“I am sorry,” he said hoarsely, meaning it to his bloody bones. War was hell. Anyone who said otherwise had been fortunate enough to never have lived it.
“Please.” Her hands framed his face, gentle and tender, sending a wave of soothing to battle the agony that threatened to rise within him. Her thumbs traced his cheekbones, and the tempest abated. “Let us not dwell on past pains. Let tonight be free from everything. Free from past, present, the separations between us.”
The breath left him. There was nothing left to say. He pressed a kiss to each of her palms, and then he bent, scooping her into his arms in one swift motion. No more waiting. No more of anything. Tonight, they were Jacinda and Crispin, not governess and duke. And tomorrow… tomorrow could go to Hades for all he cared, but he would worry about it when the morning sun rose over the city. One way or another, he would convince her to see reason, and that was simply that.
For now, there was this. He lowered his head, his mouth finding hers in the darkness. He kissed her as he walked until his knees pressed against the mahogany side rails of his bed. Kissed her still as he lowered her gently to the mattress. Tore his mouth from hers to light the lamp on his bedside table.
A soft glow brought the chamber alive, and suddenly he was blinking owlishly, his eyes adjusting to the change in brightness. Slowly, slowly, his gaze settled back upon the woman lying in his bed. His heart thudded.
Without a hideous cap to rob him of the sight of her hair, those glorious, silken skeins swirled over his bed in a riot of red. Her cheeks were charmingly flushed, her lips swollen from his kisses and the hue of a freshly ripened berry, her breasts straining against the slim constraint of her nightrail and robe. The nightrail itself was already undone halfway to her navel, and the dressing gown parted so that a mouthwatering sliver of her skin was bare for him: the valley between her breasts, the smooth sweep of her chest to her perfectly lush belly.
His mouth went dry. He had never seen a more beautiful sight than Jacinda Turnbow on his bed, heated from his kisses and touch, blinking with an adorable frown into the illuminated chamber. She was even more beautiful bereft of her cap, lace, and abominable gowns.
“This is your last chance to change your mind,” he warned, throat thick. Desire pulsed through him. His fingers went to the fastening at the waistband of his drawers, hesitating.
Her cheeks darkened to a deeper shade of red. “I am certain.”
Thank Christ.
He thumbed open his drawers and dropped them to the floor, aware of her rapt gaze upon his straining arousal. Eyes on her, he stroked himself, watching her reaction. Her lips parted. His cock grew harder, a drop of seed weeping from the crown. He slicked it over the engorged head. Her tongue flicked over her lower lip, and she swallowed.
Yes, he was heartily glad she was no virgin. Because the way her eyes devoured him, the intense pressure in his ballocks, and the painful state of his cock could not be rectified with a slow, gentle introduction to lovemaking. He joined her on the bed, hands going to the knot on the belt of her dressing gown and making short work of the knot. Gently, he helped her to shrug the unnecessary barrier away.
When it was gone, he caught the hem of her modest nightrail, dragging it over her knees to reveal her trim calves, and then higher still, to the lush curves of her hips.
She stayed him, catching his hands in hers. “Do we need the light?”
“Yes.” He released her hem reluctantly, and traveled back down her delicious body to her tapered ankles. He was a man who dwelled in the darkness, but for this, his first time seeing Jacinda, his first time sinking home inside her, making her come, he wanted light. Nay, he required light. The sight of her, the sounds of her, the smell of her. He did not want to miss a single, blessed moment. Not a hitch in her breath or her lashes fluttering against her cheeks. Not the arch of her back or the moan from her lips.
Gently, he caressed an ankle, raised it to his lips so he could press a kiss to the protrusion of her bone. Even this was somehow glorious. Forbidden. He licked her because he could, because tomorrow morning as they broke their fasts, her ankles would be hidden from him behind a drab gown and stockings. Because he would not be free to touch her or kiss her. Because tomorrow, they would go back to being Miss Governess and the Duke of Whitley.
Unless he could convince her otherwise.
He had to convince her otherwise.
