Marissa Day (21 page)

“Someone will see.”

“No one will see.”

She looked at him, her eyes so frightened, but so filled with the need to be able to trust someone.

He kissed her long and deep. Kissed her as tenderly as passion would allow. Kissed her to the limits of his breath, because he was in the sunlight, the mortal world, without glamour, without any outward deception he had to keep part of his mind focused to maintain. Just this once it was only he and Jane. He could give his whole self over to her. She brought light to him, inside and outside, and he wanted this kiss to penetrate to his bones so that it would never leave him.

She resisted at first, and he feared he would have to find the strength to pull away. He would take nothing from her she did not give. Not here, not now. But then she melted, her magnificent breasts pressing soft and supple against his chest. His cock stood up, hard and ready, at once.

Never enough,
he thought as he caressed her breast, delighting in the sigh she breathed against his mouth.
Never enough.

Because he could never have her truly. Never claim her beyond their few stolen moments, because he had nothing to give in return. No share of heart, hand or even possessions. He was a beggar before her, with nothing beyond fleeting pleasure to offer.

This one time would be as honest as it could be. One time for them both to treasure.

He moved his kisses to her face and her throat. She smelled like the springtime around them and tasted of lavender and strawberries. He laved the perfection that was her white throat. She pressed against the brick, writhing her body against his, already seeking the pleasure of his cock. Oh, greedy, demanding minx. She’d never learn. Ever. Not if he had a thousand years to tie her down and discipline her would he teach her to properly submit.

A thousand years with Jane. He was turning them, lowering them, resting Jane astride his lap. He could feel the smoothness and strength of her thighs even through his buckskins.

He was dizzy, drunk on Jane and passion. He could not think straight while she had wrapped her arms around his neck and rubbed her face against his hair, as if the texture of it fascinated her. Perhaps it did. What concerned him more immediately was her action brought the valley of her breasts to where he had only to bend the smallest amount to reach them. He palmed her breasts, pressing them together to nuzzle and taste the curving tops, reveling in the way that made her arch her back and press her pussy closer to him. Oh yes, such pretty toys this woman had. Pretty, responsive, endlessly delightful toys. A thousand years would be just the beginning.

She was ready for him. Ripe and ready. He could feel her hesitation, still uncertain whether they should give themselves fully to desire. But she wanted him, and more than that, she needed him. He slid his hand under her skirt, and she pressed her mouth to his shoulder, sighing out hot breath against him, as he stroked her folds. She was soft and exquisitely wet now. She moaned as he stroked her, fondling her sensitive folds, finding her clit—her hot, eager clit—and stroking it lazily. She moaned again, and he wrapped his other arm around her, holding her in place against his hand. She let him stroke her and build up her delight, trusting him to take her past her worry and sorrow into the place of pure and perfect pleasure that they shared. He would make her forget she’d ever known loneliness. He would drive it from the earth for her sake.

She was driving him mad with her muffled moans and her rubbing against his thighs and his busy fingers. He withdrew them from her tightening pussy and she hissed in disappointment, but soon realized the rummaging she felt was him undoing his fly to free his cock for her. She looked at him, flushed, a line of perspiration trickling down her temple, begging to be tasted. She tasted like salt and honey. Had he remembered to tell her that? There were so many things he needed to remember to tell her. But not now. Now, she was about to speak. He saw it in her eyes, which were wide and dark. She felt his hard, impatient cock and was torn between her fears and her desires.

This was no time for a discussion of the matter. Thomas kissed her, delving into her mouth with his tongue, silencing her, distracting her while he positioned the tip of his cock against her folds. Then both of them groaned as she rose up on her knees just enough, and he slipped inside.

Relief. Sweet relief. For a handful of heartbeats, there was an end to longing and, in its place, a sense of knowing exactly where he should be. He had no more to fear and nothing to prove while he had Jane’s infinitely beautiful body in his arms, and his cock safe inside her.

But that relief lasted only for a moment, because she was already moving. Jane rocked her hips back and forth, looking down at him as surprise brightened the pleasure in her. They hadn’t fucked each other in this way yet, and her body was just realizing how very good this position could feel.

Thomas slid his hands around under her skirts to clasp the lush globes of her ass, squeezing, urging her on.

Yes, Jane. Ride it. Ride it hard.
He lifted her, and brought her down hard, showing her she had no need to be gentle. He could take all she had to give.

She understood him without a word. With only his touch and the arching of his hips to guide her, she began to use her knees, like any good rider. Her hot sheath stroked him, hard and fast, driving him deep, tightening around him. Had anything ever felt so good as Jane fucking him in the sunlight? Already, she was about to come. He felt her clench, felt the slow pulsing begin around his shaft. He pulled her close, driving himself deeper, holding her tighter, so she could press her face against his neck and scream and scream, and yet never be heard. She shuddered and shook and her sheath tightened like a silken fist around him. All thought was gone as he drove into her once more, coming into her, her pussy squeezing him, milking him dry, and all he wanted was more, more and yet more.

But slowly the moment faded. He slipped down from paradise into his own body and found it a slow and heavy place, although remarkably comfortable, especially as his slowly softening cock was still inside Jane. He cradled her against his chest with one leaden arm, and smiled to feel her breath against his neck growing slow, deep and gentle.

So beautiful. To be here in the sunlight, with this woman, content and complete.

Why not a thousand years of this? Why not forever?

