“Jane, I want to be with you—in you.”
“Yes,” she murmured huskily. She worked up the courage to unclench her hands, which rested in her lap, and rake her fingers through the luxuriant softness of Matthew’s hair.
Her lips trembled as both his big hands stroked the sides of her neck, caressing her with soft sweeps. Slowly his palms descended the length of her throat and back up again, his thumbs brushing her wildly beating pulse. Closing her eyes, Jane weakened and tilted her head farther back, her lips parting just enough to allow the barest movement of air between them. He groaned and she felt the smooth tip of his finger trace her bottom lip. “Innocent, perfect lips. Such perfection,” he whispered darkly, stroking his thumb along her mouth. “I want to feel them beneath mine. I want to feel them sliding along my body. I want my cock between them.”
Her stomach flipped and she clutched his hair, forcing his head down to her mouth. Jane savored the slow descent of his mouth to hers, felt his lips part and settle atop hers. It was wonderful, intimate, almost as if he was treasuring her. His lips pressed once more against hers, then he angled his head and kissed her over and over with his hot open mouth, a mouth that was hungry and devouring and causing havoc not only with her body but with her mind, as well.
She couldn’t think, her head was a whirlwind of thoughts and emotions, as if she were drugged, disembodied. She was conscious of the moan that escaped her when he slanted his mouth against hers, encouraging her to open for him.
“Let me in. Let me taste you.”
He parted her lips and slid his tongue deep inside. He groaned and his hand left her face and cupped her breast as he pressed his hard body up tightly against hers. Fiercely he kissed her, his mouth slanting over hers, faster and faster. His tongue drove into her, and she could do nothing but reach for him and wrap her arms around his neck and hold on as he swept her away. The intimacy of him invading her mouth was nothing like she expected. It was hot and arousing, and it did little to relieve the ache in her womb, but deepened it until she could feel it eating away at every corner of her body. She felt him in her blood, in the pulse of her heartbeat. She heard him, his sounds of desire in her thoughts, felt him knocking at the door of her soul.
With one kiss he owned her.
Jane held on to him, her fingers digging into the shoulders of his jacket while their tongues tangled wildly together, when suddenly he broke off, and breathing as though he was out of breath, he said, “I need to touch you. I need to feel you naked against my hand.”
His hand snaked through the opening of her woolen wrap, and his heat seemed to seep through the thin muslin of her gown, straight to her own skin that greedily absorbed his warmth. She trembled, aware of his large hand resting beneath the curve of her breast. He seemed to know, to understand her response, for he parted the cloak more, and she instinctively knew that he was looking up at her despite the fact he could not see her reaction when his hand slid along her waist to her belly.
She wanted him, with frightening need. She could think of nothing else but shedding her clothes and lying naked here with him. She wanted to ask for it—beg for it, but she didn’t know how. What words to use. So she lay still, feeling his hand torturing her as it kneaded and lowered, drawing closer and closer to the mound of her sex, wondering what thoughts were going through Matthew’s mind.
Lovely warm, soft skin, he thought, wishing he could see his hand resting atop her. Despite the layer of her gown and chemise, he could feel the suppleness of her skin, could feel her body heat enveloping him, teasing him with the thought of feeling the hotness from her core seeping onto his hand. He could not wait to be wrapped in her heat, in her welcoming body, or to feel this gently mounded belly beneath his mouth and hands. He thrust the mantelet from her shoulders. She shivered, but he knew she was not cold, she was too damn hot for that. He could almost see it radiating from her body. He could definitely feel it reaching for him and drawing him in, chasing away the dampness, and the demon inside him.
Christ, she was perfect. Her nipples were hard little points, pressed against the bodice of her gown. He felt, with satisfaction, the mounds of her breasts swell, just like the flesh between his legs that had now grown to an impressive size. How he was going to enjoy giving her that flesh and reveling in her scalding heat.
