by Eva Leigh
Conversation moved on, but he barely attended to a single word. He couldn’t stop picturing what it would be like to take an intimate supper with Jess, plying her with delicacies made from his own estate’s garden, watching her rapture from each dish, before taking her to bed and pleasuring her for hours. Then summoning another meal and making love to her until the sun rose.
Dinner ended, and the ladies retired to the drawing room to leave the men to their postprandial tobacco and spirits.
He rose to pour himself a stiff drink, and McCameron met him at the sideboard.
“Never seen you do that before,” his friend noted.
Noel lifted his eyebrow. “I’m fairly certain you’ve seen me help myself to a whiskey.”
“The whiskey in your hand isn’t an uncommon sight,” McCameron said, “but I’ve never seen you watch a woman leave a room before.”
“Women make a far more appealing sight than a room full of boorish dolts,” he said offhandedly.
“I didn’t say you watched the women, I said you watched a woman.” His friend crossed his arms over his chest. “Trying to bed her? Is that what she’s doing here?”
The question did not seem to be given hostilely. McCameron seemed genuinely interested.
“I put her in the Gillyflower Room.” Noel sipped at his drink.
McCameron gave a small grunt of understanding, because he’d been to Carriford enough to realize the distance between the Gillyflower Room and Noel’s own chambers.
“And yet you watched her leave the room,” his friend said. “Watched her like a prowling tiger eyeing a doe.”
“Do tigers eat deer?”
“For the sake of argument, let’s say that they do.”
Evenly, Noel said, “I’d tear the fucking world apart for a chance to share her bed.”
“Might not come to that. Given the way she stared at you all night.”
Noel’s entire body tightened, yet he managed to drawl, “And what way was that?”
McCameron’s grin was sly. “As if the doe was exceptionally eager to be devoured.”
Chapter 19
Jess pushed back the bed linens and sat up. She ought to be asleep, but there had been a honey-soaked pastry served with dinner’s final course, the taste of which haunted her even hours after retiring to bed.
Easier to focus on the honey’s flavor rather than Noel, asleep somewhere in this beautiful house.
He’d picked this room for her. The walls were covered in hand-painted wallpaper, and while the bed was made of dark chestnut wood, it had been carved into elegant gothic designs that made it seem like a vessel bound for the shores of a fairy kingdom.
Any lady would be happy to have such a room for her bedchamber. Jess was no lady, but she loved the space, and her heart softened to think of Noel selecting it specifically so she’d enjoy it.
He had watched her throughout the dinner and afterward, and there had been dark need in his voice as he’d wished her good night at the conclusion of the evening.
She wanted him. So badly she shook with it.
No—impossible. If, by the grace of some heavenly deity, he did decide to invest in McGale & McGale, she couldn’t allow him to think that she’d slept with him as a means to secure his money. Learning the truth about who she was would only make him view their every interaction as a betrayal.
Yet . . . if she told him everything, told him why she did what she did . . . He was a man with heart. He wouldn’t cast her aside because she’d fought to keep her family together. Would he?
And tomorrow, he and the others would visit the farm. Nervousness mixed with eagerness jumped through her—this was what she’d wanted for McGale & McGale. The culmination of her work at the Bazaar was less than twenty-four hours away. Hopefully, Cynthia and Fred would do their parts, and the end of the day would see their business with at least one new investor.
Her growling stomach interrupted her swirling thoughts. She pressed a hand to her belly, trying to quiet it. The food served tonight had been incredible, and she wanted more of it.
After grabbing a shawl, she peeked out of her room, and no one was in the hall. The last time the clock had chimed, it had been a quarter to one in the morning.
She took a candle and crept down the corridor.
Every country house had its idiosyncrasies, but thanks to her employment with Lady Catherton, Jess had enough of an idea about most houses’ layouts so she could find the kitchen and larder easily.
In short order, she arrived. It was a large room with a high, smoke-stained ceiling. The fire had been banked, and, to her relief, no one was about. But her true aim wasn’t here.
She found the larder quickly and shut the door behind her. Light from her candle revealed marble shelves lined with covered jars, while haunches of meat hung from hooks.
Jess put her candle on a table in the middle of the room, then approached the shelves as she rose up onto the tips of her toes to reach the honey pot.
Footsteps sounded in the corridor. She froze, then cursed the fact that she had forgotten to douse her out-of-reach candle. Surely whoever was outside in the hallway could see light coming from under the door. If it was the butler or housekeeper, they’d likely investigate to make certain none of the staff was eating what belonged to the master.
But servants were quite forgiving of anything the master or his guests might do. She was Lady Whitfield, after all. Not Jess McGale.
The footsteps approached and then stopped outside of the larder. She arranged her shawl, straightened her shoulders, and tipped up her chin.
The door opened, and Jess’s plans to behave regally fell away.
It was Noel. Dressed only in his shirtsleeves, breeches, and boots.
His open shirt exposed his chest and the shadow of dark hair that dusted his pectorals. As he entered the larder and closed the door behind him, his muscles shifted beneath the fine lawn of his shirt.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, hating herself for the asinine question.
