Chapter 15 #3
Chuckling to himself, King moved on, tasting her at intervals, lingering to kiss the curve of her waist, and painting circles around her navel with his tongue until she was shivering in earnest.
He returned to kiss her lips as his hands continued lower, teasing through the fiery red curls between her thighs and easing a finger into the delicate skin hidden beneath.
Anne’s breath fluttered out in an uneven sigh as he repeated the movement, gentle and insistent.
King turned on his side, pulling her leg over his hip, leaving her exposed and helpless, open to him.
His touch was assured, seeking the entrance to her body, stroking and teasing until Anne was breathing hard, her skin flushed.
She pushed against his hand, needing more, wanting him to touch her again and again, harder and faster.
“Jasper,” she implored, unable to murmur more than his name, for her mind could not consider words when she was all instinct.
“I’m here,” he said, and she heard the smile in his voice and realised he was deliberately toying with her and enjoying it too.
It was utterly maddening, and Anne writhed in protest, but his finger continued its lazy stroking until she thought she would weep with frustration.
There was satisfaction, however, in knowing his breathing was coming faster too, and when he kissed her again, she felt the tremble in his muscles and knew he was as desperate as she.
“I need you,” he said, the urgency in his gruff voice thrilling her.
He laid her on her back once more, and Anne gasped as the hot, blunt head of his arousal pressed against her. King caressed her with greater insistence as she squirmed and fretted.
“Please,” she said, holding onto him.
He gazed down at her, solemn and gentle, pressing forward just a fraction only to withdraw again, repeating the action over and again, each time pushing just a little harder, a little farther.
“Anne?” he asked unsteadily.
She stared up at him and, even in the dim candlelight, she could see his cheeks were flushed, his eyes sparkling with love and tenderness. He was the most glorious sight, and the knowledge that he was hers brought tears to her eyes.
“Yes,” she told him.
He thrust inside her. Anne caught her breath, holding on tight, but the pain she had braced herself for did not come, and her body relaxed by degrees, accepting the strange invasion far quicker than she had expected.
“Anne?” Her name was a question, his voice unsteady with urgency as he held himself still within her.
“Lovely,” she said, hearing a huff of amused relief at her words. She might have laughed, but then he moved deeper and sensation overwhelmed her. Anne glided her hands down his broad back, revelling in the shift of muscle under her palms, the feel of their bodies joined so perfectly.
King groaned, seeking her mouth and kissing her deeply. Anne revelled in the kiss, returning it with all the passion she felt for him.
Her reaction urged him on. He picked up his pace and Anne gasped, her head thrown back, the pleasure so intense she cried out and grabbed at his arms. It was astonishing, the way his desire for her only fed hers for him, the two of them moving faster and with mounting desperation.
On and on it went until she was giddy and half mad with the intimacy of it, and force of emotions surging through her.
A strange and remarkable pressure, so tantalisingly close, gathered inside her as King made a harsh, guttural sound that seemed to make her intimate muscles contract around him.
Liquid heat burst through her, the exquisite tension intensifying to such dizzying heights she was lost within it.
His body was damp beneath her touch, his skin slick under her palms as she held on for dear life.
He thrust harder, his rhythm faltering as he lost control.
Anne cried out in triumph as King shuddered uncontrollably, spilling himself inside her.
She could do nothing but follow, her body pulsing around him as she gasped in shocked delight and laughed despite herself.
“Oh!” she said, gazing at him and helpless to stop the merriment that made her cry and shake her head. Though she felt sure it was exceedingly unladylike and a dreadful reaction to such bliss, she could not make herself stop.
King looked down at her somewhat bemused. “Here I am, shaken to the core by the kind of feelings I’ve never felt in all my life, and you’re having hysterics,” he grumbled.
“S-Sorry,” she managed, forcing herself to some semblance of calm as she snuggled happily against him.
King shifted, lying beside her, and pulled her close.
“I promise you, I never expected anything half so glorious. It was… perfect and wonderful, but it made me so very happy and… and I can’t seem to help it,” she told him apologetically.
“Well, that’s all right, then,” he said, gazing at her as if she was some strange and exotic creature. “I wanted only to please you.”
“O-Oh, you did,” she said wryly. “I think I might not survive if you pleased me any more than that.”
Her dreadful husband looked rather smug at this comment but shook his head. “You’ll survive, I promise,” he said, looking every bit as wicked as she had first thought him as he gave her a provoking wink.
He reached out then, his expression becoming tender once more. “You’re all right? I didn’t hurt you?”
“You didn’t,” she agreed happily as he twisted a lock of her hair around his finger.
“God, how beautiful you are. Your hair is the most glorious thing I ever saw. Like silken flames.”
Anne gazed at him. “What a lovely thing to say.”
