Jayne Fresina Page 4

  Encouraged, he rocked forward the last little distance, until she held all of him within her and she wanted to weep then with joy, wrapping her legs around his lean flanks, making certain he had no plans to withdraw from her yet.

  Briefly they lay thus, she growing accustomed to his size, he whispering apologies for hurting her, but when she rubbed her leg along his side, he felt the fine lace of her garter, which seemed to have the curious effect of banishing his fears. He stroked her leg, under her knee to her thigh, and she felt the quickening heavy thud of his heart pressed to her bosom. He slid his hands under her bottom, lifting it slightly so that his cock thrust even deeper yet, and his breathing became labored as he moved his hips, his eyes narrowed, fixed. Already tonight he’d teased her to the peak several times, keeping her in a state of low-burning arousal. Now the steady friction brought her quickly back to that fevered stage, more intense than ever. Faster now he moved and, as she opened and contracted around his hard, thick shaft, Lucy felt the glow he’d lit within her expanding rapidly, ready to burst into flame.

  It wasn’t supposed to be this way. The act of coupling was for procreation only, not for pleasure, a lecture that had been instilled in her for years. Yet here she was, blatantly enjoying herself with a man who was not her husband and whose intention was not to impregnate her with his seed.

  Alarm shivered through her. They hadn’t discussed those practical matters. Would he withdraw? Should she remind him?

  What was the proper etiquette at a time like this? It might be indelicate to mention it, but…

  Opening her eyes, she met his blue gaze staring down at her, fierce and hot.

  He tensed and then his strokes became longer, harder, slower. Gasping with every forward plunge, she felt the bed shudder beneath them. The lines of his face sharpened as he breathed in so deeply. Watching him lose control was almost as arousing as the thrusting and withdrawing itself and when he bent his head to take her nipple in his mouth, it took only three gentle sucks before she was over the highest peak yet, losing herself gladly in his arms. She clung to him, fearing she might drown without him there to keep her afloat. Her body flexed against his, molded to him, the sweat on her skin mixing with his, making a potent, sensual elixir.

  He bucked, pounding into her as she rode the crest of that wave. Finally, at the very last minute, he withdrew, spilling onto her belly with a low, guttural roar.

  It was over. His weight was gone from her so thoroughly, she felt cheated. She hadn’t reminded him of the danger, yet he withdrew of his own accord and now, despite the sheer, reckless stupidity of it, she actually wished he’d stayed inside her and finished there. But she shook off this wanton, ridiculous idea, returning to more sensible, even-tempered thoughts. She was lucky he had more willpower than she did, it seemed, and even at his peak he thought of her safety. Her heart warmed to him and an unexpected tear bristled in the corner of her eye, stinging spitefully.

  Still throbbing from the intensity of his thrusts and her own tremors, she lay mutely while he wiped his seed from her stomach with his shirt, sacrificing the only thing he had at hand for the task. She was moved by his thoughtful, selfless action and when he couldn’t meet her gaze, she stayed his hand, still bunched around his shirt, and reminded him, in a quaking voice, that this was her idea from the very beginning. This was what she wanted, he was the man she chose and there were no regrets to be had.

  He threw his shirt to the floor and gathered her into his arms, holding her, saying nothing.

  With her face pressed into the steadily-pulsing contours of his chest, she whispered, “Was it…was it not good?”

  Discerning a slight tremble, a disruption to the firm rhythmic thud of his heartbeat, she pulled back, looking up at his face and found him chuckling. “Yes.” He cupped the back of her head with one hand, drawing her up for a kiss, caressing her mouth with his words. “It was too good.”

  “How can something be too good?”

  There was a pause. “I don’t know. I never knew it was possible until tonight.”

  It was rare for a man to confess there might be something for which he had no answer. How honest and sweet he was, she mused, how very different to the other men in her life. The men in her life. Now he was one of them, a delicious secret, a memory to be cherished.