Crispin brought her other ankle to his lips. Another kiss. She made a delicious hum in her throat. Emboldened, he slid his hands higher. Over her calves, his fingers tracing every inch of her smooth skin, following it to the twin dips behind her knees. He kissed each kneecap, guiding her legs open.
“Your Grace,” she protested as he bunched her nightrail higher still, so that it rested around the perfect swell of her hips, just barely shielding her mound from his hungry gaze.
No, he would not allow a return to formality, though her embarrassment was delicious. She was a delectable dichotomy, hot then cold, in his arms and yet about to flee, passionate but hiding herself behind drab weeds and silly caps. What had happened to Miss Jacinda Turnbow to fashion her into the woman she had become?
He could not help but wonder as he kissed the hollow on the inside of first her right knee and then her left, allowing his tongue to flick against her skin for another taste. Here, she mirrored her personality, a perfect blend of salty and sweet. His effort wrung another sound of satisfaction from her, and so he licked the hollow of her other knee as well before raising her hem and kissing her inner thigh.
“Say my name,” he ordered, his fingers tightening on her hips, guiding them farther apart.
His mouth found a smattering of freckles on her inner thigh in the shape of the constellation Cassiopeia. Unlike the queen that was the namesake of that cluster of stars, however, Jacinda was anything but conceited. Quite the opposite, as she did not seem to be aware of her own beauty. Her hesitance and shyness were lovely, a welcome and marked difference from the endless string of women he’d bedded since his return.
He worshiped those freckles with his mouth and tongue, traced her curves with his hands as he coaxed her legs wider. The air was redolent with the musk of her arousal, humming with her soft sigh of surrender. Everything in him screamed to flip her nightrail up the rest of the way and taste her. But he did not want to rush this or her, and now that he had her where he wanted her, he wanted to prolong their joining so it would last on the nights when he no longer held her in his arms.
She said it at last. “Crispin.” A whisper he scarcely heard above the din of his pounding heart. Then louder, a moan that vibrated in his ballocks, hardened his cock. “Crispin, please.”
He smiled against her silken flesh and raised her hem another inch. Glancing up from his quest, he caught her gaze and fresh bolt of lust hit him with lightning intensity. This was how he wanted to see her forever, her glorious blazing locks on his pillow, her lips dark and swollen from his kisses, her gaze tender, her pupils dilated, a rosy flush on her neck and high cheekbones.
The need to tell her, to fill the heavy silence between them with something meaningful, was new. He had no whisky to cloud his thinking tonight, and his mind was free, unencumbered. There was a lightness he could not ever recall experiencing in his chest.
“You are the most beautiful sight I have ever beheld, Jacinda,” he rasped. And she was, for no woman had ever been lovelier. No woman had stirred him as she did, and whether that was a blessing or a curse, he could not say in the moment.
All he knew was he needed her. She filled the cold, broken places inside him with sunshine and warmth, and he had not realized how damned tired he was of living in the darkness until her.
“No,” she denied softly. “I cannot be.”
“Indeed.” He lowered his head, kissed one inner thigh and then the other. “You are.”
Her hem bunched up higher still. One more tug, and he could devour her.
“Crispin, you must not.” Her fingers found his, squeezing
gently. “This is too wicked.”
“I assure you, love, this is not wicked at all.” He kissed her left hand, nibbled on the right. “Wicked has yet to begin.”
“Your Grace.” She had reverted to formality again, but her thumbs rubbed circles atop his hands, and her tone lacked firmness.
“Crispin,” he reminded her, taking one of her fingers into his mouth and sucking as he longed to do on her pearl before releasing it. “The time for talking is over. Lift your nightrail and show yourself to me.”
“I…” a breathy exhalation left her. “I cannot.”
He nipped her knuckle. “Yes.” Then he laved the lines there with his tongue. “You can. You are brave and kind and good, Jacinda. Too good for me. But for tonight, you are mine, and I wish to see all of you. I want your bravery and your kindness and your goodness. I want you on my tongue so I will always remember what you taste like long after tonight. So, when next we see each other, you will think of the pleasures of my tongue between your thighs, and I will recall how exquisite it was to fill you with my tongue before I filled you with my cock.”
