“Yes.”
“Lay down. I would like to explore your body.”
She put a knee on the bed, complying quickly with his demand, then she froze. “No. You lay on the bed, andIshall exploreyou.”
“I can deny my lady nothing.” And complying with her demand was no hardship. He’d have what he wished, too.
George laid on the bed, and no sooner than his head hit the mattress, she was on him, her fingers in his hair, tracing circles in his scalp. Her thumb ran down his nose and over his lips, dipping between them for one sizzling second before curving around his jaw and over the soft flesh behind his ear. She tugged his earlobe, swept her palms over his chest, and traced the muscles of his abdomen. She bent low and kissed his naval, flicking her tongue out and in, once.
He hissed with a sharp intake of breath.
She roamed lower, forking to the side and avoiding the area he was most interested in her exploring. She scratched her fingernails softly down his thighs, behind his knees, over his calf muscles. She seemed to find each of his individual toes fascinating. But not for long. Her fingertips, quills of heated delight that tattooed his entire body with her name, disappeared. Her body shifted.
George opened his eyes. They had been closed? Ha. Nothing was clear in this lust-hazy world except the feel of Jane. And she had gone. No, she still remained above him, hesitating. Then she dove. Her fingers wrapped around his cock, and her tongue teased its tip.
“Damnation.” George bucked at the touch.
She kissed the head of his shaft.
He moaned her name.
He wanted more. He wanted her future. He wanted to start his own future.
“Straddle me,” he said, “Take me inside you.”
Her eyes widened. “Can I?”
“Most definitely.”
She hesitated, curiosity burning in her dark eyes. But she centered her body over him, her weight on her knees on either side of him and moaned as she slid down onto him.
George let go. He not only loosened his ever-tight grip on his control, he dropped the reins entirely. His hands wrapped around her waist, and he lifted his hips as she pressed down, urging her along the perfect rhythm to bring release to them both.
He stopped counting seconds and cataloguing shadows. He forgot safety and caution and nighttime terrors from which men could not awake. He even forgot the perfect march of poetic words across a page. There was no rhyme that could bring this much pleasure, no stanza that could give such meaning to his world.
There was only Jane and her cries as his hand reached between their bodies and rubbed her right where he knew she needed it most. Only Jane as she called his name and collapsed against him, the sweet swells of her breasts pressing against his chest. Only Jane as his own pleasure crashed through him.
Only Jane.
And hope.
Chapter 23
When Jane woke with a start. The darkness was complete, and she waited for her eyes to adjust, discerning with her body, despite her foggy brain, where she was. Not the familiar moonlit darkness of her bedroom at Whitwood. Not the noisy darkness of the Clarke’s house where she’d slept the night before.
This darkness was new, warm, intimate. How could it not be with a strong male arm flung protectively across her waist? She snuggled against George, pressing a kiss to his chest.
What had jolted her awake at this hour? She did not normally waken in the middle of the night. She was a sound and heavy sleeper. No bother. She was awake now. She might as well make the most of it.
Starting with George’s shoulder. She’d spent scant attention exploring it earlier. There had been so much to discover. Now she could be more leisurely in her explorations. Her own shoulder was a bit bony. She could feel the bone hard against her skin if she pressed her fingers there.
But George’s shoulder was quite different. Hard, yes, but not because of bone. Muscle wrapped around that bone, unforgiving silk. She smoothed her fingertips over it and then around it, tracing the outline of the muscle under his skin, then exploring lower down his arm. More muscle. Delightful.
Pity his body was not so open to her gaze as it had been earlier. He had lain on his back, then, spread before her like a Christmas feast. Now he lay on his stomach, his arm trapping her to the bed more effectively than a manacle. But his shoulder and the rest of his arm, as well as his neck, lay open to her consideration. She tiptoed her fingertips around the side of him, drawing a line around each rib from top to bottom and then found his back. She very much liked his back. Looking at it. Feeling it. Divine.
He shifted beside her. Did he wake? Hopefully not. She willed him to remain sleeping a moment more, so she could continue her exploration without his sizzling gaze on her.
But if he woke… would that truly be so bad? There were things they could do while awake that she was discovering as well. She kissed his shoulder.
