Chapter 24 #2
“My father believed his spare should be as valuable and hold as much purpose as his heir. As such, he decided early on that I should have a life at sea.” His lips formed a wry grin.
“Undoubtedly, he envisioned a respectful and respectable career as a naval officer, which is why he allowed his close friend, the Earl of St. Vincent, to take me aboard one of his sailings. The admiral was a strict fellow. He was a good, generous man to those who worked hard, and a ruthless punisher to those whose action and character merited it.”
She’d known him her entire life and marveled at how much she didn’t know about her husband, and how eager she was to learn each and every last detail about him.
“He took me under his wing and taught me everything he knew and everything I know now. This was my first attempt at a sailor’s knot,” he said.
The fact he kept the old scrap close, the sentimentality behind his doing so, revealed a tender side to Jeremy. Not a new tender side. The same tender side she’d witnessed of him through the years.
“It is yours,” he murmured.
Linnie looked up so quick the top of her head collided with his chin.
Jeremy groaned and rubbed at the place where she’d been accidentally hit. “I think I concussed you, love.”
Ignoring her smarting head, she met his worried gaze. “You are giving this to me?”
“It is just a marker to keep you from ruining my pages and all,” he said, giving her nose a light tap.
“No, it is not.” Long strands that’d fallen when their heads met hung over his brow, and Linnie tenderly brushed them back.
“No, it is not,” he confessed. “I have given you a gift with which to mark your place when reading, which means I shall need something in exchange.”
The hooded, seductive look he gave had the intended effect. Heat fanned in her belly.
“Will you?” Gathering his lapels, Linnie leaned close and touched her nose to his. “But here I am with my hands empty and nothing to give you in return.”
“Not at all,” he said thickly.
Stretching an arm out to his center desk drawer, Jeremy pulled the panel open and blindly felt around.
There came a slight metallic scrape.
Linnie puzzled her brow.
A moment later, he brandished a pair of scissors.
Breathless, realizing what he intended, Linnie sat up straighter to allow him greater access and stayed absolutely still.
No words were spoken while Jeremy clipped a single curl hanging at her shoulder. “There,” he murmured.
He bestowed a kiss upon the large tress, placed her hair reverently inside his journal, and closed it—the pages with all his newly inked coordinates.
And promptly the enchanted moment was shattered by reality.
“You are leaving,” she said softly. Hers wasn’t a question.
With his lips, Jeremy found the place on her neck where Linnie’s heart thudded at a sickly beat. “Not today.”
Not even the magnetic allure of his seduction could distract.
He worked a hand under her skirts and caressed her bare thigh.
Linnie’s breath caught.
Very well. Her husband could never not drive away all thought and reason with his skilled touch.
It took a colossal effort to draw his fingers away from her naked thigh. “Is that what you’ve been preparing all day and night? Your next sailing?”
His muscles went taut against her. “Are we really doing this?”
Linnie nodded.
Jeremy palmed one of her breasts. “And I cannot persuade you to make love with me?”
Make love. He’d begun saying that more. The crude words to describe the beautiful act—“fuck.” “Tup.” “Bed.” He’d since ceased using them. As such, she wavered, but only for a moment.
Linnie shook her head.
Sighing, Jeremy dropped his head along the back of his chair. “I’ve been overseeing the details around my ship which is being constructed.”
Her stomach muscles contracted. “When will it be complete?”
He hesitated. “Within days.”
It was a good thing she was seated on his lap, for the earth fell away. “Days?” she repeated dumbly. “But you said . . . I thought . . .” Her mind spiraled. “Lord Culross and Arran seized your laborers and supplies and—”
A tightness entered his expression.
Linnie inwardly cursed. In her panic, she’d mentioned the earl. It was the first either of them had uttered his name since Jeremy and Lord Culross’s blowup at her uncle and aunt’s townhouse.
Not caring about Lord Culross, caring only about the fact Jeremy would be leaving her, she gripped him lightly by his jacket and tugged the lapels. “And . . . you will be going when it is finished?”
It was another silly question, given the fact his life was the sea and his career was shipping, and the sole reason he’d been home so long in England was because his last ship had been destroyed.
Jeremy glided his hand up and down her cheek. “It will not be forever, love,” he vowed, his baritone rough.
