Chapter 36
Jasper had not thought her truly serious on sharing his bed until Charlotte tugged back the counterpane herself and climbed into his bed as though she had been mistress of it all her life.
She arranged herself with great deliberation, plumping one of his pillows, casting another aside entirely, then shifting again until the sheet and bolster suited her liking.
He could do nothing but watch, both amused and distraught, until she settled, and he climbed in beside her.
“There,” she said. “Half for you, half for me.”
He lay rigid, his arms braced at his sides, staring fixedly at the canopy overhead. Never had proximity been so unbearable.
It was, he reflected, a most deviant punishment indeed. To have Charlotte Tolliver lying beside him, all soft limbs and disordered curls, and be forbidden the smallest liberty—it was enough to unman a saint, and he had never pretended to be one.
“Goodnight, Mr Deverell,” she announced with a satisfied sigh. “Sleep well.”
“Goodnight,” he echoed hoarsely, staring at the canopy.
Sleep, of course, was impossible. She thrashed about as only a Tolliver could—flinging an arm, then a leg, sighing dramatically, stealing first one pillow then another, until Jasper lay half-dislodged from his own bed.
At one point, her knee brushed his thigh; at another, her bare foot trailed deliberately—oh, too deliberately—down his shin.
He ground his teeth, determined not to move.
Minutes—or hours, he could not tell—passed in this exquisite torment, until she gave an irritable huff. “Ergh! I cannot abide so much fabric.” And with regal disregard for modesty, she sat up, tugged her nightrobe over her head, and flung it aside.
Jasper’s heart very nearly stopped. Holy God, he thought, I am undone.
She was gloriously bare in the moonlight, her skin pale against the dark coverlet.
“Much better,” she declared, settling back down with enviable composure, as if this were the most natural arrangement in the world.
Still—by some miracle of devotion or folly—he did not reach for her, even as she sighed contentedly and stretched like a cat across his pillows.
After quite some time, when he was sure she must be asleep, she draped an arm across his chest. It was quite by accident, surely… except that her fingers began to trace idle patterns in the sparse hair that gathered there.
He shut his eyes. “Charlotte…”
“Yes, Mr Deverell?” she asked, all innocence, though he could hear the smile in her voice.
“You are… touching me.”
“I said that you were not permitted to touch me,“ she replied sweetly, clearly delighted with her own cleverness. “I said nothing of what I might do unto you.”
Jasper’s laugh was little more than a growl. “You are wicked,” he murmured. “Wicked, and I cannot bear you.”
She gave a low hum of satisfaction, her hand wandering lower across his chest, and down his abdomen.
He turned his head to find her lying half-turned towards him, her hand cupping the swell of her breast, and her thumb circling with lazy insolence until the peak hardened beneath her touch. The sight wrenched a sound from his throat.
“Do you suppose,” she mused, her tone maddeningly thoughtful, “that it counts as wickedness if one torments oneself as well as one’s bedfellow?” Her thumb brushed idly across her nipple, and she sighed as though testing the notion.
He could scarcely breathe. Her other hand, the treacherous one that had so idly traced patterns upon his chest, wandered lower, gliding down the flat plane of his abdomen until it rested just above his waistband. Her fingers toyed there, light as breath, her nails teasing the edge of his breeches.
“Charlotte…” His voice cracked.
“Yes, Jasper?” she asked, eyes still closed, though the smile curving her lips was nothing short of wicked.
“You are…” He swallowed hard. “You are touching yourself. Beside me. And your hand is dangerously close to…”
“Indeed,” she said, as if the admission were nothing at all. “It is rather diverting, do you not think? And if I should stray lower…” Her fingers pressed more firmly against the ridge of muscle, edging ever nearer to his hardness. “Why, I should blame the treacherous arrangement of this bed.”
Her fingers hovered a moment, before slipping lower still, until they brushed the rigid line of his cock straining against the linen. She gave a scandalised little gasp. “Oh—have I done this? Merely by lying prettily at your side? I had no idea my mere company could prove such an inconvenience.”
