“There is nothing to forgive.” Jack stroked her velvet cheek and she leant into his touch, if she’d been a cat she would have purred. “I’m sorry I took Devlin’s word over yours, when you have more nobility in your little finger than he in the whole of his body.”
“Sssh, let’s not talk of him.” Her body thrummed anew, as Jack smoothed a stray curl from her forehead.
“I promise never to hurt you again.”
Drugged by his closeness, she sighed deeply.
“I love you too.”
“Tis more than I deserve.” His voice was gritty with suppressed passion.
“I trust you,” she whispered, darting a kiss against his throat.
Jack’s voice crackled. “But are you willing to become my wife before God, here and now?”
“Oh yes.”
Fascinated, her palm played across his ridged chest, his heated gaze made her body melt.
“Miss Foster, I say one last time, if you value your virtue, stop now.”
His hands formed fists, shaking with the effort of control. With a sly smile Eulogy slid onto his lap.
“Then let our future together start now.”
Something hard and undeniably masculine pressed against her thigh.
“I am barely in control and there will be no turning back.”
Dry mouthed Eulogy nodded. “Let’s celebrate our love.”
Jack made no move, his body locked rigid as a muscle ticked along his jaw.
“You are untouched. Do you understand what happens next?”
Heat zinged to her cheeks. “I am country reared. I imagine tis like a ram tupping a ewe.”
Unexpectedly, Jack threw back his head and laughed as Eulogy regarded him crossly.
“I’m sorry…” With effort Jack’s mouth took on a more serious shape. “In the mechanics, there is a passing semblance. But the difference is in the emotion. I love you and intend to worship at your feet.”
He reached for her hand, lifting it to his mouth, tasting each of her fingers. Something magical came to life inside her, stirring low in her belly, pouring warmth through her veins as if waking from hibernation.
Their gazes locked. He turned her palm uppermost, feathering kisses up along the tender skin of her wrist. The sensation was exquisite, licking flames of desire shimmying up her arm as she marveled how she had lived so long without knowing such feelings existed.
Weak from his kisses she clung to him as his fingers trailed across her shirt front, grazing her sensitized breast through the thin fabric. Surprised by her own wantonness, she arched against him. Jack cupped the weight of her breast. Tenderly he explored her shape through the fabric, allowing her time to adapt to the need darting through her body. He worked at the shirt buttons and the linen parted as he slid a warm hand against her ribs, skin on skin, caressing her breast. She groaned, enthralled by his touch.
With slow reverence, Jack slid the shirt from her shoulder, but instead of feeling embarrassed, Eulogy basked in the heat of his gaze. He pushed the linen aside, exposing her taut nipples and leaning forward, covered one with his hot mouth. She thought she would die from the pleasure as he sucked and kneaded.
“I won’t do anything you don’t desire.” Jack breathed heavily, as Eulogy’s fingernails bit into the muscle of his shoulder. Her brain no longer functioned on a rational level, but only answered to animal desire.
“You have me at a disadvantage.” She tugged at Jack’s shirt, and with two jerks tossed it aside. Her breath hissed through her teeth.
In the firelight, his supple skin glowed and he looked like a god. Fascinated she touched the flat plains of his chest, tracing the sculpted outline of muscle, placing her palm against the ripples of his belly. His body convulsed as she traced the broad width of his chest and then ran a fingertip down to his belly button, watching the muscular spasms as he trembled beneath her touch. She felt powerful and wanton, as the hard length of his torso pressed against hers.
“Your body is so different.” Her curious fingers tracked to his waist.
“Steady now.”
Jack chuckled and allowed her hand to dip below the waistband of his breeches.
Then in one deft movement he tossed her onto the mattress, pushed her thighs apart with his knees and settled his weight above her. A moist, velvet warmth glowed in the most intimate place between her legs. Silently, Eulogy marveled that she enthralled this gorgeous man so.
“You are stunning,” he said
Eulogy gathered her courage. “Please, touch me.”