Her lashes fluttered, and Linnie leaned into his touch—and the promise he made.
“Take me with you.” The tears in her throat refused to let her swallow, and her words emerged as a broken, shaky plea.
“It is not safe, Linnie.”
“Which means this sailing is a dangerous one.” She gripped his lapels more firmly and gave him a slight shake. “Then I don’t want you to go.”
“Linnie.” He said her name the patronizing way he might a small child’s.
She frowned. “Cassia accompanies Lord Winfield.”
“Lord Winfield puts her life in peril, and that is something I’m unwilling to do.” His brusque tone said the matter was concluded.
At least for him.
“Lord Winfield allows his wife a voice and a choice,” she said calmly. “And that is something I want.” Lord Winfield also loved his wife and wanted her by his side always.
Given how easily Jeremy could plan his travels, without a thought of leaving Linnie behind, said just the opposite of his feelings for her.
“It is so very important to you to have a choice,” he said, his voice hollow.
Confused by the bleak quality of his statement, Linnie frowned. “Isn’t that the case for all people?” she countered. “Just because women are so often denied one doesn’t mean we don’t yearn for it just the same as any man.”
Linnie edged back a fraction so she could better see him.
“Take me for one, Jeremy. I’ve never been allowed to freely explore that which my male kin appreciate.
The rooftop solarium is off limits. They forbade me to travel.
” The lifelong frustration in being denied a say over her own life burnt as fresh as it had since she was a girl.
“Why, my family—my entire family—collectively decided upon the gentleman whom I should marry and had their own reasons for doing so. You, Jeremy, were my choice. I chose you.”
Jeremy eyed a point somewhere over the top of her head. He appeared to weigh his words. “What else would you choose in life, Linnie? Me excluded.”
“I’d choose to explore the world and sail the seas with you.” She lifted hopeful eyes to him. “If you’ll allow me.”
Jeremy fell mutinously silent.
Linnie bit her lower lip hard.
A hollow ache settled in her breast, and she buried her face in his shoulder to keep him from seeing her cry.
“Come, love,” he coaxed, guiding her chin up and denying her even the slightest bit of pride.
She thought she heard him groan and tried to look away.
“No.” He framed her face between his hands and waited until she lifted her tear-filled eyes. “I will come back,” he vowed.
“I know,” she whispered. “It is just . . .” Her voice caught.
Jeremy stroked his thumbs over the damp trails upon her cheeks. “It is just . . . ?”
“You get to make a choice, Jeremy.”
And? hung in the air.
“I am not what you’ve chosen. You chose the s-sea.” Linnie wept.
“Shh.” Folding her in his arms, Jeremy rested his cheek atop her head while she cried.
“Do you have a woman in every p-port? A g-grand T-Taylor’s daughter.”
“There’s never been a constant woman in my life, Linnie. Not until you.”
Not until her.
But soon he’d be gone. “You’ll have l-lovers.
” And Linnie wanted to scream and writhe and strike her head repeatedly to escape the idea of him kissing another woman the way he kissed her.
Or Jeremy sliding his long length deep inside, stroking some other woman’s body so masterfully until she screamed in surrender.
I will not survive this . . .
“Was yours a question, Linnie?”
Ordinarily, she adored his good humor. This time, she hated his playful tone.
Miserable, Linnie shook her head.
“Linnie, look at me,” he demanded with the obstinance of kings.
And she, his adoring subject, could have refused him nothing.
“I took a vow to be faithful to you,” he said.
“Yes, but that’s what all gentlemen do, and I needn’t remind you that they invariably all take lovers.”
Jeremy quirked a brow. “All?”
“Fine. Not Cassia’s husband.”
He waited.
“Or Myrtle’s,” she added grudgingly.
Jeremy’s look grew more pointed.
“Or Dallin or my father or—” She released an exasperated sigh. “I understand your point.”
“So you happen to trust all those men are capable of fidelity, but your husband is not?”
She’d offended him.
“That isn’t what I’m saying,” she grumbled.
Jeremy adjusted her body, bringing her around so that her legs draped on either side of his waist, and she had no choice except to face him. He stared at her expectantly.
“I’ll give you a hint,” he whispered. “This is where you explain what, exactly, it is you’re saying.”
“They aren’t you, Jeremy.”
When she made no point to clarify, he pressed her. “And?”
