Jane was lost in Raven’s ardent embrace. There was something desperate and fierce in the way he held her, his hands fisting in her clothes. And he’d never kissed her this way before, taking possession of her lips in searing passes and deep, fathomless pulls as if he were branding her.
How could she focus on her chart when her entire being was fully immersed in the love she’d only just discovered today?
So she gave herself over to it, slanting her mouth beneath his. The chart could wait until later. Much, much later.
His skin felt smooth against her lips and chin, smelling clean and freshly shaven. And his tongue tasted sweet like brandy as he held her tighter against him.
He growled in appreciation as his hands roamed down her body, claiming every inch he touched, splaying into the dip in her spine, molding over the curve of her waist, and the plump flesh of her bottom, delighting all her senses. After experiencing the map table, her body responded with eager pulses that descended quickly to the cradle of her thighs.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked, feeling the shift of their bodies with his sure-footed steps along the path.
“To your napping spot.”
His voice was so low and deep that it sent a flutter directly to her midriff. Breathless, she asked, “Planning to tuck me in, or are we napping together?”
“Whatever you like. But first, I’m hoping to . . . expand your research.”
He lifted her higher, just enough for her to feel the hard outline of his flesh. There was no mistaking his meaning.
A thrill trampled through her, along with a hint of trepidation. “And are you going to be thorough?”
“Quite,” he said resolutely and nipped lightly on her chin. A silver glint of wickedness sparked in his gray-smoke irises.
But any qualms she may have had were abandoned the instant he commenced a scorching path down her neck. She surrendered her throat to his openmouthed kisses, loving the way he laved the tender pulse that throbbed helplessly and wantonly for him.
“How shall we begin? And will I need to take notes?” she asked when they reached the secluded chaise longue.
He lowered her feet to the tiles in one sinuous slide of her body over his, awakening thousands of tingling receptors. Lifting his hands to her hair, he deftly withdrew the pins holding her coiffure in place, loosening the silken strands to fall softly against her nape and shoulders.
“I’m going to start off by sampling every inch of your delightful little body,” he said tilting her chin up for a kiss. But then he stopped and frowned in speculation. “Why are you biting your lip? What is it that you’re holding back?”
She released her lower lip and shook her head. “Well, for you to have access to every inch, I could not be wearing any clothes. And that thought reminded me of the first time I was naked in the conservatory. It involved a study of an ant colony that went awry, and an unsuspecting gardener who has never been able to look me in the eye again.”
Raven laughed, tilting back his head and holding her close. “There is no one else in the whole world like you, Jane Pickerington.”
With a smile lingering on his lips, he cupped her face and kissed her so tenderly it was as if he was telling her something else altogether. Something true and earnest. It drifted inside her with every caress, floating down into the deepest part of her heart in a secret whisper.
He didn’t draw back to speak the words aloud. That wasn’t his way. But she felt the promise in them all the same.
He continued this rare kiss, his fingertips skimming lightly over her buttons as the coolness of the air contrasted with the heat of his touch. Her dress soon became a puddle on the floor, followed an instant later by a ripple of her petticoat and then her chemise.
She was positively shameless. Naked aside from her stockings and slippers, she felt no shyness, only fascination with the ardent hunger in his gaze. And it was because he was looking at her. Her!
“Jane,” he murmured on a hot breath that rushed over the crest of her shoulder and fell lightly against one pale pink nipple. It pebbled against the airy sensation. He cursed in appreciation and this breath took the same path, too, drawing her flesh tighter still, her small breasts feeling heavy and ripe. “You are a living fantasy. I don’t even know where to begin because I want all of you at once.”
“Hold that thought, glutton,” she teased, lifting her hand to his cravat. “After all, if you’re planning to be thorough, then so am I.”
Though, having little experience with undressing a male over the age of four, she fumbled a bit with untying the length of raw silk. His coat was slightly damp, and only then did she hear the soft pattering on the glass.
“You rode in the rain,” she said inanely, blinking up at him with worry. “You must be dreadfully cold.”