“Such beautiful breasts,” he said appreciatively, cupping them. “I’ve thought of them nearly every minute this past week. You cannot know how you have captured my attention.” And held it, he silently added. “I’m going to paint you naked and have them cupped in your hands. I’m going to paint them swollen with desire, just as they are right now.”
She squirmed beneath his palms. His cock was now so heavy and engorged that it was painful, trapped as it was beneath his trousers. He wanted her hand on his cock—not hard—just light and teasing. He wanted to feel his orgasm slowly build. He wanted to come in her hand once more, empty himself into her palm. He wanted the peace of lying with her like this after the last of his climax melted away. “I want to please you. Christ, I do,” he moaned as his lips caressed the soft skin of her breasts that crept above her bodice. His hand found its way beneath her skirt and his palm made the slow, sensual glide up her stocking-clad leg. “I want to taste you, Jane, to feel your core weep against me. I want you to call my name, score my back as I pleasure you with my mouth.”
She gasped, clutching wildly to his jacket, and his fingers pressed into her firm, lush thigh. He had shocked her with his talk, and he discovered he was aroused by her naiveté. He pushed her farther into the bench, so her back was pressed against the side of the carriage and her legs were draped over his thighs.
He wanted to strip her of that innocence, to tutor her to pleasure. He wanted her to know passion, and he wanted her to learn it from him. Her hand left his shoulder and rested low on her belly. He placed his hand on hers, rubbing it in soft circles.
“Do you ache for it, Jane?”
Her teeth chattered, her whole body trembled, but she wasn’t cold, indeed she was warm, so very hot. Together their hands moved, him bringing his palm lower and lower until it rested between the apex of her thighs, which squeezed their joined hands like a vise.
“You feel it here?” he asked. “Release the pressure then, Jane,” he encouraged. He lifted his hand, and felt, as well as heard, her small palm move between her thighs. Her breath caught in her throat, and she made an inarticulate sound that aroused him.
“I burn, Jane.” His tongue traced the cleft of her breasts, while his thumb circled and hardened her nipple. Jane whimpered with each probe of his tongue, and he rubbed his engorged, throbbing cock against the soft vee of her thighs as her hand played overtop her gown.
This is where he wanted to be, between her thighs, cushioned and welcomed. He wanted inside her, to feel her quim sheathing him, tightening around him as he took her deep, rocking against her.
He shoved against her and she cried out, shocked, alarmed, frightened by the size of him. She tried to push away from him, but he followed her, pressing his chest against her, pinning her against the wall of the carriage. She was panting now and her fingers were tightening in his hair, at times almost painfully clutching, and it drove him wild. No, she was not afraid, he thought with relief, just anxious and eager.
“Matthew,” she panted between brushes of his lips and the plunging of his tongue. “I ache, I burn, I hurt.”
“I will fill that hurt, Jane,” he promised. He reached for the tapes at the back of her gown and opened them, clumsy in his hurry. But he needed her. Needed to feel her, taste her. The bodice came free and he pulled it away from her skin. She had pressed herself against the wall, arching her neck and thrusting her breasts forward. His hand brushed the hot skin of her breasts, and he slid his mouth lower, wetting a wet path down to the full swell. His hand resting beneath her breast, he could feel the delicate ribs beneath her skin, could feel her breast quivering against his thumb in anticipation and escalating desire. He felt reckless
now. Any pretense to gentleness was slowly being eaten away by his own mounting excitement.
“Ask me,” he murmured against her, his mouth coming so close to her nipple. “Ask me, Jane, to suckle you.”
“Take me in your mouth, please, Matthew.”
He went to his knees, his tongue trailing along the soft tip of her nipple. It furled and budded. He opened his mouth, then slipped the nipple inside and sucked, slowly, drawing it deep and hard between his pulling lips. He imagined that her insides were already tightening and she was feeling her honey slide out of her body. He wanted that honey on his mouth, his tongue. He wanted Jane in the worst possible way. And he was going to have her, naked and spread and completely at his mercy.
