Pride and Pleasure (11 page)

“I would prefer not to have these fits of nerves.”

“I should like to ravish you.” He loosened her stays. “Not tonight, when I need both of us to have no doubt that you came to my bed willingly, but soon.”

Crossing her arms over her chest, she held her loosened corset to her breasts. Jasper rounded her and backed up, putting distance between them.

“I’m almost naked,” she bit out, wanting him to do
something
. Why was he standing so far away? Even if he extended his arms their full length, he wouldn’t be able to reach her.

“I am highly aware of that fact.” Reaching down, he stroked himself through his breeches, his long fingers rubbing along the length of the pronounced bulge.

“Have you no shame?” Her tone was curt, her emotions high. She was a virgin, for God’s sake, and he was giving her too much breathing room. She was achingly aware of everything around her, when what she wanted was to be lost to the barrage of sensations he could so easily overwhelm her with.

“None at all. And I would like for you to have none either. Eliza . . .” His tone softened. “Did I not explain myself clearly? Don’t you understand that you are uniquely appealing to me? You worry that exposing your body will make you vulnerable, but I’m the one who will be left raw by the experience.”

She stood there for a long moment, lip quivering. He was forcing her to reason everything out during the one occasion when she didn’t want to think at all.

Jasper watched her with those intense dark eyes, his body made golden by the flickering candlelight. How many times had he experienced this sequence of events to be so nonchalant? Dozens? More . . . ?

She would not be surprised. What woman could resist him?

She
was resisting him. . . .

Her jaw clenched. He was right to avoid responsibility for her choice to be here. It was her decision, and she needed to claim it. Why should she tell herself that she was acting on instinct when that was a lie?

She was not like her mother. She was not driven to rashness by passion. She knew damn well what she was doing.

Eliza launched herself at him. Two running steps and a wild leap, and she was upon him. He caught her, laughing. Lifting her feet from the floor, he spun and strode into the bedroom.

“Not adventuresome?” he teased, setting her down at the foot of the bed. He looked at her with such an expression of proprietary pride that her throat tightened.

Pivoting on his bare feet, Jasper locked the bedroom door.

“I thought we were the only ones here?” she queried, her heart still racing from her leap off the proverbial cliff.

“You are assuming I’m locking others out, instead of locking you in . . .”

The thought of capture excited her. She had run willingly into the lion’s den, and now there was no turning back.

He leaned back against the door, his palms pressed flat to the panels and one ankle crossed over the other. The perfect appearance of insouciant leisure. But he’d never been able to hide his predaceous nature from her. She had seen it from the first and she saw it now: the high color on his throat and cheekbones, the fine sheen of sweat on his chest, the flaring of his nostrils, and the narrowed, concentrated gaze.

One wrong move and he would pounce . . .

Reaching up, she began to pull the pins from her hair. She dropped them on the floor, one by one, as he’d done with his cravat. There was something oddly freeing in that carelessness. The act of tossing aside the trappings that restrained. Here in this room with Jasper, she could finally cast off the confusing strictures of society and be what she had always wanted to be—liberated and independent.

After the last pin dropped, she shook out her hair, relishing the tingling of her scalp. She was clad in only her loosened stays and pantalettes, but she was not embarrassed or cold. There was no way she could be, when warmed by a stare as heated as Jasper’s.

He didn’t move, barely blinked. As the silence lengthened, she lost courage and clasped her hands in front of her.

“You are so beautiful, Eliza.” His hand lifted to his chest and rubbed, as if to soothe a pain there. “I adore your freckles. Do you have them everywhere?”

She bit her lower lip and nodded. “It is the bane of red hair, I’m afraid.”

“I will kiss every one of them,” he vowed. “They are delightful.”

“Fustian,” she scoffed. “No one likes freckles.”

Jasper’s eyes twinkled in the light of the bedside tapers. “Isn’t there anything about me you adore? Any part of me you want to kiss?”