Though he didn’t appear cold at all with the slashes of burnished color over the crests of his cheeks and bridge of his nose. And his gaze smoldered down at her when he said, “Then you’d best make haste to get these wet togs off.”
She did her best. But the tailored superfine wool clung to his broad shoulders and the sleeves turned inside out along the way. She unfastened the buttons of his waistcoat and leaned forward to nudge the garment down his arms. Then she gasped as her nipples grazed his shirt, the linen abrading the sensitive rosebud flesh into taut peaks.
He grinned against her lips at her discovery. His hands splayed over her back to draw her flush against him, teaching her the delicious lesson of contrasting textures of fabric against bare skin.
“Oh, I quite like that,” she breathed, rubbing her shivering flesh against the warmth rising through his clothes.
On a low growl, he swiftly stripped out of his shirtsleeves, letting them fall unheeded to the floor. She nearly chided him for skipping through one part of her research, but then he gathered her back into his arms and . . . oh, sweet anatomy!
He was so firm where she was soft. So enticingly coarse where she was smooth. The dark furring of crisp, springy hairs across his chest abraded her nipples to pleasure-stung peaks that sent a quickening to her womb.
“You should have told me about this. Had I known, I might have stripped you from your clothes while you were still pink,” she rasped huskily, inhaling the delicious spice of his neck as he tilted her head back to take her mouth again.
He smirked as his fingertips skimmed over her shoulder blades, along her spine and over the ample globes of her buttocks, arousing her in gently gripping passes. “My naughty little professor.”
She felt the hardness of him pressed thickly against her middle, and she slid her hands down his torso on a slow exploration to the waist of his trousers. But she paused along the way to appreciate the firm breadth of his chest, sliding her fingers through the fascinating curls. His brown nipples hardened to taut discs beneath the attention of her lips. And the muscles along his abdomen quivered slightly as she splayed both hands over him and slid around to his narrow, tight waist.
Unable to help herself, she pressed her nose against the fine trail of hair dusting his stomach, above and below his navel. She breathed in the intoxicating scent of male skin and heat and musk. And since she was already there, she peppered his flesh with kisses.
His hands caressed her shoulders and arms and ribs, and stole underneath to cup her breasts. She straightened then, arching into his palms, breathless and greedy. Fascinated, she watched as his thumbs gently circled her nipples, every rotation exciting the pulse between her thighs as if connected by the same mechanism.
“I’m positively shameless. In all the novels I’ve read about women suffering scandalous male advances, they always faint to save their virtue.”
His lips rasped against the shell of her ear, nuzzling gently into her loose curls. “If you want to save your virtue, you’d better tell me quick.”
“I wouldn’t dream of asking you to stop. Not when I’m thrumming from head to toe and waiting to become a firework again.” She knew she sounded wanton but she didn’t care, not even when he chuckled. “I’m simply wondering why they never write novels where the heroine is brave and admits that she is curious, too.”
He nipped at her earlobe as her hands drifted to his fastenings. “I knew from the moment we met that your curiosity would be my undoing.”
She blushed at the compliment. Then, without even looking, the buttons slipped free. She was amazed at her own deftness. And as she turned her head to press her lips to his, she let the fall front . . . fall.
The heavy heat of him reared out through the opening and lay thickly against her belly. He snaked an arm around her slender waist and pulled her firmly against him, biting out her name on a groan of unabashed pleasure.
She pushed away, but only far enough to steal between their bodies, to find and explore the silken flesh. His phallus was fascinating and hot. She ran the tip of her inquisitive fingers along the granite-hard column, sensing the rush of scorching blood inside the engorged tissue. Her small ivory hand investigated his dusky length, the thick veined shaft and mushroomed head. Then her thumb rolled over the glistening bead resting at the top. She heard his breath shudder, felt it flow through her in throbbing, liquid beats.
“You’re wet, too,” she whispered, but soon found herself lifted off her feet.
He enfolded her against him as he laid her back on the chaise longue, his hands coasting over her body, touching, teasing, stirring. However, when she moved to reciprocate, he issued a short grunt, took both her wrists in one hand and lifted her arms above her head.
