Suddenly You (16 page)

“Now you've seen a completely naked man,” Jack said. “What do you think?”

She moistened her dry lips with her tongue. “I think that thirty years is too long to have waited for this.”

He reached around her and unfastened the back of her gown. The smell of his skin, warm and slightly salty, gave her the same slightly dizzy feeling she sometimes had when she had drunk her wine too quickly. She put her hands on his shoulders to steady herself, her fingertips tingling from the hard, satiny texture of him.

Gently he eased her to the floor and pushed the loosened dress downward until she stepped out of it. Left in her light corset and chemise and drawers, Amanda edged away from him with an abashed murmur.

“Jack…” She went to the washstand and poured some steaming water into a painted earthenware bowl. “If you wouldn't mind waiting behind the dressing screen,” she said without looking at him, “I need a moment of privacy.”

He came up behind her, his hands settling at her waist. “Let me help you.”

“No, no,” she said in a sudden paroxysm of embarrassment. “If you'll just go over there…I'll manage by myself.”

But he hushed her with a kiss and ignored her protests while unfastening her corset and stripping away her undergarments. Flushing deeply, Amanda forced herself to hold still as he gazed at her body. She was well aware of her defects: legs that should have been longer, hips that were too wide, a stomach that was not quite flat. But as Jack stared at her, a visible pulse appeared in his throat, and his hand shook slightly when he touched the undercurve of her breast. One might have thought he were beholding a goddess instead of a thirty-year-old spinster. “Damn, how I want you,” he said, his voice rasping in his throat. “I could eat you alive.”

She puzzled over the baffling and somewhat alarming statement. “Please don't try to claim that I am beautiful. We both know that is not the case.”

Jack soaked a linen cloth in the hot water and wrung it out, then gently cleansed her inner thighs. To her mortification, he bade her place a foot on a nearby chair, thereby exposing herself more fully to his ministrations. “Every man has his own preferences,” he said. The cloth was rinsed and soaked again, and he placed it directly between her thighs, so that the heat eased the soreness caused by their encounter in the carriage. “You happen to fulfill all of mine.”

Amanda leaned forward until her cheek rested against his bare shoulder, relaxing against his invitingly warm body. “You prefer short women with large hips?” she asked skeptically.

His free hand coasted over the generous shape of her buttocks, and she felt him smile against her cheek. “I prefer everything about you. The way you feel beneath my hands, the way you taste…every curve and valley. But as much as I desire your body, your most attractive feature is here.” He tapped her temple with his fingertip. “You fascinate me,” he murmured. “You always have. You are the most original, challenging woman I have ever encountered. I've wanted to take you to bed from the first moment I saw you on your front doorstep.”

She stood quietly, allowing him to cleanse and soothe her, and apply more hot compresses between her legs. When he was finished, he pulled her with him to the bed, and lifted her to the linen-covered mattress. Her heart knocked violently against her ribs, and the walls of the room seemed to disintegrate, leaving only darkness and firelight and the warm tangle of their limbs.

“Jack,” she whispered as he stretched her out beneath him, the stiffly bobbing weight of his arousal brushing against the inside of her knee. Her hands found his buttocks, squeezing the densely textured flesh like a cat kneading with its paws, and Jack gasped against her hair. Emboldened, she slid one hand to his sex and touched him, her fingers closing tightly around the pulsing shape. He moved to his side to give her more access to his body, letting her touch him in any manner she wished.

Gently she cupped the fuzz-covered pouch at the base of his sex, which felt cool and soft in comparison to the turgid shaft. Her fingertips traced over the ridges of veins that led all the way up to a broad tip. Experimentally she drew the pad of her thumb over the satiny bulb, and he clenched his hands in her hair and groaned.

“Does that please you?” she whispered.

It appeared that he found it difficult to speak. “Yes,” he finally managed with a smothered laugh. “God, yes…if you please me any more, I will probably explode.” He tilted her head back and brought their faces together, his features shimmering with a mist of sweat, his eyes ablaze with blue light. His large hand covered hers, helping to guide the head of his shaft to the thatch of soft, wiry curls between her legs. His palm moved to her thigh, hitching it over his hip so that she was spread open for him. “Rub it against yourself,” he murmured.

