Chapter 29 #2
Jack was frozen, stunned, speechless for once, as she continued, heart racing, another echoing throb coming from much lower down.
She wouldn’t have had the courage with anyone else.
But it was Jack, only Jack… He’d known her forever, and now he would see this part of her too.
Clothes didn’t seem so very important when you already knew someone’s soul.
When you’d given them yours. In fact, clothes seemed very irritating and in the way when everything inside you was crying out to get closer, closer still, infinitely, irresistibly close…
He watched her chest as the loosened dress began to fall away from her body, and she knew a moment of smugness. This was a power she held over him. Here, now, she would lead, and he would follow, helpless, wanting…
She pushed the cap sleeves from her shoulders and set to work on her stays.
Jack said her name, but she ignored him, pulling the loosened stays away and tossing them to the floor.
She must continue while her courage held.
With a firm movement, she pushed down her chemise.
Bared her breasts fully. Her dress puddled around her waist. As she lifted her hips to remove it, she said, “You know, Jack, you did promise me last night that you would get undressed, if I wanted you to.”
“For art,” he whispered, eyes still on her chest, as though she really had cast a spell on him.
Slowly, dazedly, he stood and pulled off his cravat.
Coat, waistcoat, and jacket followed as Lucy wriggled her way free of the rest of her clothes.
She sat entirely naked upon the bed, watching Jack undress.
His eyes never left her body, and she laughed when he tripped in his haste to remove his trousers.
“Devil take it.” He threw the garment aside.
But now he was as naked as she, and her eyes ran down his body.
He was every bit as muscled as he’d promised last night.
And now she suddenly felt shy. He was so…
male. His body built for power and movement while she was small and soft and suddenly felt every bit of her inexperience.
Down there…he was hard and big, and nothing like the man whose acorn stub she’d hastily sketched at Thornton’s.
“Feeling inspired?” Jack said with a grin. Her eyes flew back up to his with a guilty start.
He came back to the bed, his smile reassuring. He kissed her, coaxing her to lie down with him once more. “We don’t have to,” he said between soft kisses, his mouth on her cheek, her throat, skimming over her frantic pulse. “We can kiss, or touch. It’s more than enough for me.”
“Don’t you want to?”
Jack husked a laugh, pressing a kiss to her shoulder before looking up, both heat and amusement in his eyes. “More than you could believe. But only if you do.”
“I do.”
He bowed his head, half a nod, confirmation, and his mouth skated down her chest as his hand came up to cup her bare breast. She gasped at the same time he groaned.
Then she groaned too because his mouth closed over her nipple, his tongue swirling over her hardened bud, and oh—she hadn’t known anything could feel like that.
She gasped as he kissed her there again and again, his tongue making her writhe. Then he started all over again on her other breast. But her spiralling thoughts leapt back down to earth as his hand moved down to her thigh then in between her legs.
Yes, she wanted him there, everything urged it, but she was tense too. She twitched at the first touch. It was so….so unbelievably sensitive. Gently, his fingers stroked the centre of her, and he gave a muffled curse.
“You’re so…”
“What? What is it?”
“No, it’s good, it’s right…oh God, Lucy, you feel like heaven.”
He made a low, hungry, needy noise as his fingers swirled and slid against her, then one pressed against her entrance, and pushed slowly inside. Lucy gave a grunt.
“It doesn’t hurt?” he breathed.
“No…”
He moved the finger, slowly at first, backwards and forwards, entering her more deeply each time.
The sensation made her see stars. His thumb pressed the sensitive area above, and she shuddered at a new surge of pleasure.
Whimpering, saying his name, she gripped his shoulder, her other hand on the back of his neck, and he paused, looking down at her.
“You’re sure?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“You know what happens?”
“The…the basics.”
“Tell me to stop, whenever you want.”
She gave a tiny nod, though her heart was racing so furiously she barely knew what she did. “I trust you, Jack.” It was a whisper. “You won’t hurt me.”
Something crossed his face as he looked down at her. His grey eyes were so close, so direct and raw and open on hers. “Not on purpose, my love.” There was pain mingled into the confession he made. An admittance of guilt. “Never on purpose.”
She smiled—even with him holding all the overwhelming weight and heat and hunger of himself over her, still she could smile and not be afraid. “But you’re a clumsy oaf, I know.”
A little wickedness crept into his expression. “Not at this. I assure you.”
He kissed her—very, very softly—then he gently moved her thighs apart as he settled between them, holding his weight on one elbow—his hand sliding under her nape to cradle her head. His other took her hand and brought it to the hot thickness of him.
“Here.” He gently wrapped her fingers around him, closing his on top. “You should…you should know what it is before…”
It was startling how hard it was, how velvet soft the hot skin, how alive and how…
how insistent…as it throbbed and twitched in her grip.
He coaxed her tentative hand up and down, and his eyes squeezed shut.
He almost looked in pain, and it gave her courage to know all this sensation was having such an effect on him too.
His breathing wasn’t steady. He wasn’t quite in control; instead he was right here in this moment with her, gentle even in his lust, her friend even as he claimed her body, and loving…
He brought her hand away and kissed her palm, his eyes on hers.
She saw it there, his love for her, true and real and entirely unguarded—why would he ever need to guard anything from her?
She saw that too, his trust and his faith in her, in them, in what they were together.
“May I take you, Lucy?”
A nod. A breath. “Yes.”
He reached down between them, and she felt the pleasure of his fingers, stroking, making sure she was open, ready… Then there was a thick, blunt heat at her core.
“My wife.” It was a whisper and a kiss. “Lucy. My wife.”
The pressure of him was a teasing, tormenting thing.
And then the pressure built, licks of sensation shooting through her as he slowly entered her.
He let out a rough breath, lips pressed to her temple as he pushed his way in, stretching her, sending tight, sharp bands deep through her, pleasurable and strange and burning and yes…
“Oh God,” she breathed.
“You’re alright?”
“Yes…”
He stayed still, a strange, hot, pulsing presence. “Min…? Lucy…?”
“I’m alright, I’m alright.”
“You feel so good, my love, so, so good…” It seemed an effort for him to speak. “But is it good…are you…?”
She nodded, but his eyes had sunk shut because she’d shifted her hips at the same time, in some instinctive, curious, hungry motion. Jack hissed, and then he pressed forwards again, one quick movement, and filled her so fully she saw stars.
“I love you,” he murmured. “God, I love you. I love this with you. You’re perfect, perfect…”
His words broke off in a groan. He was incoherent, and she couldn’t speak at all.
He began to move, rocking into her, slow but deep, then deeper still, his hand between them again, circling that indescribable spot until the pleasure surged beyond containing, and she was shuddering, gasping.
Jack said her name, and then the pleasure took him too.