Redeeming Jack (14 page)

“It might be all the crack, but I would not want my wife going out in it. That’s probably why Lord Rice finds it acceptable. You’d better be prepared to mend your ways, my dear. What a man allows in a mistress differs considerably from his expectations of his wife.”

“As a poor excuse for a husband, Jack, you would know all about that, wouldn’t you?” Her tone was sweet her words were not. “And Lord Rice isn’t my lover—yet. He respects me far too much to expect me to lie with him.”

“What an incredibly dull husband he will make.”

“Perhaps I want a dull husband.” She scowled at him. “Perhaps I am tired of being tied to a man who constantly fights with me.”

“You like fighting with me.”

“I do not!” Her bosom heaved quite alarmingly and he paused to enjoy the sight.

“Yes you do, because you love it when we make up in bed.”

“That is the most ridiculous thing you have said so far.”

Jack smiled, recognizing a challenge, and removed the wine bottle from Carys’s outstretched hand. He tugged on her wrist until she overbalanced and fell into his lap. Her breasts almost brushed his nose.

“Ah, no, I can be far more outrageous than that.” He walked his fingers up her left arm until they reached her shoulder and rested them on the edge of her bodice. “This dress should be appreciated at home, in the privacy of a marriage bed or wherever the husband thinks fit, not displayed to the damned
ton
.”

He hooked his index finger under the lace trim and ran it along the inside seam of the material. His eyes half-closed as he traced her warm flesh, felt the valley between her breasts and frantic thump of her heart.

He repeated his intimate foray, he slid his finger lower beneath her stays and encountered Carys’s hardening nipple. “If you were still mine, I’d stop to explore the beauty of your breasts.” He circled her nipple with his thumb and forefinger until she shuddered and pressed against his hand. “I’d put my mouth on you.” Jack sat forward and suited the action to his words. The crispness of the lace, the coolness of the silk and the hard tip of Carys’s breast coalesced in his mouth, making him hard in an instant.

“Jack!”

He let go of her wrist and wrapped his arm around her waist, preventing her retreat. Her hand stole into the hair at the nape of his neck and urged him closer. Wild with gratitude, Jack lost himself in the delights of her warm and willing mouth.

Eventually he managed to stumble to his feet and, still kissing Carys, maneuvered her toward the desk by the door. With his hands at her waist, he lifted her to sit on the flat surface.

“Do you really want me to stop, love?” he murmured. “Have I persuaded you to rethink your decision yet? Or do you want to make up with me in our favorite way?”

Carys licked her lips, as if savoring his taste. “This isn’t fair. You’ve always been able to distract me by touching me.”

He kissed her again, tugging at her lower lip with his teeth. “Then tell me to stop. You know I would do anything you ask of me.”

At least, he hoped he would. Some instinctive part of him argued that by imprinting himself on her in the most primitive way possible, she would change her mind. Even though he knew he was being foolish, the demands of his body drove him on. He’d told her he’d take what she offered, and Carys knew he wasn’t a man to back down from his word.

“Tell me to stop.” He breathed the words like a prayer against her throat, licking the frantic pulse there, enjoying her sharp intake of breath. “
Tell
me…”

Jack stepped forward, pressing his heavy thigh between Carys’s legs, pushing them apart to accommodate him as he kissed her. He brought his hand down to her ankle and slid it up past the froth of petticoats, to her gartered knee and beyond to the silken curls between her thighs. “If you were still mine, I’d touch you here to remind you whom you belonged to. I’d make you so mindless with pleasure that you’d beg me to make love to you, and forget all about leaving me.”

He slowly slid his finger into her welcoming warmth and exhaled as she clenched around him. He thrust his finger back and forth until she was slick with need, unerringly found her swollen bud with his thumb and caressed her there, too.

“Ah, love, you feel so sweet,” he murmured into her mouth. “Let me…”

He fell down onto his knees and added his mouth to his fingers, licking and sucking her until she writhed around him and moaned his name.

* * *

“Jack, we shouldn’t, we…”

In an effort not to slide her hand into Jack’s hair and hold him just where she wanted him, Carys crushed the silk of her gown between her clenched fingers. Her attempt to get back at him for his behavior in the solicitors office had misfired badly. She should have known he would not only play along, but take every advantage of her he could.