“Oh.” Her eyes widened. She licked her lips.
He had her attention now, and it was not without a great deal of satisfaction he realized his prim little governess enjoyed his crudeness. She liked hearing of all the naughty things he wished to do, the myriad ways in which he would so thoroughly debauch her. Had it made her wet? Damn, but he hoped he would find her slit soaked with her juices, slick with need for him. He would lick up every drop.
“Remove your nightrail.” His tone was guttural with need. This prelude to lovemaking had affected him in ways he could not control. And if he didn’t have her on his lips and tongue soon, and if he did not sink home inside her flesh, he was going to spend on his stomach like a callow youth.
She released her grip on his hands, caught the fabric of her nightrail in her fists, and hauled it upward, not stopping until it was over her head, and she tossed it in a seamless arc to the floor. It landed on the Aubusson in a soft thud, and that quickly, Jacinda was bared to his ravenous gaze.
Her hips were wide and full, mouthwateringly curved. Her mound was a decadent temptation so near to his lips, glistening and pink and made for him. Her belly was lush, her waist nipped inward for a figure as womanly and perfect as he had imagined, leading to breasts that were even fuller than he had imagined. They would spill over his palms in their abundance, topped with erect nipples the blush-pink of a rose.
And then her elegant neck, her face. My God, she was a diamond of the first water. The loveliest creature. A study in innocence and wanton desire.
His.
Holding her stare, he nudged her thighs open even more before dipping his head to suck her pearl into his mouth. Her eyes went wide, mouth opening to form a soundless exclamation. Keeping their gazes locked, he used his tongue on the sensitive bundle of flesh, licking lightly and then with long, intentional sweeps. She tasted sweet yet complex, the salt of the ocean mixed with the sweetness of Portuguese strawberries and a tinge of exotic musk.
Her hips undulated against him, rocking, seeking more, and he knew he had won. He had her precisely where he wanted her, trapped in the maws of a pleasure so divine that nothing could tear her away save complete release. He licked her, harder, faster and then slow and gentle. He used his teeth until she shuddered against him, crying out with her first spend, his name on her lips.
And then he ran his tongue along her slit, delving inside her. She bucked, jerked, her fingers finding his hair and twining themselves in it. For a time, he gave himself up to the intoxicating joy of giving her pleasure. She was all he smelled, tasted, and saw, his hands digging into her hips, guiding her against his mouth as her sated cries split the air.
He pleasured her until he could not bear to continue lest he embarrass himself. With a final kiss to her quivering mound, he made his way up her siren’s body, over her rounded belly to her generous breasts. He sucked a nipple until she moaned, those frenzied fingers of hers raking his shoulders.
She was wild, his Miss Governess, and he could not be more delighted at the discovery. She could gladly tear him apart, claw him up, bite him, suck him, lick him, ride him, and he would forever be her willing slave.
But they did not have forever. They had one night, and dawn had already begun to arrive with its unwanted early light pricking his chamber and with its reminder he could not keep Jacinda in his bed for the next decade as every part of his inner savage wished.
He kissed higher still, over her throat, all the way to her chin. There, he stopped, suspending his weight over her body with his forearms, her lovely face framed in his hands. “Tell me what you want, love.”
His rigid cock was between them, nestled against her slick cove. She had him so ready that one false twitch of her hips, and he would come all over her mound as if he had never before seen a cunny. But more than anything, he wanted to be sure. He did not want her regrets or her bitterness. He wanted her to know precisely what devil’s bargain she was entering. To decide that it—he—was worth it.
“I want you,” she said then.
The brazen acknowledgment of her desire undid him. As did her simple acceptance of him, for he knew what it cost her. Knew that Miss Jacinda Turnbow was not the sort of woman who would lie with just any man.
