“Meg, would you like me to go now?”
It was her turn to tip her head back. As she did, she prayed for guidance. Already he was using her name as if they were old friends—which they were never likely to be. By right she should respectfully suggest that the moment had come for them to part.
She didn’t want him to go.
“Meg?” He leaned toward her and waited until she looked into his eyes. “I will go at once if that’s what you want.” His unfairness should shame him. Asking her to make the decision was designed to bring her insistence that he remain.
“And that is what you want?”
Ah, she was not to be so easily duped. “No, it isn’t. I want to stay with you for as long as is even remotely safe. I would stay until the dawn, just to sit here with you and talk. And if we fall asleep in each other’s arms, I shall be the most fortunate of men.”
Meg could not speak. His earnestness disarmed her. The suggestion that they might hold each other and sleep shattered every shred of her composure.
“Meg—”
“My Lord, you are most welcome to stay as long as you please. I will not sleep tonight because I am worried about my sister. I would welcome your company.”
His eyes smarted, not something he’d experienced in longer than he remembered. Men didn’t cry and he would not—but she moved him again and again. “You don’t mind if I call you Meg?”
“Oh, no.” She smiled at him. “It pleases me.”
“And it would please me if you would call me Jean-Marc. I admit such a practice would raise eyebrows in public, but when we are alone, it will be as friends and confidants.” His mind was becoming unbalanced, but he welcomed the loss of sanity in this instance. He went willingly to his fate as a bewitched man. And he was bewitched by the girl he’d employed to be his sister’s companion, her guide through this dashed annoying Season. He didn’t care when they had met or under what circumstances—they reached one another in ways that evaded most men and women even should they know each other for a lifetime. “Meg, speak my name.”
With her thumb, Meg rubbed back and forth on his palm. What he asked was extraordinary. He was extraordinary. “Jean-Marc. A manly name. How it suits you.”
“Thank you. I have fought my tasks with Désirée. She is not an unpleasant girl, but she is misunderstood—even mistreated—by some members of her family. I admire her for drawing forth a gentler side when she can. She likes you.”
“I like her. I intend to be a friend to her and to make her happy when she might have been sad.”
“You shall not mind attending salons and musicales, and other such nonsense?”
She giggled. “Now you will know how shallow I am. I look forward to seeing all the grand people in their beautiful clothes. And I shall love the music. I am besotted by music.”
“Do you like to dance?”
She shrugged. “I have danced in the country—at small affairs in the village, and yes, I did enjoy that very much. But I do wish to dance the waltz one day—with a partner who will all but sweep me from my feet. A foolish wish, but I believe in wishing just the same.”
“So do I.” He had often had nothing but his hopes and wishes to stand between him and despair. “You make me happy. I am delighted you will be Désirée’s willing chaperone.” He came close to telling her she must have a new wardrobe, but best to leave it to Verbeux as had been agreed.
“My sister, Sibyl, will enjoy Désirée. Sibyl is quiet but firm with her students and they come to love her. She is never impatient and has been known to find humor in the reluctant musician.”
“Good,” he said, but his attention wandered elsewhere. Meg had the most sensuous of mouths. The bottom lip fuller than the top, pink and soft, and expressive. When she smiled, she became an imp capable of stealing any man’s heart. “Tell me something of what troubles you, just to ensure I don’t become embarrassed at all I have revealed about myself.”
“There would never be need for embarrassment between us.” Now she sounded presumptuous, but to withdraw the statement would be to make too much of it.
“I shall put more coals on the fire. Get closer to the warmth.” Moving to kneel near the hearth, he scooped coals from a brass scuttle and brought back the blaze of flame.
Meg followed his wishes and shifted to sit nearer to the grate. He rubbed his hands together and sank back to stretch out, his shoulder against her back, his long legs fully extended.
She was aware only of him, of his arm and shoulder pressing against her and of his head above hers and so close.
