The Truth about Love

14

Once back in the ballroom, Barnaby drifted off, intent on pursuing his inquiries. The musicians had finished for the evening, yet the gathering was still in full swing.

Gerrard strolled with Jacqueline, but when they stopped to chat with a group of fellow guests, he realized that wasn’t the sort of diversion she needed. The incident with Sir Vincent and its implications were distracting her, making her appear distant and enigmatic once more.

He inwardly cursed. Except for that moment at supper, she’d done a superb job of being open, transparently herself, of keeping her inner shields down; she didn’t need, courtesy of Sir Vincent, to tarnish her success this late in the night.

Grasping the first opportunity, he excused them and drew her back toward the terrace. “Come and walk in the gardens.” Glancing down, he met her eyes. “We should at least assess our creation.”

She smiled; he saw the relief in her eyes and was content.

It was mild outside; many couples and small groups were still ambling about the paths. They descended the terrace steps and followed a path across the lawn, then took the extension that led to the pond.

Lanterns bobbed overhead. Jacqueline looked about, studying the pattern of glimmering lights through the screening trees. “It’s the best I’ve ever seen it.”

Turning, she smiled up at him.

Lowering his arm, he closed his hand about hers, and they walked on.

The lanterns stopped halfway to the pond; they’d deliberately not lit the clearing, not wanting to encourage anyone to venture close to the deep water at night. Reaching the shadows, they exchanged a glance, then walked on.

The night embraced them. Their eyes adjusted to the silvery moonlight. The moon wasn’t full, but had waxed enough to cast a faint glow over the landscape. When they strolled into the clearing, the pond was a dark, still expanse; the distant trickle of the stream running down to the lake was the only sound to punctuate the silence.

The tall trees ringing the clearing, the shrubs and bushes beneath, created the illusion of a private room in the night, one that was exclusively theirs.

Jacqueline went to the stone bench. Gerrard handed her to it and watched her sit on one end. He didn’t trust himself to sit beside her. Pensive, she looked across the pool; he studied her face, then sank his hands in his pockets and remained where he was, like her, staring at the black water.

The coolness of the stone and the pleasant night soothed Jacqueline’s chaotic thoughts. She’d been keyed up when they’d first entered the ballroom; since then, her feelings had veered through growing confidence in the way she appeared, and the way others responded to her, through the meeting with the Entwhistles, the moment of shared sorrow, then the laying of that sorrow to rest. Lady Entwhistle’s encouragement to look forward and live echoed in her mind. After that…

She’d enjoyed the dancing more than previously. The waltzes with Gerrard had been highlights, moments that had reflected the undercurrent of thoughts, of emotions, that had run beneath all else through the evening. Indeed, through the last days.

Jordan’s comment, albeit intended in support, had disrupted that pleasant and positive train, throwing her back into the uncertainties of before, but then Eleanor’s behavior with Gerrard, and his reaction, had brought her obsession with him racing back.

As for Sir Vincent…

She sighed softly, then drew in a deep breath, enjoying the sweet, night-stock-scented air. Could Barnaby and Gerrard be right? Was Sir Vincent more sinister than he seemed?

She’d known him for most of her life. She honestly couldn’t see him as Thomas’s, let alone her mother’s, killer, yet she hadn’t thought of him as a would-be suitor, either. And there was no gainsaying that the killer was someone she knew.

She paused, feeling her thoughts settle like leaves stirred by a wind; despite the distractions, one subject remained uppermost, most compelling, continually capturing her.

Gerrard.

Only a few minutes had passed since she’d sat, yet all else had slid away, unimportant in a relative sense given he was standing beside her.

Given she’d yet to make her decision, and the declaration he’d demanded.

Facets of the evening resurfaced, flotsam thrown up by her questing mind. When Sir Vincent had hauled her into his arms, when he’d pressed passionate kisses to her fingers, she’d felt nothing beyond mild revulsion. All Gerrard had to do was look at her, meet her eyes and think-and she responded, ardently, instinctively.

