Chapter Nine
On a warm, bright, sunny May noontime two weeks later, Rafe helped Juliana unpack the blanket and saddlebags at her favourite spot by the river after their morning review of the sheep farms. Lambing season was almost done; with the weather warming, the ewes with single lambs had already been allowed to return to their traditional grazing grounds high on the fells.
The occasion demanded, his formerly industrious wife declared, that they take advantage of the moment and the beauty of the day and indulge themselves with some time off for a picnic.
Just the two of them, she’d said, her wide brown eyes gazing at him.
Though the timbre of her voice when she’d suggested the outing this morning had not contained any undertone of sensuality, as he settled their supplies near the stream, Rafe couldn’t help feeling a rise of anticipation.
They were alone; the day was warm and fair, and who knew what his ingenious wife might be planning?
‘We probably should have brought a pole and some lures,’ she was saying as she spread out the blanket.
‘You said you find fishing relaxing, and the trout should be running. I remember we caught some fine fish in years past from the bank over there, where the salmon ladders are, though it’s not the right time of year for them. Still, trout makes a good meal.’
‘We can bring some next time. There will be pike and perch as well as the summer advances, though more in the larger lake than here.’
‘That spot by the tree was one of your favourite swimming places, too, as I recall.’
He looked up from placing the basket in surprise. ‘How would you know?’
She grinned. ‘I might have seen you and Ian there once or twice. Did you never sense someone watching you?’
The idea that her eyes had followed him as he frolicked, nude, with his brother, made his pulses accelerate. ‘Wicked girl! Your governess would have shut you up on bread and water if she ever knew.’
Juliana only chuckled, mischief in her eyes. ‘True. And Mama would have had apoplexy. Despite the evidence in the farm animals all around, she would have had me believe that men possessed nothing beneath their breeches.’
‘Were you impressed to learn what was beneath my breeches?’
She gave him a look that made his breath catch. ‘A wondrous introduction to what would come later. But come, let’s have our luncheon.’
She took a seat, patting the blanket beside her.
He sat beside her, their shoulders touching, his body stirring in the way she always seemed to affect him. He marveled once again that he’d ever thought her shy and retiring, this creature of unconscious sensuality who lit his desire like a flame set to dry tinder.
She kept him on that sensual edge throughout their rustic meal, feeding him bits of cheese and ham, slowly licking her lips or sucking the strawberry bits from her fingers and his, her eyes on his face.
She knew what she was doing to him, he was certain, for once they’d finished the last of the bread and cheese, she murmured, ‘Let me clean up the crumbs’—and leaned up to slowly lick his lips, from one corner of his mouth to the other, nuzzling and nipping at them.
He groaned, opening to her, and her tongue swept inside, exploring his mouth, laving his tongue with her own. With a growl, he pushed her back against the blankets, kissing her harder, deeper.
He burned to bury his face against her naked breasts and draw the taut pink nipples into his mouth, but she was armored in a breastplate of linen and wool, several thick layers of chemise, shirt and riding jacket.
But then, still kissing him deeply, she pulled up the skirt of her habit and guided his hand past boot and knee to the softness of her upper thighs.
Sliding sideways, she widened her legs and brought his hand to her hot, wet center.
His cock leapt and she gasped as he pushed one finger, two, into her tight passage, caressing in and out to the rhythm of their panting breaths, until she gripped his arms and writhed, gasping and pulsing around him.
She sagged back against the blankets, dazed for a minute while he covered her face with small, nibbling kisses. Then, reviving, she deftly plucked open the buttons of his straining trouser flap, yanked up her skirts and urged him over and into her.
Eyes closed, panting, she moved with him as he thrust deep, he holding off until the last possible moment before overwhelming passion exploded into completion.
Sated, spent, he rolled her to the side and bound her close as they both dozed into the soft twilight aftermath of passion fulfilled.
Sometime later, she woke him with a nibbling kiss to his chin. Sitting up, she lifted the heavy braid from her neck. ‘My, how warm the day has become!’
He chuckled. ‘I expect our…activities made some contribution to the warmth.’
‘Perhaps. But I know just the remedy. It’s time for a swim.’
Rafe laughed. ‘It’s not yet June! You’ll freeze!’
