Jacinda blinked. It had been years since she was seen as a viable wife in Society. Even when she had been seen as eligible, men hadn’t exactly been fighting to pursue her.
“And what if you are wrong?” she asked softly. “What if no man will wed me, even after you make a show of pursuit? Will the option Carnthorn presented still be available?”
Jason’s jaw tightened, as if this line of conversation displeased him. “You are determined to consider it still?”
“I must,” she whispered. “You do not understand my position, Jason. I have been a prisoner for years and someone offered me a key to my cell. I cannot overlook it.”
He pushed from the chair and paced the room, quiet. She didn’t interrupt whatever his thoughts were, but held her breath and hoped he would give her some answer she desired.
Finally he turned to her, his face hard in a way she had never seen from him. In the firelight, he looked like a different man than her jovial friend. Her sex twitched at the sight, and she turned her face so he wouldn’t see just how far she had fallen.
“If you wanted to take a man as a protector, as your lover, I’m certain this ruse with me would make that easier as well,” he said. “But are you truly ready for such a step? You told me that you knew where passion went and you didn’t want it. I’m afraid it would be required for a mistress.”
Jacinda stood and moved toward him. He was standing next to her bed, and she reached out to pick up the book. “This could teach me to be ready, couldn’t it?”
His eyes widened as she held it up for him to see. “So that’s what you were reading while you were…”
He trailed off, and she stopped walking toward him.
“You saw me?” she barely managed to squeak out. “You saw what I was doing through the window?”
He nodded. “Why do you think I knocked? I feared a swelling erection would push me from the ledge.”
She swallowed as her gaze moved to below his waist. Even now she saw the outline of his member against the dark fabric of his trousers.
“If you continue staring at it, you will only make it worse,” he said, his tone mild, though his eyes were full of fire.
She blushed. “Do you think the book will help?”
He nodded. “Yes, but you would also benefit from some lessons, some proof that passion is not the worst thing in the world.”
Her entire body shook as she forced herself to meet his eyes. “And who would give me those lessons?”
He cursed beneath his breath and took a long step toward her. She could actually feel his body heat now, taunting her through her nightshift. He smelled like pine and soap and something else. Something masculine and warm that made her nipples harden against her nightgown.
“Be careful what you ask for, Jacinda,” he whispered. “For if you took me to your bed as tutor, I wouldn’t hold back.”
She licked her lips, which were suddenly dry. “If you did, wouldn’t it defeat the purpose of readying me for becoming a mistress...or a wife?”
His eyes widened. “Do you really want this?”
The question gave her pause. Sex with a man she considered a friend. Surrender to passions that had only ever brought her pain. Did she want that?
In any other circumstance, she believed her answer would be a resounding no. But here, in her chamber, next to her bed, with Jason’s heat and scent surrounding her, with him looking at her like no man had ever looked at her...she wanted it desperately.
“I am already ruined, so even if I did find a husband at the end of your ruse, he wouldn’t be surprised that I was not untouched. As long as you didn’t leave me with child, I don’t see how a tutelage could be negative in any way.”
The words sounded so audacious, so unlike her normally timid self. And she liked that. She liked that she felt...bold.
“Christ,” he muttered, staring at her for what seemed like a very long time.
Then his hand came up and he slipped his fingers through her hair. It was only bound in a loose braid, so it fell free with a little coaxing, and thick waves of it bounced around her shoulders.
“I want you to know what you are really asking for before you go too far,” he said, his voice rough.
She shivered as he glided his free hand around her back. He settled his fingers into the small of it, drawing her closer, until their bodies touched from shoulder to hip. She felt the erection she had seen before, and it was hard against her belly.
“Jason?” she whispered.
He didn’t respond, but lowered his mouth and claimed her lips.
Chapter Six
“A man can do wicked, wicked things with his tongue. Let him.”—The Ladies Book of Pleasures
Jason hesitated as the softness of Jacinda’s lips met his. He had never imagined he would ever kiss her, but now that he was, it was intoxicating. She tasted of mint and a sweet hint of something else—cherries, perhaps. He wanted that flavor, he wanted her. Now that he knew it, it was all he could think of.
And then she surprised him by lifting to her tiptoes, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him back with a passion and fervor he never would have guessed she possessed. She was fire against him, her body writhing naturally, in a way that made his already aching cock more needy.
He pushed her back, rougher than he intended, and they sprawled across her bed together, his body over hers, his lips moving insistently. She moaned softly, the sound lost in his mouth, and any resistance he had to the idea of making her his vanished. He would take her, he would touch her, he would make her see how beautiful and wondrous passion could be. He would steal any painful memories she might associate with this act and replace them with nothing but shuddering waves of pleasure that would haunt her days and wake her in the night.
He would place a claim on her that she would never fully lose.
He jerked his head up at the thought, but Jacinda cupped his neck and drew him back to her lips, her kisses hungry and desperate. He pulled away a second time, but only to look down at her. He met her eyes, just as he had done a hundred other times, and saw deeper into her than he ever had before. Sadness, regret, kindness, joy, anger...he saw them all in that instant.
