Jack licked until sharp, cacophonous cries pierced the harsh soughing of his breathing and the hard little glans that pulsed in rhythm to his heartbeat slipped back inside a snug prepuce.
She had cried tears for her husband. Now she cried out the name of her lover.
Invisible fingers crushed his testicles.
Blindly he sought her vagina, fluted tongue probing the mouth he had made.
Gentle muscles fluttered around him.
Kissing him. Tasting him.
Loving him.
Innocent of sin. No matter that the law said otherwise.
Jack pushed up her body and braced his forearms on either side of her narrow shoulders.
His naked cock pulsed against her naked pelvis.
Blue eyes probed his gaze . . . solemnly studied his mouth.
A soft fingertip burned his chin. “You’re wet.”
“From you, Rose,” he bluntly returned.
Her gaze slid upward.
Jack brushed her lips with his, sharing with her the pleasure her husband had not. “This is what your orgasm tastes like.”
Uncertainty shadowed her face, was overcome by curiosity.
Rose opened her mouth and tasted the tongue he fed her.
Pleasure-pain blackening her eyes, she threaded her fingers through his whiskers. “What are we going to do, Jack?”
She was a woman who loved another man. He was a man who loved another woman.
“I’m going to suckle your breast until your heart pounds against the tip of my tongue and you come,” Jack said.
The yearning inside her eyes hurt him where a man should not be able to hurt.
“And then I’m going to fuck you, Rose, until my cock becomes a part of you, and you cry for the pleasure I give you.”
The tears she had cried for her husband moistened her eyes.
A trembling finger rimmed his ear. “What will you do, Jack, when I cry for the pleasure you give me?”
He would not lie.
“I don’t know.”
Jack didn’t know if he could ever let go of the woman his love had killed.
Chapter 18
Chirping agitation awoke Rose to unfamiliar heat.
It weighted her breast. It anchored her abdomen.
It rode her thighs.
Images burst behind her eyelids.
Brown hair black with water. Purple-blue eyes black with need.
A muffled bong scattered the memories: Three more bongs followed.
Eyes opening, Rose stared at the pink-and-gray shadows that painted the ceiling.
The night was over. Now it was morning.
The feminine scent of roses vied with the masculine smells of spice and musk.
Hand drifting upward, she lightly traced soft hair, a sideburn that became wiry whiskers. Prickly morning stubble encroached either side of the wiry hair.
A sudden gust of hot breath serrated the valley between her breasts.
Jack Lodoun sighed. Jack Lodoun snuggled closer.
Moist heat kissed her hip, elongating flesh achingly familiar.
Tears burned her eyes.
She was an adulteress in deed as well as thought.
Rose slid out from underneath Jack.
His arm hooked her waist, refusing to let her go.
The sensation that knifed through Rose was sharper than the loneliness induced by a passing carriage.
Slowly Jack relaxed in boneless sleep. Equally as slowly, Rose peeled back the covers and sat up.
A pinching ache stabbed through her pelvis.
Carefully she slid off the bed—the spring coils softly squeaked—and padded down the dawn-streaked hallway.
Every step reminded her of Jack Lodoun.
His circumference. His length.
Firmly she closed the bathroom door.
Blackness cocooned her.
Rose found the tin of matches Jack had left by the sink.
White porcelain gleamed.
Rose touched the flaming match to a black wick.
Nickle-plated pipes leapt out of the darkness. Blue and pink towels cast dual black shadows.
The tears burning her eyes clogged her throat.
Jack had neatly hung up the towels she had laid out for him.
Rose relieved herself and gently padded dry tender flesh with a Bromo tissue.
Jack had twice flushed a condom down the toilet, the gurgle of pipes wafting down the hallway. Rose tugged a ceramic pull.
She held still for long seconds, willing the flush not to awaken him.
Jack had touched a place inside her body that she had not known existed, and she did not know what to do.
Habit came to her rescue.
She twisted a white enameled tap. Water gushed out of the nickle-plated spout.
Rose scrubbed her hands before grabbing up the toothbrush and tin of powder from the cabinet drawer. Vigorously she brushed her teeth, salty powder replacing the taste of musky spice. Leaning over the sink, she cupped cold, clear water and rinsed out her mouth.
