She spun around at the sound, and for a moment her face lit up at the sight of him and he nearly staggered back a step. How had any man ever thought her unworthy of attention? Perhaps because she rarely showed this side of herself.
She was beautiful. Not handsome, not passably pretty, not any other term he’d ever heard to dismissively describe her. In this moment, she was beautiful. And the want that had unexpectedly begun to grow inside of him made itself painfully known once again.
“Hello,” she said, breathless as she moved toward him.
“Jacinda,” he managed to say, in what he hoped was his usual nonchalant tone. He suddenly didn’t feel very nonchalant, but didn’t want to reveal his eagerness. “I didn’t expect to find you waiting for me. Why the subterfuge of meeting here?”
She smiled. “Ah, yes. I’m sorry about that. You see, Grace’s home is the only place my aunt will allow me to go unchaperoned. I suppose because of Grace’s elevated title Cordelia believes she is important enough to trust.”
“But not Isabel?”
Jacinda rolled her eyes. “There are rumors about Isabel and Seth’s courtship that my aunt believes will only...oh, how does she put it? They’ll ‘only encourage my wicked true self’,” she said, mimicking her aunt rather well.
Jason shook his head. “She sounds like a delightful housemate.”
“Indeed, every day is a new version of hell,” Jacinda said, but her smile was bright. “I asked Grace if I could meet you here so that we would be uninterrupted.”
Jason arched a brow. “Does that mean she knows about us?”
“Only about your offer to help me garner interest from other men by a fake courtship,” Jacinda said, that pink-cheeked blush growing even deeper in color. “Not the other.”
Jason moved closer and caught the faintest whiff of her sweet scent. Which, of course, made him recall her flavor. And suddenly his mind felt as thick as his cock was becoming.
“And why didn’t you tell her about the other portion of our arrangement?” he said softly.
She shifted at his increased proximity. “It was—it was too precious a memory for me to share, even with friends.”
He drew back slightly at that unexpected admission, but then he smiled. He liked the idea of having that secret between them. Probably too much.
“Grace likely wouldn’t have left you alone with me had she known the rest of my offer.”
To his surprise, Jacinda didn’t smile at his light teasing, but instead a bitter expression crossed her face. “That is doubtless true. But we have nothing to fear on that score. Even my friends think I could not be attractive enough to tempt any man to seduction. Especially you.”
He shook his head and moved even closer. Close enough that he could take her hand and draw her against him. When her body touched his, he all but moaned his satisfaction.
“I do not mean to offend, as I know you view your friends as sisters, but they are idiots if that is indeed their opinion. Other men are idiots as well. If they had touched you as I have, they would be able to think of nothing else.”
Now he wrapped her arm around his neck and she immediately repeated the action with the other.
“Just as I have thought of nothing else,” he whispered.
Her lips parted, and the temptation grew too great. He leaned down and kissed her. As their lips touched, he realized she had not yet agreed to the bargain he proposed. But when she sighed into him, opening her mouth and lifting herself into him, he recognized her surrender. He recognized she was going to be his. At least for a little while.
He also realized that he was going to stake a claim on her. Right here. Right now.
Jacinda couldn’t have quite said how she had ended up sprawled across Grace’s settee, Jason’s body pressing her into the soft cushions as his mouth claimed hers over and over. He’d been kissing her and then he parted just long enough to lock the door before he had pounced again, driving his tongue to tangle with hers, claiming and tasting and sweeping away any lingering doubts she had about this arrangement.
What he had replaced those doubts with was something she had never expected to feel ever again. Desire so intense that it frightened her, an aching need that she wanted him to drive away with his touch, his tongue, with his...well, with what naturally happened between men and women.
She knew that once his body fitted into hers, most of her pleasure would be finished, but it would be worth it for the fire he set in her before he grunted over her.
His mouth moved from hers, gliding down to taste the column of her throat, and she turned her face into the pillows with a shuddering sigh. He was far too talented with his lips. They sent jolts of pleasure through her trembling body and brought back memories of what he had done just a night before, when her body had quaked with something she could only describe as release. She craved that same feeling now, craved the shaky lack of control of it.
“God, I wish I could strip you bare,” he murmured, rising up to cup her breasts through her gown with both hands.
She arched, for even through the fabric of her dress, the firm pressure of his hands, the way he flicked his thumbs over her already distended nipples, was maddening.
“Why can’t you?” she pleaded, ready to tear her dress in half if it meant he would give her the pleasure she craved so desperately.
He gave her a half-smile. “Because we are in a parlor,” he chuckled.
She squeezed her eyes shut. She had rather forgotten that little point. Funny how if someone had asked her a week ago if she would be offering to strip her clothing off in a parlor with only a flimsy lock separating her from further ruin, she would have likely slapped the questioner in the face. Now she knew she should stop Jason.
But she didn’t. This was one place where she knew the servants would respect a locked door, one place where her aunt and family wouldn’t burst in just to prove a point. It might be the only place where she had a chance to do this at all.