Oh, God, Jane chanted over and over in her mind. What was Matthew doing to her, making her feel this way? He was suckling her so deeply, slowly, erotically that her entire body felt weak. When his strong palm reached the apex of her thighs, she whimpered, and instinctively spread her legs, allowing him to shoulder his way between them. She felt herself blush as he ran his hand along her curls. When he skimmed his finger along her wet cleft, she whimpered in anticipation.
“I want you there,” she cried, shoving his hand against her. He made a growling sound then was fully atop her, capturing her mouth with his. His kiss turned greedy, frantic. His hands were everywhere. Sliding down her arms, her hips. His fingers cupped her buttocks, then slid up to knead her breasts. He took her nipples between his thumbs and fingers, squeezing, rolling, pulling until she gasped beneath him, all the while kissing her with unfettered passion.
Jane had never felt anything so sinfully wicked in all her life. Her body was awakening, flickering to life, as it responded to his touch, heating her flesh as he made her burn for more. Her breasts ached for his lips, his tongue. The place between her thighs throbbed with a longing that was much stronger than when she pleasured herself.
She mewled as he settled his body more intimately over hers. He felt hard and heavy. The throbbing length of his arousal rubbed against her thigh, burning her. He groaned deeper and plunged his tongue in and out of her mouth as he pressed his erection rhythmically onto her leg.
“Touch me,” he breathed harshly as he rocked his hips against her.
She clutched him tightly, stroking him through his trousers as she had that night at the hospital. Needing to feel him in her hand, she tore at the buttons with trembling fingers. She was clumsy and unschooled, and impatiently he tore at them, opening them, freeing himself onto her palm.
“God, yes, touch my cock,” he moaned as he pulled at her nipples. His words, so dark and full of need, urged her open. Jane cupped him, feeling the hot length of him scalding her palm. Exploring him, she ran her fingers up and down, her hand firming as it slid up the thick length. His breath quickened, rasping harshly against her neck as her hand worked up and down his shaft.
His excitement fueled her own, and when finally his hand cupped her intimately, her thighs fell open. Immediately his fingers slid inside her—filling her. She moaned at the invasion, the feeling of fullness and the slickness that pooled there.
“My God,” he whispered thickly. “I cannot wait to watch your cunt take me.”
Oh, yes, she wanted that, too. To see his penetration of her body. It was base and primitive, yet Jane wanted it. To watch her body accept him.
But then he was sliding down the length of her, parting her slick sex with both hands and she could not think any more thoughts. Stubble grazed her thighs as he lowered his head to her flesh, the sensation sending jolts of awareness straight through her.
He licked her then. His hot tongue scorched a path up the length of her, each time using the flat of his tongue to fully cover her sex. He opened his mouth, covering her, kissing her there as he had her mouth. She was wet, sticky, mortified that he would know, that he would feel and taste…
“No,” she whimpered, squirming in his iron grasp.
“Don’t pull away from me,” he murmured, his finger stroking that sensitive part of her. “Just come for me, Jane. Come…”
With deliberate strokes, he sucked and teased, and then, when her body tightened and bowed beneath him, he sucked harder and made the world shatter around her.
“Matthew!” she cried, gasping, clawing at his hair.
“Let me take care of you,” he whispered.
“Oh, God, please, Matthew,” she begged, struggling for air. “Yes,” she cried, then began to shake uncontrollably in his arms.
His lips and tongue tasted the sweet skin of her throat and the swells of her breasts. Her hands were fisted in his hair, clutching and tugging, begging him for more.
“Jane, come home with me,” he whispered softly against her ear. “Let us take this passion where it wants to go. No questions. No demands. Only pleasure.”
Jane couldn’t think. She felt as though she had died and been reborn in Matthew’s arms. The pleasure…she had never felt such bliss. Her whole body seemed to glow with it.
“Let me paint you, Jane. Let me inside you.”
She swallowed hard, trying to think, to not be impulsive and rash, but “yes” was out of her mouth before she could stop it.
“When, Jane?” he asked while he nuzzled the soft patch of skin beneath her ear. “When will you come to me?”
