Her cool fingers slipped from his grasp. “So you mean to stay.”
He liked to think that he was acting with his head, acting in the best interest of those whose lives would depend on him. But he could not claim to be acting only with his head. Other organs demanded to be involved in his decision-making of late.
Even, perhaps, his heart.
“Yes.” The firmness in his voice surprised even him. “I will stay.”
Turning her eyes downward, she picked out the notes of a melancholy-sounding chord. “I suppose the terms of our marriage settlement have left you little choice.”
“Even in the most difficult circumstances, we still have choices, Sarah.” Reaching for her with a hand he prayed would not tremble, he slid his fingers along her jaw, lifting her gaze to his. “I am making a choice.” A difficult one. A painful one. But the right one. “The choice to come home.”
Her eyes searched his for so long he felt scorched by the intensity of her scrutiny. Waiting for her to speak, he was instead shocked when she slid her hands up his chest, stretched onto her tiptoes, and kissed him.
In some remote part of his brain, he recalled his promise to himself. He ought to set her back on her feet and return to his room. He had said what he had come to say.
But God help him, he was not that strong.
He kissed her back.
* * *
She knew she had once again been forward. And quite possibly foolish. But if she had held his gaze just a moment longer, he might have kissed her. At least by kissing him first, she could tell herself afterward that this had happened because she wanted it.
And oh, how she wanted. Wanted to believe that he truly thought her innocent. Wanted to trust the look she had glimpsed in his eyes.
Wanted him.
Her hunger startled her, and really, what hope did she have of it being satisfied tonight—or ever? For the hunger she felt was not only physical.
Three years past, on her wedding night, she had known little more than her mother had told her, and Mama had said nothing of pleasure, of joy, of the way a man’s touch could spin a moment of bliss into an eternity of peace and light. Sarah had gone to her marriage bed not knowing enough to be disappointed at her husband’s coldness.
Now, however, she knew. Knew what he’d held back. Knew what she’d been denied.
After those wicked moments in the watchman’s hut, she had wondered what it would be like to look back on that night, to remember his touch when it was gone from her. What could be worse than the memory of a pleasure that would be forever after denied to her? What could be worse than being forever alone?
But now she very much feared it might be worse to be together. To feel him inside her, and wonder whether he despised her.
To want him still, and despise herself.
Then St. John wrapped his arms around her, crowding out her doubts. In another moment, she had lost all track of where her kiss ended and his began. When she pressed against his heat, he groaned and lifted her higher. Only the tinkling protest of the pianoforte brought them momentarily to their senses.
With her arms wrapped around his neck and her legs clinging to his hips, he carried her into his bedchamber and sat her gently on the hearth rug before a crackling fire. Had he, too, felt the chill—of uncertainty, of anxiety—that seemed to have settled into her very bones? The welcome warmth of the fire eased her muscles, and she felt her spine bow in a pliant arc as he leaned his body over hers, bending her gently backward.
But that was not exactly what she wanted.
Settling her hands against his chest, she levered herself onto her knees without breaking the kiss. The new position gave her a certain advantage. Now she was as tall as he, perhaps even taller, and she could push back, lean her body against his, feel him bend, ever so slightly, to her will.
She did not want to be taken.
Tonight, she wanted to take.
Running her fingers over his broad shoulders, she pushed the dressing gown away, baring his chest. Far from resisting, St. John spread his hands on either side of her waist, one hand steadying her while the other cupped her breast. Her nipple stiffed at the insistent stroke of his broad thumb.
Sarah cast off every remaining shred of uncertainty and ran her hands across his skin, tracing the curve of his breastbone and threading through the dusting of hair there before sliding the pad of her thumb over the small, flat circle of his nipple, curious to know whether her touch could have a similar effect.
His slight gasp of surprise was all the confirmation she desired. Her hands slipped lower, feeling his muscles ripple beneath her touch. When her fingertips at last encountered the tie of his dressing gown, she stopped.
“Show me,” she whispered, suddenly shy. “Show me how to touch you.”
For answer, he groaned and lifted his hands to her face, tipping her mouth back to his for another searching kiss. “My God, Sarah,” he breathed against her cheek, his voice a ragged whisper. “I wish you would not.”
Stung by his rejection, Sarah withdrew her hands from his body and curled them in her lap.
Remember, dear, a gentleman never expects a lady to be eager for the marital bed.
Perhaps Mama had been right.
St. John’s hands found hers, tangling with them, prying loose her fingers until he could stroke her palms with his thumbs. “Don’t misunderstand me,” he murmured against her ear. “I crave nothing so much as your touch.” He drew one of her hands slowly toward him until it brushed the rigid length of his erection. Although the touch could hardly have surprised him, he shuddered and quickly lifted her hand away. “I’ve thought of little else since that night in the watchman’s hut.” She gasped as his tongue traced the shell of her ear. “Do you remember telling me that I would get no satisfaction in Haverhythe?” When he paused, she managed the slightest nod, and he continued in a voice that sent a shiver down her spine. “Tonight, I intend to have satisfaction, Sarah. And if you touch me now, I fear . . . well . . .”
