Then he thrust home.
He filled her. Then he thrust that last inch until she felt him high, near her heart. Then, slow and controlled, he withdrew and slowly fil
led her, inch by inch, once more.
Then he repeated the sensual torture, one that had her gasping, too soon softly moaning. Tightening about him, locking her legs about his hips, she tried to urge him on, but he kept to his slow, deliberate rhythm, one that unraveled her senses, that sent waves of dark, illicit delight coursing through her, that steadily, inexorably, yet unhurriedly built the familiar blaze within them, but held the conflagration back.
He didn’t kiss her; they were both more or less fully clothed. Yet they stood pressed against his library door, intimately joined, and there was nothing to distract her from the sheer, unadulterated physicality of the moment, not just the powerful need that drove them both but the reality of him inside her, of the heavy weight of his erection sliding into her sheath, of her body so eagerly welcoming him in.
Of his taking her, filling her, possessing her.
She came apart on a breathless cry, glory imploding, pleasure enveloping her, swamping her, coursing down her veins, releasing her.
Jack covered her lips in the instant she crested the peak; he drank her cry, rode out the waves of her pleasure, then his body, held too long in check, slipped its leash. He surged powerfully into her, one, twice, three times, then with a groan muffled between their lips, joined her. Felt his seed release deep within her, felt in the deepest depths of his soul that he was home.
“I’ll meet you at the folly tonight.”
They’d rested for half an hour, even managed decorously to consume a pot of tea and a plate of cakes; Jack hadn’t been keen to see her walk out of his door, not so soon after they’d both been reduced to staggering.
But, as usual, she’d recovered well. He’d accompanied her to the front door; they now stood side by side on his front step.
At his words, she cast him one of her direct, faintly reproving glances. “You’re getting greedy.”
He held her gaze, without a blink replied, “And you aren’t?”
She humphed and looked ahead. After a moment, she conceded, “Very well.” She stepped down to the gravel and started off down the drive. “But I might be late.”
She didn’t look back but waved a hand in farewell.
Jack grinned, and savored the view, along with the knowledge that she’d be at the folly not a minute later than usual. After that interlude in the library, he’d wager his life on it.
The dip in the drive hid her from his sight; turning, he went into the house, grin fading as he realized just how true his previous thought was. With her, it was his life he was gambling with.
He paused in the hall, instinctively searching for ways to tip the odds in his favor; this wasn’t a game in which he had any intention of throwing in his hand. That being so, knowledge, as always, would be his best weapon.
Looking up the stairs, he considered, then headed for Anthony’s room.
His reluctant guest was growing increasingly restless, but Connimore had decreed that if he wished to take his place at the dinner table, then he had to rest until the first gong. Consequently, Anthony was glad of any distraction, even one that involved discussing his family.
“I wasn’t much about when it happened—away at school, and even when I was at home, the subject was never really discussed. Just the occasional comment one of the elders would make, you know the sort of thing.”
Jack nodded. “How would you describe your parents’ view of Clarice?”
Anthony screwed up his face. “I’d say that while they were shocked speechless at the time, it was a dashed long time ago, and it wasn’t as if she committed a crime, for heaven’s sake. Plenty of scandals much worse than Clarice refusing to marry that stick Emsworth. I know Melton—her father—raised a dust to end all dusts over it, but at least in my branch of the family, I’ve never detected any opprobrium that would make it difficult for Clarice to return to town.”
“What about the other branches? The connections?”
Anthony frowned. “I’ve heard that at the time it was all rather dreadful. The elders were in the main shocked to their toes. Melton’s sisters—the Countess of Camleigh and Lady Bentwood—were livid. Clarice’s maternal aunts and uncles were also furious. You can imagine the refrains—that she was blackening the family name, that she was insulting her mother’s memory, and so on.” Anthony looked somber. “All pretty awful stuff.”
Jack waited a moment, then prompted, “But…?”
“But while I can’t speak for the immediate family, as far as I’ve ever known, within the wider family the whole matter blew over long ago.” Anthony met Jack’s eyes. “I really don’t think even the elders of the wider family would cut Clarice, would care to cut her if she returned to town now.” He smiled. “I know the younger generation wouldn’t.”
Jack grinned. “I gathered Teddy, and you, too, don’t view her in any unfavorable light.”
“Good God, no!” Anthony met his eyes. “If you’d ever met Melton, her father, you’d understand. Anyone who stood up to him and walked away the victor—well, that’s the sort of deed that guarantees instant hero status, and Clarice is a female, what’s more.”
Jack studied Anthony’s open face. “So within the wider family, Clarice’s returning to town won’t pose any difficulties.”