And if she didn’t see it that way yet, well, he’d make damn sure she would by morning.
But she seemed to be getting the message already, if her reaction to his kiss was any indication. At the first touch of his lips on hers, she’d seemed to melt beneath him, all the tension leaving the arms that, up until that moment, he’d kept pinned to the mattress. Her mouth opened to his as naturally as it had that afternoon in the stables, as willingly as that evening in the library, and she returned his kiss with just as much innocent enthusiasm. Only this time, to Jeremy’s lascivious delight, she was wearing far less clothing. When he released one of her wrists in order to place his hand over the place where her heart was drumming, he didn’t have to push away layer upon layer of gown and camisole. He only had to undo a single mother-of-pearl button. Wherever he laid his fingers, he felt only bare skin, skin that was smooth as satin, and radiated a fiery warmth, despite the chill in the room and her state of relative undress, a heat that staggered him.
Maggie let out a whimper as his fingers scorched the delicate skin of her chest. When those fingers dipped lower, greedily pushing back the collar of her nightdress to expose one of her ripe, heavy breasts, Maggie tore her lips away from his, lifting her eyelids to stare up at him in the half-light, shocked by the myriad sensations he’d managed to arouse within her. Because suddenly, she felt more alive than she had at any time in the past five years. What she’d felt in the library, a few hours earlier, was nothing to it. It was as if her body, into which he’d breathed life in the stables that day so long ago, had gone into hibernation until this very moment. And now, all of the emotions and sensations she’d felt that day came flooding back, with a vengeance.
For Jeremy, the look of absolute wonder on Maggie’s face had a shattering effect. He had meant to go about this business slowly, carefully. After all, Maggie was a virgin—though by her own admission, a highly sensual one. He didn’t want to frighten her, wanted to take things slowly, wanted to allow her to set the pace.
But one glimpse of her wide, astonished brown eyes and moistly parted lips, and he was lost. Self-control vanished. Suddenly, the hands over which he’d thought he had complete mastery were doing things he hadn’t directed them to, fumbling for the tie to her dressing gown, reaching to pull up the hem of her nightdress. If he wasn’t mindless in his lust, then he was the closest thing to it.
But fortunately for Jeremy, Maggie seemed to feel the same way. Instead of shrinking from him and his unbridled passion, as any other innocent might have, she matched him, heated kiss for heated kiss. Suddenly, it became vital for her to feel his bare flesh against hers. Even as Jeremy was tearing at the rest of the buttons to her nightdress, she reached up and began wrenching off her dressing gown, gasping when he suddenly reared up and, heedless of his wounded shoulder, flung the offending garment away himself. For one moment, his darkly tanned torso glowed bronze in the firelight, and Maggie was able to admire, with an artist’s eye, his physique, which was every bit as manly as Michelangelo’s David … .
Only this work of art was made of hot flesh, not cool marble.
And then, with a cry of triumph, Jeremy managed to undo the last button that had held her nightdress closed, liberating what he seemed to have waited for so long to see. Maggie’s breasts spilled from the cotton material, the firelight playing over the creamy expanses of flesh like sunlight on snow. Lifting her gaze at Jeremy’s sharp intake of breath, Maggie was bemused to see him smile—a slow, self-congratulatory smile that, more than his kisses, more than the stiff urgency of his need, which she could feel pressing against her, convinced her that this man wanted her. That he not only wanted, but needed her. And that realization caused what had begun as a tender throb at the jointure of her legs to become an all-out ache, an ache she knew could only be relieved in one way … .
And then he lowered himself over her once more, moving to catch the rounded globes of her breasts in his hands. Maggie writhed as his hard palms ground against the sensitive skin of her nipples, but that was only the beginning of that particular sweet torture: A second later, his palm was replaced by his mouth. Maggie gasped at the unfamiliar sensation of hot wetness surrounding the hardened peak of her breast. At the first flick of his tongue, her fingers, which she’d already buried instinctively in his hair, tightened in the curly mass, and her hips, as if of their own accord, began to undulate. She could feel the stiff length of his masculinity pulsing against her now, and she began to move against that stiffness, hardly aware that she was doing so.
