She turned to Matthew and pulled a chair close to his bed. He was sweating, and the sheet that covered him was damp. His hair was mussed, and black stubble covered his upper lip and angular jaw. He was everything that was beautiful and masculine, and Jane could not look away from him, or the tiny rivulet of sweat that trickled between his pectorals.
“Jane,” he murmured, then cried her name again, his voice rising when she did not immediately answer him.
“I am here.” She covered his hand with hers and was astonished by the heat of it. “You burn.”
He swallowed, then turned his head toward her voice. “I can’t see you.”
“Your eyes are swollen shut. The one is still stitched closed, but the thread will come out in the next day or two. In a few days, you’ll be on your way, right as rain.”
He scowled, changing his face from that of a beautiful angel, to demon. “I waited for you, all day. Where did you go?”
“Home. And I’ve only been gone the morning and afternoon. ’Tis early evening yet.”
“It felt like a lifetime, waiting for you to return to me.”
Her traitorous heart skipped a beat. She had never had anyone speak to her in such a fashion, let alone a man who looked like this.
“Will you stay, Jane?” he asked as he curled his fingers between hers. “Will you sit at my beside and nurse me through the long, dark hours of the night?”
“Yes, of course. It is my job, after all.”
“Is that the only reason you are here?”
She glanced away, despite the fact he could not see that her eyes were busy taking in every inch of his body. No, she thought in silent answer. It was not her job that brought her to his bedside, but some other invisible force that pulled her to him.
He licked his cracked lips. “I dreamed of you today.”
The cloth she was lifting from the basin sloshed back into the water, spilling over the rim and onto the table. She struggled for composure and reached for the rag once more, ringing it out, focusing on the task ahead of her. I dreamed of you today…. She let the words echo in her mind, savoring the feeling they gave her. The words were like a soft caress along her body, intimate, alluring, slightly unnerving.
Jane’s hand trembled as she brought the cloth to his face and carefully wiped his cheeks and lips with it. He caught a drop of water with his tongue as it landed on his mouth, and Jane watched, mesmerized, thinking it the most erotic thing she had ever seen.
“I heard your voice speaking to me,” he continued as she moved the cloth down his neck. “It brought me comfort.”
She swallowed and allowed him to talk as she cooled the cloth once more in the water. “Did you dream of me, Jane?”
“No,” she lied as she watched her hand smooth the cool material down his chest, toward his navel.
“Then why did you scent your breasts?”
She paused, glanced up at his face and saw the devilish grin on his lips. How could he have known?
“Last night you smelled of soap, tonight you smell of perfume.”
“Is it not a woman’s prerogative to use perfume?”
“Yes, but why waste something so expensive if not for a certain purpose? Especially here, in a hospital full of the ill and dying?”
“Perhaps it has nothing to do with you, or any other man.”
He laughed, and Jane felt herself flush. He knew. Knew she had thought of him, desired him.
“Lower, Jane,” he rasped as she washed his abdomen. “I’m burning all over.”
She absolutely refused to dip her hand beneath the edge of the sheet, but he reached for her wrist and stilled her. With the merest pressure, he pulled her down so that her ear was to his lips.
“I want to touch you, Jane. To learn you with my hands and mouth. I want to paint you in my mind.”
Her breathing became much too heavy as her corset pressed and squeezed her chest even tighter. “My lord, you rage with fever.”
“Yes,” he replied, the sound husky and deeply male. The maleness was what made her body answer with feminine response.
“You do not know what you are saying, sir,” she whispered, her voice trembling.
His hand left her wrist to touch her throat. With a gentle glide, his hot fingers swept up and down the column of her neck. “Swallow, Jane,” he whispered. When she did, he kept his fingertips pressed against her, feeling the action of her throat moving sensuously up and down. He made a sound, a strange, guttural noise, and she tried to break free, but his arm came around her waist, holding her.
“I can see you, taking me in your mouth, swallowing me down. My cock has ached for it all day.”
Shocked, aroused by his honesty, Jane pulled away, off-centered by the fleeting visual of her, bending over his body and taking him between her lips.
“Stay,” he commanded. The fingers that were pressed against her throat were now skating down to gently caress the quivering flesh of her breasts. The arm that was wrapped around her rose up, his hand perilously close to the underside of her breast.
“My lord,” she gasped.
“Let me touch you, Jane. You’re such a novelty. I can’t understand it, this need I have to feel you, to share myself with you. I never share, Jane—never.”
He cupped her, his hot palm holding her breast, squeezing and molding until she squirmed in his hold. Despite his wounds and the fever that ravaged his body, he was strong, too strong for Jane to fight off, if she had wanted to defend against him. A small voice whispered that she should, that she must, but a larger voice, a dominant one, told her to accept his touch, encouraged her to enjoy it, explore it, return it.
While she warred with herself, Matthew had somehow loosened the top three buttons on the front of her gown. Cool air kissed her bosom as his burning hand reached into her corset and pulled her breast free of the whalebone and linen.
She gasped as he moaned when her breast fell into his palm. She was startled by the sight of her pale breast being held in his tanned hand. The pink nipple, hardening, was stroked by the tip of his thumb.