“I’m not leaving,” he whispered. “Just enjoy this moment.”
She hesitated and then nodded slowly. “Show me how.”
Now it was his turn to pause. This entire exercise was to give Jacinda a sweet taste of what he could provide to her if she allowed him to continue the ruse he had established with Carnthorn. But he hadn’t thought of what exactly he would do.
An endless number of possibilities danced in his head. Hundreds of ways he wanted to claim this woman, pleasure this woman, take this woman.
But tonight he didn’t want to press her beyond her borders—he wanted her to yearn for more so that she would agree to his plan to woo her in public.
He smiled and sat up.
“Why don’t you lay back on the pillows?” he asked, motioning her from her sprawled position toward the top of the bed.
She eyed him warily, but did as he asked, settling herself back on her pillows, dark hair tumbled around the stark white sheets in a most fetching manner.
“Will you—will you lay beside me?” she asked, her voice trembling.
“No,” he said, catching the hem of her night rail and gliding it upward. “I’ve a different place to rest my head.”
He turned his attention to her legs as he revealed them. They were gorgeous and he couldn’t help but lean down to press a kiss to her knee as he lifted the skirt of her gown. She gasped, and her hands fisted her coverlet as he glided his lips higher to her thigh. He could already smell her sex, clean and sweet and waiting for him, but he didn’t move too quickly. He wanted to draw this out, make it something she would dream about for weeks.
“I find I like kissing you,” he said softly as he put both hands on her thighs and hitched the gown to her hips. “I would like to kiss you somewhere else.”
He expected her
to be confused by that confession or surprised that it was possible, but instead she sat up to lean on her elbows and stared down at him.
“Did you see what I was reading in the book?” she demanded, cheeks flushed.
That was not the topic he thought she would broach in this moment. “From the window?”
She nodded.
“I saw that you were reading, but I didn’t know what until you showed me the book,” he said.
“Then how else could you know what I desired?” she asked, eyes wide.
Jason sat up, staring at her. He had wildly misjudged her, despite a friendship that had existed between them for years. Here he had thought her timid and even a bit frigid at the idea of men. But given the opportunity, it turned out she was wild and wanton, bold and seductive, even though he doubted she knew seduction was what she was embarking upon.
“You are saying you were reading about a man putting his mouth on you?”
She nodded but broke the eye contact, staring instead at her coverlet.
He reached up and slipped a finger beneath her chin to force her to look at him. “Did you like the idea?”
She bit her lip, and his already throbbing cock twitched. “Yes,” she admitted softly. “It is why I did...what you saw me doing when you came to my window.”
He shut his eyes, trying not to think about what he had seen. The bundled up covers had blocked much of his view, but it had been easy to recognize she had been touching herself when he arrived. If he hadn’t been about to fall to his death, he would have enjoyed the show immensely.
“Wait until you feel it,” he whispered, then lowered himself back to his original position.
He bundled her skirt around her flat belly and exposed her from the waist down. Immediately her hands came down to cover her nakedness, but he pushed them aside.
“Let me give you what you want,” he ordered, giving her a stern look. “What you need.”
“But—” she began, eyes wide and filled with both terror and desire.
“Shhhh,” he insisted and stopped her protests by stroking one finger across the already weeping crease of her sex.
She flopped back against the pillows with a sigh, and he smiled. She was very responsive, and he intended to exploit that fact for as long as she could stand.
He began to massage her legs, loosening the tense muscles and easing them open inch by inch until she was relaxed and spread wide for his perusal.
Slowly, he leaned down and stroked his cheek along her thigh. Her gasp was his reward and he looked up at her with a grin.
“Too rough?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No. I like it.”
Damn, but she would drive him wild. That very innocent honesty was erotic beyond words, and far different from the courtesans and widows he normally found in his bed. They were all worldly and jaded. Jacinda was…
Jacinda was Jacinda.
“You’ll like it all,” he promised, then used his thumbs to spread the pouting outer lips of her pussy. That fresh scent greeted him, begging him to taste and touch and fuck, but he took a moment just to look.
She was slick, probably from his touch, but also from her own earlier in the night. Her pink sex glistened, and he leaned down and just glided his tongue along her to lap up the sweet juices.
“Oh God,” she groaned, turning her head into the pillow.
He smiled against her warmth and continued his languid licking, stroking her entrance, tasting every delectable fold as desire flooded her, coating his tongue with the proof of the driving needs he guessed she’d strenuously deny if asked about them.
Tonight he wanted to force her to face them.
He purposefully ignored the bundle of nerves that made up her clitoris. By the way she was shaking and gasping with every stroke of his tongue, she might come the moment he touched that hidden pearl. And he wasn’t ready for that. He wanted to enjoy himself a little more first.
He removed one hand from her thigh and was happy that she kept her legs splayed wide, for she was too lost in pleasure to do anything else. He intended to keep her that way.