She could not stifle the nervous laugh that rose to her lips as understanding dawned. “Oh.”
Perhaps Mama had been wrong. About many things.
Tracing her jaw with his lips, he paused once again at her ear. “Let me touch you instead. Let me come inside you.”
She felt she ought to blush at such words, but the heat that was spreading along her skin now had nothing to do with shame. Tugging her hands from his, she reached to unfasten her nightgown with trembling fingers.
“Let me,” he murmured, plucking at the bow between her breasts and slipping the thin cambric over her shoulders. A sudden flare of heat and light swept over her when she was at last bare to his gaze, his eyes traveling leisurely over every inch of flesh his fingers had exposed.
As he spread his dressing gown over the hearth rug, she realized he intended to lie with her there before the fire. Ought she to allow such a wanton thing with a proper bed just a few feet away? The moment was too magical to disrupt.
Settling back onto the silk, she opened her arms to him, welcoming his weight and the feel of his skin against hers. Every sensation was new and sharp: the oddly pleasurable prickle of the wool rug beneath her back only slightly muted by his dressing gown, the hair of his chest that tickled and teased her aching breasts, the graze of slightly coarser hair against her inner thighs as he urged her legs apart with one of his own.
And all of it, all of it illuminated by the flickering light of the fire.
She watched, her fascination tinged with embarrassment, as his lips trailed over her collarbone and down to her breast, pausing to draw its peak between them and then suckling her firmly. A moan rose in her throat and her hips lifted, seemingly of their own volition, urging her mound against the hard muscle of his thigh.
Answering her wordless plea, St. John moved down her body, his lips following the edge of her rib cage, the curve of her waist, the rising slope of her belly. His tongue flickered into the indentation of her navel, a teasing promi
se of what was to come, and she gasped, wishing she had the courage to curl her fingers in his hair and coax his head lower still.
But that, it seemed, was not the particular pleasure he had in mind.
Leaning his weight on one arm, he slid the other along her side, forcing her hips back to the carpet and slipping his hand between their bodies, cupping her with his palm and pressing the heel of his hand against the ache his kisses had built.
“Is this what you need, Sarah? Or perhaps this?” One long finger ruffled her dark curls and slowly circled the opening to her body until she felt a rush of moisture and her hips began to rise again. “Ah, so many delights yet to learn,” he whispered, watching his hand as he pleasured her.
In the fog of desire that had settled over her brain, she could not decide whether he imagined himself student or teacher. And then that circling finger slipped inside her, rendering her feeble question moot.
He was guiding her once more up that still-unfamiliar climb into madness. But the route he had chosen to take was so different that at first she did not recognize it. She was aware only of the pulse pounding between her thighs, the breath sawing in and out of her lungs, and the certainty that she was about to die.
And moments later, when St. John shifted his hand ever so slightly, she did.
His mouth swooped over hers, swallowing her cry of rapture, and before she had time to gather the scattered pieces of herself, he had kneeled between her spread thighs and entered her on one deep stroke, filling her.
As he slowly withdrew and prepared to thrust again, she instinctively canted her hips, meeting his powerful stroke. Once. Twice. “Oh, God, Sarah,” he groaned, pinning her with his weight so that she could not move with him. A fine sheen of sweat formed across his brow as he strained to hold back the rushing tide. Then a frenzied volley of thrusts. His dressing gown slid across the carpet beneath them as he drove into her. She could hear his rough breath at her ear and the slick wetness of their coupling. And finally, she felt the remembered rush of heat at her core as his seed spilled into her.
He collapsed atop her with a self-deprecating laugh. “Shameful,” he said when he had caught his breath. “Utterly shameful. But the next time will be better.”
Next time?
But of course there would be a next time. He had announced his decision to stay in Lynscombe, and was that not what she had wanted, for him to assume responsibility for his inheritance, to show he had truly changed? And if they were to live together, a resumption of relations between them was inevitable; even without her father’s terrible offer hanging over their heads, St. John would one day expect an heir.
Making love, people called it. She had let herself fly to him, holding nothing back. Not her body. Certainly not her heart.
It would be ridiculous to go on thinking of the joining of their bodies as a sacrifice or a punishment when it soon might give her another child—children, if the first was not a boy. And tonight, at least, it had also brought warmth. Intimacy. Pleasure.
Even if she could never have his heart, she could have this.
Only a fool would complain.
“Next time,” he whispered as he rolled away and carried her with him, cradling her against his chest, “I will be all yours, to do with as you please.”
“All mine?” Sarah nestled her cheek against his shoulder, hiding the tears that threatened to spill from her eyes. The temptation to hope was too strong. “Someday, I shall hold you to that promise.”
* * *
When St. John awoke in his bed some hours later, he had no memory of how he had got there. The room was dark save the glow of the dying embers in the fireplace.
And something was tickling his thigh.
“Did I wake you?” Sarah asked, burrowing up from beneath the covers. “I’m sorry.” Her expression was anything but contrite. “But you did say . . .”
He ran his hands over her shoulders, drawing her gently upward until he could capture her mouth with a searching kiss. “So I did.” Then he lay back, closed his eyes, and allowed her to indulge her curiosity, grateful for this proof of her desire. “I’m in your hands.”
