Things had most certainly changed.
“I hope you rested well,” he said, strolling farther into the chamber. “You look as if you did.”
She winced. “I hope that doesn’t mean I was looking haggard before,” she said with a frown.
He grinned. “Not at all. You were lovely before and are lovely still.”
“Diplomatically put, my lord,” she said with a quirk of her lips. Why did her heart insist on beating so quickly? she wondered. It was only a conversation. And her nightclothes were more modest than some evening gowns she’d worn.
And yet, there was no denying that being here in her bedchamber with her husband of a few hours, with only lamplight to illuminate them, was thrilling in a way she’d not ever considered.
“No need for diplomacy when one is speaking the truth,” Jasper said, offering her his hand. She saw that his hair was damp, perhaps from his own bath? And he’d changed into a different waistcoat from the bottle-green and gold embroidered one of that morning. This one was dark blue with silver and caught the light from the lamps that shone from the sconces on Hermione’s bedchamber walls.
She took his hand and allowed him to pull her against him, her softness against his hard chest. When she slid her hands around his waist, though, instead of dipping his head to kiss her as she’d hoped he hissed inward.
Startled, she pulled back despite the fact that his arms had tightened. “What is the matter? Did I hurt you?”
“It’s nothing,” he said, though his hand unconsciously covered his left side. “I merely had a bit of an accident while you were sleeping. Don’t worry over it.”
She frowned. “An accident? How? Did you trip in the house somewhere? I should hope your servants know better than to allow carpets to bunch up.”
“No, nothing like that,” he said, shaking his head. Then, perhaps realizing that she would not be fobbed off with a half answer, he admitted, “I went to see Lord Payne. And on my way back I was set upon.”
There was so much to unpack from those few words that Hermione didn’t know where to start.
But that wasn’t precisely true. “Let me see your ribs. Did they strike you anywhere else? Your head?”
He shook her off, however. “I had my valet see to it,” he said with a soothing hand on her shoulder. “He is quite used to seeing to my various aches and pains from riding and bouts and Jackson’s and the like. I promise you. It was only that you surprised me.”
“If you’re sure,” she said carefully. She did not yet know him well enough to know when he was trying to pull the wool over her eyes, so she would have to make do with that explanation. “But I am well able to wrap bruised ribs if it comes to that. Papa leads quite an exciting life at times.”
That was an understatement, she knew, but she was not interested in going back through her father’s many sins.
They were saved further conversation by the arrival of two footmen carrying a small table, and soon after the men had laid laying a tablecloth and set two places along with multiple tureens of delicious-smelling food, Hermione and Jasper were seated opposite each other.
She was far hungrier than she’d thought and after a pleasant meal of turtle soup, roast pheasant, ham, oysters, haricots verts, and a dessert of lemon ice, Hermione was ready to write a love letter to Jasper’s chef.
When she admitted as much, he laughed. “Married only a few hours and already you are talking of love for another man?”
The mention of love brought her up short, however, for there had been no mention of affection between them up till now. Indeed, as with most marriages of convenience, it had been undertaken without consideration for their feelings.
He must have realized she was uncomfortable, for Jasper said, “Forgive me. I did not mean to suggest that you—”
“That I love you?” she asked, made bold by the wine. “Think nothing of it. I am well aware that we entered into this marriage more as a matter of honor than from any affection on either of our parts.”
“I wouldn’t say that there is no affection between us, though,” he responded with a frown. “Perhaps you do not feel any for me, but I certainly would not say that I am entirely without any sort of finer feelings for you. Not love perhaps, but still.”
It was cutting rather close to her heart to admit that she, too, found herself thinking of him in more affectionate terms than one would normally consider in an average marriage of convenience. But that was the truth. Was she willing to admit as much this early, though? Perhaps not.
Instead, rising with her wine glass to leave the table for the servants to remove, and heading over to the small sitting area in the corner of her bedchamber, she said, “I did not mean that we are at daggers drawn, of course. But the truth of it is that we hardly know each other, my lord.”
She was put in mind of a prowling predator as he followed behind her. Once she was tucked into a corner of a sofa, she expected him to take a seat on the chair opposite. But to her shock, he sat right beside her, stretched his long legs out before him, and leaned back against the cushioned back.
“We are certainly not at daggers drawn,” he said, taking her wine glass from her suddenly limp hand, and placing it carefully on a low table behind her. “Are we, Hermione?”
Suddenly he seemed far larger and more intimidating than he had while seated politely across from her at the dinner table. She swallowed. “No, my lord,” she said to his cravat, which was right at eye level now.
He slipped a finger under her chin and tipped up her head. “I like to think that we are friends.” She looked up into his smiling eyes and was breathless with anticipation. For what she knew not.
She licked her lower lip and watched as his eyes tracked there and darkened. “We are friends at the very least,” she admitted, leaning closer without even being aware of doing so. It was almost as if an invisible thread were pulling her toward him. Toward their inevitable coming together.