He raised a brow. “The master of the house is permitted to go wherever he likes, whenever he likes.” Then he ruined the aristocratic hauteur of his reply by saying, “And Cook told me that he’d put a meat pie aside for me in case I needed something to nibble on in the middle of the night.”
“Do you often come down to the larder after midnight?”
He set his candle down beside hers. “As habits go, it’s my least dissolute. You’re here for a snack, I imagine.”
“I am discovered. We share the benign inclination to ransack larders when everyone is asleep.”
She didn’t do it often at Lady Catherton’s home, and when she did, she made certain to grab only a few rusks or sugarplums. But she remembered all too well the lean years on the farm, when she’d gone to bed hungry and there had been nothing to eat in the middle of the night, and hardly anything for the morrow’s breakfast.
She could never tell Noel, of course.
Being alone with him in this tiny chamber made her heart pound. To keep herself from blurting truths about herself, she asked, “Anything here you want?”
“I’ve a taste for something sweet.” His gaze smoldered.
She inhaled sharply, but managed to say, “I have been told that I’m too astringent.”
“Only to men with an immature palate.” His eyes locked with hers, he prowled around the table until he was right beside her. “Do you want me, Jess? Even a fraction of the way I want you?”
“I do,” she whispered. “God help me, I do.” There were very good reasons why she had to keep away from him, but she couldn’t think of a single one—not when his body radiated warmth and his gaze was even hotter, and without his coat, his thighs and arse were revealed in his tight buckskin breeches. Lord was he beautiful.
His arms enfolded her, bringing her body snug to his. His hands cupped her hips.
He growled and she made a kind of mewl as the thinness of her gown provided no barrier to sensation. Already, he was
aroused, his cock thick and rigid against her belly. She rubbed against it, drawing from him a long, moaned “Fuck.”
She brought her arms up and threaded her hands into his hair. She curled her fingers, tightening her grip on him. Not too much. Just enough to sting.
“God, yes,” he rumbled, his eyes closing.
“Kiss me.”
She lifted up to meet him as his lips crashed down onto hers. The kiss was fevered and urgent, openmouthed with need. His tongue lapped at hers, and each stroke reverberated through her, centering in her breasts and quim. He kissed her as if he’d been formed for this singular purpose, and he finally had a chance to do exactly the thing for which he’d been made. Her shawl slipped down to the ground.
He brought one of his broad hands up to cup her breast. But even the whisper-thin cambric was too much of a barrier, and he tugged at the ribbon of the neckline until it gaped open. She bit back a cry as his bare hand, hot as a brand, stroked her. When her nipple tightened into a point, he pinched it lightly. Enough to make her gasp.
“I want to talk to you,” he growled. “Or perhaps you prefer me silent.”
“Talk,” she said at once.
“Been thinking about this.” He rumbled each word, his voice deep and low. “Since we arrived at Carriford. Your skin against mine. My cock hard as iron as I pleasured you. I want to pleasure you. May I? Will you let me?”
“I will.” And she knew with certainty what he wanted—he’d said so in the conservatory—and she wanted it, too.
It felt perfect to hold dominion over him, this man who was so powerful. To receive the gift of his submission and honor it with her own power.
All along, every interaction, every word and glance, where she had met him parry for parry, led to this moment between them. And it was glorious.
Somehow, he’d known. Seen within her that need to be in command, something that no one—not even she herself—had understood. She had done her best in her life to be in control, but she had been born too poor, and a female. The world gave her no power, and she had not realized until now, until him, how much she hungered for it.
“Taste me.”
He groaned. “Yes, Jess. I will lick your pussy.”
She nearly came right then. But she managed to keep her release at bay for a moment. “My bedchamber . . .”
“Too far.” He clasped her waist and lifted her up, setting her at the table’s end. “Too far for a starving man.”
His hands trembled as he raised the hem of her nightgown.
She clasped the edge of the table as he eased back. He was a beautiful man, and the candlelight turned him into a vision of Eros himself. She could see the long, heavy length of his shaft pressed tightly against the front of his breeches, and she sucked in a breath when he stroked his hand over it.
“Am I wrong, Jess? Am I wrong to touch myself when I think of you? To pump my hand on my cock and imagine it’s your mouth or your quim, taking me in, surrounding me?”
“You are wrong,” she said imperiously. It felt perfect to speak to him in this way, as though she’d been waiting for eons to find a man strong enough for her to command. “On your knees and perform your penance.”
Noel slowly sank to his knees between her legs, his gaze blazing and ripe with intent. He slid his broad hands up her bare legs, pushing up the hem of her nightgown. She could barely catch her breath as sensation built higher and higher still in time with his hands. Her rasping gulps for air combined with his own rough inhalations.
She didn’t sleep wearing drawers, and soon he’d hiked her nightgown up to bunch at her waist, revealing her to him. Cool air touched her hot, sensitive flesh. A vestigial fillip of embarrassment made her reach to cover herself—the conservatory had been enveloped in shadows and she hadn’t bared herself in this way.
He clasped her wrist. “Please, no. Let me see your beautiful cunt. Let me see you.”