“I am mad for every inch of you,” she pronounced with heartfelt fervency. “The way you smell. The cut of your hair. The line of your jaw. I’m especially taken with your hands. I can feel the strength in them when you touch me. You could crush my bones in your grip, but instead you are so gentle.”

He held both hands out, offering them to her. She rushed forward, knowing his touch would calm and distract her. “Sometimes I fear crushing you,” he confessed with a hitch in his voice.

Catching his hands with hers, Eliza pressed a kiss into each palm. “Is that why you stand so still?”

“Yes.”

“What would you do, if you had no need for restraint?”

As before, he brought her hand to rest over his heart, allowing her to feel its racing. “I would pin you to this door behind me and take you, swift and hard. Then I would lay you on the floor, spread you wide, and have you again. Slowly. Deeply. Eventually, we might make it to the bed, but I couldn’t guarantee it.”

“It sounds . . . savage.”

“You make me feel that way. If I could curb the need I have for you, I would. Perhaps, after tonight, it will be more manageable. I pray that’s the case.”

The roughness in his voice was a caress of its own. Freed from the pressure of her stays, the tips of her breasts throbbed and puckered tight. She was eye level with his chest, which made her wonder if his nipples were as sensitive as hers. The flat disks were surrounded by gooseflesh. Giving in to the urge, Eliza leaned forward and warmed one with a lick of her tongue.

“Bloody hell,” he bit out, jerking violently.

Jasper spun her away from him in a dizzying pivot. The ripping of her stays was like a crack of thunder in the room, followed by the rush of cool air across her back and the soft tickle of her hair beneath her shoulder blades. Her pantalettes were next, the tie at her waist digging briefly into her flesh before breaking in half. The flesh-colored stockinette was rent into two halves that clung to her ankles by the fastenings there.

She’d barely registered that she was excited by his loss of control when a hand at her lower back steered her forward, straight up the short steps at the foot of the bed and onto the mattress.

On her hands and knees, she crawled across the burgundy counterpane, highly conscious of everything she was exposing to him in the process. His hand caught her ankle when she reached the middle of the massive bed, halting her. She dropped to her stomach in a bid for modesty. The remnants of her pantaloons were stripped from her legs and discarded.

Eliza didn’t move, barely breathed.

“Are you frightened?” he asked gruffly.

She had to force herself to think about her feelings. “I d-don’t know.”

Jasper stretched out beside her, his arm extended above their heads. With his other hand, he urged her to roll to her side, so that her back was against his sweat-dampened chest. He leaned forward and rested his cheek against her shoulder, his silky hair brushing softly against her skin. His arm came around her waist and held her tightly to him. He didn’t move. Eventually, she relaxed into his warmth, inhaling the scent of him, which was made stronger by the tremendous heat of his body. He felt fevered against her flesh.

It took long moments, but over time his temperature cooled and his breathing slowed.

“Jasper . . . ?”

His hand at her waist moved higher, cupping a breast. She tensed again at the unfamiliar touch.

“Shh,” he murmured, gentling her.

The feel of his breath gusting across her ear made her nipple harden into his palm. A rough sound escaped him and his hand flexed convulsively around her.

“Let me show you what you did to me,” he whispered, withdrawing enough to coax her onto her back.

Eliza stared up at him, awed anew by how handsome he was. How was it possible that such a man would find her so desirable?

She didn’t care. She was just grateful for her good fortune.

With no further warning, he lowered his head and surrounded her nipple with the humid heat of his mouth. She arched upward with a gasp, startled by the violence of her response. His tongue curled around the aching tip, and his cheeks hollowed on a deep suckle. She cried out, her nails scratching into the velvet coverlet. His callused fingertips rolled her other nipple, then tugged. She began to pant.

“Jasper.”

He growled and sucked harder, his tongue stroking the underside of the straining point with wicked skill. The flesh between her thighs pulsed in time to the rhythm of his mouth, clenching deep and feeling empty. Her hips lifted, seeking. The hand at her breast slid lower, across the flat of her belly and into the dark red curls at the apex of her thighs.