The relief she’d felt when she’d heard his voice, and known he was there, glowed again. How was it that in a mere week he’d come to represent safety and, more, protection, to her?

Was that the sign she was looking for?

And what of his turning from Eleanor? Her friend was unquestionably more beautiful than she, and certainly more experienced in the ways of attracting men, yet he hadn’t shown the slightest interest in any of Eleanor’s offers, even when those offers had grown blatant.

Another sign? Perhaps.

Gerrard watched her thoughts flow over her face. Some he identified, others…

He wanted to know them all, wanted to understand, to know and so be certain of her, in every way. He was a long way from achieving that goal. Standing beside her in the night, he still had no idea if she would agree to be his-his as he wished, as he’d-increasingly he suspected unwisely-stipulated.

It was time, perhaps, to alter his stance.

Looking down, he shifted, drawing her attention. “When we were here this afternoon, you asked me why I wanted a clear decision from you.” He met her eyes, shadowed and unreadable, and selected his words with care. “In the sense of sweeping you off your feet, of sweeping you into bed on a tide of desire-primarily mine…I don’t want to seduce you.”

She blinked.

Ruthlessly, his voice hardening, he went on, “I know I could. That all I need do is push a little harder. But-” He broke off. Looking away, he drew in a breath. “I don’t want just that from you.” He looked back and caught her gaze. “I don’t want what’s between you and me to be like that.”

A seduction driven solely by me.

He didn’t say the words, but Jacqueline heard them. The light was sufficient to limn the planes of his face, to confirm that there was absolutely no lightness in his expression.

From the first, he’d made it clear he couldn’t promise anything, yet equally clearly, he viewed her as different. As something more than just another conquest, one, she knew, of many.

Couldn’t promise, not wouldn’t.

Looking into his face, hard, unyielding, yet in the soft moonlight perhaps more revealing, she sensed for the first time that behind his confident, polished exterior lay someone with uncertainties, just like her.

What if he couldn’t promise because he didn’t know? Because, no more than she, was he sure of what lay between them, how it might evolve, what it might become?

What if she refused and walked away, and neither of them ever learned the answer?

She rose, all hesitation falling from her. Leaving the bench, she closed the distance between them; he watched her every step of the way, desire and more naked in his face. Drawing his hands from his pockets, he reached for her as she neared. She stopped only when her breasts brushed his chest.

For one moment, feeling his hands slide about her waist, feeling their heat seep through the shot silk, she gazed into his eyes…and found not the slightest change in his stance-no intention to seize, no inclination to step back. He was waiting on her-on her decision.

He wanted her to want him as much as he wanted her.

Reaching up, she set her hands on either side of the strong column of his throat, then eased them back; stretching up, she drew his head down to hers, drew his lips to hers, and fused them.

She kissed him, not the other way around, and he let her. Let her press her lips to his, slide her tongue between, and take, let her set the pace, let her explore. He followed, accepting all she gave, offering all she wished in return, angling his head to deepen the kiss when she urged him to do so.

It was intoxicating. To have him at her command, to have him metaphorically by her side, hand in hand, going forward into what she sensed was a landscape as mysterious to him as it was to her.

Desire, warm and now familiar, rose and washed through them, heating, welling, buoying.

Beckoning.

He dragged his lips from hers. In the shadowy light, from beneath heavy lids, their eyes met, held. One of his hands had risen to cradle her head; his other arm held her locked against him. “I don’t know where this will lead, but I want to follow the path on, with you.”

With the fingers of one hand, she traced his cheek. “Yes. I need to know, too.”

She sensed more than saw, felt more than knew, that he was no more in control of “this” than she; he wasn’t dictating it, wasn’t directing it-he was searching for answers, driven to it, as was she.

What lay between them was a shimmering temptation, both physical and emotional; he, too, could see it, and its promise, but the whole was as unknown to him as it was to her, and, it seemed, as confusing. With this, he was no more experienced than she.