Tapped between the bulging pillars of his arms, her sensitized breasts were brushed by his bare chest as he leant low, claiming her like a predator over his kill. Fire ripped through her belly as she squirmed with need.
“Steady,” he murmured, “plenty of time, we’ve only just started.”
Hungrily his mouth claimed hers once more. This kiss more urgent, hot and bruising to those that went before. Then Jack broke away, rolling away to lie beside her, laying his arm, heavy and possessive, over her waist.
“Are you all right?”
She nodded, and felt for the fastening of his breeches and fumbled with the clasps, intrigued by the swelling bulge beneath the chamois. Never had she felt so daring and yet vulnerable. Jack’s presence did things to her that she couldn’t explain and didn’t want to stop. Even now, she knew that if Jack cast her off tomorrow and she lived to be a hundred, she would never regret this moment, no matter what the consequences. Her blood cooled slightly. Consequences? That could mean a child. From the depth of a passion-fogged brain, common sense stirred.
“Jack,” she panted, “I don’t want to get with child…not yet.”
“Trust me,” he whispered, caressing the dome of her left breast, weighing it in his palm with utter fascination. “I shall be careful.”
Emboldened, Eulogy’s hand tracked lower, snaking beneath his breeches, following the jut of his hip, rolling closer to reach the firm, neat muscle of his rear. With a giggle she squeezed his buttocks, and with a roar of mock affront, Jack growled.
His body was magnificent, lean, muscular and tight. Fascinated, and only blushing slightly, she swept his body with a long, lingering look.
“You’re a bold one.” Jack lay back and luxuriated under her stare, letting her drink her fill.
Eulogy smiled innocently.
“Farrell stares at me all day, and people stare at paintings of me…is it so wrong if I wish to look at you?”
“Oh no,” Jack said, his voice gravelly, “but you might get more than you bargained for.”
“Your body is so firm.” She skimmed a hand across his sculpted chest.
Jack bucked again, a sheen of sweat rising on his brow. With childlike curiosity she stroked a shadowed nipple and was rewarded with a groan, his face contorting. He placed a broad palm against her belly. His touch was like fire, its liquid heat making her gasp. With a grin, his hand travelled higher, stroking her breast. She shivered and arched, pressing hard, greedy for his touch.
Jack undid the ribbon that bound her long plait, combing his fingers through the thick chestnut curls until it tumbled loose around her shoulders and breasts. Taking a ringlet in his fingers and pressed it to his lips. Eulogy’s heart brimmed with love as she feathered kisses across his chest, his skin salty and tasting of hot male strength.
“Eulogy, my one true love. Let me pleasure you.”
His gaze held her fast, as is hand slid over the landscape of her waist and over her hips. Her breath came in sharp ragged jerks as he undid the buttons of the borrowed breeches. Suddenly, she longed to lie skin to skin with Jack, to feel his warmth pressed against her and wriggled eagerly out of the breeches.
“Now you.”
With a mischievous grin on her face, her hands reached for the placket of his breeches. His manhood tented the fabric as she marveled that she was the cause of such arousal. She fumbled with the buttons as he lay still. He groaned as her fingertips dipped beneath the waistband. Tentatively she explored, excited by the dip between his hip bones, fascinated by the thickening curls. Holding her breath, she felt for his shaft, which twitched and jumped at her touch.
Biting her lip, she explored the growing shaft, the secret place a maid was meant to be ignorant of. She gasped, for if it were possible it was thickening more, growing harder and longer. From Jack’s ragged breathing and the heat pouring from his body, he held himself in check. The appreciation, that he would do that for her, fired her passion still further.
Slowly, he raised himself on one elbow, resting his hand on the dip of her waist. Following her form, he stroked her hip, followed the length of her thigh. Eulogy gasped as the hand tracked to her inner thigh, the pad of his fingertips stroking to sensitive skin, reaching higher to the wetness of her concealed mound. Gently, teasingly he parted the moist lips, rubbing and kneading the inflamed nub. Eulogy lay helpless, floating, her body no longer hers.