Jane could hardly breathe for the pleasure that flooded her. As he fondled her, she grew languid. Her core seeping with wetness seemed to open—open to him.
“How wonderfully proportioned you are. I can see you in my mind, and what a treat it is. I can see myself doing all kinds of very wicked things to these breasts, Jane.”
He freed her other breast, and now both were hanging out over her corset, the nipples hard and pointing. He pulled her forward, his hands spanning the expanse of her ribs, her waist, then down to her hips.
“I can see you, naked, lips parted in anticipation. Do you know in anticipation of what, Jane?”
“I can’t imagine,” she said breathlessly.
He held her waist tightly, his fingers pressing into her skin through the layers of her gown and chemise and corset. Her breasts bobbed as she leaned over him.
“Please,” she whimpered. But was it a plea for him to stop, or to ignore her protest? She didn’t know. She only knew her body was trembling everywhere.
His hot palm pressed into the soft flesh of her breast as he rubbed the flat of his hand along her nipple, sending it straining against his smooth skin.
“So beautiful,” he whispered. “Ripe, succulent, waiting for my mouth and tongue.” It unnerved her, all that passion she heard. Yet it made her soul soar to hear his praise.
Unable to stand the torture, she looked down and saw how he used his fingertip to trace the circle of her nipple; her areola puckered in response to the featherlight caress. Sharp stabs shot through her, straight to her belly, as he rolled both nipples between his thumbs and forefingers, lengthening them as he gently tugged and plucked. Suddenly she was wet between her thighs, restless with the need to curl her fingers in his hair and guide his mouth to her breast.
When he brought her close enough so that he could brush his chin and lips over them, she cried out and reached for his shoulders, anchoring herself onto him.
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He nuzzled her, burying his face between the valley of her breasts. He brushed his chin and cheeks and damp lips over the mounds, before holding her up by the waist, her pointed nipples hovering over his mouth.
Jane watched his tongue snake out between his lips, flicking one engorged tip now a dark shade of pink. She moaned and shifted so that he could take it deep into his mouth, but he refused, and instead amused himself by flicking and licking her nipples with the tip, and sometimes the flat of his tongue.
“Are you watching, Jane?”
“Yes,” she rasped as he circled her nipple then flicked his tongue in a series of feathering flutters.
“Do you like it?”
Her core damped, and she drove her short nails into his shoulders.
“I can feel that you do,” he answered for her. Then he took her into his mouth and suckled. Slowly at first, then fiercely, as though he was starved for her.
His mouth broke away from her, and he gasped. “Jane, touch me. Learn me, too.”
Jane gazed down at him. Her breasts, wet from his mouth, glistened at her. The sheet that covered his lower half slipped, and Jane reached for the edge.
“How?” she asked. “How should I touch you?”
5
He was delirious, not from fever, but Jane. The scent of her, the incredibly arousing feel of her petal-soft skin against his face made his flesh and blood blaze until he thought he would be consumed by the heat of longing.
He was amazed by her presence, the calm she washed over him. He had never been able to bear the feel of another atop him, yet he craved Jane like this, her breasts against him, the beat of her heart in his ears. He was starved for this, for the touch, the contact of another human being.
If he had been in his right mind, he would have refuted that wayward thought with a snort and a callous remark. But he was not in his right mind. Desire like nothing he had ever experienced before ruled him now. It was the same driving, relentless need that had fueled him with his first lover. But that had been lust, and animal need. The fucking had been hard, angry, soul stealing, yet the danger of it, the threat of being caught and punished, had made it arousing, made it just as good as the actual fucking.
But this moment with Jane was soft and tender, soul stealing, as well, as he felt something that had long lain dormant begin to awaken. There was need here, too. It was not animal lust, but something else. Something he could not name, something he had never felt before.
“You burn with fever, my lord.”
“Matthew,” he corrected. He did not want to be Wallingford here with her. He did not want to be an earl and heir to a dukedom. He wanted only to be a man, a painter and lover. He wanted Jane, not as a damaged soul who could not enjoy the feel of another, but as someone who was whole, untainted.
She was good and kind. He sensed it in her, and the devil inside him wanted to have a bit of her goodness all to himself. He had never known what it was to be good, or kind. He was cold and callous, purposefully hurtful. Yet here was this angel lying against him, allowing herself to be corrupted by a demon in a gentleman’s disguise.
“We must stop this,” she breathed in a husky pant that sent his cock lifting beneath the sheet that had grown just as hot as his body. “I must see to ridding you of this fever.”
“Yes, you must,” he agreed, his mind taking a turn down a wicked, wicked path. It was bad enough that he had envisioned her taking his cock into her lush mouth and swallowing him down, something he could never allow in any real way. Now he thought of her touching him, every inch of his body. When he felt the cool cloth return to his chest, he reached for her wrist and brought it low, guiding her. With his hand leading hers, he brought the cloth, which she clutched steadfastly, to his cock. He heard her gasp; it was followed by the rustle of starched muslin, and he imagined her shifting on the bed, her waist turning so she could look down at him, and the heavy sex that lay between his thighs. Her breasts would still be exposed, and he knew the image of her like this would be forever imbedded in his mind. He would paint her the minute he arrived home.