  The rain finally eased, falling away to a gentle pitter-pat, soothing as a lullaby. She looked up, her gaze trailing dizzily over the damp stains on the slanting ceiling of that little bawdy house bedchamber. She imagined her father and her future husband looking down at them, coldly dignified, demanding to know what she thought she was up to.

  She’s always been trouble, she heard her father exclaim haughtily. Now look at her.

  And the image of her fiancé, Lord Winton, watching without emotion, repeated those same words she’d overheard only a few days ago, when he hadn’t known she was behind the door of his library.

  “I would much rather have had her sister, but if you think Anne is yet too young, I suppose I must be satisfied with Lucasta, as long as I might be assured she’s a maid. I never cared for redheads. She’s too old for me in truth and thin at the hips, but at the very least, you can promise me she’s untouched?”

  Of course he would rather have her passive, sweet-natured, half-sister Anne, but little Anne was lucky. Their father had higher expectations for his favorite younger daughter and was much more eager to be rid of the troublesome, past-her-prime Lucy to the first man remotely willing. Lord Winton was also “old nobility,” something her ambitious parvenu father looked up to and aspired to be. Thus the marriage was all arranged and Lucy, however hard she prayed, had no more chance of preventing it than King Canute had of turning back the tide. Her prayers she’d learned while still a child were not heeded. She must have done something very wicked as a babe, something unforgivable in God’s eyes.

  It was years since she’d cried, twenty at least, but tonight sobs choked in her throat. Salty tears seeped into the leather mask. She lay with her head on his shoulder, one hand stroking the contours of his hard, sweat-dampened body, consigning it to memory. After having worried over the time all evening, she now forgot it completely, for in his arms she felt needed, desired for once. She wanted to make it last longer, as long as she dared. Nothing existed beyond the two of them, nothing but the moon, the stars and the rain.

  Gone was anxiety and practicality and reason, gone was one frost-hardened, affection-starved, tightly-wound maiden. Lucy sensed the unfurling, the thawing. She was now a woman undone, awakened to passion.

  “Can we do it again, soon?” she whispered, needing all other thoughts erased by more of those wondrous, intemperate sensations. “Please,” she added, remembering he liked her to say that.

  * * * *

  With his fingers, John slowly traversed the steep valley of her waist.

  “Again already? If you insist, wench.” He rolled his eyes, feigning weariness, but the heat was already rekindled. This could be dangerous. He glanced down at his rampant shaft, incredibly eager for more. Good thing it was only for one night.

  “I do insist,” she exclaimed. “Please,” she added belatedly.

  He lifted up onto one arm, looking down at her, quizzical, trying to get her straight in his head. Appearances deceived, for while she seemed fragile, she was delightfully limber, supple and, so it seemed, tireless. If she were sore, as she certainly should be, the wench made no complaint. Instead her only concerns were whether he’d enjoyed himself and how quickly they might play again. He wound a lock of her hair around his forefinger while he pondered the enigma in bed beside him. “Will you take off that mask this time, woman?”

  “No.” Her hands flew up to hold it. “Please,” she added again, a quick pupil.

  “You’re being very polite now,” he observed dryly.

  “Yes. I’ll do anything you ask, but not that.”

  The sadness in her voice made him relent. This kind streak, he thought dourly, would be the death of him one day. B
ut still, the offer of anything else he wanted from her…that wasn’t easily passed up now, was it?

  She was dewy, tender, pliant and ravishable. Even so, she held something back, kept her secrets behind that mask. It troubled him, but there was no time to let worries linger when other primal needs took precedence.

  What just happened to him was new and unexpected, even a little frightening. It took all his willpower to withdraw from her in that last heart-stopping minute, when he longed to spend inside. Yet he’d always been careful before with women; he never got so carried away he forgot the danger. Tonight…tonight was different in many ways.

  So she’d been a maiden, after all. It hadn’t been a trick, or part of an act. He hadn’t been entirely sure until he breached her tender barrier, and now he didn’t know what he felt about being her first. It was a first for him too. He’d never had a virgin.