Amanda's entire body turned crimson. Slowly she took the head of his shaft in her fingers and brought it to the damp furrow between her thighs. Her breath rushed in harsh surges as she rubbed the tip of his organ over her intimate flesh, until the moisture from her own body made him slippery.

“Jack,” she moaned, pushing his sex against the wet cove of her body, “take me now. Please. I want you inside me. I want—”

He interrupted her with a deep kiss, his tongue playing with hers, his hands folding over her breasts. “Turn around,” he whispered. “Lie on your side, and hold your bottom against me.”

Amanda groaned as his fingers gently pinched her nipples. “No, I want—”

“I know what you want.” His mouth slid over her hot face. “And you shall have it, my love. Just do as I tell you.”

Amanda obeyed him with a sob, settling so that her back was pressed against his chest, and his body was wedged behind hers spoon-fashion.

She felt the rise of his erection against her buttocks, and she writhed against him, her need so acute that all shame had vanished. He kissed and bit the nape of her neck, and murmured instructions, urging her to part her legs and arch her back. To her surprise, she felt him enter her from behind. She gave a guttural moan as he drove deeper, filling her until she was stretched tightly around him. Although he was gentle, she felt a pinch of discomfort, her body still unaccustomed to this intimate invasion.

“Does it hurt?” he whispered against her earlobe.

“Yes, a little,” she gasped.

His big hands coasted over the front of her body, stroking her breasts, her quivering stomach, then moving to the aching peak of her sex. His clever fingertip rested close to the tingling flesh without quite touching it, teasingly elusive, sliding away each time Amanda strained to push herself against it.

He tormented her until she began to writhe, desperately working for the stimulation he held just out of reach. Each time her hips surged forward, he followed the movement, thrusting deeper into the grasping depths of her body. The soreness disappeared as each liquid glide sent a rush of delight through her, and the exquisite tension climbed higher, higher, until she bit her lips to hold back a scream.

“Jack, please, please,” she moaned, her every limb stiff, her skin sweating until even the roots of her hair were wet. She clawed at the gentle hand between her legs, straining to reach the climax he withheld.

“All right, my love,” came his dark voice in her ear. “You've earned your pleasure.” She felt him pinch the throbbing little nub between his thumb and forefinger, and he gently stroked the silken flesh even as he thrust hard and straight inside her. It seemed that the world exploded in sensation and fire as her body clamped on his invading hardness with spasms of ecstasy. The rippling of her inner muscles brought him to the same rocketing climax, and he withdrew from her with a groan, spilling his seed on the sheets.

Exhausted, satiated, Amanda rolled to face him, her arms sliding around his back. She felt the slight ridges of scars from long-ago beatings, and her hands lingered on the marks, fingertips softly stroking. Jack went very still, the cadence of his breath changing. His lashes lowered, concealing his thoughts from her.

She stroked the small of his back and then moved her hands up the powerful length of his spine. Finding the scars once more, she touched them lightly, as if she could soothe them away. “Mr. Fretwell once told me that you took many beatings meant for other children at the Knatchford Heath school,” she said. “You tried to protect the smaller boys from harm.”

His mouth tightened with annoyance. “Fretwell talks too damned much.”

“I was glad that he told me…I would never have guessed you were capable of such sacrifice.”

His shoulders moved in a careless shrug. “It was nothing. I have a tough Irish hide—I never felt the thrashings as much as the younger boys would have.”

Amanda snuggled closer to him, careful to keep her voice sympathetic rather than pitying. “Don't make light of what you did.”

“Hush.” Jack placed gentle fingers over her lips. Dark color touched the crests of his cheeks. “Next you'll make me out to be a damned saint,” he said gruffly, “and believe me, that is not the case. I was a hellion, and I grew up to be a reprobate.”

Amanda applied her tongue to one of his fingers, tickling the inside crease.