“Does that mean you will not...not…” She struggled for a way to describe what she meant, but he lifted a finger to her lips.
“Oh, I will. And I will ensure your pleasure, Jacinda, because you deserve pleasure. You deserve to remember how glorious sex can be, because I fear your experience has been so colored by your fall.” He returned his hands to their hypnotizing massage of her breasts and she relaxed on the settee again. “Trust in me to give you everything you deserve and more.”
She stared up at him, the consummate rake, the man who vowed never to wed a woman, the seducer...her friend. And she did trust him. More than she should have.
But she wasn’t fool enough to declare it, so she simply shut her eyes and shivered as his hands slid lower, down her sides, over her hips, where he lifted her ever so slightly and began to push her gown up.
Her breath began to come in pants as she anticipated his mouth on her. She knew what pleasure that act would bring and yet, somewhere in her deepest soul, she wanted something...more.
He slid her drawers away and set them behind him on the arm of the couch. She shivered as he looked at her, caught between the heat of desire his intense perusal caused and the embarrassment at being studied so intimately when it went against what she had been taught. During the Incident, she had certainly not been observed in this fashion.
The thoughts in her head scattered when Jason stroked a thumb over her entrance. She gasped out a breath, shuddering with the pleasure just that simple touch created, and he smiled. Despite the expression, his voice was very rough when he whispered, “You are already wet.”
She felt wet. And hot, so very hot. She wanted to spread her legs wide open, lift her hips as an offering. She wanted to be wild and wanton and break every rule she had ever set for herself, bitter consequences be damned.
But she wasn’t bold enough. So she merely whimpered as he stroked her again, this time pressing his thumb against that bundle of nerves that focused her pleasure and made her clench her hands against the velvety settee cushi
ons.
“You are driving me mad,” he grunted, and he stood up.
Her eyes widened at the sudden departure. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, her mind spinning to find a way to bring him back to her. To make him touch her again.
He smiled down at her. “Don’t be. It is a very pleasant madness, I assure you. It makes me...well, it is best I show you rather than explain.”
She stared as he tossed his jacket aside and began to unfasten the buttons that secured his breaches. Slowly he eased them down and pushed his long shirt away so she could see him. Her mouth went dry at the sight of his member. It was swollen and hard, curling up proudly to rest at his navel. Now she began to think of her first experience and the desire she had felt with his touch faded slightly.
“You appear worried,” he said.
She nodded. “It seems quite large,” she admitted.
He smiled as he dropped back down against her on the settee. “You do compliment a man,” he chuckled, his mouth claiming her again.
She returned his kiss with both passion and confusion. She was bared, he was bared, and yet he didn’t simply claim. He returned to those achingly delicious caresses that made her feel wild and trembly.
Those drugging kisses continued and she forgot everything else, anything else, until she suddenly felt the tip of his member nudging at her entrance. She would have tensed, perhaps, gripped his shoulders in preparation for the unpleasantness to come, but he glided forward so gently, so carefully, that she had no time to react.
And to her surprise, the pain she had expected didn’t enter her along with his erection. He stretched her, yes. In fact, she felt full to capacity as he seated himself deep within her. But the opening was delicious rather than dangerous.
“Oh my God, Jacinda,” he murmured, voice muffled because he growled the words into her shoulder.
She lifted her hips at the possessive way he said her name, and he cursed before he flexed his own body to thrust once into her.
The feel of his mouth was one thing, but this perfect joining of their bodies was another. The pleasure seemed to come from everywhere, not just that little nub of nerves between her legs. She was on fire and she wanted more. She moved beneath him, lifting herself to find more, clinging to his shoulders with both hands as she ground helplessly against him.
He dragged his mouth from her shoulder only to drop it to her lips and answered her wild movements—he thrust into her slowly, gently, and she cried out against his lips as the need she had been trying to slake grew rather than dissipated. His arms came around underneath her, cupping her backside as he rocked his hips in that smooth rhythm that only seemed to make her need grow. It was good and it was frustrating; she wanted him to continue, never stop, but she also wanted those waves of pleasure to come wash her away as they had the night before.
It was confusing and wondrous and it wiped clean all her memories and assumptions about what this act would be like, what it would be like with Jason. There was only him, there was only her, and she met his every stroke with enthusiasm.
“I could do this all day,” he whispered, his mouth moving against her throat in a mesmerizing way. “But not here. So I think it’s time I make you come.”
She stared up at him, torn between focusing on his words and focusing on the way his hips continued to rock against her.
“C-come?” she repeated, uncertain what he meant. She certainly wasn’t about to go anywhere in this state and she couldn’t imagine being any closer to him than she already was.
He shook his head. “It means I want to give you release, to feel as you did last night when my mouth was on you.”
Her eyes widened, for she understood the last explanation. “You can do that with your body inside of me?” she asked.
“In so many ways, Jacinda,” he growled, his eyes growing dark and intense in a way she had never seen before. “But for now I choose this way…”
His hand slid between them and he worked two fingers to where their bodies were joined. As he continued to thrust within her, he stroked her with his fingers, and suddenly it was like the room began to sparkle. She clung to him, crying out into his flesh as pleasure more powerful than even what she’d experienced the previous night rocked through her. She spiraled out of control, riding one wave, falling over the next, weightless and weak until finally the intensity of the pleasure faded.
