He was too well acquainted with the female body to miss her increasing tension. He didn’t have time to stop and get her to assist; he couldn’t afford to let her cool. He’d pushed her well along the route to fulfillment—impossible to draw back now.
Frustrated beyond measure, pulled by an urgency outside his control, Jack released his manhood. It sprang free, erect, engorged. He withdrew his hand from between Kit’s thighs, ignoring her helpless moan. With a yank, he gained as much leeway as her tight breeches would allow. It wasn’t enough.
With an anguished groan, Jack slipped his throbbing staff into the furnace between her silken thighs. If that was to be the only piece of heaven offered him that night, he was in too great a need to scorn it.
Kit groaned into his mouth. She had no doubt what the pressure that had replaced his hand was. But she didn’t care. No—she did care—she wanted it there. Even more—she wanted him inside her. He drew back and thrust into the soft hollow between her thighs. In their curious, fully upright position, he could not penetrate her, yet she felt the swollen head of his staff nudge her soft center. Instinctively, she clamped tight about his hard smoothness, dragging her lips free to draw a shuddering breath.
Jack’s head was bowed, his temple pressed to her curls, his breathing harsh in her ear. Kit felt him withdraw. She moaned her disapproval and tilted her hips, trying to draw him back. To her relief, he returned, his hips thrusting, the rigid column of his manhood parting her slick, swollen flesh and nudging deeper, the sudden friction sending shafts of pure delight coursing through her. With his next thrust, a furnace opened deep. Kit’s hands clenched in Jack’s hair; her body strained against his.
Then it happened.
Ripples of tension gripped her, surrounding and compressing her heat until it exploded, sending molten waves of sensation surging along every vein. Indescribable excitement gripped her, and her soul burned, consuming her overloaded senses. Caught on the crest of their passion, abandoned to feeling, she clung to Jack, his name soundless on her lips.
The flames fell and spread their heat through her flesh. Kit tilted her hips, instinctively seeking his fulfillment as part of hers.
Equally instinctively, Jack took the extra inch she offered him to penetrate more deeply into her slick heat. He gasped as the scalding softness of her swollen flesh engulfed him. Yet the ultimate caress of her body remained beyond his reach. His muscles quivered as frustration fleetingly impinged on rampant desire. His chest labored as he struggled for control. The hot honey of her passion poured over him; the faint, pulsing ripples of her release caressed him. Jack forgot about control. He withdrew and thrust again, over and over. The wave of his release hit him, crashing him into pleasured oblivion.
He’d missed seeing her eyes when she’d climaxed.
Jack’s first t
hought on recovering from his exertions seemed perfectly rational. Next time, he’d make sure he satisfied his curiosity. Right now, he was too pleased with himself to allow any quibbles to dim his mood. Despite the limitations, the experience had been one to remember.
He glanced down at Kit. The aftershocks of her remarkable climax had died, but she was still dazed. Aware of the etiquette demanded of such intimate moments, even in such extraordinary circumstances, Jack carefully withdrew from the soft hollow between her thighs.
Kit’s consciousness made contact with reality as Jack settled her coat lapels in place. She stiffened, her eyes blinking wide. Had she dreamed it?
One glance at Jack’s face dispelled that faint hope. His lips looked as if they couldn’t stop smiling. Smugly. Kit felt faint. Her clothes were back in place, fastened, all except her bands, which he’d left about her waist.
She tried to ignore the dampness between her thighs.
Luckily, Jack took charge—without being asked, naturally. He settled her on Delia and then they were heading westward once more, at a walk.
The walls of Cranmer Hall were taking shape on the horizon before Kit came to grips with what had happened. She and Jack had been intimate. The thought sent her mind into a dizzying panic, only slightly ameliorated by the startling conclusion that, despite all, she was still a virgin. He hadn’t breached her, of that she was certain. Years before, her grandmother had instructed her in the bald facts of wifely duty; Kit had felt no pain or discomfort—not the slightest. Neither had she felt any awkwardness or shyness in letting Jack caress her as he had, shockingly intimate though that had been, nor of letting him push that thing of his between her thighs—not at the time. Now, she was positively sunk in guilt, wallowing in the outraged modesty she hadn’t felt while in his arms, kissed into complaisance. How could she have let it happen?
Easily, came the languid reply. And you’d do it again, and more, if he wanted you.
Kit smothered her groan and leaned her head back against Jack’s shoulder, too exhausted to deny her wilder self’s outrageous assertion. At least the comfort of her riding position had improved. Jack had untied her hands—afterward, damn him. There’d been moments under that tree when she’d have killed to have her hands free. Now they rested, crossed, on the pommel while Jack managed the reins. Her body fit snugly into his, the curve of her back settled into his midriff, his thighs on either side of hers, supporting her. The pressure in his loins had disappeared; she’d apparently been successful in taking care of that. There was nothing in their contact to cause alarm. She could fall asleep, if she wished.
Delia plodded on.
“Which way to the stables?”
Jack’s quiet whisper brought Kit blinking awake. Familiar landmarks rose out of the dark. They were in a dip just behind the Hall. For a moment, she leaned against Jack’s chest, savoring the hard warmth, wishing irrationally that his arms would come around and hold her. At the thought, panic pushed her upright. “I take Delia in through the paddock. I have to jump the fence.”
The figure behind her was still, then said, “All right. I’ll leave you here.”
One hard hand closed on her waist. Kit stiffened, but Jack just needed her as balance as he swung down from the saddle. He handed her the reins. “Wait while I adjust the stirrups.”
Shortening the straps so the stirrups sat once more in the groove they’d worn in the thick leather, Jack forced his mind to function—not an easy task in its present, slightly intoxicated state. If he was any judge of such experiences, what had happened beneath the tree should whet the appetite of a woman who was currently forced to a proscribed existence.
Yet there was something in Kit’s response that warned him not to take her for granted. Her silence could simply be due to tiredness; her climax had been particularly strong. But there was more to it than that. Perhaps she was piqued he’d found her so easy to tame? Safely hidden by the dark, Jack grinned fleetingly. He had a premonition that she might be reluctant to yield more than she had already, not without a further concession from him. And at present he couldn’t offer her anything, not even his name.
Whatever, two nights from now she would spend some time in his bed. And he’d stake his hard-won reputation that afterward, she wouldn’t walk away from him with her pert nose in the air.
Jack straightened and pulled his wig from the saddle pocket. He stepped back. “I’ll see you tomorrow at the Old Barn.”
Excuses jostled on Kit’s tongue, but she swallowed them. Four weeks she’d agreed to—four weeks he’d get. With a curt nod, she wheeled Delia and put her over the fence.