The shock of the caress froze her. She was too sensitive there, too wet and swollen.

“Touch me.” His voice was so gruff, she barely recognized it.

He withdrew and caught her wrist, urging her hand to mold around the outline of his erection. He showed her how to move, rubbing her palm up and down his thick length. Heat rushed up her arm and spread throughout her body, easing her stiffened muscles. Exploiting her distraction, he resumed his quest, his fingers slipping through the lax barrier of her thighs. His palm cupped her, the breadth of his hand easily laying claim to the part of her that had always been intensely private.

His dark head lifted. He watched her reaction as his fingers moved, gliding through the slickness clinging to the entrance of her body.

“Open,” he breathed. “Let me feel how wet you are.”

When she hesitated, he took her mouth, his lips slanting across hers in a brazen seduction. His tongue followed the outer curve of her lower lip, tracing the shape before teasing the seam with flirtatious licks. She opened with rapacious hunger, her head lifting in an attempt to deepen the kiss. He pulled back, maintaining the provocative distance between them, denying her the full possession she sought.

Eliza made a frustrated sound and his fingers tapped lightly against her sex.

Challenged by his silent bargain, she spread her legs, draping one thigh over his so nothing was barred from him.

“Yes.” His lips lowered to hers. “Be wanton . . .”

His tongue and fingertip breached her simultaneously, above and below. She writhed into the unexpected intrusion, moaning as sweat misted her skin. She gripped his erection with desperately clenching fingers. Bolder than she’d ever imagined she could be.

“So snug.” His finger pushed inexorably deeper, then pulled back. When he stroked back into her, her legs fell open, and her hips arched. “Snug and very hot.”

Her fingertips found the plush head of his penis straining above the waistband of his breeches. She hungrily explored the satiny curve, fascinated with the heat and silky smooth texture. Moisture beaded on the crown. She wished she could clench the length of him, caress him fervently from root to tip.

“No more,” he said harshly, pulling back from her.

She grasped for him to no avail. He slipped further down the bed, away from her greedy lips and tormented breasts.

“Jasper!” she protested, trying to sit up but losing the leverage to do so when he pushed his shoulders under her legs.

There was a blazing moment when she realized what he wanted, then her thoughts scattered beneath the lash of his tongue. An unvoiced protest died on her lips. She couldn’t muster the will to stop him, even to appease her scandalized sense of modesty. Instead she moaned and rocked into his mouth, trying to find his rhythm so she could ease the terrible yearning within her.

“That’s the way,” he coaxed darkly, lifting her hips.

His tongue lapped through the tender folds of her sex, parting her, licking her with velvet roughness. He toyed with her, flickering over the knot of nerves with the pointed tip of his tongue. She bucked upward, knowing there had to be more. Wanting more. Needing it. She mewled in torment.

His finger returned, sliding easily through greedily clenching tissues.

“Oh . . .” she moaned, her eyes squeezing shut against the unbearable intimacy. “Oh, God!”

In and out. Pushing and withdrawing. Pumping. She writhed, and he pinned her hips with a heavy arm.

Two fingers. Her body shuddered violently at the unfamiliar stretching. His mouth surrounded her, tongued her, sucked her . . .

Eliza climaxed with a serrated cry, her fingers digging into the counterpane, her thighs quivering.

At the height of her pleasure, Jasper thrust his fingers deep and scissored them, rending the barrier of her virginity. She scarcely felt the pain, so lost was she to the wonder of his talented tongue.

He didn’t stop, groaning as if he felt the same surfeit of feeling, prolonging the waves of sensation until she pushed his head away, unable to bear any more.

J
asper pressed a kiss to a freckle on Eliza’s thigh before sliding off the end of the bed. She curled onto her side, flushed and trembling, her slim, pale limbs drawn tight to her body. Her blue eyes followed his movements, looking dazed and sated at once.

