“The notion of love is fine, of course,” he continued. “For fairytales. But I do not want to go into this arrangement with you misunderstanding why I am doing it.”
She cleared her throat and tried to ignore the sting his words created deep within her.
“My lord,” she said, folding her arms. “I am well aware of why you are marrying into my family. My dowry will refill your coffers, your title will please my father’s desire to be linked to an important family. It is a business arrangement, just as it was when you chose my sister for your bride. I am not a fool.”
Relief seemed to wash over him, and once again she was stung by how happy he was that she accepted his lack of affection for her. As if she had a choice in the matter.
“Of course you aren’t,” he hastened to say. “You are, in fact, wonderfully intelligent. It is one of my very favorite things about you.”
She stared. He had a favorite thing about her? That was very confusing given what he’d just said about not wanting an emotional bond.
“You know, you could have simply taken me aside tomorrow and had this conversation,” she said. “You didn’t have to slip into my bedchamber and wait for me to tell me you couldn’t love me and only wanted the barest connection with me when we wed.”
She went to turn away and he caught her arm, pivoting her back. “You have misunderstood me,” he said, his voice quiet, his breath warm and sweet. “I tell you that I do not seek love so there will be no confusion. But I don’t want the barest of connection with you, Thomasina. What I would like, what I want more than perhaps I should, is far deeper than that.”
She shook her head. “I’m very confused.”
“I know, because I’m bungling this,” he said with a tiny hint of a smile. Such a rare thing on his normally serious face and she was struck silent by it. “The night you pretended to be Anne, when I almost kissed you on the terrace…you wanted that, didn’t you?”
Her lips parted at his demand that she confess her most terrible desire. Her betrayal of her sister, even if Anne had clearly not given a damn.
“Jasper—” She tried to tug away, but he kept her close.
“Please don’t run,” he said. “I won’t judge you. I cannot, if truth be told, because I knew it was you, Thomasina. I knew and I wanted to kiss you so badly that I could hardly maintain control over myself.”
She stared at him, at that renewed flare of desire that burned in his gaze. She felt every flex of his fingers against her arm, and the wall of his body heat curled around her and made her want to sink into him and disappear forever.
“Yes,” she whispered, her voice cracking. “I wanted you to kiss me. I hated myself for it, but I wanted that so badly that night.”
He smiled. “And when I did finally kiss you right before I left, did you want…more?”
“More kissing?” she asked.
He nodded, a jerky motion. “I—yes. More kissing, but did you also ache, deep within yourself, perhaps in a way you don’t fully understand? Did you want something more than the kissing, something that keeps you awake at night, something that makes you…need?”
She was shocked to find he had exactly described her constant struggle since he kissed her. Her mind had flown so many times to what might have happened next. What would happen on their wedding night, an act that had only been described in the barest of details by scandalized female figures who mostly seemed to see the act as one to be borne, not enjoyed. And yet when Jasper touched her, she wanted to know more.
She wanted to feel more.
“Thomasina.” Her name was a prayer, begged from his lips, filled with far more meaning than it ever had before.
“Yes,” she burst out. “I wanted more. I want more now.”
“Good.” His shoulders rolled forward in further relief. “I want to touch you and taste you and pleasure you. I want to explore that need, that passion. Do you think you could do that even if you knew I might not ever offer you my heart?”
She shivered, aching to give him exactly what he had just denied he could return. Aching to give him the body he wanted over anything else.
But she had one tiny hesitation. One thing she had to know. “Did you…did you ask the same of my sister?”
He flinched at that question, as if it were abhorrent. “Never,” he reassured her. “Wrong as it may be, I never wanted Anne. I want you.”
She had spent her life feeling interchangeable with Anne and Juliana, part of a unit and not an individual. But this man…he saw her as more. That didn’t seem to be a lie or a manipulation. When he said he wanted her…she believed him.
And in that moment, she couldn’t say anything but, “Yes.”
His mouth dropped against hers and his arms came around her, dragging her against him as he devoured her with far more passion than he had allowed in the driveway the day before. He tasted her, coaxing her lips to part, delving inside to tease and explore while her legs shook.
He pushed her back toward her bed, and she shuddered as he leaned her against the high edge so she no longer had to support herself as he kissed her and kissed her until her entire world condensed down to their mouths and tongues and lips. Finally he broke away, staring down at her, his breath as short as hers, his hands shaking as he lifted them to cup her cheeks gently.
“I want to touch you, Thomasina,” he whispered, his voice broken and cracked and raw.
She blinked up at him, this man who looked like the one she would marry in a few short days, but also seemed different. Jasper had never let her see past his cool façade, but right now his walls were down. He was passionate and heated and driven, and all his energy was focused on her.
He also seemed to expect an answer to his statement, and she struggled past the lump in her throat. “Aren’t you already touching me?” she asked with a nervous laugh.
“Intimately,” he said, letting his hands slide down her throat, across her collarbone, down her shoulders and arms.