‘Nonsense. It will be…invigorating.’
‘I don’t think so.’ Shaking his head, not sure whether she really meant to go through with it, he watched as she unbuttoned her jacket, pulled off the garment and tossed it onto the blanket, then unfastened her skirt and stepped out of it.
‘Help me with the blouse and stays, please?’ she said, turning to offer him her back. ‘I can’t reach all the fastening.’
Despite his recent satisfaction, his body stirred at the idea of seeing her standing naked before him, revealing the breasts he’d not been able to caress, the nipples he still burned to taste.
With his avid assistance, she soon stood before him, chemise, shift, stays, habit, shoes and stockings discarded on the blanket beneath them.
‘Ah, the warm sun is glorious!’ she murmured, arching her head back into a sunbeam.
Sunlight painted her lithe body with gold, gleaming on the silken hair of her head, at her thighs, outlining her body in a halo of light, brightening the rose of her nipples to pink.
‘Afraid to join me?’ she teased.
‘That sounds like a challenge,’ he said on a sigh, aroused but wary.
‘Surely you will rise to the occasion,’ she said, dipping her gaze to his trouser front, where his member was obligingly stirring. But she stayed his hand when he attempted to loosen his neck cloth. ‘Let me. But you must stand perfectly still.’
He tried very hard to obey that command, though it gradually grew almost impossibly difficult. Insisting he remain immobile, not touching her, she disrobed him slowly, slowly, one garment at a time, kissing and nibbling each bit of skin she revealed.
His chin and the back of his neck after she pulled off his cravat.
His shoulder blades, and the outline of his ribs once she shucked off his jacket and pulled the shirt over his head.
She raked her teeth gently over his nipples as she pushed down his unbuttoned trousers, then sat him back on the blanket to pull off his boots, stockings and breeches.
While he tried to sit still, his heartbeat throbbing and his breath coming in gasps, she caressed and nibbled from his toes to his knees, slowly up his thighs, until he was fully erect again, aching for release. Until at last she took him in her hands, kissing and suckling.
After lasting about as long as a callow youth with his first sweetheart, he collapsed, gasping. She reclined on her elbow beside him, stroking the damp hair off his brow until he regathered his breath and his heart stopped trying to beat itself out of his chest.
Running a finger over his lips, she said, ‘My, you seem even warmer now. I think it must be time for a swim.’ Laughing, she leapt up and ran to the river, leaping in with a delighted laugh.
‘Come in, it’s glorious!’ she cried, wading out into the deeper water.
With resignation, he followed her, gasping at the cold shock of the water. ‘Glorious?’ he grumbled. ‘More likely I’ll end up with an inflammation of the lungs.’
‘What, here on a balmy English day after you survived the rain and ice of Peninsula winters? Nonsense.’ She slapped the water, dousing him with a blast of chilly liquid, then dived in and swam off.
With a growl, he plunged after her. Laughing, she swam away, splashing and dodging. For some minutes, they played the game of approach and escape, until at last, with a satisfied sigh, she turned over to float on her back.
He swam back to shallower water and stood a moment, admiring the vision of her naked form half revealed, half submerged. Her breasts bobbing above the surface, the cold making her nipples peak as if in the throes of pleasure…the round of her belly and knees breaking the surface, sinking under.
Swimming over, she drew him back into waist-deep water, wrapped her legs around his torso, her arms around his neck and, suspended by the buoyancy of the water, fitted him inside her. ‘Just let me float,’ she murmured.
And so he braced himself against the current and let the water move them. Their shoulders and torsos sun-warmed, their legs and hips submerged, the water lifted her against him, pushed and pulled him within her to its own rhythm, slow, languid, sensuous, like nothing he’d ever experienced.
Despite the cold, the softness of her bottom under his hands, the taste of her nipples he leaned down to suckle, had his erection strengthening until he once again filled her. Moving with, against the water, he thrust harder, faster, until they both reached a shuddering climax.
Legs trembling, he pushed them into deeper water, needing its support to avoid falling over. Smiling languidly, she leaned up and kissed him.
He pulled her close, sensation still sparking and fizzling along his nerves, like the last gasps of a nearly spent Congreve rocket. His brain, at first numb with sensation, slowly filled with a sense of awe and wordless wonder.