His blood was raging, his cock throbbing. He yanked open the placket of his breeches and pushed them down. Kicking them aside, he took his penis in his hand and stroked the pulsing length. Crimson skeins of moisture—her virginal blood—clung to his fingers. The sight aroused him, luring his seed to leak from the tip of his cock.

He’d pushed her far and fast, needing to take her past the twin hurdles of inexperience and virginity so he could have her as he needed to. He had tried to warn her, attempted to explain, forced himself to give voice to a craving he didn’t understand. Small comfort to a woman overwhelmed by her first physical attraction.

Jasper had taken advantage of that fact, remembering how riotous the flush of first lust was, how ill-considered and desperate it felt. He remembered it well, because Eliza made him feel that way again. Hot-blooded. Randy. Impatient.

With harsh strides, he went to the washstand and grabbed a handful of freshly laundered towels. On the way back to the bed, he caught up the bottle of oil he’d purchased at Mrs. Pennington’s shop. He tossed the towels on the counterpane, then poured a small pool of the fragrant golden liquid into his palm. The bottle was set aside on the nightstand by Eliza’s head.

Deliberately, he rubbed his hands together, releasing the scent of bergamot and spice into the air. He’d chosen a masculine scent on purpose, wanting it to linger in her mind after the night was over, goading her to remember the things he had done to her body. Thus far she hadn’t been subject to the sorts of lewd imaginings he suffered through, but he intended that to change. Whether she was balancing her ledgers or dancing with blasted suitors, Jasper wanted her to be thinking of sex with him.

Eliza watched, riveted, as he gripped his cock at the root and stroked upward, pulling and stretching, swelling further until he was certain he’d never been this hard and thick. Ropey veins coursed the length of him, making him look as brutal as he felt. His bollocks were drawn up tight and hard, his seed churning with the need for release.

She made a soft, anxious noise.

“Are you frightened?” he asked for the second time that evening. Knowing she had to be. Aware that he would have been kinder to shield her from his size until she knew enough to appreciate it. But he was willing to cast aside what little gentlemanly considerations he had to gain what he wanted from her, using every advantage he possessed to distinguish himself from the others who hoped to win her and take her from him. She liked to look at him. And she was attuned to him on the most basic level. Her mind might shy away from his primitive display, but her body understood. . . and would react accordingly.

“Yes,” she answered softly, her knees drawing closer to her abdomen. “I have always known you were too much for me.”

“But you want me regardless. Face the other way.”

Rolling, she gave him her back. She curled in a manner that drew her feet up to the lush curve of her buttocks. The discovery of her voluptuous derriere had been a delightful surprise when she’d crawled across his bed earlier. On the surface, Eliza appeared as moderate in form as she was in temperament, but even in this, her private landscape was the most picturesque. He was certain her backside was the most perfect he’d ever seen.

“Who knew you hid such a curvaceous bottom beneath your clothes?” he murmured, joining her and pressing a kiss to a cluster of freckles on her shoulder.

“You tease me,” she accused without heat.

“You spoke of men who appreciate certain hues of hair.” Jasper wrapped his body around her, pulling her against his chest with an arm around her slender waist. “Is it so hard to believe I might have my own preferences?”

“For freckles and buttocks?”

“You, Eliza. All of you.” He inhaled sharply when she leaned into him, and he became further inflamed by the smell of her. “My patience is thinner than I would wish,” he confessed hoarsely. “I must beg you in advance for greater license. You trust me with your life; will you trust me in this? Trust me to give you pleasure, even if I am rough or hurried?”

She looked at him over her shoulder. Her lower lip was caught between her teeth and her eyes were shadowed, but she nodded.

With no further preliminaries, he took his cock in his hand and arched his hips forward. Her breath hissed out when he tucked the thick head against her and slid upward, parting the slick folds of her sex and gliding across her clitoris. Up, then down. On the downstroke, the furled underside of his cockhead caught the swollen knot of nerves. On the upstroke, the swollen crest rubbed over it. He notched the tiny protrusion into the weeping hole at the tip of his cock and stroked himself from root to crown with his fist. A hot pulse of pre-ejaculate flowed over her sensitive flesh. She moaned, arching backward.

