Chapter Thirteen #2
“I suppose your mother is doing an excellent job of just that in London,” Reginald said brightly. “If that is where we are to have the wedding instead of here. If there is anything in particular that you want, be sure to let her know.”
The words had formed and slipped from her tongue before she could stop them. “I want you.”
The words hung in the air, the atmosphere already warm and wet due to the late summer rain, but it was different now. Heady, and intoxicating, and strange—Jessica had never felt such a frisson before.
The way he looked at her…as though he had already removed the vast majority of her clothing with his eyes and would have no compunction in doing the same with his fingertips.
Jessica swallowed. Do not look at his hands. Do not think about him slowly peeling off your clothes. Do not imagine—
“Have you come here to be taught a lesson, Jessica?” Reginald asked in a low voice.
She had intended to walk forward and give him the billiards cue, but something in his tone made her feet stumble and her breath catch.
He hadn’t said—surely, he could not have meant—
“A billiards lesson,” Reginald added, as though it were perfectly obviously what he had been saying all along. “I seem to remember that you have not played.”
Her mouth was dry when Jessica swallowed. Yes, yes, obviously, that was what he meant. Of course he could not have meant anything else.
“If you are willing to teach me,” she said aloud, relieved that her voice betrayed none of the quaver of her desire.
Reginald nodded, removing his jacket calmly as though he frequently stripped off his clothes before women to whom he was engaged. Which was ridiculous. The man had never been engaged before.
At least, she did not think he had. Was that the sort of question a lady could ask?
“Right, you have a cue,” he said, nodding at the large stick in her hand. “Time to work on your stance.”
Jessica was utterly helpless as he strode confidently toward her, unsure precisely what he was going to do and utterly certain that she would allow him to do it.
This man, he…he had a sort of power over her, a sway that she could not articulate, nor could it be defined.
He was…attractive, and not just in his looks. In so much more.
“So you’re going to want to lean over the table, like this,” said Reginald quietly, demonstrating the move with his cue in his hands, the table end resting on his fingers. “Do you see?”
Jessica swallowed.
Yes, she did see, and far more than perhaps the gentleman had intended. It was truly impressive, the way his trousers tightened around the man’s buttocks at this angle. Every inch, every sinew of his thighs appeared to bulge through the material, highlighting his strength, his—
“Jessica?”
“Trousers,” she blurted out, cheeks burning the instant she realized her own indiscretion. “I mean…table. The table. It is acceptable to…to touch the table? To balance the cue,” she added wretchedly.
Dear Lord, he will think me some sort of heathen!
That was, Reginald already knew her to be, did he not? Their frantic kissing in the portrait gallery was surely sufficient evidence of her wayward ways, was it not?
The grin on his face was all too knowing. “Yes, it is permitted. Come, stand beside me and copy me.”
It is just a billiards table, Jessica attempted to convince herself as she stepped over to his left and leaned over the table as she aped it. It was not as though she were leaning over…a bed, say…
“Not—not quite. Lift your shoulder.”
Jessica attempted to lift her shoulder. This angle was most disagreeable; it did not appear to be natural at all.
“Your other shoulder.”
Her other—how on earth was she supposed to do that and not tip over? “Like… Like this?” she attempted.
When Jessica glanced up, it was to see Reginald’s smile. “Almost, but not quite. Here.”
Precisely what was going to be ‘here,’ he did not elucidate. Instead, he moved.
Jessica gasped. He had moved behind her, placing his back against hers, his bent knees against hers, his arms moving alongside her own, until—
Until he was flush against her.
It was all Jessica could do not to whimper with the intensity of his presence.
Reginald’s heat flowed through his clothes and hers as though they were wearing nothing.
She was breathing him in, that mingled scent of cedarwood and something entirely Reginald utterly overwhelming her.
Was that her pulse at her wrist, or Reginald’s as he carefully, slowly, slid his fingers along hers?
Dear God. She could never have conceived of something so intimate while two people had their clothes on.
And if he didn’t move soon…
“Feel the line of the cue,” Reginald whispered, his breath blossoming over her ear and neck. “Feel the angle of it.”
Jessica swallowed. There was only one angle she could feel, and it was where his hips were interlocked with his own. How could he possibly talk in this position?
“And now, movement,” he murmured, pulling back her right hand on the cue in a slow, steady flow.
It was a very slight movement indeed and to an observer—not that Jessica wanted an observer right at this moment. It was probably a shift of only a few inches.
It was so much more to Jessica. Oh, to feel the friction of the two of them, to feel the power and command that Reginald had over the billiards cue in her own grip…it was too much, and yet she craved more.
Oh, she craved more.
