He still looked at her as if he’d happily snap her up between his straight white teeth and swallow her in one bite. Her heart began to dance a wild tarantella. She knew what that look meant. By heaven, she should. After that extraordinary night when she’d abandoned her fears, they hadn’t left their room at the inn for three days. An eventful trip to London had followed, and since then, they’d enjoyed three heady days cloistered inside this lovely house.
“They’re delighted to see me happy again,” he said, echoing her thoughts.
“Well, you’re scandalizing me,” she retorted, although once she’d locked the door, she crossed the room to curl up on his lap as he’d asked. She slid one arm around his neck and rested her cheek on his chest. Her fingers tangled in the crisp curls at his nape.
“Do I make you happy, Jane?” he asked softly.
She glanced up at him. “You know you do.” That was true, as long as she didn’t spend too much time pondering the emotions underlying her delight. Right now, large parts of her life were marked “Here be dragons.”
He smiled and swooped in to capture
a kiss. Since the wedding, she’d become a connoisseur of Hugh’s kisses. There were light kisses, over in a second, as if he marked his place in a book he intended to return to later. There were the kisses that conveyed his current satisfaction with the world and his place in it. There were the slow, seductive kisses, where he coaxed her into some reckless act that once would have shocked her into next week. Then when he joined his body to hers, there were the long, open-mouthed, passionate kisses. While he was inside her, nothing else in the world existed, except him and her and the heat melding them together.
This latest kiss expressed his pleasure in her, with a touch of “If you’re interested, we could go back to bed.” She was interested—he turned her into a shameless baggage. But she and Hugh weren’t long upright, and she wanted to talk to him about his plans.
Then they could go back to bed.
“I never knew I could feel like this,” she murmured.
“Let me check just how you feel.”
“Hugh…” she said in confusion, then laughed with relief, as his hands began to explore her body.
“Hmmm. Soft.” He squeezed her breast, unconstrained under the silky nightdress. Before they’d left Salisbury, he’d sent Mary to the best haberdasher in town to buy some undergarments and nightdresses suitable for a bride. Jane hadn’t set eyes on her white flannel in days. She had a suspicion Hugh might have thrown it away.
“Hugh,” she said in a completely different tone, when his long fingers teased her nipple.
“Would I say that’s hard?”
“I don’t know. Would you?” she asked drily and sneaked a hand down to where he rose boldly against her hip. “If it’s not, I know something that is.”
“Hussy,” he said unsteadily, as she curled her fingers around him. His hand left her breast and tangled in the fall of her hair. “That paragon Jane Norris wouldn’t approve of such lechery.”
“Jane Norris, alas, is no more,” she said in mock sorrow. “Jane Rutherford has taken her place, and I fear that she has no morals at all.”
She had an inkling that might be true. The girl she’d once been would never treat a man’s body as her personal playground.
“May dear Jane Norris rest in peace,” he intoned solemnly. “And I’ll make sure that Jane Rutherford doesn’t rest at all.”
“So far that’s been true,” she retorted, sliding her fist up the rigid column of flesh and relishing how it swelled in her hold. “You know, we really do need to talk.”
His deep chuckle vibrated in his chest and under her cheek. She loved being close to him like this, wrapped in his warmth and strength. He made her feel that nothing could ever hurt her. “Now?”
“Perhaps later.”
“That’s the right answer.” With gentle insistence, he slid her off his lap and onto the seat. Her legs sprawled across the rich red and blue Turkey carpet.
He kneeled before her and pushed up her skirts, until blue silk and cream lace frothed about her thighs. With an intent expression, he caught her knees and pushed them apart. “You’re blushing.”
Her hands fluttered nervously, before they settled above her breasts. “Perhaps I’m not as wicked as I thought.”
As his gaze fastened on the shadowy place between her legs, unabashed greed curved his mouth. “We’ll soon fix that.”
She guessed he meant to touch her there. He’d done that before, but in the course of making love. Her blush turned to fire. He must be able to see everything. It was difficult to resist covering herself.
Her heart was skittering, and that familiar heavy feeling set up in the pit of her stomach. His scrutiny of her sex made her tremble with need.
Hugh’s smile widened, as he took hold of her legs and tugged her forward. Peignoir and nightdress hitched up, so her bare bottom met the leather sofa. She gave a startled gasp, then another as he bent his head and…kissed her there.