15. Chapter 15
fifteen
D avid awoke with blissful images of all they had done playing across his mind.
He’d lost track of how many times he’d had her in the past hours.
Despite a brief sleep, he still felt drunk on her.
Despite that he’d climaxed so many times he had nothing left, he was rigid with wanting her.
The room was scented with their sex and the delicate perfume of her lust still clung to his skin. Of course, he was hard.
Perhaps he could convince her to have a go once more before they left the bed.
She’d been tender and sore the last time they’d joined, when they’d been lying back to front and he’d pushed her forward a bit to slip inside her.
It had been a slow and easy fucking. He might not have even come but for the sounds she made in the back of her throat and the way she clutched at his hip, holding him against her.
Then she’d stroked his bollocks and he’d come so intensely he couldn’t remember anything past it.
Now fully erect, he groaned and reached for her. “Once more, please, before morning.”
His hand encountered what he thought was her, but when he pulled, his fingers sank into softness that felt different than her softness.
A pillow. How had a pillow come between them?
He tossed it aside and grasped for her, but he encountered only the cold bedsheet.
Opening his eyes for the first time, he sat up to verify that indeed her side of the bed was vacant.
“Jenny?” He spoke her name into the cold room but she wasn’t there.
It couldn’t be morning yet. A glance at the drawn curtains was no help.
They were so thick and massive no light ever dared to peek around them.
The hearth was cold, but he’d given orders they were not to be disturbed until called.
No chambermaid would have risked coming in to light a fire even if it were morning.
Perhaps she’d gone to make use of the facilities or clean herself.
He waited a heartbeat, listening for any sounds coming from their shared bathing chamber when he heard a thump coming from that direction.
It was an echo of an earlier sound and he realized it must have been what originally woke him.
He got out of bed and crossed the room, but then realized he was obscenely hard and that perhaps he should cover himself in case there was something wrong.
He shrugged into his dressing gown at the same time he knocked on the bathing chamber door. “Jenny? Are you all right?”
No answer. After a moment of hesitation, he opened the door to a vacant room. The noise had come from her room.
He crossed to her door and debated knocking but decided to open it instead. She had promised him the entire night. God knows he wouldn’t force himself on her if she didn’t want him again, but she would damn well stay the entire time in his room.
He came up short when he saw her standing at her dressing table fully clothed.
She wore the same traveling costume she’d worn on arrival.
Her hair was pinned up with the little felt hat secured on top.
Her hats should be silk velvet, not cheap felt, he noted, before the pair of footmen laboring with a trunk between them caught his eye .
“What are you doing?” he asked, a bit incredulous at the surprised look on her face.
“What do you mean?” She indicated the door where the footmen were disappearing with the trunk as if it must be obvious.
“You’re leaving?”
“Yes.” She smiled and added a jaunty little nod the same way she might address a particularly slow child.
Ire built inside him. “But it’s not morning. You owe me the entire night.” He didn’t care that the declaration made him sound like a beast. He was sometimes a beast when it came to her—a realization he was coming to accept.
An eyebrow raised. “It is morning.” She glanced at the nearest window.
David followed, perturbed to see the gray light of early morning spilling through the open curtains. He’d been too caught up with her to notice. “I’ve a sneaking suspicion you left before sunrise.”
“You fell asleep.” She shrugged, her lips drawn tight with guilt. “We were finished.”
She wasn’t completely wrong. “Where are you going?” he asked.
“To Paris…” She drew the words out a bit, as if saying we’ve talked about this .
“I meant for us to spend the day together.” He realized how petulant that sounded as soon as the words were out of his mouth.
He’d spent enough time extricating himself from awkward morning afters to understand the look of mild alarm that crossed her face.
It was a situation in which he’d never imagined viewing from the other side.
He’d always been confused and alarmed because he’d clearly set the boundaries the night before.
Now here he was trying to blow through his own boundary with a shoddy stick of dynamite .
He ran a hand down his face, suddenly realizing how tired he was. He couldn’t have slept for more than an hour or two all night, which meant she’d slept even less. “At least let me feed you breakfast. You shouldn’t travel on an empty stomach.”
“I’m fine.” She waved him away and crossed the room to retrieve her reticule from the writing desk. “The housekeeper promised to have toast for me in the carriage. I hardly ever eat in the morning anyway.”
She really was leaving. Apprehension sent him to her. He took her fingers, and she gave their joined hands a bemused look. “You’ve hardly slept, Jenny.”
He lifted a hand to caress the purple shadow under one of her eyes with his thumb. He didn’t miss the way her bewilderment gave way to tenderness for a split second before she was regarding him again with cool disdain. He hated that look. He’d perfected that look.
“I’ll have plenty of time to sleep once I’m in Paris.”
He sighed and swallowed the words that would have forbidden her to leave.
She was his wife. He should certainly have some say in her travel plans.
He should be going with her, at the very least, to see her settled in with her Mrs. Wilson.
To set up an account for her at their bank in Paris. To tell her goodbye properly.
But he couldn’t say or demand any of those things.