She felt the pressure, the heat, through the fabric of her gown, and suddenly and shockingly wished that it wasn’t between them.
“If you don’t want me to,” he continued, “if you want to wait until we are properly wed, I will walk away tonight and be pleased with just being able to kiss you as I’ve fantasized about for far longer than I should have. But I cannot express to you how much I want to touch you until I feel you flutter with pleasure.”
She felt how wide her eyes were. It was almost as if she couldn’t blink anymore. What he was describing was not something one bore, that was for certain.
“You would…claim me?” she asked with uncertainty.
He smiled again, but this time there was something a little pained to the expression. “I would very much like to do that, but I think once I start, I’ll never want to stop, and that would make the next few days rather awkward. So, no. I would not…er…claim you, as you put it. Just pleasure you. Touch you but leave you untouched.”
“That makes no sense,” she said, and found herself smiling even though this entire situation was fraught with odd emotion and desire and a great lack of understanding on her part. Why in the world had no one educated her better?
“No, this kind of sweeping thing never does.” He held her stare a moment. “Let me show you. You may say no any time you like.”
“I’ve heard that is not true,” she said. “That once I say yes, there’s never again a no allowed.”
He recoiled as if that thought were an anathema to him. “Not with me. Let me be very clear, Thomasina. You may say no to me at any time. You said I would claim you, which implies some kind of ownership, but I have no interest in that. You are the only person who controls your body, your mind, your heart…I would never try to bend you or take that away. If at any point you don’t want anything I do, you say no and that ends it. We may discuss it further, but I will never do anything, especially in our bed, that you don’t enthusiastically agree to.”
She pondered that a moment. She and her sis
ters had sometimes discussed the realities of marriages arranged by their father. Not the passionate part that Jasper was describing, for none of them had any better understanding of those mechanics than Thomasina did.
But they had spoken about the loss of freedom and autonomy over themselves. It was a shared fear.
And yet here Thomasina was, a few days from a forced marriage to a man who inspired a great deal of conflicted emotion in her…and he was offering her independence. Ownership over her own life.
And not for the first time, she silently thanked Anne for being so reckless and leaving her unwanted fiancé to Thomasina. Even though those thoughts were wrong. Even if she feared for her sister, she wanted this man.
So she nodded. “Show me then.”
He let out a broken breath and then leaned in to kiss her once more. She felt his hands moving even as she lifted her own to rest against his hard chest. His fingers glided up her sides until she shivered, then around the back of her dress to unfasten her buttons.
She broke away from his mouth as he did so and stared up at him. “You’re going to—to undress me?”
He nodded, though his hands stilled. “I want to see you, Thomasina.”
She hesitated at that request. To see her undressed felt like a huge leap. Would he like what he saw? But then again, it would happen whether it was tonight or in a few days, and since he had claimed he would not take her tonight, that meant she would have more time to become accustomed to his eyes on her. His hands.
She nodded and slowly turned to grant him more access to the back of her gown. He finished flicking each button open and then his hands glided inside, between her dress and her chemise beneath. They exhaled together, a matching breath, as he pushed the fabric forward until her gown dropped around her wrists. She pushed it away and he tugged, pooling the fabric at her feet.
She wore a chemise and flimsy little drawers, and beneath were her silk stockings, held up by ribbon that matched the color of her now-discarded dress. As if he had been meant to see her like this when she chose her clothing before supper that evening.
“Look at me,” he whispered, his mouth close to her ear behind her.
She gripped her hands into fists on the mattress, her heart racing so fast she was certain he could hear it.
“Please,” he added, and then he pressed his mouth to the place on her neck just behind her ear.
She gripped the coverlet tighter as a tiny cry escaped her lips. What was he doing to that exquisitely sensitive spot she hadn’t ever known existed? It was like he’d found a place to touch her that lit her entire being on fire. Except she wanted to burn.
Slowly, she turned around and faced him. He stepped back, hands clenched at his sides as he looked her up and down.
“You are more beautiful than I ever dreamed,” he said softly, and reached out to smooth his fingers along her bare upper arm.
He glided higher, hooking a finger beneath her chemise strap. He leaned in as he tugged it, drawing it down as he traced the path of the fabric with his lips. She couldn’t hold back another gasp of pleasure and held tight to the mattress behind her with one hand as she drove the fingers of her other hand into his hair.
He chuckled against her skin and trailed his lips back up her shoulder, across her collarbone, drawing the other chemise strap down and tasting the trail of it.
Her chemise bunched around her waist, and they both looked down at her at the same time. She was bared from the waist up, and heat suffused her cheeks as he stared at her naked breasts with their dark nipples at full attention as she anticipated what would come next.
He cupped them, drawing his thumbs across the tips and eliciting yet another gasp she couldn’t suppress. She felt like she’d never been awake before, not fully alive, and here was this man bringing her into the world with his hands and, dear God, his mouth. He bent his head and drew one nipple between his lips, sucking and swirling his tongue around her as he continued to massage and pluck the other breast with his thumb.