Jasper shut his eyes tight, a groan breaking from him despite his every effort. “Charlotte.”
“Shhh,” she soothed, though her hand was anything but merciful, shaping him slowly through the fabric, savouring the torment she wrought.
His restraint was near shattered; his hips arched involuntarily beneath her teasing palm. She laughed softly, delighted, then shifted higher, throwing her knee across him.
With boldness she swung herself astride his hips, settling upon him so that the heat of her bare skin pressed against the aching length she tormented.
She looked down at him in the silver wash of moonlight, curls tumbling wild about her shoulders, breasts lifted and flushed from her own caresses. “Oh, Mr Deverell,” she sighed, as though long-suffering. “You are very hard indeed. What is a poor girl to do, when presented with such temptation?”
Her hips rocked once, deliberately, a languid roll that stole the breath from his chest. “Perhaps,” she mused, her smile wicked and triumphant, “I ought to sit here all night, and make you beg for sleep as well as for me.”
Her hips rocked once more, slower this time, so that the swollen head of him pressed against her with scandalous intimacy. Jasper’s hands fisted in the sheets, his chest rising hard beneath the weight of his breath.
“You see?” she murmured, her curls falling like a silken curtain about his face as she leant down.
“You tremble, and yet you do not touch. Such obedience is very fine, sir. But I wonder,” her lips brushed his jaw, her hand guiding him more firmly against her slick heat, “how long you might endure it.”
He groaned her name, but she only laughed low in her throat. “You think me merciless, Mr Deverell? Then let me be merciless indeed.”
And with a slow, unhurried certainty, she guided his cock to her entrance, and lowered herself upon him, inch by aching inch, until he was sheathed deep inside her. Her breath caught on a soft cry that shivered through the moonlit chamber.
Jasper thought he might go mad. The feel of her—hot, wet, and impossibly tight about him—robbed him of all sense. He dragged his gaze upwards, only to find her watching him with intensity, her hands braced upon his chest as though she rode a charger into battle.
“Do you know, sir, I believe I have conquered you at last.”
Her hips rolled, slow and languid, drawing a guttural sound from deep within his chest. She laughed, the sound breathless and bright. “Yes,” she declared, arching above him, “I am most certainly your queen. And you, my most devoted subject.”
She moved above him with maddening leisure, her breasts swaying with the rhythm. Each slow rise and fall wrought a rumbling sound from his throat.
It was simply too much. His honour, the forfeit, his cursed pretence of control splintered like kindling beneath the force of her body and the sharp sweetness of her triumph. He had endured. And now, at last, she watched the moment he could not bear to endure another second.
With a growl he seized her hips, dragging her down upon him in a single, desperate stroke.
She gasped, startled into a cry that melted swiftly into laughter. “Ah! At last, the gentleman forgets himself.”
He rolled her beneath him, his mouth capturing hers in a kiss that was all heat and hunger, his hands grasping her as though he would anchor himself against a storm.
“Wicked girl,” he muttered against her lips, driving into her with a force that made the bed groan in protest. “You are no queen—you are a tormentress.”
“And you,” she gasped, her nails scoring his shoulders, “are conquered all the same.”
Her laughter mingled with his ragged breath, and the room filled with the rhythm of their bodies, moonlight glancing off pale limbs and tangled sheets. For all her teasing and playful cruelty, her moans betrayed her.
Jasper buried his face against her neck, his voice roughened to a growl. “God help me, Charlotte Tolliver—I am lost to you.”
Her answering gasp broke on a moan, for even as his thrusts grew harder, she slipped her hand between them, her fingers circling frantically until she cried out against his shoulder, shuddering and clutching him tight.
By some last shred of discipline, he tore himself free, dragging from her with a strangled groan.
His release spilled hot across her belly.
For a long moment he lay over her, braced on his arms, his breath ragged against her damp curls.
She laughed softly, breathless still, smoothing her hand along his jaw as though she pitied his torment. “There—your forfeit is mine, sir, and I have bested you soundly.”