The reflection inside the mirror snagged her gaze.
The woman’s breasts were elongated, left nipple dark and ripe like a sun-kissed grape dangling from the vine.
Straightening—shutting off the cascading water, fingers dripping liquid diamonds—Rose touched her nipple.
Remembered sensation jolted through her.
The hot suction of Jack’s mouth. The sharp edge of Jack’s teeth.
Irresistibly she reached between her legs.
The valley between her labia was fever hot.
Rose reached farther back, sliding fingers plunging inside a hot, wet mouth.
The heat gripping her fingers grasped her left hip.
Rose jerked upright.
Purple-blue eyes riveted her.
Inside Jack’s gaze was the knowledge of her sexuality.
Her breasts she had squeezed. Her clitoris she had caressed.
Her vagina he had caught her exploring.
He had smelled her. He had tasted her.
There was nothing this man did not know about her body.
A wave of vulnerability crashed over Rose.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” she politely apologized, as if they met in public, two strangers fully clothed.
The heat clasping her hip dissipated.
Jack stepped around Rose. “You have noisy birds, Mrs. Clarring.”
Rose followed his motions through the trail of sounds he created: the sharp clip of the wooden toilet seat banging a metal water pipe . . . the splatter of water.
Uncertainty—raw and jagged—streaked through her. She twisted on the faucet and rinsed off her toothbrush. “I’m sorry.”
The toilet flushed.
Moist heat nestled in the small of her back. At the same time purple-blue eyes pinned her gaze.
“Are you?” he asked, voice neutral.
He was a full head taller than she.
She studied his chin—dark with stubble—that reached above the top of her head. She studied his mouth—bottom lip full, top lip chiseled—that had shared with her the taste of her orgasm. She studied his nose—break invisible in the flickering light—that had nuzzled her cheek and temple.
“No.” She squarely met his gaze. “I do not regret our night together.”
Hard, prickly heat caged her ribs.
Between one heartbeat and the next, Jack plucked the toothbrush out of her hand.
Tapping toothpowder into the palm of his right hand—his left arm lifting up her left breast—he dipped the toothbrush into the cleaning powder.
Briskly he brushed his teeth.
He had white teeth, eyeteeth a little longer and sharper than the others.
Pain flared through her.
She had never seen Jonathon brush his teeth.
With each brushing motion Jack’s chest hair prickled her back and his penis prodded her buttocks.
Intimacies shared only with lovers.
Leaning to the side of Rose, Jack rinsed out his mouth.
The roar of cascading water abruptly died.
Arms that glinted with red-and-gold fire banded her breasts. The weight of his chin clenched her womb.
Jack stared at her for long seconds before dark lashes lowered and fanned his cheeks.
Icy water dripped from his hand and trickled down her hip.
Memory overrode the wafting chirp of sparrows.
He had churned her vagina until the sound of her wetness had rode the pop of embers and perspiration glued their bodies. He had thrust until the squeal of springs matched the soughing of her breath and the bedcovers slithered to the floor. He had pounded until she had begged him to fuck her deeper, harder.
And he had.
Rose had cried out his name with each splintering spasm of orgasm.
“When you suckled my breast”—she spoke past the tightness in her chest—“did you feel my heartbeat?”
The dark lashes fluttered open. “When I fucked you, did my cock become a part of you?”
She would not lie.
“No.”
His chest that rhythmically swelled and ebbed against her shoulder blades stilled.
“I felt the machine”—unfeeling, desensitizing rubber—“not your cock.”
Blackness ate up the purple inside his eyes. “Would you like my naked cock inside you, Rose?”
“Yes.” She needed to overcome the memories of the past. “I would like to feel you ejaculate inside me.”
His eyes closed.
He had enviably long lashes.
She reached up and clasped the hard band of his arms: There was no delicate way to ask, so she mimicked his bluntness.
“Will you”—Rose swallowed love me—“bugger me?”
The long lashes lifted: The desire that blazed inside his eyes nearly blinded her. “I don’t want to hurt you, Rose.”