Shakily, she tugged her hand free and returned it to the edge of the table, which she gripped tightly.
“Thank you for your trust,” he murmured.
She was able to nod, but forming words at that point was beyond her capability. Her hold on the table tightened further as he leaned close to kiss his way up one thigh.
She thought for certain he’d taste her then. Instead, he kissed his way up her other thigh, stroking her legs with his hands until she shook with arousal. “Taste me,” she gasped. “Now.”
“What if I’m disobedient?” His eyes gleamed. “What if I want to take my time and look my fill of you? I haven’t been able to think of anything other than what it would be like to be on my knees with your gorgeous pussy mere inches from my face.”
Her eyes drifted shut. “Noel.” He kept undoing her, piece by piece. She was enthralled by him.
She felt his breath against her quim, and held her own breath. Then—
“Oh, damn.” She moaned as his tongue slipped between her folds in one long, slick stroke. Her moan rose again as he swirled his tongue around her clitoris, then dipped back down again to slide through her inner lips. When he lapped at her entrance, she thought for certain she’d lose her mind, but then he stroked a finger up into her and she knew that any chance she had of retaining her sanity was gone.
He devoured her as he thrust his finger into Jess’s passage. He worshipped her profanely until she had no will left, no other choice but to come.
“That’s it,” he rumbled.
Her orgasm hit like a wild summer storm, pummeling her with pleasure so intense she couldn’t sit upright. Heedless of what things she might knock over onto the floor, she fell back as another climax slammed into her.
“Honey,” he growled. “You taste of honey.”
“It’s the soap,” she murmured.
She felt his hair tickling her thighs as he shook his head. “Not perfumed soap. It’s you. Like sweet, fragrant honey warmed by the sun to coat my tongue. I want to swallow all of you.”
Heaven help me. Yet the only kind of divine assistance she wanted would ensure that she experienced only this for the rest of her life.
“More,” she gasped. “Kill me with pleasure.”
There was a wicked smile in his voice as he said, “I will keep you alive for a very long time—especially if that means I get to eat your quim for eternity.”
She would be dead of ecstasy. Of that, she was certain. But the hell if she didn’t care. “Fewer words and more of your mouth on me.”
“Yes, Jess.” His words vibrated with erotic rapture.
“And don’t touch yourself,” she added. “Not until I say you can.”
He grunted his response, but she could tell her command pleased him. And then she was lost once more as he licked and drank from her.
Her anchor to consciousness slipped as she was lifted up on an endless succession of climaxes. As he lapped at her, his thumb circled and stroked her clitoris, while he added a second finger to his first inside her channel.
She lost count of her orgasms. She lost her hold on everything but the feel of him devotedly serving her.
And yet . . . “I need more,” she rasped.
He rose up over her, and his jaw was tight with desire. “Tell me what you need.”
“You.” She slid her hands down his shirt and plucked at the fabric.
He whipped off his shirt in one fast, heedless motion.
How was he so beautiful? It hardly seemed fair—his body was taut and his abdomen ridged and his arms were magnificent and it was as though some cosmic architect had decided to put all of her work into the fashioning of this one man.
She raked her fingers across the coarse silk of the dark hair on his chest.
He snarled. “If anyone is going to kill anyone, you are going to kill me.”
“It’s your punishment for making me wait for more.” She sank into the pleasure that rose up from dominating him.
He kissed her deeply, and she tasted herself on him. “What more do you want?”
“Your . .
.” She couldn’t quite get the word out, finding tiny fragments of inhibition lodged within her desire.
“My cock. You want me to fuck you with my cock.” He rocked his hips against hers. The sensation of his buckskin-covered erection sliding over her wet quim made her moan.
“Yes—fuck me,” she gasped.
“How shall I do it, Jess? I could give you my cock slow and gentle, or hard and rough.” He continued to torment her with his shaft slipping over her.
“Slow and gentle first. Then hard and rough. As rough as you dare.” She dug her nails into his shoulders. “But do it now.”
His cheeks were flushed, his eyes gleaming. He held her gaze as he worked a hand between their bodies to undo the fastening of his breeches. She knew he’d freed himself when he sucked in a breath, and she looked down to see him holding his erection in a grip so tight it surely hurt.
“One thing,” she murmured.
He went still. “Anything.”
“I cannot risk pregnancy.”
He nodded once. “I’ll be careful.”
The last fragment of her tension fell away, and she exhaled, preparing herself for what was to come.
He straightened to standing, and guided his cock to slide through her folds, making her moan.
“You’re so wet.”
“You made me so.”
He shook his head. “We made you wet. You and I together. Because you need this, don’t you? You need my cock in you, just as I need your cunt around me.”
His words would shatter her. “Don’t play with me any longer. This is the last time I’ll tell you: fuck me. If you don’t fuck me now, I’m going to—”
He thrust into her in one long, thick pump. She bowed up from the table, uncaring about the rigid surface at her back. All she felt was him inside her, filling her completely.
“Does this satisfy you, Jess?” he growled. “And this?” With each question, he drove into her. His strokes were slow, but the force behind them shook her. “Like so.”
Her whole body was alight with sensation. “Just like that.”