it off him.
At once, he pulled his damp shirt off over his head. She bit her lip, staring with unabashed pleasure at the muscles rippling down his abdomen. Swept up in her yearning, she indulged herself with kissing his sculpted chest and his quivering stomach while her hand wandered lower.
It was not the first time she had caressed his hardness through his clothing, but tonight, still leaning against her bedroom door, Jason unfastened the placard of his trousers as he went on kissing her, untied his drawers, and gently guided her hand to touch him with no more barrier between them.
She groaned, pausing in kissing him, though his lips still covered hers. She let her fingers run slowly down the towering length of his thick, rigid manhood to its furred root. He dropped his head back against the door with a whispered groan as she wrapped her hand around his shaft and explored in fascination.
All this is supposed to fit inside me? It did not seem possible. And her touch only made him larger, harder, yet clearly gave him profound pleasure. She remembered what he had done to her that day in the parlor and mused on what might happen if she did something similar to him.
Intrigued to find out, she kissed her way down below his navel, going slowly to her knees.
He watched her in the dim candlelight, riveted, encouraging her with a coaxing stroke of his thumb across her swollen lips, parting them.
She obliged him, taking his member into her mouth, as much as she could fit. She had to open wide, but even then, could manage only a few inches of its smooth head. The rest she gripped with her hand. He sank back against the door, uttering an expletive of outrageous bliss as she licked the warm, damp hint of rain off him slowly.
His hands alighted on her head, and he smoothed her hair back from her face, watching her repay the favor with a look of complete intoxication.
“Oh, Felicity, a lady doesn’t do those sorts of things,” he chided breathlessly after a few minutes.
She eased it from her mouth with a naughty little nibble on the tip. “I won’t tell if you won’t.”
He gripped her shoulder. “Come here,” he growled. He lifted her almost roughly to her feet to claim the mouth that had pleasured him.
She thrilled to his demand as he tore her night rail off her.
“Get in the bed,” he ordered. He kicked off his shoes and quickly shed the rest of his clothes while she obeyed.
As she lay down, his blazing stare devoured her waiting, naked body. He wrenched the covers back and slid her under them for warmth. Then he climbed into bed with her, looming above her on all fours.
She arched her back beneath him, trembling as she waited for him to ravish her. She braced herself for the pain that she’d heard could be a part of this, the first time. But perhaps he had read a certain degree of anxiety in her eyes, for he checked his raging passion, and succumbed to a doting half-smile.
“Don’t be nervous. I’ll take good care of you, I promise.”
“I know,” she murmured.
Then he proceeded to kiss his way up and down her body, paying particular attention to her breasts and her belly and the juncture of her thighs, until she writhed with need, clutching the covers and biting back moans that might’ve been loud enough to wake the servants.
“Do you want me now?” he teased at her ear.
“Oh God, Jason, yes.”
She dug her fingers into his back, undulating with impatience. Leaning on his elbows, he kissed her with deep, drugging slowness; she felt him guide his manhood to her teeming core. He began pressing into her, filling her with his splendid incursion.
Felicity paid acute attention to every scintilla of sensation, mesmerized. Her legs wrapped around him with a will of their own.
He laced his fingers through hers, catching her small cry on his tongue as he split the barrier of her maidenhead with a sudden, decisive thrust of his hips.
His whisper was ragged. “Now you’re mine forever.” He cradled her to him in stillness while she absorbed the pain.
In truth, it was very slight, given her crazed desire for him and all her anticipation of this finally happening between them.
“Are you all right, sweeting?” he breathed.
“I think so. Yes.” Her heart thundered against his hot, bare chest.
“We can stop if you—”
“No. I love you, Jason.” She looked up into his eyes. “I’m so glad we’re doing this.”
“Me too. I only wish I would’ve waited for you instead of…the way I’ve been.”
The regret in his gaze made her caress his head and hush him. “I understand, sweeting. You wanted to feel as though somebody loved you, I know. And now you have that.”
He kissed her forehead. “Such an angel you are. Thank you for not giving up on me, Felicity. Do you know how happy you make me? Everything had begun to seem so meaningless, but you make me glad to be alive.”
“Oh, Jason.”
His whispered love words were the sweetest distraction, delighting her away from all the discomfort of how he’d made her bleed.