He dipped his head, fusing their mouths. She opened instantly, her tongue dueling with his. What she lacked in skill, she possessed in enthusiasm. She kissed him with a wild abandon that brought him to his knees. Desperation snarled through him. He kissed her harder, deeper. Shifting his weight to his left forearm, he reached between them with the right, his fingers dipping into her sex to tease her engorged nub. She moaned into his mouth, and he swallowed her cries, her need, wished he could tuck it so deep inside himself that he would carry it with him always.
She was so wet, so ready, and he could not wait another breath. Guiding himself to her entrance, he sheathed himself in one swift thrust. Nothing could have prepared him for the welcoming heat of her. She was so tight. So incredibly bloody tight. And right, so very, very damn right.
He tore his mouth from hers, his breath coming in harsh pants as he sought to hold himself back. He was keenly aware she was not experienced, and he had never before bedded a woman of her ilk. “How does it feel, love?”
She blinked at him, her sherry eyes glowing into his. “Wonderful. You feel wonderful.” She looked as if she was about to say more but swallowed instead, either too self-conscious or too afraid to give further voice to her desires.
He did not mind her shyness, even as they were joined in the most intimate way a man and woman could be united. If anything, it made him want her more, for he knew her. He knew all too well how much her honesty and uninhibited behavior would cost her by full morning light.
He kissed her long and slow, reassuring her as best he knew how before retreating to drop kisses on her jaw. “I will go slowly, love. Tell me what you want. What you like.”
“Everything.” She cupped his face and kissed him so sweetly and tenderly it undid him. No one had never touched him thus, as if he were important. As if he were essential. “I like everything you do to me.”
Beelzebub and hellfire. She did not need to say a single word more. He withdrew from her almost entirely before sliding home again in a hard, steady thrust. He kissed her. “How about this?”
“Yes.”
He did it again. “And this?”
“Oh, yes.” She sighed and her channel clenched, tightening on him, drawing him deeper still.
He was mindless now. Mindless in his need to satisfy the raging fires in the both of them. Mindless to take her. Mindless to possess her. Mindless to fill her with his cock so deep and so hard she would never want another man. That she would want to stay with him, in his bed, and at his side forever.
He sank home inside her again and again. Damn, but she felt so warm and so tight and so wet. He could not deny the rightness of it. The rightness of he
r. He knew to his bones he could have her beneath him, that he could lose himself inside her, a thousand times or more, and it would not be enough. It would never be enough. She was the only woman he wanted. She was the reason he could not even summon half an interest in the whores at The Duke’s Bastard.
She was the only woman he wanted in his bed, in his life. Now and forever.
Now and forever?
Good God.
He could not possibly be thinking of…
There was no way…
Marriage was out of the question.
He was not the sort to make a proper husband. Damnation, he was too jaded, too broken, too haunted by the past. Why, he could not even sleep through the night without going mad. He would never inflict himself upon another.
Why then did the thought of marrying Jacinda and having her in his bed each night make him so hard that he almost spent deep inside her womb when he knew better than to leave his seed where it could grow? Furious at himself, confused, hungrier for her than ever, he kissed her with the fires of passion raging within. Kissed her and kissed her. Reached between them once more to stimulate her pearl, listening to her throaty moans and taking note of each jerk of her hips as he learned how hard and how fast she wanted his touch.
Suddenly, she tightened on his cock, crying out, her body stiffening beneath him as she reached her pinnacle. He pounded deeper, finding her leg and hooking it over his shoulder so he could angle himself to advantage inside her. She came again, shaking and shuddering and crying out with her release. It was all he needed. The tightening of her channel, the wet rush of her spend on his cock, compounded. One more thrust, and he pulled out, holding his prick in a tight grip as he came all over her, painting her belly and the valley between her breasts with his seed.
He kissed her again, and it was done.
But Jacinda and Crispin were far, far from being done. He had been lying to them both when he had said all he wanted from her was one night. One night was not enough. As he collapsed against her, his heart pounding, he knew it as surely as he knew his own reflection in the glass. They had only just begun.
Sins & Scoundrels Books 1-3: A Regency Romance Series Bundle Page 17