Surprised by the playful swipe of her tongue, Jack jerked back his hand and grinned down at her, the shades of bitter regret vanishing from his eyes. “Little witch.” He pulled back the covers and shifted Amanda's body onto the expanse of smooth linen sheets. “I think we can put your tongue to better use than that,” he murmured, and covered her mouth with his own.

Amanda's relatives were not pleased by the news that she would not be coming to Windsor for the remainder of the holidays. They made their disgruntlement known through a cache of rapidly posted letters that Amanda declined to answer. Usually she would have taken the time to soothe their ruffled feathers, but as the days slipped by, she couldn't bring herself to care. Her entire existence had become centered on Jack Devlin. The hours when they were apart passed with unbearable slowness, whereas the evenings sped by in a sweetly frantic rush. He always came to her after dark fell, and left just before dawn, and with each hour she spent in his arms, she only craved him more.

Jack treated her as no man ever had, regarding her not as a sedate spinster but as a woman of warmth and passion. On the occasions when Amanda's inhibitions got the better of her, he teased her ruthlessly, provoking a temper she had never suspected herself of having. There were times, however, when Jack's mood changed and he was no longer a mocking rogue but a tender lover. He would spend hours cuddling and stroking her, making love with exquisite gentleness. During those times, he seemed to understand her with a thoroughness that frightened her, as if he could see into her very soul.

Just as they had agreed, Jack made her read certain chapters of
The Sins of Madam B
, and he openly enjoyed her squirming discomfort at having to enact particular scenes in bed with him.

“I can't,” she said in a muffled voice one evening, pulling the bed linens over her scarlet face. “I just can't. Choose something else—I'll do anything but that with you.”

“You promised you would try,” Jack said, his eyes gleaming with amusement as he jerked the sheets away from her.

“I don't recall anything of the kind.”

“Coward.” He kissed the top of her spine and worked his way down her back, and she felt him smile against her skin. “Be brave, Amanda,” he whispered. “What do you have to lose?”

“My self-respect!” She tried to wriggle free, but he pinned her down and gently nipped the sensitive spot between her shoulder blades.

“Just give it a try,” he coaxed. “I'll do it to you first—wouldn't you like that?” He flipped her over and kissed her quivering stomach. “I want to taste you,” he murmured. “I want to put my tongue in you.”

If it were possible to die of mortification, she would have expired right then and there. “Perhaps later,” she said. “I need some time to accustom myself to the idea.”

A flare of laughter mingled with the heat in his eyes. “You decided to limit our affair to three months. That doesn't leave much time.” His mouth played around the small circle of her navel, his warm breath wafting inside the hollow. “One kiss,” he urged, and his fingertip parted the curls between her thighs to alight on a place of startling sensation. “Right here. Will that be too much for you to bear?”

She made a helpless noise at the touch of his fingertip. “Just one,” she said unsteadily.

His mouth descended, and she felt his fingers sifting through the springy hair, spreading her gently. His lips parted, his tongue investigating her with a circling stroke. She felt the pull of ecstasy in every limb, her nerves screaming for more, all coherent thought shattering at the sight of his head between her thighs.

“One more?” he asked huskily, and he bent his head again before she could deny him. His mouth touched her again, wetting the aching rise of flesh, his tongue stroking and prodding with delicate skill. He did not ask for further consent but simply did as he wanted, settling between her legs with a sigh of pleasure while she cried out and strained and trembled. Sensation unfurled inside her and raced through every vein. She lay spread-eagled beneath him while her body acceded eagerly to the sweet torment of his mouth. Momentum gathered, hurtling her ever higher, until she had lost all hope of controlling the wild groans that emanated from her chest.

She felt his tongue slip inside her, a sleek, repeated plunging that caused her hips to rise in helpless surges. He returned to the tender nub of her sex, drawing it inside the suction of his mouth, while his finger penetrated the wet channel between her thighs. He teased the slick inner surface in a way that made her beg for release, until they both knew that she would allow anything, everything, that he might want.