  With her head cradled in the curve of his shoulder, her slender form locked against his, her feathery breaths caressing his chest, he celebrated his amazing good fortune and smiled a little into the shifting shadows of the rainy evening.

  Anything else? Well now, let’s see…

  Grabbing her around the waist, he dropped onto his back again and let her lie over him.

  Hmm…he gazed at her full lips, at her pretty breasts pillowed against his chest, and as she moved restlessly over his body, he let his hands sweep down to hold the smooth, firm curves of her sweet little bottom. She was perfection. He couldn’t have dreamed anything this fine, surely. He didn’t think his imagination was that good.

  “Let’s do it all,” she whispered, endearingly winsome now, her hands on his shoulders as she settled over him. “All those things you said before. Everything. Anything you want.”

  Her words enflamed him. He tightened his hold on the cheeks of her bottom and when she kissed his chin, her tongue licking his stubble, the effect on him was not unlike that of his mother’s deadly plum wine. And he was ready to wallow in it. She was incredible.

  Everything? How much, exactly, had Nathaniel paid her?

  “Take all of me.” Her voice was smoky with yearning. “Leave nothing for him.”

  She didn’t have to implore like this, but apparently she thought it necessary and who was he to correct her?

  Everything?

  He would gladly, and very ably, concede.

  After all, it was only for one night. He’d manage without sleep.

  Chapter 4

  Take all of me. Leave nothing for him.

  He woke with a start, sitting up in bed. His head ached, his tongue cracked as he forced it to unstick from the roof of his mouth. How much had he drunk last night? He often suffered vivid dreams as a result, but this one had been a wonderful fantasy indeed.

  Anxious, he looked down at his body. The parts were all exactly where they should be, but there on the mattress, and on his crumpled shirt, discarded on the floor, was evidence that he’d not spent the night alone. So she wasn’t a dream this time. In fact, he couldn’t have been asleep for long. Although shredded gray clouds streaked across a dirty yellow sun outside the small window, he knew he’d only finally closed his eyes to sleep a short while ago, no more than an hour or two. They’d spent all night long exploring and entertaining one another, discovering new paths to pleasure. They’d been tireless, the sensations too intense to let go, time too precious to waste in sleep.

  He fell back on his elbows, blinking, waiting for his head to clear. The three sovereigns she’d promised were on the table beside the bed.

  This arrangement is just for tonight, you understand.

  As he swung his feet to the floorboards, still scratching his rumpled head, he stepped on something hard. A pearl earring. It must have dropped from her ear last night, or else, leaving in such a hurry, she accidentally left it behind.

  The sun was a tired weakling, barely having the strength to pass through those dingy clouds and there was a damp bite of cold in the air, lingering from last night’s rain. Encountering such a dreary day, most folk would curl back to bed and steal an extra half hour’s nap, but not him. He’d never lain abed a day in his life and on this particular morning he had a very important cause to be up.

  He had a woman to find.

  Take all of me, leave nothing for him.

  He didn’t like the sound of it, not a bit. She wasn’t going to any other man, not now. She belonged to him, damn her. He couldn’t bed a virgin and then arbitrarily let her go with no further concern. He was a reformed man now, no longer a rogue whose first interest was his pleasure and second interest escape from consequences.

  Throwing on his clothes, he relived their conversation in his mind, searching for clues. She seemed to think he would have no more curiosity, would make do with one night and never think of her again. Last night he’d even let himself believe he might do that.

  Wrong.

  Stumbling down the narrow staircase, he was immediately cloaked in thick, woolly wood-smoke and the stink of stale sweat. A handful of fellows still sprawled across the lower room in varied states of drunkenness, while Mistress Comfort genially pushed at their groaning forms with her broom.

  “Wake up yer lazy buggers,” she chirped. “Rise and shine! Off out of ’ere with the lot o’ yer.” Having taken their coin, she wanted nothing more to do with her patrons until they had full pockets again. Catching sight of the man lurching down the stairs, she shouted that she hoped he had a good night and would return again soon.