“Did I do something incorrectly?” she asked.
Poised over her, he shook his head in a brush against her lips. “No, Jane. In fact, you’ve been an exemplary pupil. You’ve earned the high marks for today and now it’s time for your reward.”
“Then I want to touch you more.”
“If you do, then our lesson will end far, far too soon,” he said with a rueful smirk. Then gazed down on her with something akin to wonderment, his free hand tracing the wispy arc of her brow, the slope of her nose and the outline of her lips. “You’re always surprising me, you know. I think that’s just one of the reasons.”
“One of the reasons for what?”
He answered her in a kiss—a kiss that was apparently meant to obliterate her ability to think because that’s precisely what it did.
She didn’t bother to struggle against the hand that kept hers locked above her head. She simply gave herself over to the pleasure of his touch as he navigated every slope, curve, and contour of her body until she was writhing beneath him, urging his palm to cup her sex. And then he did. His hand was a welcome shield against her, his fingertips teasing softly through her damp curls.
She wanted that sweet explosion. Wanted to feel the plunge of his finger stroke the slippery, sensitive lining of her walls.
“Please,” she begged against his lips as his finger caressed and teased her into a frenzy.
“All in good time.” Then he withdrew, and nudged her thighs apart, settling the heavy weight of his erection between them. She tried to slip out of his grip, to guide him back to where she wanted him, but he chided her with a nip on her chin. “But first, clasp your hands together and keep them up here for me, hmm?”
She pursed her lips in speculation. “Will I like this lesson as much as the other one?”
“Even more,” he promised, rewarding her acquiescence with a wet kiss . . . on her breast, and flashed a wicked grin when she gasped.
He gave ample attention to both her breasts, teasing them to sensitive peaks before blowing a cool stream of his breath over the budded, damp flesh. She quivered, the sensations throbbing low between her thighs. If he continued like this, she might have her explosion without even having the aid of his hand.
She whimpered in protest when he stopped that, too.
But then she forgot all about her pique when he began trailing hot kisses down her body and she felt the glide of his tongue circumnavigate the rim of her navel.
Lifting her head, she watched him with fervent curiosity as he descended further. But the lower he went, the harder it was for her to catch her breath. Her stomach issued a nervous shudder and he laid a soothing hand over her as he blew gently into the triangular thatch of sable curls.
“What precisely do you intend to—ohhh.”
He nuzzled brazenly into her sex. Breathing in deeply, his eyes closed on a low, prolonged growl that vibrated to her core.
She gasped from the yearning he created. She was so taut and eager and lust-addled that she thought nothing of his broad shoulders prodding her legs further apart. She simply obeyed. Her eyelids felt heavy as she watched his dark head poised at her sex.
Holding her gaze, he opened his mouth over her. Then his tongue slid along the seam of her flesh in one . . . slow . . . lick.
“Mine,” he murmured savagely against the tender crevice, laying claim to that part of her as well.
The warmth of his mouth settled over her again in a deep, indecent and thorough kiss. She blushed even as her body arched against the swirling of his tongue and the slow, tender suction. She trembled, her hips tilting of their own accord. He slid his hands underneath her. Lifting her off the chaise, he feasted, his tongue sliding in long wet strokes, mouth suckling in tight controlled swirls.
She gripped the curved molding above her head. Her back arched, hips hitching against the undulations of his tongue. A quickening rush danced through every nerve ending, ready to erupt.
Strangled sounds escaped from her throat in soft moans and pleas. Jane never knew anything could feel like this. The scientist in her couldn’t be bothered to think about research at the moment. Her inner scribe was fanning herself with blank pages. But the artist on her portico had a series of very scandalous paintings underway.
“Raven,” she rasped, hoping to convey how much she needed him . . . to stay right there . . . always. He seemed to want her complete surrender and he had it. She was his.
Then he slowly slid a finger inside her and she spasmed at once in a choked explosion, every limb tightening. Her skin tingled in a cool rush on the surface, a cascade of molten heat below. Her womb clenched and quivered. Her inner muscles gripped him greedily, trying to drag him deeper.