He slipped a second finger inside her body, thrusting deeply to find an unbearably sensitive place. Gently he teased and rubbed while his mouth drew harder, his caresses steady, rhythmic, until she sobbed and cried out as the world exploded in bliss.

Several minutes later Amanda let him pull her atop his body so that she rested on a long plane of muscle and sinew. “You must have had many affairs, to be so skilled,” she murmured, feeling a sharp twinge of jealousy at the thought.

His brows quirked as he clearly wondered whether she was being critical or complimentary. “I haven't, actually,” he said, playing with her long hair, spreading it over his chest. “I happen to be fairly discerning when it comes to this sort of thing. Besides, I've always been so damned involved in my work that I've never had a great deal of time for affairs.”

“What about love?” Amanda levered herself up on his chest, staring into his dark face. “Haven't you ever fallen madly in love with someone?”

“Not to the extent that I let it interfere with my business.”

Amanda laughed suddenly, reaching to smooth a lock of black hair back from his forehead. He had beautiful hair, thick and shiny, slightly coarse beneath her fingers. “It wasn't love, then. Not if you could dismiss it so easily when it became inconvenient.”

“And you?” Jack countered, running his warm hands along her arms until gooseflesh raised on the backs of them. “Obviously you've never fallen in love.”

“Why are you so certain?”

“Because you wouldn't have remained a virgin if you had.”

“Cynic,” she accused with a smile. “Can't one love genuinely but chastely?”

“No,” he returned flatly. “If it's real love, it has to include physical passion. A man and a woman can never really know each other otherwise.”

“I disagree. I believe that emotional passion is far more intense than the physical kind.”

“For a woman, perhaps.”

Reaching for a pillow, she swatted it over his grinning face. “You primitive lout.”

Jack chuckled, easily divested her of the pillow, and grasped her wrists in his large hands. “All men are primitive louts,” he informed her. “Some just happen to conceal it better than others.”

“Which explains why I have never married.” Amanda wrestled with him briefly, enjoying the sensation of rubbing along his brawny naked body until his erection rose hot and hard between them. “
Very
primitive,” she said throatily, continuing to squirm until he gave a groaning laugh.

“Mhuirnin,”
he muttered, “I feel compelled to remind you that I've done my best to satisfy you so far this evening…and you haven't yet returned the favor.”

Amanda lowered her mouth to his, kissing him ardently and winning his eager response. She felt oddly unlike herself, wicked and remarkably free of inhibition. “I had better remedy that,” she remarked, her voice humming low in her throat. “I should hate not to be fair.”

Their gazes met, hers adventurous, his bright and passion-filled. Then Jack's eyes closed as Amanda slid lower on his body, her mouth trailing a slow path along his taut skin.

 

For a woman who had always believed in the credo “Moderation in all things,” an affair with Jack Devlin was disastrous to her equilibrium. Her emotions careened from one extreme to another, from the all-consuming pleasure of being with him to the obsession and despondency that filled her when they were apart. There were private moments when melancholy rolled over her like a blanketing fog. It had something to do with a bittersweet understanding that this was all temporary, that soon their season of passion would be over. Jack was not really hers, nor would he ever be. The more Amanda came to understand him, the more she recognized his elemental unwillingness to give himself completely to a woman. She found it ironic that a man who was willing to take risks in every other area of his life should find it impossible to take the one chance that mattered most.

Amanda often felt deeply frustrated, wanting for the first time in her life to have all of a man, his heart as well as his body. It was her particular misfortune to desire this of Jack Devlin. But, she reminded herself, that did not mean that she had to remain alone for the rest of her years. Jack had taught her that she was a desirable woman, one with qualities that many men might appreciate. If she wanted, she could find a partner for herself after the affair was over. But in the meantime…in the meantime…

 

Mindful of the scrutiny of others, Amanda took care to arrive separately at parties, and to treat Jack with the same polite friendliness that she accorded the other men present. She did not betray their relationship with a single look or word. Jack was similarly careful to observe the proprieties, treating her with an exaggerated respect that both annoyed and amused her. As the weeks passed, however, Jack no longer seemed to regard their affair, and the need for secrecy, as lightly as he once had. It appeared to bother him that he could not claim her publicly. The fact that he had to share her company with others was a source of increasing frustration, one that he finally admitted to Amanda when they both attended a musical evening. He had managed to pull her away from the general assemblage during intermission, and steered her to a small parlor that was clearly not intended for the guests' use.