With his free hand he found the entrance to her body. Continuing to stroke his tongue along her slit, he glided one finger inside of her slowly.
She cried out with the sensation and half-sat up to look down at him.
“What are you doing?” she panted, her face pink and eyes dilated.
“Pleasuring you,” he said against her body. “Or am I wrong?”
She swallowed, her head dipped back over her shoulders as he began to curl his finger inside of her, hitting that deep, secret place where he would make her scream into her pillow and beg for more.
“It feels good,” she admitted. “May I...may I watch you?”
He glanced up at her. From her half-seated position, she did have the perfect view of what he was doing to her. And from the way her body shook, she liked watching.
He filed that surprising fact away and nodded.
“Watch me lick you?” he asked, stroking his tongue along her once more. “Fuck you with my finger?” He added another digit. “With two?”
She didn’t answer, but moaned instead, a sweet sound that seemed to echo in the room.
“Do you feel the pleasure building?” he murmured, licking her between each word. “Do you feel like you are about to burst with it, to come, like you do when you slide your hands between your legs alone?”
She nodded. “Only better,” she whispered. “It’s better.”
“And I can make it even better still,” he promised and then took her clitoris between his lips.
As he glided his fingers in and out of her clenching sheath, he sucked the little bud of nerves, laving it lavishly with his tongue, scraping it gently with his teeth.
She tensed, arching up against him with a cry she covered with her hand. Her internal muscles rippled around his fingers, trying to milk him as she would later milk his cock. Her muffled screams were like music as Jason dragged her through her orgasm, working her sex until she flopped back against her bed, her breath coming hard, her legs and hands shaking.
He pressed one more closed-mouthed kiss to her still-flexing sex and removed his fingers gently. He crawled up to lay beside her, watching her as she trembled there, eyes closed, breath slowly returning to a normal rhythm.
She was more beautiful than he had ever seen her. How had he not noticed that before? Or had he, but dismissed it because she was his friend and because of how Society saw her?
Was he no better than everyone else?
Her eyes fluttered open and she faced him. She was blushing, but still met his gaze.
“That was...remarkable. So much more intense than when I’ve done it myself.”
He smiled even though her words made his poor, aching cock even harder and more insistent that he take this woman now. He also couldn’t help but notice that she compared this experience to masturbation, not the man who had taken her virginity and her respectability.
It made him wonder all the more about that night, for he had only ever heard rumor and conjecture, but he set his questions aside. Tonight was meant to make Jacinda feel good, not to explain her past. He wanted her to agree to his suggestion that they pretend to court.
He wanted, somehow, to save her. An odd desire for a man who refused to be anyone’s hero.
“Wait until I’m actually inside of you,” he promised, brushing hair back from her forehead. “If you’ll allow for that, in the confines of my plan.”
She stared at him, hesitation plain on her face. With a smile, he stood.
“You must think about it, I know,” he said. “And I will leave you to do just that.”
She got to her feet, her nightgown finally fluttering over her body and covering her. She stepped toward him.
“Leave...but you...you have not been satisfied. I can see that by your…” She blushed and waved in the general direction of his cock.
He laughed, for she was such a delightful mixt
ure of minx and innocent. “By my erection?” he asked, filling the gap in her sentence. “You are correct that my body aches for you, but until we come to terms, I will have to be satisfied with knowing I have pleased you.”
She looked at him in surprise. “But—”
He covered her lips with his fingers. “For once in your life, Jacinda, don’t think of anyone else. Think of what you want, what you need.”
“When you—” she said, trying to speak around his fingertips.
“I can take care of myself,” he reassured her, and pulled her window open. “If you want to do something for me, then simply consider what I’ve offered to you tonight. And when you’re ready, send me word.”
She moved to the window and watched him as he balanced on the ledge. He gave her one smile, then pounced onto the nearest tree branch and began the long journey to solid ground.
When he reached the grass, he took one last glance upward to find Jacinda was still in the window, watching him. And he found himself wishing, no matter how foolish a notion it was, that he could return to her room, to her bed, and let her take care of him instead.
Chapter Seven
“A lady often owns so little of her life. When you are offered the chance to take control, do it.”—The Ladies Book of Pleasures
Jason was normally good at billiards. Certainly he was better than Seth, but today the marquis was beating him soundly at the game. Judging from his friend’s appraising expression, Seth had noticed that fact as well.
“It seems being married agrees with your game,” he drawled, trying to keep his focus on a topic he knew Seth loved to discuss.
But Seth would not be deterred and instead responded, “It isn’t marital bliss which makes me a better player. It seems to me your distraction makes you worse.”
Jason turned away to chalk the end of his cue and briefly shut his eyes. His thoughts had been tormenting him since he left Jacinda’s bed hours and hours before. Her taste, her scent, her responsiveness, his driving need to possess her…
A Moment of Passion (The Ladies Book of Pleasures) Page 6