His mouth when it touched hers was far gentler than she expected. Once, twice, his mouth caressed hers, and when she gasped at the connection, he took that as an invitation to slide his tongue, hot and silky, inside.
It was far more intoxicating than anything she’d ever imbibed, this gentle seduction of his that both claimed and calmed her. Perhaps she would have known better how to resist if he’d demanded, but the stroke of his tongue against hers asked a question that she found impossible to ignore. It was as if he enlisted her in her own surrender.
When her arms slipped around his neck, it was to pull him closer, so that she could have more of him. So that she could slide her fingers though his silky dark locks, so that she could press herself more firmly against the solid expanse of his chest.
He pulled back, surprising a mewl of frustration from her that Hermione hardly recognized as coming from her. “I think we should move to a more comfortable locale,” he said, his voice harsh, unlike his usual amiable tones. Without waiting for her to answer, he pulled her up by the hand and led her to the bed, where seemingly unable to keep his hands from her, he lifted her up onto the cool sheets while kissing her at the same time.
As if by mutual agreement, they began to undress him, she unbuttoning his waistcoat, he unwinding his cravat. And all the while they caressed one another. Finally, he stepped back and pulled his shirt over his head.
When he made to press her into the bed, Hermione held him back with one hand. “Wait, I want to see you,” she said, taking in just how marvelously sculpted the muscles of his chest were. And as he stood impatiently, she took in the light dusting of hair that tapered from the middle of his chest and disappeared just below his navel into his breeches.
“Enough,” he said, once she’d looked her fill, and now he stretched out alongside her, his hand stroking up the flare of her hip and gathering her breast in his palm.
Hermione had never been particularly fond of her bosom, finding it too large for the gowns that were currently fashionable. She supposed breasts were necessary for feedin
g babies, but since she had none, they were more often than not a source of annoyance.
But the moment Jasper’s rough hand stroked over her nipple she knew precisely what other use they might be put to. Almost like they were joined with a thread made of nerves alone, the feel of his mouth when it suckled her through the sheer fabric of her night rail set the heart of her throbbing. For what she knew not.
She only knew that if she didn’t hold onto him, she was in danger of flying away on the wings of the euphoria his hands, his mouth, his body were drawing from her.
Seventeen
He was quickly losing the ability to hold himself back, Jasper realized as his mouth covered her breast through the fabric of her night rail.
One of the things he’d always prided himself on as a lover was his ability to see to his partner’s pleasure before his own, but he was damned if he didn’t find Hermione’s little gasps of pleasure each time he touched her more decadent than the most experienced courtesan’s touch.
Almost from the moment they’d met he’d wanted her. Wanted to be the man who introduced her to the pleasure that was possible between a man and a woman when both their bodies and their minds were engaged.
And he’d not been disappointed in the way she responded to his kiss that day in her father’s sitting room. It was one of the reasons he’d been so determined to go through with the marriage that had been arranged over a game of cards.
But even knowing all that, having mentally prepared himself for the intensity of the connection between them, he still found himself responding to her slightest murmur like a green boy with his first lover.
So, when her hand drifted down his chest to rest against the eagerness of his erection, he was a bit more forceful than necessary with his grip on her wrist.
At her inhalation of dismay, he cursed himself and kissed her. “You can touch me,” he said, his voice hoarse with passion. “Indeed,” he went on as he moved his lips to the sensitive skin below her ear, “I want you to touch me. But I fear if you do so right now I will lose control. And I want to be gentle with you. I need to be.”
“But I don’t…” she began, only to stop when he touched his tongue to the skin of her neck. “I don’t know what that means,” she finally managed to get out.
“I want it to be good for you,” he whispered against her ear, feeling her tremble at the sensation. “Surely your moth—”
And then despite his lust-addled brain’s inability to do complex thinking, it occurred to him that she had no mother to speak to her of such things.
He uttered a very bad word.
And though it was perhaps the hardest thing he’d ever had to do, he pulled away from her and sat on the side of the bed. Facing away from her and thinking of every possible terrible erection-killing thing he could think of. For if he had to be the one to explain this to her, he’d better be at his most nonthreatening. And even he was aware that a man with a rampant erection was about as nonthreatening as a rhinoceros.
“Jasper?” Hermione asked, her voice sounding more timid than he’d ever heard it. “Did I do something wrong? I promise I won’t touch you there again. Not if you don’t want me to.”
Of course she thought she’d done something wrong. He was a beast. Not least because he’d not ensured that she’d had some older lady—hell, even Leonora would do—to explain to her what happened between a man and a woman.
“It’s not that,” he ground out, every last bit of him demanding to know why he wasn’t hiking up her skirts and pounding into her. “Just give me a minute.”
“Did, did I hurt you?”
His erection now at least a bit more tolerable half-mast, he turned and took her hand. “You did not,” he said gently. “I promise you. It’s just that men have a difficult time … that is to say, I…”
“It’s all right,” she said with a nod. “I’ll lie as still as I can if you wish to continue. I want to please you.”
He was a beast.
