Chapter 14
William had kept his distance in the days that followed, though it was torment to do so.
He thought staying away after the night in the library had been hard.
But this was worse. Far worse. If he lingered near her, if he allowed himself even a moment’s weakness, he was certain he would disgrace them both—hoist her over his shoulder and carry her off to some private corner, to take her as his blood clamored for.
He burned with want, an ache that no brandy nor long hours in the saddle could ease. Distance was his only salvation.
Jane saw the distance too, and took it for contempt—proof, she thought, that he had fled her chamber in revulsion.
The thought pricked at her with every hour, even as she tried to go on as before: lessons with Margaret, long walks, quiet evenings with her books.
She told herself she must put it from her mind.
Yet her heart remained raw, restless—her body trembling with what he had taken, and what he had refused to give.
It was early July, and only now, nearing midnight, had the air begun to cool.
The house was quiet, Lady Margaret long since asleep, when Jane crept to the library.
She told herself it was only to busy her thoughts.
But in truth her pulse quickened with a shameful eagerness—she wished to know what happened next in that hidden tale, the Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure.
She pushed the door softly, expecting solitude at such an hour.
Instead, she halted at once. Lord Blackmeer stood before a long oak table, the candlelight striking his features into stern relief.
Calfskin volumes and folded papers lay spread across the surface.
His mouth was hard, pale with determination, as he leafed through one after another and cast them, without hesitation, into a waiting trunk.
He looked up at her briefly, eyes turned heated the moment he spotted her, but still storm-dark. “It was bad enough you found one,” he said curtly. “But what if Margaret should stumble upon them in a few years’ time? What lesson would that teach her?”
She gave no reply, only twisted her hands in her skirts, certain of his condemnation. He sounded so judgmental, as if it were a cardinal sin to have read it—yet not his for owning it, and bringing it into his ancestral home. He turned back to his work.
She, drawn despite herself, drifted nearer to the open trunk. A scatter of loose sheets lay across the top—copperplate prints, each line dark with age. Her hand wavered as she lifted one.
She swallowed hard. It was no simple study of the human form, no allegory as she had seen in books of mythology.
These were men and women entwined—coupling, their bodies pressed together in every posture imaginable.
One woman sat astride a man’s lap, her head thrown back in ecstasy.
In another, a man took his partner from behind, her hands braced against the bed as her body arched to meet him.
And then—God forgive her eyes—there was a plate of a man and woman twined head to foot, mouths upon one another’s nakedness, their bodies knotted in unabashed delight.
She had known the shock of a man’s lips upon her own flesh, but never dreamed such pleasure might be given as well as taken in the same breath.
In every engraving the faces were alive with joy—raptures so vividly drawn she could almost hear their cries.
With each image, a deeper bloom spread across her cheeks.
She had thought herself ruined by his touch alone, but here the women reveled, shameless, exultant.
Not one looked bowed with duty; they writhed as though pleasure itself consumed them.
And she—she had writhed just so, not long ago.
“Will you stop?” William snapped, sudden and sharp. She whirled, the print falling from her hands. He looked like thunder. “These works are not meant for innocent eyes.”
Her pulse hammered. She lifted her chin though her face flushed scarlet. “How innocent do you think I am, after all we have done?”
He barked a bitter laugh. “Done? We have done nothing.”
“Not because I did not ask you,” she said, breathless. “Not because I did not beg you to. That is why you left—as if burned. Because I disgusted you.”
For an instant the silence roared. Then he closed the distance in a stride, his mouth crushing hers, hard and searing. She didn’t even manage a gasp before he pressed her back against the table, her gown bunched in his fists, papers scattering to the floor.
“Disgust?” His voice was ragged, his breath hot at her ear. “Christ, Jane—”
Before she could answer, he was on his knees before her, pushing her thighs apart with insatiable hunger.
She barely had time to gather her wits before he fell on her, devouring her sleek core, drawing a startled cry from her throat.
She gripped the edge of the table, her head falling back as a bolt of heat shot through her.
His fingers joined then, pressing deep, curling inside her, in rhythm with his wicked tongue as it circled her tender bud in ceaseless motion.
She sobbed aloud, clutching his shoulders, her body grinding against him.
It was too much—and yet not enough. Not after the engravings.
Not after seeing those women impaled, crying out as though they would die of delight.
“William—please—” her voice was broken, pleading. “I need—something more—to be filled—”
He lifted his head just long enough to look at her, his eyes wild. A grin flickered—dark, feral. “You’re going to be the death of me,” he growled. And then, without wasting any more time, he was on her again, more ravenous, as if he meant to drink her dry.
The release swept through her, hard and blinding, but still he did not relent.
He wrung every tremor from her, lapping at her throbbing core as though nothing more delicious had ever existed.
She clung to him, crying his name as pleasure crashed over her, again and again.
At last, she lay slack and boneless, shivering through the final aftershocks.
He rose then, his lips glistening, his chest heaving, and caught her face between his hands. His kiss was hard, desperate, his tongue thrusting into her mouth to make her taste her own ruin. When he broke away, his words came hoarse, almost savage.
“How much you disgust me—so much I cannot keep myself from your honey. Because nothing sweeter has ever touched my tongue.”
Her blush spread to the very roots of her hair, her breath catching.
His tone softened, “I left, my sweet, not from disgust. To preserve you. To keep your honor intact. That is the only reason I fled, and why I stayed away.”