That was a potent attraction-to know that if, in going forward, she was taking a risk, then so was he.

His breath brushed her lips and she yearned, not just for a kiss but for so much more.

“You know my decision.” Her voice was low, sultry, the siren he and only he evoked coloring her tone. Boldly, she pressed closer, lifting her lips to breathe over his, “Convince me I’m doing the right thing.”

She sensed his impulse to devour, to take her lips in a scorching kiss, but he refrained. Instead, from under heavy lids his eyes held hers as he raised his hands, sliding his palms slowly up until through the heavy silk he cupped her breasts, then his thumbs cruised knowingly over her ruched nipples.

Sensation lanced through her; a silent, tight gasp escaped her. For an instant he played, then he bent his head, took her lips in a long, lingering kiss, while with his hands, his strong fingers, he pandered to her senses.

When he eventually lifted his head, her body was aflame, senses stretched tight, nerves coiled, wanting. Waiting.

“I will.” In the weak light, she saw him grimace. “But not here, not now.”

She blinked, and returned to the real world, to the clearing by the pond. He was right. Not here, not now; they had to go back, had to thank their hosts and bid them farewell, had to journey home in the carriage with the others.

Her lips throbbed, her flesh ached with sweet anticipation. With one finger, she caressed the corner of his lips, then stepped back, out of his arms. “Later.”

She turned; together, they walked back to the house.

The waiting was going to kill him.

Gerrard paced before the windows in his bedchamber, and willed the minutes to tick by. He and Jacqueline had returned to the ballroom, behaved with appropriate decorum, then endured the journey home, opposite each other in the blessedly dark carriage.

Lord Tregonning had parted from them in the front hall. Jacqueline and her aunt had climbed the stairs. With Barnaby, he’d followed; turning his feet toward his room, not hers, had required considerable willpower.

He’d dismissed Compton; the house was slowly settling into slumber. Once it did, he would go to Jacqueline’s room.

How long should he give her to get rid of her maid?

Muttering a curse, he swung around and stalked to the hearth, staring-glaring-at the mantelpiece clock. Not enough minutes had elapsed.

He should have told her not to undress; a great deal of his fondness for her bronze silk sheath revolved about a vision of peeling it from her. He’d give a great deal for the chance to transform that vision to reality, but he doubted she’d realize-

Soft footsteps reached him. An instant later, his door opened and Jacqueline whisked in. She saw him, shut the door, and then she was flying to him-bronze silk sheath and all.

He caught her.

Wrapped his arms about her, lifted her from her feet, straight into an incendiary kiss.

Twining her arms about his neck, she parted her lips, surrendered her mouth, and sank against him.

Without thought, his hands shifted, one splaying over her back below her waist, angling her hips to his, the other rising to cradle her head, holding her steady so he could ravish her mouth.

No holds barred.

He’d warned her; now he could only marvel at his presentiment, for not in his wildest dreams had he imagined it would be like this.

Instant conflagration.

An immediate need more primitive than anything he’d felt before. He was a polished sophisticate, an experienced lover, yet she never seemed to connect with that side of him. The touch of her lips, the feel of her in his arms, the tentative, innocent trace of her fingers along his cheek, and he was lost to all sanity, all gentlemanly dictates, overwhelmed by an urgent and elemental need to make her his.

Totally.

As he’d warned her, completely. In every way.

Jacqueline sensed the passion in him, felt the barriers dissolve before its power, tasted its rapacious urgency on his lips, felt it in the flagrant possessiveness of his hands, of his body hard against hers. The thought of quailing before that elemental hunger never entered her head; instead she exulted, gloried in the knowledge she could provoke him to that, that she, her body, could be desired like that.

Beyond reason. Beyond all words. Where they now were, only deeds spoke, only actions had meaning.

His tongue dueled with hers; surrendering wholly to the moment, she clung to the passionately intense exchange. His hands shifted over her back, a minute later, her bodice loosened. He’d undone her laces.