Words refused to come as her body responded to Jack’s physical onslaught with a need too long suppressed. She raised her skirts, felt the cold air swirl around her knees and jumped as Jack brushed his rough cheek against her thigh. He encircled her ankle with his warm fingers and guided her right leg to the seat of the chair, opening her even wider to him.

Carys closed her eyes as Jack’s tongue swept over her most tender flesh. She revived sufficiently to look down at his blond head and a flash of movement caught her eye, making her jump as she realized she and Jack were reflected in a mirror on the opposite wall. She hardly recognized herself, her skin flushed, her most private places revealed to the man who knelt between her legs.

As if he sensed her fascination with the sensuous image of wanton abandon she presented, Jack raised his head. He held her gaze in the mirror and shifted slightly to one side, allowing her a decadent view of his fingers moving inside her. Within moments she watched herself climax and had to close her eyes against the pleasure of it.

“Thank you, my lady.” Jack got to his feet, pulled down Carys’s skirts and carefully rearranged her bodice.

Carys watched him, her senses so in tune with his that she felt no embarrassment. Unlike Oliver, Jack never made her feel unladylike for wanting to express her desire for him in a physically satisfying way.

Oh goodness, where would such sensual thoughts lead her? Right back to the uncertainty of her past, into Jack’s bed and the pain of being left behind… A sense of panic swept over her as she contemplated a future with Oliver. She opened her mouth to share her disquiet with Jack and realized he was turning to leave. With a sense of alarm, she slid down off the desk and put her hand on his arm.

“Where are you going?”

Jack pressed his palm flat to the door panel. “I was trying to leave before I inadvertently said the wrong thing and spoiled the moment.”

Carys frowned as she registered the uneven cadence of his voice. Was he overset with emotion? That was not like Jack at all. He’d won, hadn’t he? Had proved yet again that she was incapable of denying his touch. She punched his shoulder and he shuddered, one hand cupped protectively over his groin.

Understanding shook through her. “Did you hope to disappear and find some relief with a serving girl?”

He leaned against the door and slowly exhaled. “I don’t use women like that anymore. I’m quite capable of taking care of the problem myself.”

She took a deep breath, smelled herself on him and the musk of his own desire. “You don’t have to do that tonight.”

He made a sudden move for the door handle, but Carys was quicker. She locked the door and dropped the key down her bodice. Jack still refused to face her, and with a sigh, Carys resigned herself to making the best of it. She slid her arms around his waist, resting her cheek on his broad back.

“Jack, why do you have to make everything so hard?”

“I didn’t make it hard. You did.” He shivered as she traced the buttons of his waistcoat. “You don’t have to do this. I don’t expect anything.” His hoarse protest made Carys smile against his tattered coat. She eased open the top button of his straining buckskin breeches and he braced his arm against the door.

“If you were still mine, Jack, perhaps I’d take you in my hand and stop you from leaving me.” She slipped her fingers around his hard cock, marveling at the strength and power of his shaft as he filled her palm. He was ready for her, his hips unable to resist following the sultry dance of pleasure she set.

Carys increased the tempo, enjoying his helplessness and her power. Jack lowered his head, resting his brow on his braced arm so that he could watch her touch him. She’d forgotten how enticing it was to drive a man wild.

“If you were still mine, perhaps I’d take you into my mouth and you’d stop thinking about leaving me entirely.”

Jack shuddered and brought his hand down to cover hers. “I can’t take your mouth tonight. I’m too close.” His words ended with a gasp as she drove him over the edge of pleasure and into release, his seed flooding out through their joined fingers in thick, pulsing waves.

In the silence broken only by the ticking of the mantel clock, Jack retrieved the key from Cary’s bodice and unlocked the door. The shadowed light from the hallway made his face looked drawn. Carys reached up to touch his cheek, and he stayed her fingers against his skin.

“If you were mine,” he said, “you would give up your ridiculous plans to marry Lord Rice.”