“My sister and I find ourselves in reduced circumstances,” she told him haltingly. “Part of our living comes from Sibyl’s music lessons and my design and sewing. The rest has been provided by the trusts our father set up in our names. Our home he had to leave to a male relative—our cousin, William Godly-Smythe—but there was money for us and we thought it would be adequate for a very long time, as long as we also worked.”
“It’s not?” These unjust inheritances were still too common.
“It was. But we misjudged. Our father had assumed we would marry. Papa was a kindly and simple man. He trusted that all would be well in all things. He did not countenance that a plain woman—or in my case, plain women—with little to bring to a marriage would be unlikely to find husbands. Anyway, the sums we receive have grown smaller and smaller and we must do something to help ourselves. This is why I came to ask if you might have a position for me.”
“And I did,” Jean-Marc told her. “What a good thing—for both of us.”
“Yes, indeed.”
“Lean on me, Meg. You will be more comfortable.”
Her heart beat uncomfortably hard. She had known no such time as this—but she did want to know it, this one and many more. Oh, she was too ready to fall from the conventions she knew very well.
“Please never call yourself plain,” he said, so quietly, into the hair near her ear. “Come. Don’t be afraid of me. I shall never hurt you. I want only to give you comfort and beg you for a little comfort in return.”
Meg could not make one of her muscles move.
Jean-Marc shifted beside her and put an arm around her shoulders.
The robe and gown she had been lent were most unsuitable now. She ached from clinging to the neck, but if she let go…Well, if she let go the neck would be low, but since the shoulders were firmly in place, she should reveal nothing more than a little womanly flesh.
He eased her closer until her head rested in the hollow of his shoulder.
Meg carefully released her grip on the robe and wriggled until she sat sideways. There she was more comfortable. She turned her face into his chest and stiffened at the ripples of raw weakness that reached into unmentionable places.
“Let me see your face,” he said. “If our stolen moments are to be infrequent, I would like to have images of you to remember, images like this. Look at me, Meg.”
She took so long to do as he asked, he feared she would refuse. But then she did raise her chin, and her luxurious red hair fell back to frame her face. His efforts with the coals had produced a bright blaze to heighten her cheekbones and jaw and soften the shadows between. She might not be beautiful by the standards of some, but the misfortune was theirs. The firelight glinted on her brilliant hair and stroked her full white breasts, pressed together against his chest and now so much more visible to him. A darkness slashed between those beguiling breasts.
“I don’t think we’ll find it easy to pretend we are not drawn to each other,” he told her. And he did truly believe what he said. He also had no desire to try to douse what he felt for her. What he felt for her incorporated an attraction to her delightful openness, and it began to include a burgeoning hunger for her person. Surely she would not rebuff a simple kiss.
Meg curled against him, blotting out each warning thought that assailed her. His arm around her, he stroked her shoulder, slid the tips of his fingers lightly back and forth on naked skin too close to her br
east.
He studied her face. “Would you let me kiss you?” Her instant tensing didn’t surprise him. “Refuse and I shall understand, and press you no further.”
Her eyes were so dark he could make out nothing of her expression. She reached up to settle a hand on either side of his neck, beneath the open collar of his shirt. And she traced tendon, bone, muscle, with a caution that suggested the form of a man was new to her. “I should like you to kiss me,” she said. “But you are unlikely to enjoy the experience.”
Only with difficulty did Jean-Marc contain a laugh. Before she could change her mind, he held her slender waist and covered her upturned mouth with his.
Her lips remained as they were, slightly parted but unresponsive. He breathed more heavily and grazed back and forth, back and forth, murmuring appreciation from time to time while he moved his hands upward from her waist to span a good deal of her body just beneath her breasts. He felt them, heavy and soft against his thumbs.
He was a man, not a saint.
A small, experimental movement of Meg’s mouth excited him more than was safe. He could do nothing to stop her—or himself. She nuzzled him, her mouth parting a little more. Jean-Marc made a silent plea for the skill to please her without frightening her and dipped his tongue just inside her bottom lip.