She drew in a tight breath as his lips left hers; he skated kisses along her jaw, then nudged her head up, pressing a kiss to the sensitive spot beneath her ear before dipping his head to follow the long line of her throat to where her pulse thudded at its base. He laved, lightly sucked; heat rose through her and spread in a melting wave beneath her skin.

Flushed, nerves coiling, she felt his palm slide, gliding over bronze silk to cup her breast. His fingers closed, kneaded provocatively, then rose to trace the neckline of her gown; she felt immeasurably grateful when he eased the heavy fabric down. Once clear of her breasts, the silk fell in folds to her waist. The tiny, off-the-shoulder sleeves were mere scraps of gauze across her upper arms. Sliding her arms free, she draped them over his shoulders.

She could barely breathe as he lifted his head and looked down. Her breasts were still screened by her filmy chemise, gathered just above them.

One tug, and the drawstring was loose. He hooked his fingers in the fine fabric and drew it down.

The room was filled with shadows; he hadn’t lit any lamps. Yet there was light enough for her to see his face, to make out his expression as he blatantly surveyed what he’d uncovered.

He’d seen her breasts before; she reminded herself of that, yet as, starved of breath, lungs inexorably tightening, she studied his face, she saw something far more potent than approval in the harsh planes.

Absorbed, he lifted his hand and cupped one breast, weighing, assessing, then he closed his fingers and kneaded knowingly, tightening her nerves still further, then he eased his hold and stroked, not simply observing but learning, as if the texture of her skin was a wonder, as if her tightly ruched nipple was worthy of his most earnest attention.

Enthrallment. She sensed, all but saw him fall under the spell-her spell, the fascination her body, it seemed, held for him.

She stood unmoving, watching him examine her; a feminine power unlike anything she’d known slowly welled within her.

A true sign, surely, that this was right. That this, here and now, was the way forward for her.

The joy swelling inside her assured her it was so.

He bent his head and pressed a hot kiss to the upper curve of one breast, and any thought of retreating, of doing anything other than going forward with abandon, slid from her mind. His lips trailed over her now aching and swollen flesh, then he took one tightly furled nipple into his mouth, and lightly suckled.

Then he feasted.

She gasped, let her head fall back. Eyes closed, she clutched his shoulders, then eased her fingers and slid them to his nape, then into the silky wonder of his hair, gripping tight as he pleasured her, thankful that his hard hand pressed to the small of her back held her to him, and kept her upright.

Her senses started to spin; a kaleidoscope of sensations buffeted her mind. There was an emotion in his touch that went far beyond wonder, that was more intense, more ruthless than simple desire, a driven passion that, innocent though she was, she recognized as possessiveness.

Gerrard was far beyond thinking, far beyond disguising his feelings or his intentions in any way. She’d come to him; that was all the agreement he needed, all the encouragement his demons required to slip their leashes and devour.

The only thing holding him back from summarily stripping her, laying her across the bed and sheathing himself in her softness, claiming her, branding her in the most primitive way, was a strange and novel merging of the two halves of himself. The demons of his maleness, driven by passion and rampant possessiveness, were, with her, being directed, not overridden but working in concert with the more subtle demands of his aesthetic mind.

She and only she had ever called to both.

While his demons still slavered, turning his every touch demanding, making every action a command, a seizing, no request, he was conscious of a greater fascination, of a need to go slowly, to fully explore and experience every shred of passion, of desire, that her surrendering herself to him evoked.

To wallow in the physical, to gorge on the sensual.

He was more educated than most in both.

When he finally drew his lips from her breasts, she was heated, urgent, driven beyond innocence to make demands of her own. He acquiesced to her tugs, shrugging out of his coat, first one arm, then the other, letting the garment fall unheeded to the floor. His waistcoat followed.