Jason thrust hard into her a few more times and then withdrew, pumping his hand over his member before it spurted his seed. He covered himself with a handkerchief and shuddered with his own release.
For what seemed like a long time, she lay there, her body weak and filled with satiated exhaustion. All her cares, her worries, her thoughts, were quiet, perhaps for the first time in years.
She felt Jason move and suddenly his mouth brushed over hers. Opening her eyes, she stared up into his face, wondering at how beautiful he was, as she always did, but also mesmerized by the fact that he had claimed her, pleasured her, given her what no one else had ever done.
“How long until Grace will return?” he asked, his pragmatic question destroying her bubble of pleasure.
She pressed her hands to his chest and made herself sit up. “Probably not long. I suppose we should fix ourselves.”
He smiled. “I suppose.”
He handed her the drawers he had stripped from her and she blushed, despite the fact he had done far more intimate things to her only moments before. Turning away, she tugged them over her body and walked to a mirror mounted above the fireplace to look at her hair and face. Although flushed and tangled, she was more surprised at how calm she appeared. Relaxed. Almost as if a very different person had been awakened by Jason’s touch.
She heard him moving behind her and peeked over her shoulder in time to see his breeches covering up the fine specimen of his backside. A shame, really, for she wished she could see more of him. Explore more of him.
She shook off the thought and returned to fixing her hair as best she could.
“Would you like to talk about our plan?” he asked from behind her. “Since I assume your surrender on the settee indicates you would like to go through with the arrangement I proposed.”
She smiled at him in the reflection. “It certainly wasn’t a refusal, my lord. Though I do have hesitations. How would this work?”
He watched her for a moment, his expression unreadable, before he collected himself. He bent to gather up his jacket and shook it out as he said, “First, we need to make sure you get invitations to a few more events, and they must be higher profile. When you receive them, Jacinda, you must accept them rather than hide.”
She shifted, her hair forgotten for a moment. “I do hate those things,” she whispered, almost more to herself than to him.
He moved toward her and gently touched her elbow. She looked up at him, his scent was now mixed with hers and she shivered.
“I know you hate it,” he said softly, his voice rough, just as it had been when he was touching her intimately earlier. “But that is because you’ve had some very bad experiences. I promise you, I won’t allow that to happen again.”
She blinked at the passion with which he spoke those words. She could almost believe that he could do what he claimed. That he would save her like a knight from some silly tale of old.
But he was Jason, and as much as she thought of him as a friend, she also knew that he grew bored of things easily. She could only hope this ruse wouldn’t be something he forgot...that she wouldn’t be yet another concept he abandoned.
“Let us say I will be invited to parties,” she said softly.
“You will. I’ll make sure of it, as will Isabel and Grace,” he interrupted, with all the confidence of a man who had never been anything but golden.
She gritted her teeth. “Let us say I do. Then what?”
He shrugged. “I will dance with you more often than proper. I will be attentive, especially around others. And I will talk as loudly and as often as I can about the fool
ishness of those, including myself, who somehow missed the charms you possess. That should do it.”
She shook her head. “You are so certain of yourself.”
He smiled. “Of course I am.”
A sudden jolt of something akin to jealousy made itself painfully clear to her. She had never been confident about herself, even before her fall. She envied him that ability.
But she also was fully aware of how it could and probably did blind him. At the end of this road he wanted to place them upon, she couldn’t imagine there was a proposal from some other man. She certainly couldn’t picture being another man’s bride within a few weeks, before the Season’s end.
Which meant she couldn’t ignore the other agreement they had discussed.
“And what of the other?” she asked. “What of what we just shared in this very room?”
He tilted his head. “Are you speaking about your sexual tutelage?” he asked, making her meet his eyes, forcing her not to look away.
She nodded, heat flooding her cheeks. “Yes.”
“Obviously that is something I am interested in pursuing,” he admitted softly. “I think I made that more than clear a moment ago. But I doubt Grace would appreciate our conducting your education here in her parlor.”
Jacinda lifted both eyebrows at the thought. “Whatever she would think of it, she’s too smart. She would catch on to our activities if we conducted them here.”
Jason didn’t look concerned by this news. In fact, he merely shrugged a shoulder. “Then I’ll climb in your window.”
Her eyes went wide. “At night?”
He smiled, but the expression was predatory. “Every night.”
She swallowed hard, for her body had begun to react to his stare, to his promises, to the image those promises inspired.
“Tonight?” she squeaked out.
He moved closer, wrapping his arm around her waist and drawing her flush against him, his mouth easing toward hers with aching slowness.
“Most definitely tonight,” he growled, and then his mouth was on hers, tracing the crease of her lips with his tongue, nipping and coaxing her to open, then driving inside when she obliged.
A Moment of Passion (The Ladies Book of Pleasures) Page 8