The next thing she knew, her thrumming body was gathered into his arms as he pressed wild, urgent kisses over her brow and nose and cheeks. She felt his body tremble with the intensity of his desire. The vibrations brought her to the awareness of his unassuaged erection. It felt even more imposing now as it prodded thickly against the tender, swollen niche.
But he did not thrust inside her. Not yet. He drew in a breath, exhaling it slowly against her temple. Then he eased his mouth over hers and lingered for endless minutes.
Tasting a salty essence that wasn’t there before, she blushed. This was her. Even after all the intimacies they’d shared, she was shocked by this discovery while, at the same time, it caused a new ripple of arousal to quicken her womb.
She sighed, wrapping her arms around his neck. “If I didn’t love you before, I would most definitely love you now.”
Electrified silver filaments gleamed in his eyes as he gazed down at her beneath the drowsy hood of his dark lashes. And he kissed her again as his hot, hard flesh nudged her. But the snug entrance did not yield immediately. It teased them both in promising throbs and residual pulses, leaving her panting. Even so, she liked the feel of him there against her sex, the weight of his body over hers. The comfort of his surrounding embrace.
He soothed her in slow passes, his hands skimming down every curve and into every hollow. He urged her knees up against his hips, first one, then the other. Open for him, she felt the broad head of his erection pass between her labia, and it excited her to feel that he was bathed in her own warm fluids.
He inched inside. His breath hitched and he cursed, murmuring against her lips about how soft she was. How much he wanted her. Needed her. Only her. And her heart rejoiced. But her body barely yielded before it closed around the thick flesh, pushing against the invasion.
He withdrew and took the bolster pillow, positioning it beneath her hips. Then he settled over her and kissed her again, teasing her mouth as he edged inside her body in a series of slow, shallow thrusts.
The friction, grip, and slide of their flesh coming together renewed the incendiary throbbing of her sex. Instantly, she wanted more. Wanted all of him.
Tightening her legs around his hips, she wiggled, attempting to impale herself.
A strangled sound left Raven. “Patience. Remember, this is new for both of us. I don’t want to hurt you, and I don’t want this to end quite yet.”
“But can’t you . . . be patient . . . later?” she panted and gained a growl from him, his hips jerking reflexively.
He pushed deeper into her shrinking body, his kisses more urgent, his tongue stealing past the seam of her lips. She could feel the trembling of his limbs as he strove to remain gentle, coaxing her body into full acceptance. And she did want him, so much that tears were gathering in her eyes.
“Relax, my little professor. Yes, darling. A bit more. You feel so . . . Ah.” He stopped on a curse and clenched his teeth as if the sharp burn and sting he caused was shared by both of them. Wedged firmly inside her, he spoke in panting breaths against her temple. “Almost there.”
Jane’s eyes flew open on a start. “Almost?”
He didn’t answer her. Perhaps he couldn’t, if the glazed intensity of his gaze told her anything.
So this time, she soothed him with her fingertips brushing the perspiring locks away from his brow. Her lips explored his throat as he withdrew and took a moment to breathe. But he returned to his quest, eager and ardent, his kisses desperate as if he were suffering an unbearable malady.
Then he plunged deep—impossibly deep—and held. Jane bit down on her cry, unable to bear him feeling that he’d hurt her after taking such pains to avoid it. But his flesh scalded hers like a branding iron.
Raven took her mouth in a kiss so primal that, at first, she didn’t know what it meant. This one was not in his lexicon. He’d never kissed her like this before either. But then as his body began to move in those unhindered liquid thrusts, she understood.
In this moment, he’d truly claimed her. She was irrevocably his.
And as the thought entered her mind, the ache gave way to the throbbing friction building with every grip, every slide. Yielding fully, she took him inside the clutch of her body, welcoming his invading flesh, loving him all the more.
“Yes, I’m yours. Only yours,” she said against his lips between soul-claiming kisses.