  He groggily negotiated the last step. “Where is she this morning? Where did she go?”

  “How would I know?” She resumed sweeping.

  “She’s one of your girls.”

  “I wish it was so. Could raise my rates then.”

  He tried to get his breath back. A great, heaving hollow opened up in his gut, as panic, a rare sensation in his life, reared its head.

  “First time a lady ever paid for the use o’ one o’ my guests,” she exclaimed, clearly amused. “Perhaps I might start a new trade, eh? Lonely widows and bored wives looking for forbidden fruit.” She eyed him speculatively. “I suppose she wanted some very strange things, eh? The hoity-toity types often do.”

  He swore. “You’re telling me you know nothing about her? She didn’t just appear in a puff of smoke.”

  “Might as well have. Yer won’t find her again. She ain’t from around here, ’tis for certes. A lady like her won’t have naught to do with the likes o’ yer sort. Not in daylight anyhow. She took what she wanted from yer, lad.”

  As she shuffled away down the alley, he followed close on her heels. “When did she leave?”

  “First light. Told me to let yer sleep on as long as yer wished and tipped me a few more coins to let yer rest.” The old lady cackled. “Wore yer out did she?”

  Frustrated, he exclaimed, “Did Captain Downing come here last night? He must know who she is.”

  Mistress Comfort spat over her shoulder. “A fine lady like that would have naught to do with Nate Downing, my lad. No, whoever she is, yer won’t find her again.”

  John stared at the wall, the anger mounting from a small, smoldering bonfire to a raging inferno.

  Whoever she was, she’d used him and cast him aside like a dry, stale crust.

  “Best forgotten, lad,” the old lady added. “I daresay she’s forgot it already.”

  His pride didn’t want to believe it, but she was probably right. A woman who discarded her virtue in the bed of a complete stranger was obviously trouble.

  But those words haunted him.

  Take all of me. Leave nothing for him.

  * * * *

  He spent the morning searching Norwich, making inquiries around the town. Unfortunately he had no clear description of her face, only her lips. As for her hair, there might be fifty women with red hair in the town and everyone had their own opinion as to what was red, what was ginger, chestnut, fair or auburn. He was whistling against the wind and he had work to do at home. Spring plowing and planting
wouldn’t wait. Turning reluctantly to one last matter of business before he left Norwich, he drove his cart to the large, rambling house of Lord Winton, a notoriously slippery old character who owed him for several weight of good fleeces.

  A harried servant finally came in answer to the seventh pull on the bell cord at the gate. Fortunately he knew John by sight, knew him to be a good fellow who always bought a round at the high street tavern on market day and who had, more than once, helped out in a fight. When John explained his purpose, the servant unlocked the gate and let him in, warning he’d be lucky to get a penny.

  “Until after tomorrow,” he added with a sly wink. “Then I daresay the old man will be flush again for a while. Should come back after Friday, young feller, after the wedding.”

  “Wedding?”

  “Aye he’s to be married again on the morrow. Rich young lady with a weighty dowry.”

  John shook his head. “I can’t wait here until Saturday. He’ll have to pay up today.”

  The servant led him through the great hall, currently being decorated with bowers of greenery in preparation for the feast, and into a small, paneled chamber off to one side, where three busy, overworked tailors gave Lord Walter Winton a final fitting for his garish wedding clothes.

  “Master John Carver is here, my lord,” the servant intoned solemnly. “A matter of business regarding fleeces.”

  The old man didn’t need to be told. He knew who John was and why he was there, but when it came to matters of money he maintained a curiously frangible memory. Bills due had a tendency to cause sudden illness, but the old man was far stronger than he looked. His gnarled, trembling hands, the wrinkled skin thin as gauze, might seem feeble, unfit for any purpose, but it was all an act. Those claws held onto his money purse with the deadly grip of an iron-toothed mantrap.