“And then, when you are ready, when you are certain where you want the ball to go,” Reginald continued, his voice low and seductive against her ear, “you…release.”
Jessica gasped as with a sudden violent flick, both Reginald’s right arm and her own rushed forward in a controlled jab.
“It is like…poetry in motion,” she whispered, the words slipping out before she had the opportunity to check them for an iota of sense.
“It is?” Reginald had not moved from her, his body true against hers and still heating her from one moment to the other.
Jessica tried to nod, but that only seemed to make things worse. Her cheek brushed against his own, sparks tingling out across her skin, and it was heady stuff, her mind giddy, all rational thoughts about propriety disappearing under the buzz of desire.
Because it was desire. Try as she might, she could not pretend to herself that it was anything else.
“Do you understand?”
Jessica did; she was starting to understand herself better and better with every passing moment. The trouble was, she was not sure whether she was brave enough to do what she wanted. These desires, these needs, they were still so new to her.
So new, and yet so natural.
“Jessica?”
Perhaps it was her own imagination, but it sounded to Jessica’s ear that Reginald’s voice was a little…breathless.
Twisting slowly so that Jessica’s buttocks rested against the billiards table, she found to her delight that Reginald had not moved—putting her right in his arms.
“Reginald,” she said quietly, looking up into his brilliant eyes. “I think I do understand. Do you?”
She knew she had been far too forward—painfully forward. Wantonly so. Why, no Chance would surely ever be so brazen.
The billiards cue fell to the carpet, but she paid it no heed.
Reginald lowered his lips to hers in a kiss so reverential, so worshipful, that Jessica could do nothing but throw her arms around his neck and pull him closer.
She did not want his reverence—at least, she did, obviously, but she wanted so much more.
His heat. His need. His desire.
She wanted to feel as though she were the most important woman in the world.
Her wordless question appeared to have been answered as Reginald deepened the kiss, teasing his tongue along the slit of her mouth and welcoming himself in to delve deep in the soft center of her mouth.
Jessica moaned with pleasure as his tongue sparked sensual bliss throughout her body, one of his hands on her waist and the other attempting to cup her buttocks, pressed hard against the edge of the billiards table.
Yes—this was what she wanted.
Jessica tilted her head, welcoming him in even further, and gasped in his mouth as Reginald suddenly lifted her buttocks and placed her actually on the billiards table.
Her eyes snapped open, though she had not noticed herself closing them. She saw his wicked smile and knew that she had succeeded.
This was what she had wanted: raw desire. And that was what she was getting.
“Oh, Jessica,” Reginald said in a ragged voice before he pressed into her again.
Somehow—even amongst the many layers of her skirts—Jessica had encircled Reginald with her legs, her ankles crossed against his buttocks, and the hard press of him as she clung to him was intoxicating.
There was a strength and a potency within him that she had never felt before, his hands pulling pins from her hair, his mouth trailing kisses down her neck, and all Jessica could do was attempt to breathe because her lungs were catching with every passing second as heat flowed to between her thighs and—
A thump.
Reginald froze, his face nuzzling into her décolletage, one hand almost at her breast and the other still entangled in her hair.
Her chest heaving with every inhale that she managed to pull into her lungs, Jessica stayed otherwise completely still as the sound of footsteps grew closer and closer.
“I don’t suppose they’re outside. It’s still pouring with rain,” came Maude’s voice down the corridor. “Maybe they’re in the billiards—”
“No! No, they’re not.” Zander’s voice joined in, much to Jessica’s relief as she sagged against the strong plane of Reginald’s chest. “No, I think I saw them in the library. Shall we go and investigate?”
The library. On the other side of the house to the billiards room.
The footsteps passed by the door to the corridor but swiftly receded again. Another thump, the sound of a door closing. Then there was silence.
Jessica swallowed.
She was sitting on the edge of the billiards table with her hair half down, pins cascaded over the green baize, her ankles around Reginald’s hips, and his lips on the tops of her breasts.
It was not a sight she wished for anyone to see, though she would very much like to stay here.
Reginald lifted his head, and there was a rueful smile playing on his lips. “That was close.”
“Too close,” Jessica said quietly. “I… I suppose we should stop.”
“Yes,” he said softly. “We should.”
Neither of them moved an inch, then both exhaled and chuckled.
“I… I never thought it could be like this.” Precisely why Jessica had thought it acceptable to speak out her very thoughts in that moment, she did not know.
She did know that Reginald’s eyes widened, just for a moment.
“‘Like this’?” he whispered.
“Like this,” Jessica whispered. “This… This perfect.”
Reginald lowered his head and she lifted up her lips, desperate for another taste of this man she still did not quite understand.