Her hands spread across his chest and he caught his breath, not so much from the touch itself as the urgency behind it. At the feminine desire he glimpsed in her eyes as she reached for his cravat, at the focus in her face as with unsteady hands she unraveled the folds, then drew the long linen strip away.

She dropped it, and stepped closer, eliminating the last inches between them as she boldly tugged his shirt from his waistband and slid her hands, small palms to bare skin, beneath. She touched, then spread her fingers and ran her hands up his chest. Leaning in, she lifted her face; he lowered his head and their lips met. Melded.

For long moments, he savored the taste of her escalating passion, sweet, hot, and exquisitely female. An evocative blend of the innocent and sultry, of untried promise.

His. All his.

His to educate, to awaken.

To possess.

Closing his arms around her, he slid one hand down, over her back, down over the curve of her hips, pushing the stiff silk lower, then down.

The gown fell to the floor, sinking about her feet, taking her chemise with it. He closed one hand over her bottom, drew her fully to him, and settled to explore. To arouse her still further. Tracing, fondling, he felt the dew of desire rise to his touch as he caressed the sweet curves, felt her initial shock drown beneath a wave of heated yearning.

Of increasingly urgent desire.

He held her to their kiss, plundered her mouth as he wished, ravaged her senses, and filled his with her surrender. A surrender even more explicit as she sank against him, and let him have his way.

Naked in his arms, held against a body whose very hardness embodied a potent promise, Jacqueline gave up trying to steady her giddy senses and let them whirl. Swirl. They danced to his touch, to the increasingly intimate caresses he pressed on her, to his flagrant exploration, to the rapacious need that, held back, was still evident in every driven touch.

A threat, but not one of pain. Of possession, yes, but she now longed for that.

Ached for it, with an urgency that only grew more desperate, that had her sinking her nails into his sides to urge him on.

The wash of night air over her bare skin left her acutely aware of her naked state; she should have felt unsteady, uncertain-in reality, she didn’t care; she reveled in the shocking intimacy. Reservation, shyness, modesty, all were fading at the edges of her mind, overwhelmed by a need more physical than she’d foreseen, and more powerful. She wanted it all-she wanted him naked, too, wanted to feel his skin against hers, needed that degree of physical closeness, needed him entwined with her.

Now.

Sinking against him, blatantly offering her mouth, yielding to his every demand, she ran her hands, splayed until then across the wide muscles of his chest, down. Over the hot, flickering skin of his abdomen, over the shifting muscles, down to the waistband of his trousers. And further. Briefly, boldly, she traced his erection.

And felt his breath hitch. Sensed the sudden hiatus in his concentration. Pressing her palm to him, she stroked, lingeringly, then reached for the buttons at his waist.

Gerrard dragged in a breath and caught her hands. Shackled them with his, drew them away, to her sides, then released them, broke their kiss and swept her into his arms. He would have preferred to go more slowly, but she’d already rushed ahead.

He carried her the few paces to the bed, knelt and laid her across it. Pausing, he looked down at her, his mind almost blank as he drank in the sight of her naked and heated, flushed with desire and wanting him so blatantly, then he grabbed his shirt, drew it over his head and tossed it away, then stepped back and swiftly dealt with the buttons at his waist.

Toeing off his shoes, he stripped off his trousers and stockings; naked, he joined her, coming down beside her propped on one elbow the better to view her. Intent, she reached for him; again he caught her hands. Once again shackled them, this time in one of his; shifting, he drew her hands up and anchored them over her head.

She was breathing rapidly. She frowned, opened her lips-

“Don’t speak.” Briefly, he met her eyes, noted how wide they were. “I know what you need.”

And what I need.

He looked down, let his gaze roam her body, laid out beside him, a delectable gift. The truth crashed through him. Just taking would be so much less than either of them needed, or deserved.

Her breasts remained swollen, firm and tight, the ruched peaks begging for his attention. Her skin, pearly white, almost glowed, satin soft, tinted with desire, an elementally evocative sight. The indentation of her waist, the teardrop-shaped hollow of her navel, tempted him to taste. Below her taut belly, tawny curls covered her mons, veiling the delicate flesh between her thighs.