Much to his surprise, she began by running her fingers through his hair and then tracing the contours of his face, along his brow, around his jaw, down his scar. When he tried to turn away from her scrutiny, she gave a tsk of displeasure. “It gives your face character,” she insisted. “It reminds me of your bravery.”
St. John smothered the scoffing laugh that rose to his lips.
“And your foolishness,” she added, almost as if she had read his thoughts.
As she moved down his body, she stroked and then kissed everything within her reach, learning him in a way no other woman ever had.
Her passion was an unexpected gift. Not that he had seen no signs of it. It was there in her fierce devotion to her daughter, in the beautiful music that flowed from her fingertips, and even, he supposed, in the fury she had vented on him once or twice.
But he had never imagined that her explosiveness would extend to the bedchamber.
When her mouth reached his abdomen, her unbound hair once again tickled his groin. And then she paused. He felt her shift her weight and realized she was no longer touching him. Chancing a peek, he caught her studying his manhood with wonder-filled eyes as it grew and hardened beneath her gaze.
“Touch me,” he breathed when he could stand it no longer, and then hastily added, “if you wish.”
She reached out with tentative fingertips. In her uncertainty, she teased and tormented him—although he was sure she did not mean to—until he gave in to his own desperate need and showed her how to hold and stroke him. Closing his eyes again, he surrendered himself to the sensation of her touch.
And then he felt her lips on him there. The gentle kisses she was stringing along his hardened length were more sweet than sensual. Still, the feel of a woman’s mouth on his cock had not been so frequent an experience that he had grown complacent about the sensation. Idly, he considered whether he ought to stop her. Surely a gentleman would not allow a lady to—
Then she took him into the wet heat of her mouth, and all thoughts of stopping her scattered on a deep groan.
Sarah looked up at him with anxious, uncertain eyes.
“Yes,” he hissed in answer to her unspoken question. Twisting his fingers into her hair, he urged her back to her task in a most ungentlemanly fashion.
Fortunately, Sarah did not seem to mind.
What she lacked in technique she more than made up for with her enthusiasm, and in another moment, St. John was clawing the bedsheet in a desperate attempt to retain some measure of self-control. He had already tumbled her on the bloody hearth rug, for God’s sake, demonstrating all the restraint of an untried schoolboy. And now this?
Nevertheless, it was almost all he could do to cup her shoulders and lift her mouth to his for a somewhat more conventional kiss.
“Was that—?” she asked hesitantly when they broke apart.
He laid one finger against her lips. “It was perfect. Too perfect.”
Beneath his fingertip, her mouth curved into the most delicious pout. “But you said I might do as I pleased.”
St. John could not argue with her logic. So he kissed her instead, reveling in her warm weight where she lay across his chest. He stroked his hand down the curve of her spine and over the swell of her buttocks. She was kneeling on the bed beside him, her bare bottom tipped upward so that she could return his kiss.
Dragging his mouth to her ear, he gave a whispered command. “Come on top of me,” he urged as his fingertips dipped into the hollow at the top of her thighs.
Sarah shot him a skeptical, uncertain look, but she braced her hands against his shoulders and straddled his hips. “Like this?”
He shifted slightly, enough that the head of his cock nudged her damp curls.
Her eyes widened. “Oh.”
Setting his hands on either side of her pelvis, he helped her slowly lower h
erself onto his shaft. “I think if you are to make your life in the country, Lady Fairfax, it is time you learned to ride,” he teased when she was fully seated. “Are you ready to take the reins?”
She moved hesitantly at first, accustoming herself to the sensations produced by this new position. But in a matter of moments, her confidence grew. She built to a rhythm and her eyes began to look glazed.
He was determined to allow her to find her own pleasure, but that did not mean he could not offer a little assistance along the way. He lifted his head and caught one taut nipple between his lips; as he had expected, Sarah leaned forward to encourage him to suckle her more deeply and discovered, quite by happy accident, the difference a slight change in angle could make.
Sliding one hand over her hip and across her abdomen, he nestled his thumb over her clitoris and then bent his knees, deepening his penetration. But he waited until he was sure her climax was nearly upon her before lifting his hips to meet her downward thrust, filling her as she ground against him.
And she shattered, her whole body clenching around him as she cried out. He waited for the tension to ebb from her before gripping her hips and taking his final pleasure, muffling his own cry of surrender against her shoulder.
“So,” he murmured at her ear a moment later, “how did you like your first lesson?”
Her answering laugh was distinctly short of breath. “You shall find me an eager pupil.”
Suddenly, he realized why it was dangerous to allow a woman to filch the reins. He was going to have the devil’s own time getting them back.
And he was going to enjoy every minute of the attempt.
Catching the bedcoverings in one hand, he drew them over their still-joined bodies. He searched his heart and his mind for some lingering traces of misgiving or doubt. But a new and more powerful emotion had swept them away.
He was falling in love with his wife.
And that, he was quite sure, was the most foolish—but perhaps also the bravest—thing he had ever done.
Chapter 22
“I do so regret being unable to attend the ball this evening,”
To Kiss a Thief Page 22