by Suzi Love
Yet, he’d let a cascade of hair and a swaying bosom blind him to his situation. Laura’s left hand rested on the curve of her very feminine hip and dangled a very unfeminine weapon. Her fingers were looped in a desultory fashion through the trigger of a much larger caliber gun than the smaller woman’s pistol she sometimes carried in her reticule. The gun swung in small lazy arcs beside her thigh and he stiffened, realizing how close the weapon was to his own thigh. Despite knowing how skilled a shooter she was, Richard possessed every normal male’s dislike of even the smallest threat to his manhood. Best, then, to postpone his prepared lecture, at least until he’d unarmed this vixen.
The situation was as Sherwyn had often said. Any hero’s well-meaning attempt to extricate a Jamison woman from a hazard often turned face-about and threatened the life of the savior. Better, then, to err on the side of safety and shift his vitals from the vicinity of her weapon, and before he opened his mouth and put his foot in it.
“Perhaps we could continue this discussion somewhere quieter? Somewhere we won’t disturb your aunt. And of course, your poor overburdened servants.” At his sarcasm, she simply raised one shaped brow and continued to circle her gun. “And perhaps we should secure your weapon. I feel very nervous having it near any part of my anatomy.”
She chuckled. “Now you sound like your cousin. Despite Sherwyn being the one who taught us to shoot, and extremely well, he’s as jumpy as a new-born foal whenever Becca waves a loaded pistol.”
He scowled at her. “Men, or at least those who fancy themselves as legendary lovers, or who need an heir in the future, are very protective of their lower torsos. Future generations depend on us keeping our bollocks intact. And that means staying well away from any Jamison female brandishing a weapon.”
With another small gurgle of laughter, she placed the gun in a drawer of the hall cabinet beside them and spun away without another word. She walked to the far end of the hallway and waited for him to follow. He hadn’t known the room, a tiny cubby-hole with its odd shaped walls and tucked away under the steps, existed. Intrigued, he dipped his head under the low lintel and stepped inside the dark space, standing still while Laura secured the door. From a stained-glass window high up on one octagonal wall, dim rays of moonlight streamed down and created enough glow to make out the shape of pieces of heavy furniture. He took a step towards what he assumed was her desk and banged his forehead on a low beam.
“Ow!” He lifted his hand to rub the area at the exact moment Laura reached a finger towards his mouth, motioning him to silence. But their hands collided and he held her bare fingers, stilled them, and then lifted them to his nose. “Honey,” he murmured.
He nuzzled higher, along her bare wrist, and opened his lips over her skin. Skin so soft that he could have been kissing the rose petals she collected for her lotions. Dewy, velvety, and oh-so-intoxicating.
The sound of her rapid swallowing was music to his ears. He needed this stubborn woman to be as unraveled by their close position as him. Wanted her as undone by his aroma as he was after inhaling the scent of honey on her hands. He began his campaign of seduction by sucking each finger into his mouth, one after the other, wanting her so aroused that she squirmed in his arms and begged him to relieve the unbearable tension.
“I–I mix a little honey.” Her words were spaced between breathy pants that corresponded to each deep pull he gave on a finger. “Wi-with my base lotion.”
“I like it.” He pushed the sleeves of her robe and nightgown up her arm so he could nuzzle further upwards.
“I could mix you some.” Her words were said with a breathy gasp that did wondrous things to his libido.
“I don’t think it would taste nearly as good on my skin.”
He licked a small path up her forearm and she shivered. Her wide-eyed look and frozen silence told him more than words.
“Do you like that?”
She nodded and then licked her lips. His body hardened and he instinctively pressed closer. His last remnant of sanity urged him not to frighten her with the growing physical evidence of his lust. Laura’s knowledge of a man’s anatomy would be far more advanced than most unmarried ladies, because of her fascination with science and Darwin’s theories about the attraction between genders.