His gaze swept her thighs, sweetly curving to her knees, followed the subtle swell of her calf to where it tapered to narrow ankles and finely boned feet. To him that long line held the essence of femininity; he reached out and with his palm sculpted. Caressed.

She shivered.

Returning his gaze to her face, he watched her response as he ran his hand slowly upward, from her calf to her knee, up her thigh and over the swell of her hip, sliding through the curve at her waist to glide over her breast to her shoulder, and on, up the exposed inner face of her arm to her fingers. Then he reversed direction, sweeping his fingers around her face, then spreading his palm, now tingling and hot, below her throat, then running it more heavily, more possessively, down, over the center of her body, fingers trailing over her breasts, over her navel to splay over her taut stomach.

He pressed gently, watched her eyes darken. Watched her moisten her lower lip, lush and swollen from his kisses. He shifted over her, leaning down to take her lips, her mouth, again, while his hand slid lower, fingers spearing slowly through her curls to the slick, swollen flesh beyond.

Her body lifted; her thighs parted, wordlessly inviting. He slid one knee between hers, cupped her fully, evocatively stroked, then slowly pressed two fingers deep, into the lush haven of her body.

She moaned, the sound trapped between their lips. He filled her welcoming mouth with his tongue while between her thighs he pressed her on.

Until she writhed beneath him. Until, heated and desperate, she tugged against his hold, but still he held her hands. He shuddered when, denied them, she used her body, all womanly curves and sweet, flushed skin, to caress his, and tempt him.

He held against her for long moments, then released her hands and moved over her. She spread her hands over his shoulders, his chest, greedily grasping. Inciting.

Yet still he held back. Spreading her thighs, he settled between, yet he wanted, and knew he could have, even more from her.

She broke from the kiss, pressing her head back, panting, gasping. Before she could catch her wits, he lowered his mouth to her breast.

Jacqueline jerked; the voracious contact sent sensation lancing through her, sharp, passion sweet. She closed her eyes and almost sobbed. The wet heat of his mouth expertly applied to the excruciatingly sensitive peaks of her breasts was both pleasure and punishment. She wanted more, so much more-she knew exactly what.

She could feel the heavy weight of his erection riding against her inner thigh. She wanted that inside her, wanted him to take her.

Wanted to be conscious when he did.

His hand hard about one breast, he suckled more powerfully, simultaneously probed deeply between her thighs.

“Gerrard!” She arched against him, her fingers sinking into his shoulders, the hardness of his body, the crisp, crinkly hairs adorning it, meeting her softer, smoother skin, evocatively abrading it.

Poised above her, his weight, the inherent power in his naked, muscled frame, the ruthlessly intimate touch of his hands and mouth, sent realization of her vulnerability crashing through her. Dragging in a breath, she cracked open her lids. Caught the gleam of his eyes beneath his lashes as he lifted his head.

“Now-please! Take me now.”

The plea fell from her lips on a breathless gasp.

His face was an angular mask, graven with desire; he searched her eyes, then his gaze lowered. He bent his head once more, shifting back to place a hot, openmouthed kiss on her navel.

She sobbed, clutching desperately at his shoulders, thinking he meant to caress her as he had before.

Instead, he rose above her, adjusting his hips between her widespread thighs; bracing his weight on his arms, he nudged into her.

She caught her breath, felt her eyes grow wide as the broad head of his erection pressed into her. Stretching her.

She blinked. For one instant wondered how…

He flexed his spine and thrust in. Inexorably. Hard, deep.

Pain lanced through her-she gasped, closed her eyes. Her breath tangled in her throat; her lungs seized.

He held still, embedded within her, impossibly large, impossibly heavy. Totally alien.

So male.

Amazingly welcome…

The sharp sting was already fading; her body eased beneath his. She straightened her fingers from where they’d curled about his biceps, nails biting in in instinctive reaction.