Meg shuddered. Her breasts strained and stung. Only through strength of will did she stop herself from taking his hands and pressing them to her. His tongue went farther and farther into her mouth. He changed positions again, knelt and pulled her to her knees in front of him. The urgency she felt in him increased and with his ardor, her own came to a full life that rendered her panting, leaning, seeking to get her hands completely beneath his shirt, where she could learn how every inch of him felt.
She could not be normal. One of her father’s lady parishioners had taken it upon herself to speak of a few very difficult matters. Ladies did not show interest in a man’s person. They certainly never initiated any sign of affection.
But this lady was willing to initiate whatever would cause Jean-Marc to lavish her with more of the wonderful things he was doing to her.
His kisses—their kisses—rocked their mouths together. He caught her by the hips and urged her so close that she felt his body against hers—she felt part of him that was very hard. And it poked at her, rhythmically. Oh, she knew all about that. It was the part in all those books of Greek statuary, and on looking closely, she had even seen a suggestion of it in some of the books she’d secretly obtained that referenced the ancient Rig-Veda discipline, and the ninth-century works on yoga that were her guide to concentration.
“I feel you wandering from me,” he whispered against her brow. “Come back, Meg. I need you.”
“I have not wandered,” she told him, and tasted his neck. She unbuttoned his shirt and stroked his chest. Very dark hair there felt soft. She rubbed her cheek over it, and deep in her belly she flamed. And she grew wet. How strange.
“This is too much,” he said through his teeth. Restraint was costing him too much and failing anyway. “You obviously understand how strongly I might want to touch you, Meg. I should like to feel your breasts. They are all but naked before me and—”
“It’s all right,” she told him. That was what she wanted. She’d already imagined how it might be for him to do so.
Jean-Marc felt the last vestiges of his control break. The noise he heard came from his own throat, low, a growl. She remained still, her hips against his while she kept her face raised to his. The slightest passage of his fingers under the neck of the pale robe sent it slipping from her shoulders and down her arms.
“It’s been too long,” he muttered against her neck. He gripped her elbows, gripped her clothing where it rested there. “I have not cared for too long.” Looking at her threatened to swamp his conscience, so he closed his eyes and bent to kiss her breasts. He heard her sob, but didn’t stop, couldn’t stop. Her nipples were pink, their centers hardened with arousal. She was a passionate woman in the making, this strange Meg to whom he might become addicted.
Releasing her for just long enough to rip off his shirt, he caught her up and carried her, then stood her on the seat of a chair. “You have never known a man?”
“No, never.” She pulled her arms free and drove her fingers into his hair. “I have lived quietly, how could I do otherwise? I don’t understand…I don’t.”
She might not understand but she cradled his head and guided his face to rest between her breasts. His legs threatened to buckle. Another part of him threatened to explode.
Jean-Marc struggled against instincts determined to rule him.
The robe and gown slid from Meg’s waist toward her feet. She kept hold of Jean-Marc and kicked the lovely clothes away. For the first time ever, she stood naked before a man, a count who employed her, a man who could have whatever woman he chose and who could not be concerned with either her reputation or her feelings.
He had offered to leave but she had asked him to stay.
“Do you understand pregnancy?” he asked.
She frowned, then grew even more heated. “Yes, of course I do.”
“I doubt you understand too much. If a man and woman are together as they are meant to be. Joined. There is always the possibility that the woman will begin to increase, that they will cause the beginning of a child.”
“Not if they aren’t married.”
He made a sound she couldn’t interpret and caught her up in his arms again. “No, Meg, preferably not if they aren’t married. But sometimes—as now—a man and a woman want the greatest intimacy possible. You do not know these things, but put your trust in me and all will be well. I won’t say that what I intend isn’t wrong, but neither is it dangerous to the well-being of you or me. Can you believe that?”