Jeremy, however, was very much aware that she was doing so, and it was only with effort that he kept himself from exploding right then and there. With gritted teeth, he lifted his face from her breasts and looked at her. Maggie’s head was thrown back against the pillows, her long dark hair a thick curtain over the satin bed-covers, her eyes half-lidded and her breath coming in short little gasps. When she noticed his gaze on her, she did not try to hide her nakedness, as other women might have. She was clearly more comfortable nude than clothed, which was unusual, in Jeremy’s experience, for a large-breasted woman. The discovery delighted him, however … though not as much as the sight of her long, pale legs, flat belly, and, most of all, the fluff of black hair that lay between them.
That silky triangle attracted him as no other he’d ever encountered. Jeremy found himself as drawn toward it as water is drawn toward the moon. Moving until his body was once again covering Maggie’s, his mouth sought hers … while his fingers delved into that dark patch at the jointure of her thighs.
Maggie’s knowledge of the sexual act had become significantly more sophisticated since her schooldays, thanks primarily to her life drawing classes and Berangère’s informative gossip. She had seen naked men before—though, to Jeremy’s credit, she’d never seen one quite that large—and she knew what went where, but nobody had warned her about what it felt like. Maggie had thought she would die of shock when his mouth closed over her nipple, but when Jeremy inserted first one finger, and then another, inside of her, she was completely unprepared for the sensations that shot through her. Suddenly, it was all she could do not to seize hold of that velvet rod she’d touched so hesitantly in Lord Althorpe’s library—and which Jeremy had looked so surprised to see her holding—and guide it into her. But if he had looked that shocked when all she’d done was touch it, what would he think of her if she tried to—
Maggie needn’t have worried. Jeremy was not surprised at the willingness with which she opened her legs to receive him. Nor was he surprised at the slick moisture his fingers encountered there. When her hips instinctively rose so that the heel of his hand brushed against the core of her womanhood, eliciting from her a soft moan, he knew, with joyous certainty, that she was ready for him.
For a single heartbeat, they lay like that, breathing hard, Jeremy’s fingers pressed hotly inside of her, Maggie’s hard nipples tangled in his chest hair. He looked down into the depthless pools that were her eyes, while she blinked under the intensity of his silver gaze.
And then Jeremy lowered his mouth, tasting the sweetness of her lips at the same time that he removed his fingers, and replaced them with that part of him that most longed for Maggie’s touch.
Maggie gasped against his mouth as he started to enter into her. This was a very different sensation from the fingers he’d slipped so easily in and out. In fact, from the very first moment the tip of his hard shaft prodded her, she became convinced that this was not going to work, that she was abnormally small, that he was abnormally large, that their joining was a physical impossibility best left untested. Suddenly, all the fear she had so ingenuously admitted that night so long ago in her bedroom came back, with a vengeance … .
She was on the verge of protesting, of shouting at him to stop—despite what she knew would follow, an accusation of cowardice, at the very least—when something inside of her broke. Maggie’s fingers, which she’d flung up against his wide chest in a last-minute effort at self-preservation, sank into his b
are flesh, her nails raking him—until that impossible length sank all the way into her, and the pain miraculously disappeared.
Jeremy froze, buried inside of her, aware not just from the way she’d clawed him, but from the way her hips had stilled, that he’d hurt her. For one moment, he felt nothing but panic. What could he do? The last thing in the world he’d wanted to do was hurt Maggie. He’d thought she was ready for him! She’d certainly been wet enough. Oh, God, why had it been his misfortune to fall in love with a virgin? Why couldn’t he have fallen in love with a prostitute, like his father had?
“Maggie,” he gasped. “I’m so—”
But she wasn’t listening to him, and a second later, he saw why. Her hips began to move again, tentatively at first, and then, discovering that the pain was well and truly over, with more confidence. Jeremy sucked in his breath as the hot skin that encased his shaft pulled it more deeply inside of her. Then Maggie lowered her hips, releasing him … only to pull him inside again a second later when she undulated once more against him. Jeremy, stunned, met her hips with an answering thrust of his own. Maggie, beneath him, murmured with pleasure, her head thrashing against the pillows beneath it.