“You’re lovely. This entire day has been lovely. The rest of our lives will be lovely,” he said, and with such certainty Anne could only smile and believe him.
“This is a nice house,” she said, filled with content as she gazed around his bedroom. She felt him shrug.
“It is, but we shall sell it. If you wish for a London home, you shall have one, but not here.”
She looked up at him cautiously, surprised that he had made the decision without asking her when he had been so magnanimous about everything else. “Is that decision for my sake or for yours?”
“Both,” he admitted. “But more for my own, if you will forgive it. This house is a part of my past, and I don’t want any part of that brought into the future if I can help it. Do you mind very much?”
She smiled then, shaking her head. “Whatever makes you happy. And I have no desire to keep a house in London. That was a part of my old life too.”
He was silent for a moment, still sliding the lock of her hair around and around his finger.
“You know,” he said, and Anne could tell he was speaking carefully now, choosing his words. “The season you hope will be so successful next year will bring all the fashionable crowd, the beau monde. Eventually, someone will recognise you.”
Relieved that this was all he was fretting about, she turned so she could lean on his chest and look down on him.
“I’m not a fool, Jasper, I had considered that, and I don’t care.
No doubt there will be a little scandal, a little gossip, and some who knew me before will pity me for running a hotel.
Oh, the horror!” she exclaimed, laying the back of her hand against her forehead in a theatrical gesture.
King laughed. “You don’t mind it?”
“No,” she said bluntly. “And if word gets back to my parents, so much the better. I have done with feeling guilty. They had their chance to love me, to be kind to me and shelter me from harm, and they threw me to the lions. So, if discovering their daughter runs a hotel embarrasses them, I’m afraid I do not much care. ”
“And if they discover you married a notorious criminal?” he added, reaching up to stroke her cheek tenderly.
“I’m afraid I could not care less about that either. They’ll hardly be surprised. No doubt they labelled me a thief years ago for stealing that necklace,” she said, her voice harder now.
“Ah, about that,” he said, a wry note to his voice that made her suspicious. “You are nothing of the sort, my wicked darling.”
Anne looked at him with a frown. “How so?”
Much to her dismay, King slid from the bed and put on a rather splendid black silk banyan. To her eyes, he was doing his best to look nonchalant and failing. “Well, love, I’m afraid I had one last little bit of villainy to see to before I became an entirely respectable businessman.”
“Whatever do you mean?” Anne shifted, sitting up to watch as he crossed the room, she felt certain he was teasing her but could not figure out to what end.
“I mean, that I engaged the best cracksman I know to discover who your grandmother’s solicitor was, to break into his offices and read her last will and testament.”
Anne gasped, gazing at him in astonishment. “You didn’t! Whatever for?”
“For this,” he said, opening a drawer and pulling out a thin sheaf of papers. King handed them to her, and she felt his gaze upon her as she read her grandmother’s will. Her fingers went to her lips, and she swallowed hard as she finally understood what he had done.
“She left me the rubies,” she said thickly. “And three thousand pounds. That was everything she owned in the world. Oh, Jasper!” She knelt on the bed and opened her arms to him.
King smiled, wasting no time in returning to embrace her. “I think she must have been very fond of you.”
Anne nodded, burying her face in the black silk across his chest. “She was a dear creature, and far kinder to me than anyone else ever was. I just wish I had not been forced to sell the rubies. I don’t care about the money or the value of the necklace, but they were my only link to her.
Yet I cannot regret for a moment what I did, when it brought me to you,” she said, blinking away tears.
“Anne,” he said gently, handing her the handkerchief he’d had the foresight to take from his drawer with the documents.
She plucked it from his hand, wiped her eyes and blew her nose vigorously, knowing he did not care about her being unladylike or any such drivel.
“Anne, love.”
“Yes?” she said, though muffled by the handkerchief.
“Do you see that box on the side table there?”
Anne looked at the bedside table, suddenly noting the large leather box. Her heart picked up speed as she realised it looked familiar.
“Open it,” he said.
With trembling hands, Anne reached for it and opened the lid, giving a shout of surprise as she saw the contents. She turned to him, astonished. “B-But… how? Did you never wish to sell them?”
“If a thing of rare beauty and quality comes my way, you may be sure that I will never, ever, let it go,” he said with a smile, sitting down upon the bed beside.
“You are the rarest jewel of all, my beautiful Anne, and so you may be very certain I will take extra care to ensure you never wish to leave my side.”
“Oh, Jasper,” she said, throwing her arms about his neck. “You foolish man. I never would!”
“All the same,” he said, taking the necklace from the box and putting it around her neck. The cold jewels made her shiver, but not half as much as the look in his eyes as he gazed upon them settled around her throat.
“I wanted you to know that have everything I have ever wanted, everything I could possibly want,” he said simply, and kissed her to prove it.