“I need to get back,” Jane murmured reluctantly, even as she snuggled close against him.

“Jane.” He cupped her face in both hands. “I have something I want to ask you, soon. There’s one point I must make certain of first, but . . . let me call you tonight. Will you be ready for me?”

She went very still, searching his eyes. She got two dents in her forehead when she frowned. Right on either side of the place where the bridge of her nose met her brow. He wanted to kiss those two little dents, and could think of no reason why not, so he did.

“Thomas, I don’t want you to say anything you will regret. I’m not asking for anything more from you.”

“I know. But there’s so much I want to give you.”
Forever, Jane. I want to give you forever somewhere there is no sorrow, and where Conroy and his kind can never reach you.

He found he liked the sensation of her searching him, wanting to see deeper. She wanted to know him the way he wanted to know her; completely without reservation or barrier. He smoothed her cheeks and she turned her face in his hands, just a little, so that the corner of her mouth touched his thumb.

“All right,” she said. “I’ll be ready.”

He smiled and helped her climb off his lap. She buttoned his breeches up without being told to, the brushes of her competent fingers threatening to wake his flaccid cock again.
She never will submit properly,
he thought again. The only true surrender Lady Jane made was to her own heart.

And that heart was his. Maybe the declaration had not been made yet, but it was in her actions. He could see it even now in the curve of her laughing smile, and he felt it the depth of the tenderness that welled up in him.

He smoothed her skirts, enjoying the shape of her thighs under the cloth. Enjoying it so much, in fact, that she swatted at his hands. He grinned at her, letting her see that he would make her pay for that gesture. Jane just lifted her chin at him and turned away, as if giving him the cut direct. Which only made him smile again. Yes, they would play this game out, but later. When they had nothing more to fear from Conroy, or anyone else in this house.

Thomas followed her along the ivy-covered wall, to the stretch behind the kitchen garden where there waited an old gate of rusted iron. The gate Jane has passed through every night he summoned her, although she would think she’d never seen it before. He lifted the latch and swung it open on silent hinges.

He bowed to her. Jane sniffed, and made her curtsy as proper and correct as if they had been in the prince’s ballroom.

“I will hear from you tonight?” asked Jane.

“Trust me.”

“I do trust you.”

Thomas smiled, and kissed her once. Then he ducked through the low gate, through the line of trees and across the road and into the broad and rolling parkland beyond.

It was as if he walked into a thunderstorm.

The world darkened, and blurred. The ground pitched under him like the deck of a ship. He’d lost his sea legs years ago, so he staggered and almost fell. His head spun and the blood roared in his ears.

Because in walking out of Kensington House, he’d walked back into his own memory.

He’d meant to take Jane to the Fae queen, so she could live beside him forever. Because he loved her. He’d wanted to show her all that was good and glorious in his life among the Fae, and share it all with her.

Except he couldn’t love Jane. He couldn’t ever love Jane. Jane was a mortal woman. His heart, his loyalty and his life belonged to Her Glorious Majesty, and always would.

But while he was with Jane, it was as if that oath hadn’t mattered. How had there been the space of even an hour when it hadn’t mattered?

Thomas stared wild-eyed up at the wall and the gate he’d just walked through. The wards. While he’d been inside Kensington House, the wards had severed him from the power of his queen. Not completely, because those wards were weakened now, but enough. Enough to leave a hole in his heart that Jane DeWitte could be poured in to.

The pricking needle weakened the cloth. That was the strategy to weaken the defenses of Kensington House that had turned back on him. The magic surrounding the house had its own sharp point, and he had walked into it without thinking.

It also had a secret ally. Because it wasn’t just the magic that had moved him so far. It was Jane herself. Jane’s love didn’t just weaken his oath-binding, it tore it in two.

There was a clump of ferns and undergrowth at the foot of an oak just a few dozen yards away. Thomas reeled toward them like a drunken man until the ferns brushed his knees. Then he fell and he crawled around the broad trunk, into a tiny hollow among the spreading roots. With painful effort, he pulled a glamour around him like a blanket, so anyone who looked would see nothing more than earth and stone beside the tree.

Exhausted, Thomas Lynne fell into darkness.

J
ane watched until Thomas disappeared between the trees on the far side of the road. Then she closed and latched the little gate. For all the rust on its crossbars, it moved as silently as any of the well-tended doors inside the house. She suspected more than one servant slipped up to this place in the dark, to exchange love tokens or perhaps to pass some of the duke’s leftovers and cast-offs to various scavengers in return for a few extra coppers. That was the way of it in great houses.

Automatically, Jane straightened her posture and smoothed her skirts and hair. She had to get back and could not give away any of what had just happened by her appearance. She took special care to calm her face and hide the way her heart skipped and skittered at the memory of what Thomas had said.

She must not think he meant marriage. There were an infinite number of things that could be covered by such a statement. She must move forward with her own plans. Whatever Thomas had to ask, she would hear it, and then judge.

Be ready for me,
he’d also said.

That much, at least, she could do and would do.

With the memory of Thomas’s body still tingling through her palms and between her thighs, Jane crossed back into the populated areas of the gardens. All around her, people smiled and nodded. The closer she got to the ducal pavilion, the thicker the crowd got. Men and women stood with glasses and dainties in their hands. They talked closely with each other, rubbing shoulders and elbows. They reminded Jane of nothing so much as a flock of pigeons in the square, waiting for the next scattering of crumbs.