“Touch me, Jane,” he choked out as he forced her hand to release the cloth, and instead hold him. He groaned, threw back his head and gritted his teeth as her palm engulfed his thick shaft. With little pressure, he moved her hand up, then down. The image of his fingers locked atop hers as he worked his cock made his excitement grow. He was rasping in shallow, hard breaths, which mingled with hers.
She was watching, he could feel her eyes searing into the spot where their hands wrapped around his shaft. It aroused him, not angered him, knowing her eyes were upon him. He did not feel defiled as he once had when his lover had watched him masturbate. His lover had taken perverse delight in ordering him to pleasure himself and come all over his hand. His lover had enjoyed barking out orders. Even now he heard them: harder, faster, now slower, stop…
But Jane did not say anything. Their breaths were the only sound in the room. It had a strangely calming effect on him. Normally he was tense, his big body taut with urgency, but tonight, he felt himself go limp and fall into the thin feather-ticking mattress. He allowed himself to enjoy the feel of their joined hands on him, and the images that played out in his mind, how she would look like this, taking him in hand and tossing him off.
It seemed forever he lay like that, his pleasure building, Jane’s breaths frenzied. The scent of her wafted over him and he used his free hand to tug at her nipple in the same rhythm she used to stroke him.
“Matthew!”
The sound of his name in her angel’s voice weakened him, and he came, exploding in a hot jet onto both their hands. He heard her cry of shock, but she did not pull away, slowing her strokes instead, watching as his cock pulsed with his seed.
My God, he had not come into someone else’s palm in fifteen years. The shuddering orgasm unnerved him, and he turned his head, not wanting Jane to see his expression of terrified wonder. For he was alarmed by the emotions that suddenly ruled him.
Mercifully she said nothing as she rose from the bed. He heard the water in the basin softly slap against the porcelain sides. It was followed by the wringing of a cloth, then the sound of Jane’s fingers buttoning her gown.
Was she ashamed? Horrified he could be such a beast? He was ill, burning with fever, and yet he was still ruled by the needs of his body and cock.
“The water has turned too cold. Tepid is best for bringing down a fever.”
“Go then,” he said in a hoarse voice. He wanted to add a request that she return to him, but he bit his tongue, refusing to ask or beg. Yet as soon as he heard the door swing shut behind her, he heard her name, whispered in his broken voice, “Jane, come back.”
Scooping the water from the rain barrel, Jane watched as the clear liquid splashed into the bowl. Her hands were shaking, as was her body. The sounds of the wards inside the hospital were a distant whisper compared to the husky groan of male satisfaction that was ringing in her ears, even now.
Good God, what had she done?
Setting the bowl on the steps, she sat down and brought her head to her knees, trying to regain her innate sense of calm and composure. She refused to close her eyes and instead stared down at the starched white cotton of her apron. It was no use. Even with her eyes open she could see Matthew’s fine, strong body lying on the bed beside her, completely naked, the sheet thrust to his thighs, his phallus thick and long, heavily veined, engorged with desire. Desire for her.
Jane still could not understand, or make sense of the way she had instinctively known what he wanted. She had never done such a thing before, yet the feel of him, heavy and hot in her hand, had felt so right, as if she had pleasured many a man before. She gazed down at her palm and studied the lines in the moonlight. She could still feel it in her hand, still hear her own thoughts whispering in her mind, I want to know what this would feel like inside me.
It shocked her to hear such an admission, and in her own voice. She was not a naive prude. She had see
n much growing up in the rookeries of the East End. Yet it still shocked her that she could want such intimacy with a stranger. Never before had she looked at a male patient and wondered what it would feel like to take his body inside hers. She had not even thought of Richard in such a way. Strange, since she felt a measure of affection for the young doctor.
Jane closed her eyes and forced an image of Richard to mind. Gray eyes, pale skin and golden hair. He was handsome in a typical English way. He was tall, too, although not as tall as Matthew, and much, much leaner. In all, he was very pleasing to the eye, and there was no shortage of nurses and patients who flirted with him. To Jane’s knowledge, he had never taken up their offers. She knew with one-hundred-percent certainty that Dr. Inglebright would never have touched, in a sexual manner, a patient under his care.
How far she had fallen for the touch of a man. Jane had no idea she yearned for such things. Certainly there were some nights when she felt the urge to touch her breasts and quim. She had found it naughty, in a forbidden way, to touch herself. And it had felt good. Now, those times of self-pleasure paled when put beside this brief, erotic interlude with Matthew. She sensed that what he had done to her, what she had done to him, was merely the starting point of where their shared passion might go.
She yearned to explore it, she realized, giving honesty to her feelings. But to do so could be disastrous. Besides, there could be nothing out of it except a few stolen moments, hardly worthwhile when one thought of what she could lose if it ever got out what they were doing behind that swinging wooden door.
Her job at London College would be lost. Her name and that of Lady Blackwood would be further tarnished. The profession, which she was trying so hard to make credible to the eyes of the world, would be thrust back down. Only old harlots and washerwomen are nurses…that would be accurate, if the truth about what she had just done got out.
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