He bent his head, found her lips, breathed over them, “There’s no rush,” then covered them.

But he was wrong. She returned his kiss with all the hunger she possessed. Sliding her hands around his body, she clung; the instant he started to move within her, she knew what she wanted, what she needed. Now.

He thrust deep, and she was with him, rising beneath him, urging him on. Wanting more. Wanting all; if she had to give him that, she wanted the same in return.

And she got it.

He groaned and surrendered, and all control evaporated. They broke from the kiss, gasping, breaths mingling. The dance caught them, trapped them. Heat poured through them, rushed down their veins, pulsed between them. His body moved over hers, into hers, repetitively stroking inside and out; hers seemed to know the rhythm-she moved with him, against him, without conscious thought.

The tempo steadily escalated, a pagan crescendo of motion and searing heat. A constant striving to a fiery climax that for long desperate moments seemed out of reach.

And then they were there.

In the eye of desire’s storm, surrounded by passion’s whirlwind, by flames that left them gasping, nerves coiling, tightening as sensation spiraled and coalesced.

From beneath heavy lids, their gazes met, locked; every nerve she possessed was alive, exquisitely abraded as he drove deeply, powerfully into her, as he moved against her and her body responded, ardent and abandoned.

Beneath him, she rode each thrust, each forceful penetration. Desperately clinging.

Then she broke apart.

She cried out, felt perception shatter as her nerves unraveled and her body melted. In one clear instant, she saw him above her, his expression blank as passion claimed him, too, as with her body she claimed his, as with his he’d claimed hers.

Then completion swept her, caught her, buoyed her on, into a golden sea. Satiation swamped her; she felt warmth deep within her as with a groan he joined her, then collapsed across her. She drifted on the waves, his weight surrounding her, holding her, securing her.

In the last instant before she sank into pleasured oblivion, she turned her head and brushed her lips to his temple. “Thank you.”

Into those simple words she let all she felt flow, then surrendered to the tide and let ecstasy claim her.

T hank you.

Her words and the emotions carried in them echoed through Gerrard’s brain; he returned to the living slowly, savoring them, feeling them sink to his soul, the headiest, most contentment-making balm he’d ever known.

His strategy had worked; the waiting had been worth it. She’d come to him, and now she was his.

Disengaging, he lifted from her, then slumped beside her. He studied her face; he couldn’t truly see but she seemed sunk in bliss. After a moment, he lay back, and gently, carefully, eased her over, into his arms. She came, not quite awake, turning to him, one arm sliding across his waist, her head pillowed on his chest.

He was accustomed to the moment, to the warmth of a boneless female draped over him, yet this time was different, acutely so. He was more aware of her, of her skin, her limbs, of the soft cloud of her hair, the gentle huff of her breathing. Of her weight, her warmth-of all she meant to him-as if through the act of joining they’d created a linkage that ran deeper, and was more tightly meshed, than the norm.

Closing his eyes, he considered that. Wondered if perhaps that was what happened when a man found his mate.

His lips lazily, openly arrogantly, curved. He replayed her words again…

He stilled; his lips straightened. Thank you?

He kept his eyes closed, but his mind raced. Why had she thanked him? It was she who’d given herself to him, not the other way around. She who’d accepted him as her lover and husband-elect-shouldn’t he be thanking her?

Abruptly he recalled his earlier errors in assuming how she would think or react. If she’d had the temerity, and the audacity, to judge his ability as a portraitist, there was no telling what tack her mind might take.

He replayed her “thank you” again; a disquieting thought took hold. Surely she knew he intended marrying her-that he saw her coming to his bed as agreeing to their marriage?

Even as his mind posed the question, he knew the answer-it was perfectly possible she didn’t.

His direction was crystal clear to him. He couldn’t recall when he’d decided, but he’d embraced the path to marriage with absolute commitment regardless of his until recently deeply entrenched antipathy.