“Hold me again as you did before.”
Jean-Marc kissed her, but it was a hard and brief kiss. “Can you believe I will not do either of us harm?”
“Yes.” She was all nerve and wanting and open places that she felt would never close again.
He sat on the chair where she had stood and arranged her astride his hips. He undid his breeches and contrived to push them low enough to allow him freedom. Slipping his fingers into the hair between her legs, he was instantly enveloped in moisture, and surrounded by the intoxicating fullness of her most private parts. Swollen silk inviting him inside—inside where he must not go.
Meg could scarcely breathe at all. Her pulse beat so that she felt it through all of her body. She felt it between her legs in the flesh no man had touched before, but where Jean-Marc now probed. She clutched his shoulders.
“I will guide you,” he said, and his voice sounded different. “Relax, my sweet.” She could not, but she didn’t resist when he wrapped her hand around the part of him that stood erect from his body, erect and like smooth, hot stone.
He had had little to do with inexperienced women. “Don’t be afraid. When it is appropriate, what you hold is inserted inside your body, where you feel that wonderful humid sleekness. When it is not appropriate, there are other ways to satisfy what we feel. You want something, don’t you?”
They shouldn’t speak of such things. “I think so, but I don’t know what it is. And it doesn’t matter. I’m sure I will stop aching soon.”
He might have yelled his triumph. Instead he buried his face in her neck and kneaded her breasts. She arched toward him, crying his name, and again he used his mouth to draw more ecstatic cries from her.
Meg panted. Jean-Marc sucked the tips of her breasts. The thought mortified her. It also excited her. Her breasts felt very full, and they throbbed. With each touch of his mouth, she experienced an echoing throb between her legs. She wished he would do something about that.
The women in his life had all been practiced lovemakers. They often led the way, ensuring they took what their greedy bodies demanded, but also attending to his needs—often until he was drained, but always satisfied.
Meg Smiles’
s body demanded release from the tension he’d built. He held her with one arm and kissed her, long and deep, while he stroked her, felt her try to close her legs, then, as sensation must have built, become incapable of doing other than allow her knees to spread. Her whimperings were uttered into his mouth and he smiled as he continued to kiss her, and to increase the pace of his deliberate caress. From time to time he passed fingers inside her and her bottom jerked from his thighs.
Even when she tried to tear her mouth from his, to catch a breath, he would not allow it. She burned. Almost unbearable tension mounted. Still he kissed her, commanded and controlled her with his lips and tongue. He moved his tongue into her mouth as he moved his fingers into the passage where desperate desire pooled.
Faster and harder he rubbed over a small hot place that demanded something, something she could not do without. “Jean-Marc,” she said breathing when she could, “What I feel…there. I cannot bear it if…I just don’t know.”
Ah, but he did. “Hold me,” he told her. “Do as I’m doing to you. Rub up and down my shaft. It is the only way to find fulfillment.” Not so, but perhaps there would be more occasions to continue Meg’s instruction. “Yes, yes, oh, yes. Don’t stop. Perfect. Oh, perfect.”
Finally unable to stop himself, he replaced her hand on him with one of his own. Lunging helplessly forward, he manipulated her with the tip of his vibrating rod. Almost instantly she cried out, and he felt ripples pass through her flesh. She rocked against him, holding him once more and blindly trying to guide him inside her. Instinct could be relied upon as the great teacher. It could also be relied upon to test a man’s willpower beyond endurance.
Her hair flowed wild over her shoulders. Her pale skin shone, damp and irresistible.
He was not a saint. “Sometimes there is something a woman does for a man to ease what I have just eased for you.”
“Tell me,” she demanded, gripping his sides with enough unconscious savagery to drive her short nails into his skin.
Gritting his teeth, he didn’t protest. The pain helped gain him the slightest distance from the drive of his sex. He leaned to whisper in her ear and steeled himself for her horrified reaction.
All Smiles Page 10