“Have you gone mad?” Amanda gasped as he closed them both inside the unlit room. “Someone may have seen you pull me out of the main rooms. There will be gossip if it is noticed that we have both disappeared at the same time—”

“I don't care.” His arms closed around her, jerking her against the solid weight of his body. “For the past hour and a half, I've had to sit apart from you and pretend not to notice other men leering at you. I want to go home with you now, dammit.”

“Don't be ridiculous,” she said shortly. “No one is leering at me. I don't know what you are trying to accomplish with this pretend fit of jealousy, but I assure you that it is unnecessary.”

“I know a leer when I see one.” He drew his hands along the silk-and-velvet bodice of her russet-colored gown, letting his palm cover the exposed valley of her cleavage. “Why did you wear this dress tonight?”

“I've worn it before, and you seemed to like it.” She shivered as the warmth of his hand passed over her tender skin.

“I liked it in
private
,” he muttered. “I never wanted you to wear it in public.”

“Jack,” she began, her stifled laugh cut short when he bent and dragged his mouth over the exposed skin of her chest. “Stop,” she whispered, quivering at the greedy stroke of his tongue in the vale between her breasts. “We'll be found out…oh, let me go back before the music begins.”

“I can't help it.” His voice was soft and gruff, his breath striking her skin in hot exhalations. He gathered her body against his and kissed her, his mouth tasting of brandy as he searched her avidly.

Amanda's rising panic was swamped in a surge of desire so overwhelming that she couldn't breathe, couldn't think, her body helpless in his demanding hands. He pulled at her skirts, thrusting his hands inside her drawers so roughly that she feared they might tear. She gasped when his fingers slid between her thighs, searching and fondling the soft flesh until she writhed desperately. “Not now,” she said with a faint sob. “We'll be together in a few hours. You can wait until then.”

“No, I can't.” His breath quickened as he felt the moisture from her aroused body. Pulling at the tapes of her drawers, he loosened the undergarment and dropped it to her ankles, then fumbled with the fastenings of his trousers. He urged her back against the closed door and kissed her neck, the bristle from his shaven jaw abrading her and making her skin tingle.

“Jack,” she whimpered, tilting her head back even while the fear of being discovered made her heartbeat escalate to a violent clatter.

His mouth muffled her protests in a crush of heat and sensation, and to her despair, she could not resist the wicked pleasure of it. She kissed him back, opening to him eagerly, letting her thighs part as his leg intruded between hers. His erection nudged against her, a thrust of hardness and silk, and her hips jerked in an involuntary movement to accommodate him. He pushed more strongly, entering her in a deep, sure glide. Amanda groaned as she was filled completely, her body clamping tightly around the delicious invasion. One of his hands caught her knee from beneath, urging her leg higher against his, and he pushed strongly within her.

She shuddered, her body locked to him, and then a languorous warmth suffused her as she relaxed to his rhythm. Their clothes rustled together, crushed masses of silk and broadcloth and velvet separating them everywhere except in the wet, naked heat of their loins. She leaned against the door, her body rising with each upward drive. She was utterly possessed by him, no longer caring about the risk they were taking, conscious only of the ecstasy of his flesh joined to hers. Muttering fiercely into the curve of her neck, he thrust faster, creating silken friction that finally drove her into a scalding orgasm. He smothered her guttural cries with his mouth, and began to slide out of her in the way he always did just before climax. But it seemed that suddenly he was possessed by some irresistible primal urge, and instead of withdrawing, he buried himself inside her. His large body shook with the power of his release, and his quiet groan vibrated against her damp skin.

They remained together in the pulsing aftermath, breathing harshly, while his mouth moved gently over hers. Finally breaking the kiss, Jack spoke in a rasping whisper. “Dammit…I shouldn't have done that.”