by Colette Gale
But could Zaren forgive her? Did he still want her?
“I love you, Jane.” He seemed to read her mind. “I don’t know what happened with Darkdale and you, but it does not matter to me. I love you. I want you. And…if you want me, I would like to make you Lady Hampstead.” His words sounded extremely stiff and formal, as if he were taking great care to say the correct thing.
“Oh, Zaren. There is nothing that would please me more.” She looked up at him and felt as if she would drown in his eyes. “Let us never be separated again.”
“Never.”
— XIV—
Two weeks later
The moment Zaren climbed into the carriage after Jane, he bundled her into his arms.
“Hello, my darling Lady Hampstead,” he said, for they had just been married in a small, unassuming church. No one had been in attendance except for Effie, Everett, and some close friends of the Clemonses. “Now you are officially my mate, and you cannot find any excuse to leave me.”
“As if I would need one.” She giggled when he slid a hand over her breast, and then began to try and free it from its confines.
When he found it too complicated, he gave up in disgust. “I suppose we shall have to wait until we get home.”
But Jane would have none of it. She gathered up the wild mass of her skirts and petticoats, opened the slit in her drawers, and freed him from his very correct—and now very tight—trousers.
“See, my darling husband? There is always a way.” She slid down over his hard, ready cock and closed her eyes in bliss.
There was nothing, absolutely nothing like having the man she loved inside her. He shifted, his pupils dilating with pleasure, and he leaned forward to give her a soft, long and tender kiss.
“I love you, Jane Berkeley.”
“I love you.” She rose up then slid down. His eyes crinkled at the corners, and he covered her breasts with his palms. “And I love more than anything to see the pleasure in your face.”
It was so unlike her experiences with Darkdale. There was no lasciviousness, no hardness and violence in Zaren’s face when he made love to her. It was bliss and openness—just the same way she felt when they lay together.
He moved his hips too, and looked longingly at her breasts, which were, of course, still covered beneath layers of fabric and lace and buttons. She moved, he moved, and suddenly they were jouncing up and down in a definite anti-rhythm to that of the carriage.
When her orgasm came, it was long and sweet and intense. And tears gathered in her eyes; tears not from fear or apprehension, not from the desperation of relief and release, not from pain—but tears from the pure beauty of it. The joy of her man.
She sighed and leaned against him, still joined, still jouncing along gently against his spent cock.
“I cannot wait to return to the jungle with you. But we can remain in London as long as you wish. There is much for you to do here, my lord viscount,” she added cheekily.
But he didn’t seem to comprehend her jest. “And if I wished not to remain at all? To live simply again in the wilds of Madagascar, Jane? Would you come with me? Would you leave this behind—the beds and carriages and shops and parties?”
“Without hesitation. Zaren…John,” she added with a bashful smile as she pulled away to look at him. “It seems so odd to call you by that name, for you will always be Zaren to me. And I will always want to be with you, wherever you want to be—whether here or in the jungle, or anywhere else.”
He kissed her forehead, then slid his hand down over her shoulders as he pulled her into a close embrace. Her voluminous skirts were still bunched up between them, and her breasts crushed against his powerful chest. “There are many things I may come to appreciate about living in the city, but there is one thing I do not believe I shall ever count as a convenience.”
She looked up at him, and for a moment she felt as if she were drowning in his sea-blue eyes. “And what would that be?”
“The fact that you must wear so bloody damn many clothes.”
***
Several months later
“Goodbye, Papa,” Jane said, pressing a kiss onto her father’s round cheek. She straightened his spectacles then brushed a wisp of windborne hair down over his pink scalp. But as soon as she removed her hand, the gray-white lock blew up again. “Take care of Effie for me.”
“Who’s gonna be takin’ care of who, I ask you!” Effremina snatched Jane into a big, rough bear hug and squeezed her tight. “You two be safe and you’d best promise you’ll send word back with Captain Morris once you get settled…and whenever you can.”
“We will, of course. We’ll be back next May,” Jane said. “And I expect you to have your treatise on the triple-spiked indigo not only completed, but published as well, Papa.”
“Well then, I’d best be back to work,” he replied—and Jane could already see his mind drifting back to his studies.
“Shall we, my lady?” Zaren was there, tall and muscular and strong. Jane’s heart skipped a sharp beat whenever she saw him, but today, he appeared particularly handsome and confident. Perhaps it was because he knew he was returning home—albeit only temporarily, but he would soon be back in his beloved jungle.
The wild man had been temporarily subdued into trousers and boots and a neckcloth, but Jane suspected that persona of the gentleman would be easily shed as soon as the ship left the Thames for the open sea.
They walked on the gangplank, boarding Captain Morris’s ship, and waved to Papa and Effie one last time.
***
As the striking couple of Lady and Lord Hampstead strolled across the deck to speak with the captain, a set of eyes watched them from the crow’s nest above. Dark, angry, and vengeful eyes peered down upon them as the anchor was raised and the gangplank drawn up…and then the eyes crinkled at the corners.
For they were smiling.
Smiling with malice and determination.
Lady and Lord Hampstead would never make it back to London.
They wouldn’t even make it to Madagascar.
~*~*~
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Coming soon!
the next installment in
Jane’s Erotic Adventures in the Jungle
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Full-length novels by Colette Gale:
UNMASQUED: An Erotic Novel of the Phantom of the Opera
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MASTER: An Erotic Novel of The Count of Monte Cristo
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BOUND BY HONOR: An Erotic Novel of Maid Marian
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Colette Gale is the pen name for a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author with more than twenty books in print.