Jasper restrained her with a hand at her breast, fighting his turbulent need to pound into her and spew violently, expending his lust in a violent taking that would slake his craving. The sense of desperation was nigh intolerable. He couldn’t shake the apprehension that she might be removed from his grasp before he was ready. It was too soon. His need for her too sharp . . .

Eliza’s hand covered his.

Her nipple pebbled into his palm, tightening deliciously. He felt its sensitivity when he kneaded the whole of her breast. Her entire body trembled, and her hips pushed back. Her legs parted, one foot hooking behind his calf, giving her leverage to undulate against him.

She was finally unrestrained, and it was better than he’d imagined. She whispered his name. He pulled back, finding the clutching entrance to her body. There was a moment of hesitation; a brief second when reason reminded him that she was above him in station. Too good for him.

His jaw clenched. He pushed his cockhead deliberately into her tight, resisting flesh. She was scorching hot and drenched.

“Christ,” he hissed, seared by the silken heat of her. The delicate muscles inside her bore down on the exquisitely sensitive head of his cock. A violent shudder wracked his frame.

Eliza’s head thrashed against his chest. Her nails dug into the forearm he pinned her with. Her movements altered, writhing away instead of into him. She tried to close her legs, but he blocked her, moving his hand from her breast to her cunt in a lightning-quick lunge.

“Trust me,” he said gruffly, pushing deeper. “Breathe.”

Registering the tremendous strain in Jasper’s voice, Eliza tried to obey, gasping air into seized lungs. He slid deeper, despite the panicked clench of untried tissues. She understood the use of the oil now. It gave her body no traction to deny him, no means of resistance.

Her eyes closed on a shuddering exhale. Her mind filled with the vision of Jasper standing beside the bed fully naked, skin gleaming, abdominal and chest muscles rippling from the rough movement of his hands on his magnificent erection. She knew how to judge proportions. She’d known she could never accommodate him, but she wanted to. Needed to.

He withdrew a scant inch. She sucked air into her burning lungs, and his hips lunged forward, tunneling his rigid penis into her. She made a broken sound, unprepared for the feeling of being so utterly possessed.

“God.” He stilled, panting, his chest working like a great bellows against her back. His cheek nuzzled against her temple. “Am I hurting you?”

“No . . . Too full.” Stretched to the point of aching, but she was not pained.

“You can take me.” His fingers rubbed between her legs, starting a hot, sweet trickle of sensation in her core. “Let me in, Eliza. Don’t fight it.”

Eyes stinging, she gave a tentative, tiny swivel of her hips. He slid a fraction deeper.

“Yes,” he purred, nudging forward then withdrawing. “Like that.”

She forced her taut frame to relax, sagging back against his supportive chest and deliberately modifying her breathing. Slow deep breath in. Steady breath out. She concentrated on his touch, the way he expertly circled her clitoris with callused fingertips, urging pleasure outward across devastated nerve endings.

On her next inhale, he thrust, sinking into her until his thighs were pressed tight to hers. Her held fell forward on a low moan.

Dear God, he was so deep in her . . .

He pulled out with painstaking slowness, then filled her again. With every withdrawal and return, his movements became more fluid. Practiced. His expertise became apparent. He knew just how far to pull out, how leisurely to push in, how deep to penetrate to drive her mad for the feel of him inside her. Her enjoyment grew, until she sought the pleasure purposefully, writhing into his thrusts to feel the sweet fullness she craved.

A low rumble of approval vibrated against her back. “You like this.”

She gasped at a particularly masterful stroke. The intimidating size of his erection was now something she relished. He was so long and thick. The largeness of him ensured that he rubbed and stretched every sensitive spot, awakening a voracious hunger. She struggled against him, resisting the position he kept her in that prevented her from increasing his depth and pace.