Breathing hard, he ripped his mouth away from hers on a possessive growl. Their gazes locked, bodies joined in a perfect rhythmic frenzy. She clung to him, nails biting into his shoulders, hips rising to meet his. And he filled her, over and over again.
To her amazement, that bundle of nerves started to sizzle and flare to life once again. Waves of tingling sparks gathered tightly in her core until she thought she would die in his arms.
And quickly, she cried out, splintering apart, her body riding the spasm as a shower of tingling sparks cascaded through her.
Then Raven made a choked, guttural sound. His hips hitched inside her before he wrenched free, spilling in molten rivulets against her inner thigh.
* * *
Hunched over Jane’s warm body, Raven expelled a low oath in the sweetly fragrant curve of her neck. He kissed her there, lingering and panting as his heart rammed against his chest in thick gushes.
It had never been like that before. He couldn’t even call what they’d done swiving or tupping or any of the other crass words in his vocabulary. It had no name that he’d ever used before. This was something altogether different.
All he knew was that the instant she’d given him her unconditional love, he’d felt a surge of joy so profound that he couldn’t contain it. He’d had to show her, in the only way he could, that she had utterly claimed him, heart and soul.
He’d never been lost so completely. Never been so attuned to every quiver and tremor and breath, so much so, that he hadn’t known where he ended and where she began. They were just . . . one.
Bloody hell.
Jane lifted her head to press her lips against his shoulder, her fingertips skimming his back in a silken caress. “Is that a good bloody hell, or a bad one?”
He didn’t realize he’d spoken aloud. Though, it wouldn’t surprise him if he hadn’t and Jane had simply developed a method for reading his thoughts. She was far too brilliant and beautiful and soft . . . and yes, she did taste sweet everywhere.
“Good. Definitely good,” he rasped, near to collapsing from utter bliss.
Then he felt the residual slickness against her thigh and cringed.
“But a bit of bad, as well. Jane,” he said, rising up to look into her eyes and brush the tendrils from her temple, “I nearly spilled inside you because I didn’t want to leave. No, that isn’t cause to grin up at me. That’s a dangerous desire and one I’ve never had to deal with before. Ever. As you might imagine, I wouldn’t risk putting another orphan in the world.”
She tried to school her features and purse her lips thoughtfully, but she wasn’t fooling anyone. He could see the delight in her eyes as she finger-combed the hair back from his brow.
“I’m sure I should be alarmed, and perhaps offended, if not by your words then by your serious glower,” she said, smoothing the delicate pad of her thumb over the furrows. “At the moment, however, the anxious portion of my brain is asleep and all I can feel is complete contentment. Well, and a bit of pride. After all, you are the experienced one. Therefore, it would seem that I’m something of a prodigy.”
Even though he was trying to be serious, she drew a low grunt of amusement from him and he couldn’t resist taking her lips once more.
She distracted his thoughts with the sinuous slide of her leg against his. All at once, his body felt too heavy to support, urging him to ease against her. Her lips weren’t moving in that soundless murmur, and yet she was still casting spells over him.
“But when that other part awakens,” he said, needing to get out the words that were crowding his mouth before she hypnotized him, “I don’t want you to regret or to fret that I would leave you to face any unforeseen consequences alone. I would take care of you.”
It was almost terrifying how quickly the image of having her as his wife, and of their child growing in her body took hold of him. Like a picture waiting on the next page of a book. It seemed so simple, even though it wasn’t. It couldn’t be.
Jane rolled her eyes and rose up to nip his chin with her teeth. “Such a romantic proposal. You’re speaking as though you acted alone in this. I was a full participant, if you’ll recall.”
“I most certainly recall. In fact, I will be recalling your participation for years to come.” For all the years of my life, he thought.
“Scoundrel,” she said with warm affection. “Well, I hope it will ease your mind to know that I don’t expect to marry you. This is all quite new to me. I haven’t even had time to consider how we would fit into each other’s lives.”
Neither had he. So, he should feel relieved. He was completely sated and lying naked with a soft, willing woman who wanted only to research the intricacies of lovemaking.
Then why did his chest feel tight, as if a book had closed and he never had the chance to turn the page?