“In two days, that is my next afternoon off.”
“An afternoon is not enough, Jane. I need more than a few hours with you.”
She tried to think, and didn’t want to. Getting more time off would involve lies and deceit. She didn’t want to lie, yet she could not stop thinking of spending hours with Matthew.
“In two days,” she whispered, “I will spend the night with you.”
8
Jane buried the guilt she felt for lying to both Lady Blackwood and Richard. She was not proud of what she had done, but she could not change her mind now. She was meeting Matthew today, and he was taking her somewhere where they could be together. She didn’t care where that somewhere was, what mattered was that she’d be with him.
The past two days had felt like a dream. He had written her darkly sensual letters that promised every kind of forbidden pleasure. Pleasures that would be hers in a matter of moments, when Matthew pulled up to the sidewalk in his elegant carriage, to carry her off, like Hades had done to Persephone.
Meeting him like this went against everything she believed in, but she was too weak to resist the temptation he offered. She had never been tempted, never known how pleasurable it could be to heed the cry of enticement.
She would not feel guilty, she told herself for the thousandth time. It was only going to be one more time. One night. She would give herself to him because she was, she thought with startling amusement, falling in love with Matthew.
Could one love a man one knew nearly nothing about? Was it love or simply lust? Some might say it was only lust, but she would argue it. Love, albeit tender and new, was what was in Jane’s heart. She knew it was silly, that it could never be, and that come the morning it would be done. But tonight, she could share that love, indulge it, gift it to him, and it would be enough, it would have to be.
Their spheres were different. Their worlds divided by class, money and titles. She could not live in his world, and he could not live in hers. But they could forge a new world tonight. One that transcended the realities of their birth and social standing. It would be a world based on mutual passion, of shared feelings. Of love, Jane thought.
The sun peeked through a cloud, and Jane tilted her face to the warm rays. It was a glorious day. A fine day for an assignation.
The clatter of hooves drew her attention, and she glanced down the street to see a familiar set of gray horses cantering along the cobbles. The street was busy, and Jane moved to the side to avoid being jostled by the crowd.
Excitedly, she watched the carriage pull to a stop, and the door swing open to reveal Matthew. Butterflies circled in her stomach like mad, but Jane quelled them as she watched him, looki
ng like a dark angel, descend the carriage steps.
He stood in front of the carriage, his head turning left and right, scanning the bustling street. With a frown he drew his pocket watch from his waistcoat pocket and flipped the silver lid open before settling it back into his pocket.
With a deep breath, Jane walked through the crowd toward him. He glanced at her, then turned his attention back to the iron gates of the hospital. He didn’t know her.
Of course he didn’t, she reasoned. She had worn a veil the last time they had been together, and the times before that, his head had been bandaged.
“Hello,” she murmured as she came up to him.
He ignored her and gave her his back. Jane swallowed back the slight.
“Are you looking for someone?”
He turned and glared at her, and Jane actually shrunk back, shocked by the change in his expression. “Yes, but not the likes of you,” he snapped.
Rendered mute, Jane stood there for long seconds, trying to breathe. With a scathing glance he took her in, from the top of her green bonnet to the tips of her scuffed half boots. His assessment, she knew, was not a positive one.
His rebuke stung. And for some ungodly reason, her hand automatically flew to her hair. She saw how he was staring at it, the bright red hue beneath her bonnet. She could not bear to see the way he was looking at her—right through her—without seeing her. He did not see a woman. He did not see Jane, the woman he had been so passionate with two days before. He saw… Jane swallowed hard and looked away, hating the weakness of her spirit. She was more than this, a wilting flower. She was stronger than this. But damn it, this hurt.
It hurt because he was the man responsible for making her burn. For making her feel like a woman. It hurt because it had been a trick. An illusion. And it hurt most of all because he did not see her, the woman she was behind the unfashionable spectacles and garish hair.
“Is there something you need?” he asked in a most uncivilized tone.
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