Jeremy needed no more encouragement. Besides the fact that this woman happened to be Maggie, hers was the hottest, tightest sheath he had ever been inside. He could feel her pulsating all around him, her ivory thighs clenching his sides, her fingers tangled in his hair, bringing his lips down to meet hers again. Seizing hold of her soft breasts, Jeremy drove himself into her as deeply as he could, with his tongue as well as his shaft.
And Maggie, his Maggie, met him, thrust for thrust.
It wasn’t very long before the ache Maggie had been experiencing—centered between her thighs—became an urgent pull, driving her to press closer and closer to Jeremy’s hardness. Still, she was completely unprepared when, after one particularly hard thrust of his, one that she was sure was going to lance her to the mattress, she seemed to leave her body—though physically, she clung to him, harder than ever. Emotionally, however, she was suddenly drowning in a sea of color—of golds and sapphires and vermilions, more colors than she’d ever been able to mix in her paint box, more colors, she knew with a painter’s certainty, than existed. They flashed beneath her eyelids in an explosion of liquid light, pulsating all around her like a shower of jeweled paint drops, and Maggie, with a feeling of consummate joy, threw out her arms to catch as many as she could.
When Jeremy felt Maggie begin to climax beneath him, his first thought was one of elation—he had never, in all of his experience with women, been so sure that his partner was genuinely climaxing, and not performing for the sake of satisfying him—or his purse. With Maggie, however, there was no doubt, no doubt at all. He had satisfied her, more than satisfied her, if the look of beatific bliss on her face was any indication … .
And then, at the sight of that face, of Maggie’s long throat, her head thrown back in ecstasy, Jeremy himself climaxed, with such intensity that Maggie, only just recovering from her own release, thought for a panicky second or two that he might split her in half. He exploded within her, pounding her body back against the mattress, letting loose as he did so a shout of such boastful joy that she was certain the entire household would be raised.
Then he collapsed against her, his damp brow resting in the hollow between her neck and shoulder. He was breathing heavily, his heart hammering so hard against her that she found herself wondering, vaguely, if he’d suffered an apoplexy. And she couldn’t help thinking smugly, I caused that. Me. I did it.
That feeling was almost as gratifying as her release had been.
It wasn’t until a little while later, when he started to slide from her, that Jeremy saw her wince. A glimpse at the sheets beneath them revealed the reason why.
“My God,” he cried, rearing up onto the heels of his hands, heedless of the pain that shot through his shoulder at the movement. “Are you all right, Mags?”
Maggie, not sure what he was talking about, followed the direction of his gaze. “Oh, no,” she said, when she saw the crimson stain that had spread over the white linen sheets. “However are we going to explain that?”
Jeremy frowned at her. “Never mind that. Are you all right?”
Maggie glanced at him, bemused. “Yes, of course. A little sore, is all. Maybe if we soak them overnight—”
“Never mind the damned sheets,” Jeremy said through gritted teeth. “I’ll buy new ones tomorrow.”
Maggie brightened. “Oh, I’d forgotten! How nice it must be to be rich.”
Jeremy thought about pointing out to her that once she married him, she’d be rich, too, but at the last minute, he decided now was not the best time to bring up the subject. Yes, he’d got her into his bed. Now, he had to make certain he got into her heart.
But in the meantime, he intended to take full advantage of the time he had her in his bed.
Maggie must have recognized the glint in his eye, because suddenly she said, “Oh, no. Not again. Jeremy, I’ve got to get back to my own room before Hill—”
But he didn’t let her finish. He didn’t think he would have much liked what she had to say on the subject anyway.
Chapter 23
Jeremy was convinced he was dreaming. He’d had this dream before, and it always turned out the same: He woke, and the delectable figure in his arms, the one with all the very nice padding up front, vanished, as all her dream-sisters had, into nothingness.