She ought to be scandalized, her modesty outraged, and yet this was delicious. His finger worked to her rhythm, lifting her, raising her. Just when she thought she could take no more he introduced another finger, widening her passage, playing her passion until she was taut with need. A greed rose within her, a hunger to be sated. She needed him inside her.
“We were made to fit together,” Jack said softly, as if reading her mind.
Swallowing hard she nodded in understanding, as he straddled her aching body, supporting his weight on the column of his arms. Briefly, he dipped down to place a kiss on the tip of her nose.
Willingly, Eulogy allowed his bulk to settle between her spread legs. Blood surged in her ears as, with infinite care, he nudged his member inside against the moist welcome of private parts. Eulogy had to remind herself to breathe. Sensations bloomed within, as slick with desire, her shape gave to receive him.
“Relax,” he urged, his breath hot against her cheek. “Relax my precious one.”
She nodded. Slowly, he rocked. Each time she gave, he took, until his whole silken length was sheathed within. Slowly, and oh so sweetly, he started to rock, gathering her body and moving it to his rhythm. A moment of fear showed on her face.
“Hush, my sweet, there is nothing to fear.”
Eulogy whimpered, as a sharp pain stabbed inside. Jack stilled, cooing over her hurt until she smiled back at him. Then a glazed expression came to his eye, as with iron control of his burgeoning need, his hips thrust slowly.
Jack’s hips rose and fell urgently between her thighs.
Gripping the firm roundness of his bottom, she pulled him closer. Never had a man’s rear been so delicious, so taut with promise. She threw back her head as Jack thrust. A mute cry fell from her lips as butterfly wings pulsed in her core. Jack stilled, and yet trembles coursed through his body.
“That is just the start. Now all is pleasure.”
A tear spilled onto her cheek at his tender concern.
“My love,” she whispered.
Jack closed his eyes, his face taut and rigid. A rippling, rhythm gripped his body, working back and forth, faster and more urgent, demanding a response for Eulogy’s body. On the crest of a wave she gave herself, as from nowhere a thousand little quivers transported her to liquid form. A noise rose form her throat, an animal sound, part whimper and part song.
Jack had become her world.
She felt him rear above her, all alarming tension and steel, the veins on his neck standing proud. Then she was empty as he spilt his seed across her stomach.
It was several minutes before either spoke or moved.
Tenderly Jack wiped her clean, and then wriggled an arm around her, drawing her close. The way he held her trembling body against his chest, as if she was the most precious thing in his life, melted her heart afresh. He kissed her hair, his lips lingering, tasting her curls. “I solemnly swear never to hurt you again.”
Basking in the glow of spent passion, her hand played across his chest.
“And I promise to trust you.”
He tilted her chin, raising her lips towards his with bruising heat and kissed her. Every part of her body melted to his touch and she shivered.
“Cold?” he asked, with a glint in his eye.
Eulogy pursed her lips. “Now you mention it, there is a chill in the air.”
“My thoughts entirely.” With a look that made her toes curl, he closed his lips around a nipple. He met her gaze with a devilish wink. “My most pleasurable duty—to keep the future Mrs. Huntley warm.”
Chapter 21
Still the snow fell, no longer a blizzard but cheery spinning flakes to dress a virgin, white world. The attic room, which once had seemed mean and bare, was now a glorious lair that met their simple needs. What need had Eulogy for a feather mattress and silk sheets, when to wake cradled against Jack’s muscular bulk was comfort beyond her dreams?
Sometimes, after their lovemaking and when Jack lapsed into sleep, she lay awake just to listen to his breathing, to cherish every precious moment before the snow thawed. With a heavy heart she remembered that time in Hyde Park, when Jack had appeared devoted and yet humiliated her so. She pushed doubt aside. That was the past, she had sworn to trust him, and trust him she must.