But he would.
“The price of passion, Jack.”
He closed his eyes and tightened his arms until the bathroom shrank and all that existed was Jack Lodoun: his scent, his heat, the prickly texture of his hair and skin.
A slick tear slid down the dark crevice between her buttocks.
The arms holding her abruptly loosened. Leaning down, Jack opened the third drawer.
Shock rippled through her.
Jack straightened. His gaze caught hers in the mirror.
“After I showered, I needed a comb.”
Rose held his gaze.
The darkness inside his eyes squeezed her womb. “And then I needed to know you.”
So he had rummaged through her drawers.
Rose bit her lip at this unexpected invasion. “Shall we go to the bedroom?”
His eyes assayed her in the mirror. “I want to watch you.”
She had not seen Jonathon in the dark: She had only felt the wetness of his ejaculate and his tears.
And then he had left her.
“You’re much taller than I.” Suddenly, acutely aware of what she requested, she asked: “Will it not be uncomfortable for you?”
There was no light inside his eyes. “I’ll manage.”
“Will you?”
This man had touched her. But she had touched him, too.
Gold and red danced on either side of his face; his lashes lowered. “Yes.”
She forced out the question: “Do you regret last night?”
Solid glass rolled on marble, the crystal stopper.
“No.”
There was no regret inside his face, but neither was there evidence of the desire that had moments earlier blazed inside his eyes.
A gurgle of liquid danced on her skin.
On her wedding night she had lain in the dark, heart drumming inside her chest. Rose felt that same mixture of anticipation and apprehension.
“What are you doing?” she asked tensely.
“I’m pouring oil into my hand,” he said.
The faint whisper of flesh rubbing flesh permeated the silence.
Rose had no vision of what he did outside the field of the mirror.
The dark lashes flickered, his eyes seeing what she could not.
“Now I’m lubricating my cock.”
Out of the corner of her eyes she glimpsed a hand.
Glass impacted marble.
Five fingers cupped her stomach; they were slippery with oil. His head that glinted red and gold in the light lowered, forehead bridging the top of her head. At the same time he touched her there, where she had never before been touched.
Hot air gusted her scalp. “Now I’m lubricating you.”
Without warning, his head lifted.
His gaze, darker than night, snagged her gaze. “Now I’m loving you.”
He penetrated her.
One finger.
A plugging tip . . . a stretching knuckle.
Rose sucked in chill air.
“When I’m inside you like this, Rose”—the darkness of his gaze pierced her chest—“I am loving you.”
Another betrayal of the woman he loved.
“When I stretched myself last night,” she volunteered unevenly, “I thought about you.”
The long finger slowly withdrew.
The stretching knuckle . . . the plugging tip.
“In what way?”
He rimmed her.
Beguiling. Soothing.
“I thought how alone you looked, when you said you needed someone to understand.” Rose breathed deeply, body both beguiled and soothed. “I wondered what you were thinking about, sitting in the House of Commons.”
The soothing tip of his finger became the fullness of a knuckle.
“I thought about you,” he said unexpectedly, dark gaze intently mapping the effect of his penetration.
A sudden weakness liquefied her bones. “What did you think about?”
“I thought of your pride in the bookstore,” Jack said. One finger probed deep between her buttocks; three hard knuckles dug into the softness of her cheeks. “When you wouldn’t look away from the men who looked at you.”
The slippery descent of his finger was overlaid by the prickly discomfort Rose had felt in the bookshop, her sexuality judged by strangers.
“I thought of the desire inside your face”—one fingertip became two; they crowded her lungs and heart—“when you touched the leather dildo.”
The memory of the length and the girth of the artificial phallus dissolved into the length and the girth of his two fingers that lodged deeply between her buttocks.
“I thought of the pain inside your eyes”—the two fingers slipped out of her; inside the dark eyes staring at her she saw the squeeze of her muscles, trying to keep him inside—“when you said you thought love made babies.”
He shifted, body unseen but felt.
Suddenly he was only inches taller instead of a head taller.
His gaze—lower, no less acute—did not move from hers.
Slick, blunt flesh licked her. Notched her. Pierced her.