But this time, Jeremy had figured out a way to keep that from happening. He simply wouldn’t wake up. That’s right. He’d keep his eyes closed, forever, if he had to, but it would be worth it, because he’d have all this cozy warmth to curl up against, and that was all he needed. Who needed food or drink when there was this bounty of female flesh to wrap one’s arms around? Jeremy could never remember feeling quite so comfortable in the whole of his life. Damn if he was going to ruin it all by waking up.
Then something happened that had never occurred in any of his dreams. The figure in his arms rolled over. Rolled over and nuzzled her face into the hollow between Jeremy’s neck and shoulder.
Waves of pain shot through him. That had never happened in any dream, either. Jeremy opened his eyes.
Good God! It was a dream come true! Jeremy had actually awakened to find Maggie Herbert in his arms!
True, he was in pain. Agonies of it. The place where he’d been stabbed the night before felt as if it were on fire. Still, when Maggie came into focus in the soft morning light, all of her, from the thick tangle of inky hair across his pillows to the full weight of her naked breasts against his chest, he could easily forget his pain. It had been a while since he’d wakened in the company of a woman. Fraternization with the locals had been frowned upon by his fellow Horse Guards, so Jeremy had been forced to frequent houses of pleasure, where staying the night was generally discouraged.
But if memory served, the truly passionate woman—which Maggie, as he knew only too well, clearly was—was most effectively aroused by the application of a pair of lips placed directly beneath and a little behind the earlobe … .
Moving aside some of Maggie’s long, thick hair, Jeremy leaned forward to press his mouth to her neck. As he kissed her, he felt the steady beat of her pulse beneath his lips. Maggie stirred, hitching up a shoulder in response to the sensation below her ear. Her lips, however, curved into a slight smile, as if she were dreaming of something vaguely pleasant. Encouraged, Jeremy transferred his next kiss to that smiling mouth, and was even more pleased when Maggie seemed to kiss him back, sweetly, with the perfect innocence of a child.
But it wasn’t a child he was interested in. It was the woman that child had become.
Still, he was willing to be patient. The innocence of her unconscious kiss pleased him. She still kissed, even in her sleep, like someone who wasn’t used to it, but was very eager to learn. That was good. That was very good. Jeremy leaned down to taste her lips again.
This time when h
e kissed her, she surprised him by letting out a sigh. This was a highly encouraging sign, especially since the sigh parted her lips enough to allow him to deepen the kiss. Slipping his tongue inside her mouth, Jeremy found himself marveling once again at Maggie’s responsiveness, which was more genuinely sensual than any other woman he had ever known. The minute his tongue touched hers, Maggie let out a throaty little noise … .
And rolled over, effectively breaking the kiss. She did, however, move to press herself more closely against him—only, since her back was to him, all she succeeded in doing was capturing his stiffening erection between the sweet curves of her backside.
His heart pounding unsteadily, Jeremy began to feel that all-too-familiar ache in his loins.
Suddenly, what had started out simply as a lusty alternative to spanking Maggie awake turned into something else altogether, something Jeremy no longer felt he was going to be able to suspend should she wake with different feelings toward him than she evidently felt while sleeping.
All the more reason, Jeremy decided, to enjoy her good will while it lasted, even if she was only bestowing it upon him because she was unconscious. God only knew when he’d be allowed to hold her in his arms like this again.
Jeremy raised a hand and ran it along the length of her body, pausing as his fingers encountered the swell of one of her breasts. He palmed that soft, heavy globe, feeling her nipple swell the same way he was swelling against her. Was it possible, he wondered, that even in her sleep, she wanted him?
He curved an arm around her narrow waist until his questing fingers found the soft down between her thighs. Separating the velvet folds gently, he was able to confirm his suspicions: She was wet. His fingers were suddenly awash with her essence. That discovery excited him to a point from which, he knew, there was no going back. He was rock hard against the tender valley between her buttocks. The moist heat from her womb seemed to beckon him. To enter her, all he’d need do was move the slightest bit, and …
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