No one could spend time with the Jamison family and not know of their unorthodox views and their love of a good argument. Meal times often resembled rounds of boxing, rather than polite dining table conversation. Every Jamison sibling read ferociously, held strong views on numerous scientific and political topics, and felt free to debate them, regardless of gender or topic. It stood to reason that Laura would notice his arousal, because it strained against the placket of his trousers like a hungry horse pushing its nose over its stable door towards the feed bucket.
The only unknown factor in this situation was Laura’s response. Any lady raised in a household of peers would be entitled to, and encouraged to, slap his face. Good and hard. Considering this particular lady’s prying nature, she was far more likely to react by asking him a hundred questions, ones he’d be hard pressed to answer rationally while he struggled to retain some semblance of sanity. If she explored his body too intimately, chances were his hunger for her would break its bounds and push both of them into actions beyond their unacknowledged, yet strictly-adhered-to limits.
Sanity be damned. If he didn’t touch her, he’d be driven as mad by repressed desire as Lady Hetherington was by her incessant greed. He leaned in slowly, the way a horse breaker gentled an unbroken steed, and touched his lips to hers. The kiss was the gentlest he’d given in many a long year, and not the sort he engaged in with his normal bed partners. His willing widows or high class courtesans liked him to show more aggression, a nonsensical notion that he’d been told gave them a feeling of being ‘taken by a lusty lord’.
His shared touching of lips with Laura was nothing like that, being more of a test of control—on both sides—yet the sweetness and innocence of this kiss sorely tested his control, stretched his famous self-discipline far more than he would normally allow with a woman, and proved that once again her mere presence had goaded him into another arrogantly stupid move. Still, when she slid her soft hands up and around his neck and directed his mouth back to hers, he followed her lead like the enamored and addicted fool he was.
Letting her set the pace, he stood as still as stone while she glided her lips back and forth across his, a slow and steady investigation destined to drive him over the brink if he didn’t find the fortitude to stop her.
He opened his mouth to protest, but she touched his tongue with hers and all thought leeched from his mind. His hands shook and his knees threatened to sag. He’d never experienced a reaction like it, especially not to the kiss of an innocent. In the blink of an eye, their roles reversed and he was no longer the predator but the one who needed to beg to be released.
“No.” He attempted to disengage himself, but his feet were glued to the floor boards and he couldn’t force them to move, couldn’t will himself to take the necessary step backwards, away from such dire temptation
“This-this is bad idea.”
“I think it’s an excellent idea.” She cocked her head to the side and frowned. “Besides, I thought you wanted it too.”
Even more than he needed to separate from her, he wanted to reassure her that there was nothing wrong with her physically or mentally. Part of his desire to be with Laura was his longing to inflate her self-esteem, to pump back the self-poise she lost each time her father chastised her for lack of talent. He touched his forehead to hers.
“Wanting has nothing to do with it. Five minutes with you, and I can think of nothing but exploring your sweet mouth and sucking in the exotic taste of you.” He gripped her arms, undecided if he should push her away, or pull her so tightly against him that she couldn’t help but feel how much he wanted her physically.
“But don‘t you see,” he said with a growl. “That’s the problem. If I gave in and laid my hands o
n you the way I want, the way you think you want me to touch you right now, your brothers will hunt me down and shoot me.” He snorted. “Hell. Becca will return and join the hunt and she’s a far better shot. In the light of day, when you come to your senses, you’ll realize I was right. You’re alive and vital and beautiful, and you deserve to have the best life possible.” He shook his head. “We both know I’m not the right man for you. Dammit, Laura, even the smell of my sweat isn’t right for your theories. How many times have you sniffed my cologne, my person, when you thought I wasn’t aware? I’ve not said a word, despite being treated like an exotic specimen. You’ve analyzed me, written about me in your endless notebooks. But this.” He waved his hand in the tight space between them. “This…thing that happens. It’s…it’s a curse. And a blasted nuisance. ”
“See! You’re supposedly far more experienced than I, yet you cannot name what happens when we’re together. Before an audience, we circle each other like lions defending against attack. But alone, like now, I feel... I want… to experience things, with you.”