Nothing about him had changed; he’d simply seen an undeniable light. His reservations over engaging with love still existed, but were of insufficient weight to turn him from his path, to diminish in any way the compulsion that now drove him.

However, his conversion to the ranks of the matrimonially minded hadn’t come about through any action of Jacqueline’s. His antennae were well honed, well educated in detecting husband-hunting young ladies; he’d detected no sign of such intent in her. Her fascination with him, and with what had grown between them, was innocent and true, free of any calculation.

That was one of the reasons she’d captured him.

Well and good, yet although she was twenty-three, even by the standards of a county backwater she was socially inexperienced. Thanks to Thomas’s and her mother’s deaths, she hadn’t been exposed to wider society, much less the circles in which he moved. She didn’t appreciate how, in such circles, things were done, how matters were arranged.

She didn’t know the ways.

And with her only close contemporary being Eleanor Fritham…

His lips set. Hardly surprising if Jacqueline hadn’t, yet, understood his tack.

The pleasure thrumming through his veins was slowly fading; sleep beckoned, but his mind ranged on-to what now loomed as his next step.

If she wasn’t yet thinking of marriage, then it clearly behooved him to steer her mind in that direction before he specifically stated his objective. He knew women, at least in general; they preferred to think they made their own decisions in such matters. Jacqueline, he felt sure, would have the same prejudice, so he’d introduce the subject and let her decide-let her see the light as he had-before uttering the formal words and offering for her hand.

The one question remaining was how. His mind circled the problem; sleep fogged his thoughts and drew them down.

One conclusion shone through the veils of slumber.

He had experience aplenty in discouraging young ladies, and none whatever in persuading them to the altar.

Jacqueline’s senses drifted hazily, swirling through mists of pleasure, gradually focusing on the here and now, on her body, on what it felt.

On the hands that so slowly, so skillfully caressed, on the lips that touched her shoulder, lingered, then disappeared.

On the phantom lover who in the dark of the night stirred her to life. Lured her to join him.

She was lying on her side, almost on her stomach; lifting lids languid and heavy, she looked, but even her night-adjusted eyes couldn’t see.

It was the dark depths of the night. The moon had set; there was no light to guide her.

Only sensation. Only the hard, hot reality of the man beside her.

And the desire that flared between them.

She turned to him, into his arms. Reached for him.

Found heavy muscle and bone, and, as one blind, traced. Saw through her fingertips, through the palms she smoothed over his upper arms as he loomed over her in the dark, over his broad shoulders as he surrounded her with his strength.

He was anonymous, and so was she, sundered from their identities by the absolute dark, and so free to allow their desires full rein, to give and take as they would, without restraint.

Tactile sensation was their only communion, that and the incoherent sounds of passion. Neither spoke; for her part, she had no need for words. With sight denied her, her other senses expanded, until every caress, every trailing brush of fingers held her complete and unwavering attention. Effortlessly.

He took her further than before, higher, deeper into the realms of physical desire and sensual need. She heard her own gasps echo in the dark, heard the harried sound of her breathing.

She was acutely aware of how her body responded to each explicit caress, to the increasingly intimate knowing. She was aware of how she surrendered herself utterly, to him, to his passion.

He knew the boundaries well; although he pushed her to them, again and again he drew her back. In between, he let her explore, let her learn of him; he allowed her to pleasure him, guided her, taught her the ways.

Eventually, when she was giddy with need and both their skins were slick with desire, he pressed her back into the bed, spread her thighs wide and settled between. And joined them.

And it was different than before, with not even an echo of pain to dim the pleasure. With their skins so alive, their tactile senses so heightened, their passions already so inflamed, the fires roared, and the conflagration consumed them, yet still they clung, breaths mingling as they reached for the peak-and found ecstasy.

It shattered them, flung them far, left them to burn in glory among the stars, until, uncounted heartbeats later, they drifted back to the world, to the rumpled bed, to the sanctuary of each other’s arms. And slept.