“Tell me you like this,” he coaxed darkly, rolling his hips and fingers simultaneously, arousing her with consummate skill so she clenched greedily around him. “Say it.”

“Yes.” She whimpered in torment, aching every time he pulled out and left her empty. “But . . .”

“I can give it to you.” His tone was rough and deeply sexual. “Tell me what you want, Eliza, and you can have it.”

“More,” she begged, shameless in her yearning. “Give me more . . .”

Jasper’s hand cupped her swollen sex and pulled her back into a powerful lunge of his hips. Heat washed over her. His pace increased, the flat of his palm applying just enough pressure to stimulate her on the outside as well as within. Sweat coated her skin and his, making them slide along each other, releasing the fragrance of the oil and Jasper’s scent into the air. The room became hot and the counterpane damp, creating a lush humidity that intensified the experience. He whispered lewd praise, his words slurring with pleasure, his abdomen and thighs flexing powerfully as he drove into her. Tears filled her eyes, the tension so fine she felt as if she might break at any moment.

“Please,” she sobbed.
“Please!”

“Right there,” he groaned, holding still at the deepest point and grinding against her, screwing into her another fractional bit. “Right there.”

She arched violently. The climax hit, her vision narrowing until it blackened completely. Her mouth opened in a silent cry of pleasure. Inside, she convulsed, tightening on him in the most intimate of embraces. Blood roared in her ears, drowning out all sound.

A thick wash of heat flooded the depths of her. Jasper cursed and jerked against her, shuddering in unison with every wrenching spurt.

Eliza felt her name on his lips as he emptied himself inside her, his mouth moving against her shoulder in a sweetly broken litany.

 

There was no place in Jasper’s life for Eliza Martin.

He lay on his side with his head propped in his hand, watching her as she napped. Strands of her beautiful hair clung to her damp forehead and cheeks. Her lips were parted, her chest lifting and falling in the measured tempo of slumber. She lay on her stomach, baring twin dimples in each curve of her extremely enticing buttocks.

Spread out as she was, naked and rosy-skinned and debauched, it was easy to imagine keeping her there in his bed. But it was only an illusion. His gaze lifted and swept around the nearly empty room. Aside from the bed and washstand, there was only a wardrobe and chair for furnishings. This evening with Eliza was the longest stretch of time he’d spent awake in his bedchamber since he took up residence in the house. In the normal course of his life, there would be laughter and loud voices filtering up from the lower floor. He would be adhering to a tight schedule, working as many hours as possible to keep income flowing. After all, there was nothing he wanted done that didn’t require coin to see to it.

Try as he might, Jasper couldn’t picture Eliza in any part of his home beyond this private space. The men who worked for him were coarse and sometimes ill-mannered. They would have no notion of what to do with a lady like Eliza. He had no dining table at which to feed her, no formal parlor in which she could entertain what few guests would deign to call on her here. His home was less than half the size of Melville’s and located in a part of town that, while acceptable, had never been fashionable.

Things would have to change drastically . . .

Eliza made a soft noise. He looked at her and found her rousing. She blinked, then rubbed at her eyes. He watched her vision focus on him. Awareness swept over her face along with a heated blush. She grew unnaturally still.

“Ah,” he murmured, smiling. “You look scandalized.”

“You look smug,” she accused, but with warmth in her eyes.

“Do I?” He stroked his hand down the curve of her back. How could he resist, when she looked at him as she was doing now? “If I do, so should you.”

He knew some of her feelings were inspired by the aftermath of orgasmic bliss and gratitude for it, but some of them were more deeply rooted. God knew he had never expected nor wanted anyone to love him, but he’d have a better chance of keeping Eliza if her attachment deepened.

She looked at her fingers, which toyed with a wrinkle in the counterpane. “I did nothing.”

Jasper tapped the end of her nose with his finger. “You’ll have to take my word for it. There are many ways to have sex, ranging from horribly disappointing to quite nicely done. What you and I just experienced is another sort of matter altogether. It takes two people with singular chemistry to achieve such a delectable end.”