Carys studied his harsh features, regretting the golden boy he’d once been but appreciating the austerely beautiful man far more. It was no use disguising it. She needed his help out of this atrocious muddle. She couldn’t go ahead with her marriage to Rice with the taste of Jack embedded in her mind. The only thing she could think of was to be brave and lure Jack to visit her at Rhossili. When he saw her life there, would he want to stay, or finally let her go?

She took a deep breath and laid her hand over his heart. “And if you were truly mine, Jack, perhaps you’d find a way to stop me.”

CARYS STUDIED HER brother and Jack over the breakfast table as they ate their way through a mountain of food. Despite the hearty scent of fresh coffee, boiled ham and eggs, the smell of stale beer and smoke seeped in from the bar next door, fogging the atmosphere of their private parlor. She hadn’t intended to grace them with her presence, but her encounter with Jack had left her unable to sleep and early to rise.

To add to her discomfort, the men seemed in high spirits. With a sister’s intuition, Carys doubted that Gareth’s breezy explanation for his journey with Jack into Gower was correct. Collecting information for a medical text to be written in Welsh seemed an unlikely venture for two such reluctant scholars.

Despite her suspicions, Carys planned to be on her way home to Rhossili later in the day. Although Rhossili was also on the Gower coast, she didn’t have time to spend worrying about her menfolk. It was important, especially in light of recent events that her reunion with her son was as private and special as it could be.

Carys crumbled the remnants of her bread onto her plate. Should she tell Owen about Oliver’s offer to marry her? Despite her best efforts, the boy was decidedly wary of Oliver and tended to disappear into the hills whenever he knew a visit was imminent.

Carys suppressed a smile at the thought of her small son, and Jack glanced at her. He seemed to have difficulty meeting her gaze. After her sleepless night filled with dreams of Jack in her bed, she didn’t regret the challenge she’d flung at him. If she was to be free of him, it was only fair he should be privy to all her secrets.

When Jack had touched her so intimately, sharing her pleasure, allowing her to pleasure him, she had reluctantly realized that Oliver could never satisfy her in bed. It wasn’t something she was particularly proud of, her need for physical love, but as a mature woman she considered it an important part of any relationship entered into.

She stole a glance at Jack’s familiar features. How typical that Oliver held little physical appeal for her while Jack, who made a terrible husband, set her pulse leaping with a look.

When Jack left the table, after a stiff nod in her direction, Carys leaned across and snagged Gareth’s arm. He tried to shrug her off, but she refused to release him until he gave her his full attention.

“Gareth, I need you to do something for me.”

Her brother looked wary, his eyes scanning the doorway through which Jack disappeared. “I’ve told you where we’re going and what we’re doing. I’ve got nothing further to say on the subject.”

“Don’t worry, dear brother. It’s got nothing to do with your ridiculous mission. I want you to bring Jack to my cottage in Rhossili after your business is finished. I need to settle some matters with him before he leaves.”

Gareth shook his arm free and smoothed his sleeve. “Jack said you are trying to divorce him. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It’s too complicated to explain.” Carys gave him her most winning smile. He didn’t look convinced, and she sighed. “Just help me settle things with Jack. I promise I’ll explain it all.”

“I wonder if you are making a mistake.” Gareth looked perturbed. “Jack’s not as resilient as he likes people to think. He will be devastated if you leave him.”

“He did it to me. I survived.”

Gareth’s face softened and he kissed her forehead. “Ah, but you are a woman. Contrary to popular belief, I think women are far stronger than men in ways of the heart.” After pinching her cheek, which he knew she hated, Gareth turned to leave. “I’ll bring Jack to Rhossili. Give my love to Owen and if you see Gwyneth, tell her I’ll be home directly.”

* * *

Later that afternoon, Carys sat in the small dreary parlor waiting for her luggage to be brought down, so she could continue her journey home. The inn had remained quiet after Jack and Gareth’s early departure. Carys got up for the fifteenth time and glanced out the window. There was still no sign of the promised gig and driver.

Carys stepped back as an imposing black traveling coach swept into the stable yard, darkening the room and obscuring her view. She doubted she was to be taken home in such a grand style. Two ostlers ran out and held the horses’ heads as the step was let down from the carriage.