For one, she would balk and it would destroy her faith in him and his ability to hold to an agreement.
For two—and this was probably the more important one—he was afraid of how badly he wanted to demand them.
In all his life, he’d never wanted to take responsibility for someone, and certainly not someone he’d been sleeping with.
Things were different with her. He wanted to take care of her.
Protect her. He could use pretty words about chivalry and how she was his wife to describe his reasoning, but he had always been honest with himself and he recognized that this was more than that.
This… feeling , for lack of a better word, was more than he would feel for any wife.
This was a feeling specific to Jenny. He’d had it long before their wedding and long before he’d been inside her.
It was why he’d jumped at the chance to help her when she’d propositioned him in his carriage.
Swallowing thickly because he still wasn’t certain what would come out when he opened his mouth, he dropped his hand and stepped away from her. “Yes. Good. All right, then.”
She smiled, relief lighting her face, and walked to her still-made bed and set her purse down so she could shrug into her jacket.
He watched the way it fit her figure, narrowing in at the waist but not doing anything to cover the swell of her breasts.
His mouth watered as he remembered he’d had them in his mouth only a few hours ago.
The nipples had been puckered and red from his attentions and yet she’d begged him to suck on them.
Her skirt was pulled tight and low across her hips as was the current style, and if he looked close enough, he could pretend to make out the apex of her thighs and now he knew the heaven that waited there.
He knew her taste and how tight she held him and how her cunt fluttered with her orgasm.
One night had not been enough. A hundred nights wouldn’t be enough.
He wanted to know the taste of her mouth and despaired that he’d ever agreed to not kissing her.
He’d been too stupid to understand what he was giving up.
He wanted to know how it felt when his cock slid between those puffy lips.
He wanted to paint her lips red and watch the stain coat him as she took him in and she sucked and sucked until he came down her throat.
He could have asked her to do it last night and she would have. She was so delightfully agreeable and eager in bed. But he hadn’t wanted to. He wanted her to offer, to want to take him into her mouth so badly that she did it without prompting.
“David?” Her voice penetrated the fog of his imagination .
“Yes?”
“Are you all right?”
He let himself consider making another decision.
He could pick her up and take her to his room.
He could keep her there, delightfully entertained, for as long as he wanted.
She was his by law and by right. Locking her in wouldn’t be a problem.
He wasn’t fool enough to think she wouldn’t resist, but he was confident enough in his abilities and her nature to know that he could overcome that.
She’d revel in everything he did to her.
Alfred would be a problem. He’d not allow it once he understood the depths of David’s depravity, which meant they couldn’t stay here forever.
No, they’d have to go. David could take her out of the country.
They could live somewhere else. He’d give her a performance hall and she could sing to her heart’s desire. He could fill her with children.
Children.
Why did the idea of children with her seem…agreeable? Lovely even?
“David…” She closed the space between them and touched his shoulder before cupping his face. Tilting her head, she studied him as if he were a pup. The poor girl was completely oblivious to the wickedness running riot inside him. “Thank you for last night.”
And that was the true reason he couldn’t do any of the things the darkness clearly hiding inside him urged him to do. He wasn’t a monster. He wanted her to look at him with approval and acceptance. He wanted her to run away with him.
She lifted up on her toes and kissed his cheek.
He had to physically stop himself from turning his head to catch her mouth by clenching his fists until they nearly shook.
“Take care in your travels,” he said in what sounded like a very reasonable tone. He was proud of that .
She smiled and nodded. “I will.” Then she embraced him. Her cheek pressed to his chest and she gave him a gentle squeeze that stole his breath.
He was petrified to stillness. By the time he got his arms to work to wrap around her, she was already at her door, smiling at him over her shoulder.
“When will I see you again?” he asked and despised himself the entire time.
She didn’t seem to mind. “I hope you’ll come to opening night. I’ll send you the information.”
His heart thundering, he nodded. “Yes, of course. I wouldn’t miss it.”
Her smile broadened and a lump rose in his throat. “Goodbye, David.”
And then she was gone. He stayed in place, staring at her silent room and listening to the sounds of horses and carriage wheels outside.
Orange blossoms teased his nostrils and he brought his fingers to his nose to breathe her in even more.
He closed his eyes to inhale and when he opened them again, the room was blurred.
An annoying prickle gamboled behind his eyes.
“My lord…” A maid loitered in the doorway, holding a bucket and cloth. She was here to clean the room. “Shall I have a breakfast tray brought up?”
This would not do. Not at all. He would not be some miserable fool who missed his wife.
“Yes, to my sitting room.” He blinked furiously.
Then, because he couldn’t stand the thought of Jenny alone, he added, “Hurry and tell Robertson to follow her ladyship to Paris. Tell him to be discreet about it.” He turned to head back through the bathing chamber, but called over his shoulder, “Leave her room alone. It’s not to be cleaned. ”
He couldn’t bear the thought of her scent being eradicated. Not yet. After a day or two, he’d return to London and pull these pesky feelings out by the root. He’d replace her scent with another’s and all would be right in his world again.
But not yet, because he wasn’t ready to let her go.