With his face inches from hers, he scowled, tried to pretend it didn’t matter and that he didn’t want the same.
“What you feel,” he snapped, so close to her ear that she jumped, “is simple passion. Desire. Arousal. Call it what you will.” He took her hand and guided it downwards, holding it loosely over the hard ridge of his erection beneath his trousers. He ignored her sharp inhalation. “You can repeat, word for word, lectures you’ve attended at the Academy. You think you understand sexual urges.” He pressed down on her hand, securing it firmly against him, before he slowly molded her fingers until fitted the curve of his cockstand like a glove. “Yet when it comes to men and what they really want from women, or the lengths unscrupulous rogues would go to get a beautiful woman beneath him, you’ve as little knowledge as a child in the nursery.”
When she met his gaze, he expected to see her awareness. What shook him to the core was her look of wide-eyed wonder. And when her tongue darted out and swept across her luscious red lips, he forgot the purpose of his action. Forgot this was supposed to be about shaking her equilibrium. Forgot his own tongue wasn’t forbidden from following the path of hers, and that he shouldn’t be imagining the sweet taste of her again.
She swallowed, hard, and put her hands to her hips. Defiant Laura had returned. “I’m not a child and I’m well-informed on every aspect of anatomy and physiology.” She smirked, with the look of a female who understands her power over the male species. “Besides, I’ve been surrounded by men all my life. My brothers, you, your cousins. Do you think I haven’t learned things from all of you?”
“Nonsense. What you know is textbook anatomy, not an intimate knowledge of a man’s body.”
She scowled. “This,” she said, giving his rapidly-increasing erection a squeeze, “is a man’s innate response when in close contact with a female he’s considering as a mate. For procreation.”
“Ah. Another lecture straight from the mouth of the adolescent Mister Darwin. You’ve proved how little you know, my innocent, despite your endless discussions with other obsessed scientists. Men prefer to use this organ for recreation, rather than procreation.”
Her mouth opened on a small ooh, and she looked down at their hands. His erection jumped in reaction to her scrutiny and, as so often happened with Laura, he saw far too late what his brain had valiantly tried to signal from the moment he’d accompanied this beautiful woman into her closet-like study. He swallowed. Far from acting in any normal maidenly fashion and shoving him out the front door, this bluestocking, with her consuming interest in the science of procreation, had the wherewithal literally in her hand to indulge her rabid curiosity. Heaven help him, but by the look in her eye and her firm clasp on his precious manhood, she was delighting in each discovery. And seducing him so quickly and so unerringly, that he was about to be the one put to the blush.
Having years of town polish, he prided himself on his swift assessments of his sexual encounters and his ability to either speed them up, or slow them, according to his schedules and whims. He was dumbfounded by his own blind stupidity, because her eyes widened even further at the mention of recreation. He could follow each of her thoughts as she weighed up the possibility of testing the aforesaid recreation.
“Oh, no, no, no. Any man reacts this way if confronted by a half-naked woman. It means nothing.” He turned towards the door, desperate to escape. “We kissed. Nothing more, nothing less. ”
As he invariably did with her, he’d confused the situation, badly. If she’d been another sort of woman, well, yes, naturally he’d have taken full advantage of their intimate situation. Only if she was his bride, could he encourage Laura’s thirst for knowledge and her desire for an exciting new adventure. If this was their wedding night, he’d push on, full steam ahead, to a mutually satisfying conclusion. And if she was a sophisticated woman, his rakish friends would be laying bets on how many days would pass before he bedded her. But the woman standing within a breath’s distance from him was Laura. Sister of his friends, sister-in-law to his cousin, family to a large group of males who’d be justifiably angry if he touched her virgin body and then thought to evade the parson’s net. Every male he was associated with would urge him to run, to save himself, or at least his bachelorhood.