She found her hips rocking forward, meeting his as he touched her. Her legs shook, there was a deep ache growing between them. She needed him to ease it, but she had no idea how he could ever do that. How to ask for it.
Luckily he didn’t seem to require that knowledge from her. He drew back from her breasts with a pop as her nipple left his lips. He pushed her chemise and drawers down in one smooth motion, leaving her fully exposed.
And fully at his mercy.
Chapter 9
Thomasina was naked. It had happened that fast and she stood before him, trembling with nervousness and pleasure mixed, and watched him watch her. He had a possessive, dark smirk on his face, and he let his hand trail across the soft swell of her stomach.
Then he looked into her eyes. “I am going to lie on the bed with you. And I’m going to do very wicked things to you. And you’re going to come.”
She blinked. “Come where?”
“I’m going to build such pleasure in you that you’ll need to cry out and scream my name, and then it’s going to overwhelm you. And you will never look at the world the same way again,” he explained.
“I already don’t,” she murmured.
He caught her in his arms, kissing her again as he swept her up and placed her on the bed. He joined her, lying on his side next to her, kissing her as he lazily stroked his hand up and down her body. Each stroke brought his fingers lower, closer to the center of herself, the valley of her sex. And when he finally cupped her, she arched into his hand with a hiss.
He broke the kiss. “Yes?”
She nodded, unable to form coherent words as he stroked his hand over her, grinding his palm into the apex of her thighs and eliciting an electric shock of pleasure through her.
“Is that coming?” she gasped out.
He shook his head. “When it happens, you won’t have to ask. Now relax if you can. Let me do this.”
She nodded, though she felt anything but relaxed. Coiled and hot and achy, yes. Relaxed, most definitely not.
His fingers moved again between her legs, but this time he opened her, teasing her outer lips apart and then tracing her opening with his fingertip. She shut her eyes, resting back against her pillows, and sank into the sensation. Odd and wonderful, like someone was sparking flint over and over between her legs, and the heat grew with each passing second.
His finger pressed harder and she felt the muscles at her entrance give way, allowing him access. She braced around him, the oddness of being breached accompanied by just a little pain mixed with pleasure. She flexed around him and he groaned like she’d hurt him.
She opened her eyes. “Was that wrong?” she gasped.
He shook his head. “Very right. Do it again.”
She did, squeezing hard around him and rocking her head back at the unexpected pleasure in that action. He pressed a thumb somewhere else, at the top of her sex, outside of her body, and swirled it there as she clamped around his finger. Slowly they moved together, her grinding against him as he plundered her.
“You’re a natural,” he whispered, leaning in for a kiss. “That’s right. Ride it. Feel it. Don’t reach for it, don’t fight it. It will happen when it happens.”
She wasn’t sure what he meant, but something was happening, certainly. The pleasure of his touch seemed to mount as she arched against his hand, his fingers, his thumb. She reached out, gripping the lapel of his jacket, clinging to him as she rode higher, harder, and finally, just when it seemed like she’d reached the top of an insurmountable wall, her entire body began to shake. Waves of pleasure rolled through her, taking her control, stealing her breath. She began to cry out and he dropped his mouth to hers, silencing her keening with his lips as he drew the pleasure out longer and longer.
Only when she collapsed back, her hand dropping away from his body, did he gently withdraw his finger from her still trembling sheath. He curled his body around hers, resting his hand on her stomach.
And for the first time since Anne
had requested her help and set this madness in motion, Thomasina’s mind emptied and she found a modicum of peace.
* * *
Thomasina wasn’t asleep. Even though her eyes were closed, Jasper could tell she was only deeply relaxed. It was a powerful thing, to be able to erase her troubles, even if that was only temporary. An unexpected benefit of watching and feeling her reach the heights of pleasure was that it had alleviated his own worries for a moment, too.
Touching her had been everything he’d hoped for when he staggered into her room that night, knowing he shouldn’t and yet unable to deny himself.
Thomasina was a responsive lover. She liked his touch, she welcomed it, she had asked questions and given answers freely, though her upbringing had surely told her that ladies weren’t interested in such things. He had no doubt that once they were married, she would become an enthusiastic bedmate.
Which was more than he had ever dared hope for when he realized that he would have to arrange a marriage for monetary gain.
Even now he leaned on his elbow, watching her in that blissful state of pleasure, and he wanted so much to push her legs wide, to fit his extremely hard cock into her and take her. To find release deep inside of her as she clung to him and called out his name.
What would be the harm in that when they were to be wed in days? Hours, almost. He could count the hours if he cleared his addled mind enough. Didn’t that mean he could have her and find the same release as she had?
He looked at his hand on her stomach and clenched his fingers gently against her flesh. She made a soft sound of pleasure and the decision was made for him. He leaned in, kissing her gently as he let his hand move to his trousers. He was about to loosen the fall front when there was a light knock on the door across the room.
Thomasina’s eyes flew open and she jerked her face toward Jasper. “Oh no!”
A Reluctant Bride Page 8