“I do not want that at all,” he said with a sigh. “I hadn’t thought to ask if you had some female relative to speak to you about what happens between a husband and wife. I should have considered it, but there was so much else going on.”
“I admit,” she said with a smile, “my knowledge about the process is a bit limited. I have seen horses of course, but as they have hooves there was no question of the lady horse touching the stallion’s…” She made a hand gesture meant to indicate the missing word,
“Quite,” he said with a wince at the absurdity of this conversation. He ran a palm over the back of his neck. “It’s not unlike horses, actually.” He felt his ears redden in embarrassment.
“Only with people it’s possible to … ah … be face-to-face.”
Her eyes widened and he could almost hear the gears grinding in her head as she considered the possibilities.
“So,” she said, tilting her head to the side. “You wanted to be gentle because it will hurt?”
“The first time, yes,” he said, grateful that her question was something relatively easy to answer. He wasn’t sure he was up to the rigors of explaining the variations of sexual positions at the moment. “But I will try to make it as painless as possible. Perhaps it would be better to show you rather than tell.”
She nodded and moved back a little to make more room for him on the bed.
He was almost undone by the trust in her eyes as she watched him crawl toward her. Unable to stop himself, he kissed her. It wasn’t as gentle as before, and to his relief she gave as good as she got. Perhaps their little conversation had removed some of her misgivings.
As their embrace intensified, he kissed his way over her chin and down to her breast again. And when she writhed beneath him, he slid his hands down over her legs, lifted her night rail and slid it upward. She lifted her bottom to help him whisk it over her head, and when she was naked before him, Jasper leaned back, unable to keep from finally looking his fill.
As he’d expected, her native athleticism, her handling of the reins and years of riding, had left her with shapely legs and arms. But it was her breasts that nearly took his breath away. They were large enough to cup in his hand, with dark rosy nipples that seemed to beg for his mouth.
“Gorgeous,” he said, mindful of her sudden shyness. “You’re beautiful, Hermione. I couldn’t have asked for a lovelier bride.”
She smiled shyly and reached out to stroke his chest. “You’re rather a fine specimen yourself,” she said pertly. “And in the interest of fairness you are wearing far more clothes than I am.”
Leave it to his little trailblazer to demand parity between them, he thought with a laugh. Quickly, he shucked his breeches and smalls, and before she could look for too long at what he knew was a raging erection, he climbed back up and covered her, reveling in the sensation of skin to skin.
“Ah God,” he said, sliding a hand over her hip even as he kissed his way from her ear to her chin and down toward her breasts again. Listening to her response as he went, he slid his hand over the soft hair at the apex of her thighs, and despite her gasp, he cupped her mound and stroked his middle finger over the wetness there.
In response, she gasped again and lifted her hips, as if begging for more.
“Easy,” he whispered against her bosom, using his teeth to scrape over her eager nipple. “Do you like it?”
Her moan when he pressed a finger inside her told him that the answer was yes, and for a moment he concentrated on alternating between his finger’s movements and suckling her breast.
When she whispered “More,” he added another finger, and when she moved her hips against his hand he knew she was ready. At least he hoped so.
Lifting himself up over her, he pressed his knees between her, and bracing himself above her with his left hand, he lifted her leg up over his hip with the other. “This might hurt,” he whispered against her lips, “but it can’t be helped. I’ll be as gentle as I can.”
Then, guiding himself into her wetness, he pre
ssed forward.
* * *
Despite Jasper’s warning of pain, Hermione was still shocked that something that began so pleasurably could possibly be so uncomfortable. Even so, she bit her lip and tried to relax as he pressed his body into hers. Bit by bit he forged ahead until, at last, she sensed that he was fully seated.
What an odd sensation, she thought as she gave a tentative flex of her muscles down there. His surprised intake of breath told her that perhaps he wasn’t the only one with the ability to create feeling as part of this act. With her legs spread wide and the feeling of his strong body beneath her fingers, she felt closer to Jasper than she had to any other person.
“Is that all?” she asked when he seemed in no hurry to remove himself from her body.
His soft laugh made her feel a little foolish. It was bad enough he’d had to explain to her what any other young lady would have learned from her mother, but now she was asking foolish questions. Still, it was the only way she would learn things, wasn’t it?
Rather than answer her, he pulled back and, to her shock, the sensation was not altogether unpleasant.
“No,” he said with a quick kiss on her mouth. “Not by a long shot.”
And he began to move within her, stroking in and out, the hot skin of his chest sliding over her sensitive breasts, and all the while, that part of her where he filled her starting to ache. When he pressed in, she wanted to hold him there. She even brought her legs up to hold him to her, trying to lock her feet over his buttocks. Her arms grasped his shoulders with the intensity of a falling woman clinging on for dear life.
And all through her she felt the beat of her heart, in tempo with the throbbing between her legs, beating a tattoo, keeping time with his every stroke. Again and again, he pressed into her, his body beginning to press harder, move faster, until there was no more pain, only urgency. Until her body almost quivered with the desire to hold him within her. And at the same time, she knew that if he stopped moving she would weep with the disappointment of it.
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