Her fingers began to move under his, a slow and steady exploration of his rock-hard cock. She investigated the breadth and the length of his member until he was groaning aloud and, by reflex, squeezed her fingers to increase the pressure.
“See. You’re not the first man I’ve kissed. Nor will you be the only man. I intend learning as much as possible about men, their likes and dislikes, before I chose a husband. How else can a woman decide which man is right for her. Which man will bring her joy during her marriage?”
Despite learning, as did every boy at a new school, to never react to taunts, Richard couldn’t conceal his fury. He felt every crease wrinkle across his brow and the uniform dig of each of his fingernails into his palms. Despite knowing this particular heckler would notice and, more than likely, rejoice in having disconcerted him. It was pure folly on his part to expect that in the arena of carnality, his particular field of expertise, this contrary woman would permit him to hold the reins or, in this case, his phallus. Utter stupidity to imagine himself slowing, or speeding up, their interactions.
How did one contrary woman unravel him, rapidly and completely, as none of his business partners or opponents ever managed? Laura made one of her fervent declarations and his plans to keep his distance, and not become emotionally involved, were overturned as easily as pieces of furniture in his sisters’ nursery doll’s house. Her endeavor to select her husband, using sensual experiments and exchanging kisses with numerous bachelors, had to be the biggest exercise in futility he’d ever encountered.
Why then couldn’t he stop scowling? “Exactly how many men have you kissed? And who are they?”
She gave a deep sigh and slowly, ever so slowly, released his arm. “You’ve no right to ask me that, Richard, not when you’ve shown so little interest in kissing me yourself.”
“Oh, I’ve plenty of interest alright. Never doubt that for a minute. Every time we’re alone, I come within a hair’s breadth of taking whatever you keep offering.”
“I don’t offer anything.”
“Yes you do. Most likely, you’re unaware of what you’re doing to me. But trust me on this: your body is ready for intimacy, even if your head lags behind.”
A few moments ago, she’d been eager and excited and looking to him for her tutoring in the bedroom arts. Now she stared at him in horror, making him feel like a puppy-kicking fiend.
“You’ve no need to fear though, my dear, as I’ve a hard-and-fast rule about never ever seducing innocents. No matter how they prod and provoke me into it.”
“Why you arrogant….”
He grasped her hand as she swung it towards his face. “Oh, for heaven’s sake. Be grateful I didn’t
take things further and ruin you.” He shook his head. “Believe me, I wish…”
“Wish- wish what?”
“That we were…” He barely caught himself in time. If he revealed how many
times he’d considered a union between them, even drawn up columns of For and Against, Laura would poke and prod and demand a full explanation. Apart from feeling disconcerted by her swift change of attitude, from horrified retreat at the wedding to flirtatious advances now, he’d seen how easily she could wring juicy bits of gossip out of the mouths of her generally close-lipped brothers. So, if he revealed even the most minor of his reasons for crossing her off his list of suitable marriage partners, she’d be like a dog with a bone. Laura wouldn’t let go until she’d argued him into a corner, and he’d be forced to admit his main reason: terror, pure abject terror, of being so head-over-heels in love with his wife that the rest of the world ceased to matter.
He’d decided at eighteen, when his parents had died, that duty was a much more powerful reason for marrying than love. Love caused havoc for those around you. Love destroyed families and ruined estates, and he would not be one of those peers whom the ton pitied because he’d sacrificed all but his titles in the name of love. Titles were cold companions in hard times. He and his sisters, plus his future wife and heirs, would all benefit more if he concentrated on long-lasting wealth and security, rather than some philosophical notion of love.
“Never mind.” He shook his head. “I’m only here to tell you about your friend, Longman.”
She fired off a succession of questions. “Did you find him? Where is he? Is he unharmed?”
Despite his will, Richard felt a sudden stab of jealousy over Laura’s immediate and heartfelt concern for another man. Even if Longman was, by comparison to himself, hardly more than a youth.
“He’s in a doctor’s care right now. Expected to recover, though it may take some time. But he was kidnapped earlier tonight.”