She looked at him in silence, but within her the resolve only hardened. She knew she could not meekly resign herself to the life of a governess, never having tasted what the poets promised. She needed to claim at least this—one bright, forbidden draught of rapture—before the years closed over her.
“Do not speak to me of honor,” Jane whispered, her voice fierce. “I am bound to service. I will never marry. What does it matter if I am virginal still—so long as no one knows?” Her eyes shone with unshed tears. “I would rather live one hour of passion than go to my grave never having known it.”
Her words struck him like a blow. He stared down at her—skirts rumpled, thighs parted, the tender flesh between them swollen and glistening with the evidence of her desire. She held his gaze with undeniable courage.
“Please,” she begged. “William. I want this.”
For a heartbeat, he wavered—every instinct screaming to protect her, to preserve her. But the sight of her undone, the taste of her still on his lips, the raw plea—God help him, he could not resist any longer.
With a rough groan, he seized her mouth, kissing her as though he would devour her whole.
His fingers fumbled at his breeches, freeing himself, hard and aching with need.
She felt the weight of him then, hot against her thigh, and a shiver coursed through her.
He was long, thick—impossibly so. More than she had ever imagined, even after the vivid descriptions in that forbidden book.
In her mind, unbidden, came the image of the servant boy in Fanny Hill, the youth whose great size had so daunted and enthralled. And now here she was, about to yield her innocence to the man before her, who seemed similarly endowed.
He saw unease flicker across her face. His jaw tightened. “I can stop,” he said hoarsely. “Tell me now, and I will.”
“No.” She was trembling, but sure. “I need to feel you inside me.”
A snarl broke from him. He bunched her skirts higher, guiding himself to her.
The blunt head pushed against her slick opening, and she gasped at once at the stretch—her body resisting.
Fanny had described the very same ache, the same shock of being opened.
She had blushed over those lines, half in disbelief, and now she lived them.
He eased forward, breaching her. Her nails dug into his shoulders as she struggled to breathe through the pain.
He had barely worked the tip into her, and already the ache was sharp—almost unbearable.
Had he not readied her with his mouth, she thought wildly, he might never have gotten even that far.
He felt it too—her tightness, the way her muscles clenched around him—and forced himself to pause, to let her adjust, to give her time to change her mind. “Jane—”
“Do not stop,” she muttered, steady even as tears pricked her eyes. “Please.”
He obeyed, pressing forward until he met that final barrier.
He hesitated, even now. Then, with a single, careful thrust, he broke through, burying himself as far as he dared.
Her cry tore through the stillness, part agony, part wonder.
He gathered her close, whispering her name, holding himself utterly still as she shivered from the shock of their joining.
For a long moment, neither of them moved. Then she shifted—hesitant, curious—as the discomfort ebbed, replaced by a mounting, blooming heat. She drew a shaking breath and lifted her hips, urging him on.
He moved then—slow at first, rocking in and out, sliding in a little further with each stroke. The sting melted into something else—sharper, more vivid. Not a peak, not yet, but a sweet ache that made her flutter around him in pleasure.
The friction, the impossible fullness, the raw power of him—it was more than she had ever dreamed. She was transported, every nerve alive as he sank deeper, and kept hitting some secret place within her. “William—oh God—” she sobbed, her words breaking with need.
His mouth found hers again, ravaging. His rhythm picked up pace, each stroke hurling her higher, wringing cries torn between pleasure and pain. She clung to him, her world narrowed to the point where their bodies met. The fire he stoked burned hotter and hotter.
And when the climax came—when it shattered her utterly—it was with him sheathed fully within her. Her limbs wound around him, her cries mingling with his groans as wave after wave took them both, binding them in a fevered, feral ecstasy.
He had meant to pull out, to keep at least that last shred of protection for her—but the moment she shuddered beneath him, moaning his name, there was no escape.
His thrusts turned ragged, erratic. At last, he buried himself to the hilt and gave way, the release surging through him as though something of his very soul had been wrenched free.
When it passed, he collapsed against her, their bodies still joined, slick with sweat and spent desire. His voice came rough, uncertain. “Was this… all you thought it would be?”
She turned her face up to him, cheeks flushed, lips swollen from his kisses. He searched her gaze for shame—but there was none. Her eyes shone brighter than he had ever seen.
“Oh, William,” she breathed, and to his astonishment she laughed—lighthearted and joyous.
“It was far better than anything I could have imagined. Good Lord—I see now why they fill our heads with sermons and fright us with the wrath of God. Because this—” she gasped as his spent manhood twitched inside her—“this is ruinously good.”
Her smile dazzled, blasphemous and innocent all at once. He stared at her as if seeing her anew, while his conscience gnawed at him, sharp and merciless. This was folly—madness—damnation itself.
But then her hands lifted to his face, tender, urgent. She drew him down into a kiss that wrecked him, and when her lips broke from his, her whisper scorched hotter still: “Have me again, William. I don’t think I could bear it if it was only once.”
He froze, staring at her. “Jane… are you mad?” His voice cracked with disbelief. “This is dangerous. Reckless. Already I have—”
Every protest died as he saw the blaze in her eyes. Desire, unashamed. Hunger that matched his own. His breath caught, and he knew—God help him—he was lost.
With a growl, he seized her mouth again, his body already stirring within her, readying to take her once more. Her answering cry was eager, unrestrained, as he drove himself into her again, sheathed in her heat, frantic, unstoppable, until nothing remained but the slap of flesh on flesh.