At length, she kissed his shoulder. Though he had waited patiently, she could feel him throbbing inside her and knew he needed more.
So did she.
She lifted her hips cautiously, signaling to him that she was ready for him to continue her ravishment. He moaned at the reprieve and kissed her in a storm of tender passion. He looked into her eyes as he braced himself on his hands above her.
His dark-eyed gaze was as tempestuous as the night outside as he resumed their candlelit dance with agonizing slowness. Felicity was enraptured; they both savored every pulse-pounding second of their fated joining.
In a growing state of ecstasy, she draped her arms around his broad shoulders as he quickened the pace, panting, his own desire taking hold.
She read the fierce hunger in his stare, his desire to make her his, at last, in every way imaginable. She could feel it in every feverish stroke of his body, so deep and satisfying.
“Mmm.” She closed her eyes, wanting nothing more than to belong to him. I am going to make you so happy, my darling man.
Then all thought dissolved away as the wind gusted and the rain dripped off the roof’s edge, and Jason made love to her in the darkness, coaxing her body toward release. Desperate for him, she encircled him with her arms and legs, her mouth open to his, her heart beating in time with his.
They were one.
“Come for me, Felicity,” he ground out, and with his next smooth thrust, she could do naught but obey.
She gasped and clung to him as he brought her to a shattering climax, then he followed her over the edge with a ragged cry of surrender. Convulsions of wild pleasure racked them both. Nearly sobbing with release, Felicity finally subsided into stillness, and Jason collapsed on top of her, a warm, heavy, delicious weight.
“Ahh,” she sighed at last, kissing his shoulder in sweaty bliss. She could still feel his heart pounding against her.
He smiled down at her for a moment, then kissed her nose and wrapped her in a decidedly possessive embrace. She cuddled against him, unable to wipe the smile of complete satisfaction off her face. This moment was everything she had ever longed for, and as he held her, drifting on a sea of enchantment, she knew that from this night forward, they would always be together.
And her life would never be the same.
CHAPTER 13
Paterfamilias
Experienced as he was in matters of scandal, Jason knew the most important thing was to get out ahead of the gossip. Or if possible, drown it out with an even bigger piece of news.
So the next morning, well before dawn, he immediately went about taking care of the situation, dragging himself away from his future bride’s bed with many kisses and promises to se
e her later in the day.
Then he sneaked out of her house before the servants awoke to start the morning fires.
Borrowing her carriage, he went straight to the newspaper offices on Fleet Street and managed by the slimmest margin to rush their betrothal announcement into the afternoon edition of the newspaper. The morning edition would have been preferable, but it was already on its way out the door.
When Jason got home, he sent a note to the biggest gossips he knew telling them the happy news, and as soon as he had washed up and dressed for the day, he rushed out of the house again, this time for the jewelers, where he got his beautiful fiancée the most obnoxiously large diamond ring he could acquire on such short notice. She might not be able to lift her hand, but he doubted she would mind.
By midday, the ton was in an uproar with the news, and Jason had his whole staff seated around the long dining table, frantically writing out invitations to their engagement party, to be held at Netherford House in a fortnight.
Now the story of how he had burned the club’s betting book and punched several members in the face for their ungentlemanly wager all combined to create an even greater sensation in the eyes of Society.
Naughty Netherford, they said, had fallen madly in love.
And this time, for once, the gossips were right.
“Aha, no wonder you got so angry with us!” one of his club mates said. A few of those involved in the previous night’s antics showed up at his house to tell him he was no longer blackballed, thanks to today’s logical explanation of matters, as well as Rivenwood’s diplomacy.
The daylight also helped to cast a damning glare on the dishonorable behavior of those who made a contest out of bedding the young lady in the first place, now that their wager was exposed. Some of the rakehells at least had the decency to look a little sheepish, and so Jason was vindicated, for once.
“Why didn’t you say anything, ol’ boy?” a few of them exclaimed.
“Well, because it was none of your demmed business, and besides, she hadn’t given me her answer yet,” he lied in a reasonable tone, smiling from ear to ear to know he had finally caught his quarry. Once he had crossed the Rubicon of allowing himself to chase her, the rest had been easy; the decision itself had been the hard part. But it still remained to be seen how her brother would take the news when he returned to Town.