“And they aren’t dashing and charming and seductive and desirable, and women don’t throw themselves at them—”
Her husband wore a grin to rival the grinning Cheshire cat engraved in St. Wilfrid’s Church.
Linnie slapped him none too gently on the arm. “If your head swells any more, husband, you will not be able to leave the townhouse for your next sea voyage.”
A fresh onslaught of tears blinded her. As those drops slid down her cheeks, he kissed them away.
“Do you want the truth, Linnie?” he asked so gently more tears fell.
Linnie caught her lip between her teeth. “Is it a bad truth? Or a good truth?”
His expression darkened. “Would you ever want me to withhold bad truths from you?”
Linnie wrinkled her nose. “Never. I’m just hoping this one in particular is a good—”
“You are the only woman I want in my arms and in my bed and in my life.”
Linnie’s lips parted. “Oh,” she whispered.
“There will only ever be you.” His piercing eyes locked with hers.
Jeremy curled his fingers in her taffeta skirts and began edging the noisy fabric all the way up her legs until he’d bared her lower body.
Her center throbbed, and in a bid to alleviate the ache there, she rubbed herself against the hard line of his erection.
Cupping her nape, Jeremy angled her head and nuzzled her neck.
“Do you want to ride me, love?” he tempted.
Linnie opened her mouth to respond, just as he slipped a finger inside her channel.
“Mmm,” she moaned and rocked against his finger, desperate for more of him. “I d-do love riding you.”
“Because my bewitching, beautiful wife loves to be in control.” He teased the oversensitized nub between her legs.
Linnie gasped and pressed herself against his palm.
“You are in control, Linnie.” His breath had become as ragged as her own. “Take me from my trousers,” he ordered roughly. “Put my cock where you want it.”
Her fingers quivered with an eagerness that made her movements sloppy.
All the while she unfastened the buttons at his front falls, he watched her with hooded eyes.
Quivering with desire, Linnie wrapped her fingers around his length and gave a firm squeeze.
A hiss exploded from between Jeremy’s teeth. “I love the feel of your hand on me, love,” he panted.
She bit her lower lip hard. Love. How often he used that word. Never was it uttered in the way she longed to hear it most. Battering back that dolefulness, wanting no self-pity or regrets, she freed him from his trousers.
Breathing heavily, Jeremy adjusted Linnie’s legs and guided her down onto his straining member. The warmth between her legs slicked the way for his long, thick shaft.
Linnie’s eyes closed, and a sigh slipped out as he slid all the way inside, joining his body with hers, touching her so deep she couldn’t tell where he ended and she began.
They remained that way, lost in one another’s eyes. No words were uttered between them. None were needed. They never were.
Twining her hands about his nape to anchor herself, Linnie began to move on him. She sank onto his enormous length again and again. Slowly at first.
He kept still while she set her rhythm.
The white lines at the corners of his mouth and eyes spoke to the level of restraint he exercised.
Instead of driving up to meet her downward thrusts, Jeremy ran his hands over her waist and hips, encouraging her.
Periodically, he’d place a kiss at her neck and then draw back enough to watch as she rode him.
Sweat beaded at Linnie’s brow. With every drive of her hips into his, her breath grew shallower. More rapid.
Jeremy made little sounds of encouragement.
Linnie bit her lip. The ache between her legs was unbearable. Rising up on her knees, she rose and fell over him faster and harder, with a greater intensity. “J-Jeremy,” she cried softly.
He heard the plea she didn’t have the words to speak, sank his fingertips into her buttocks, and guided her toward the pinnacle she craved.
They heaved against one another. Their sweat mingled. Their uneven breaths moved in a discordant harmony.
Then Linnie screamed and great shuddering spasms racked her body as she plunged over the crest, exploding into a vibrant kaleidoscope of blinding lights and colors.
Jeremy arched his hips up and joined in Linnie’s surrender. On a low, drawn-out groan, he poured himself inside Linnie, coming in long spurts, filling her with his seed.
Overwhelmed by the power of their surrender, Linnie buried her head in his shoulder and bit him through his lawn shirt.
Panting and out of breath, Linnie collapsed, folded her arms around Jeremy, and held him.
He wasn’t gone yet.
They still had more time . . . which meant she had time to convince him to either stay or let her follow where he would go.