If the Viscount Falls (27 page)

“You're a great deal more fearless than you realize,” he murmured. “But this may cause you some pain.”

She swallowed her apprehension. “I know. You can't protect me from everything.”

“No. But I can try to make it worth your trouble.”

And before she could respond to that, he was kissing her so sweetly and caressing her so deftly that within moments he had her squirming and yearning for more.

Only then did he attempt to breach her fortress by sliding into her. To her immense relief, there was only a piercing pop of discomfort before he was filling her flesh with his.

All ten feet of it. Or that's what it felt like, anyway.

She gripped his arms. Hard.

He didn't seem to notice, for he inched farther in, his breath beating hot against her hair. “God, Jane, you're exactly as I imagined. Only better.”

“You're exactly . . . as
I
imagined,” she said in a strained tone. “Only bigger.”

That got his attention. He drew back to stare at her. “Are you all right?”

She forced a smile. “
Now
I'm rethinking the seduction.”

He brushed a kiss to her forehead. “Let's see what I can do about that.” He grabbed her beneath her thighs. “Hook your legs around mine if you can.”

When she did, the pressure eased some, and she let out a breath.

“Better?” he rasped.

She nodded.

Covering her breast with his hand, he kneaded it gently as he pushed farther into her below. “It will feel even better if you can relax.”

Relax? Might as well ask a tree to ignore the ax biting into it. “I'll try,” she murmured.

She forced herself to concentrate on other things than his very thick
thing
—like how he was touching her, how he was fondling her . . . how amazing it felt to
be joined so intimately to the man she'd been waiting nearly half her life for.

Then it got easier. She actually seemed to adjust to his size. And when he slid his hand down from her breast to stroke that special spot between her legs that sent her flying, it was most effective. She wasn't quite flying, exactly, but she was definitely leaping a bit.

A giggle escaped her at that thought, and he bit out, “Something strike you as funny, sweeting?”

“I never guessed that . . . this would feel . . . so odd.”

“You'll get used to it.”

The hint of a future for them melted her even more than his hand down there. And that's when he began to move, sliding out and then back in. Heavens. That
was
intriguing. Rather nice, actually. The more he did it, the better it felt.

Then he removed his hand so he could better grip her hips, and he plunged harder into her. Oh, now
that
was quite . . . oh my. Very,
very
nice.

His gaze burned into her as he drove deep. “Less odd now?” he managed.

“Definitely . . . less odd.” She kissed the taut line of his jaw. “Quite . . . enjoyable, in fact.”

He grunted and buried his face in her hair the way he was burying his . . . thing inside her, and it was deliciously sinful. Now she really
was
flying, up toward the sun.

As if he realized it, he dug his hands into her hips and thrust fiercely, repeatedly, and she met his rhythm with a pushing of her own that sent her soaring.

“Dom . . . oh, Dom . . . oh my . . .”

“Jane,” he rasped as his strokes grew frenzied. “It's always . . . been you. Only you.”

“Only you,” she echoed.

She'd been fooling herself about Edwin. There had only ever been one man in her heart. And as he drove himself deep inside her, he sent her vaulting into the sun.

When he followed her into the bliss, she clutched him close to her chest and prayed that he would let her inside his heart as deeply as she'd let him into hers. That she wasn't making a mistake by taking up with him again.

Because it was too late to go back now. This time, he had her for better or worse.

15

D
OM HAD NEVER
felt so close to heaven as he did wrapped in Jane's lovely arms, with her thighs hooked about his hips and her head tucked against his shoulder. If lightning struck the stables at this moment, he would die content. But he didn't want to die, not now that he had Jane.

He did have her, didn't he? Surely she wouldn't have given herself to him if she intended to marry Blakeborough.

They were still entwined, though Dom's cock was softening. He kissed her hair, which had somehow remained pinned up throughout their lovemaking, except for a few stray tendrils that tickled his nose. He wanted to pull it all down, just to see how long it was. He wanted to get a look at her arse without her clothes on, which he hadn't had the chance to do.

He wanted to make love to her again, somewhere more private. Somewhere he could take his time with her.

“I never dreamed it would be as amazing as that,” she whispered.

“I did.”

“Really?” Her soft voice was a caress. Everything about her was as smooth and silky and sweet as whipped cream.

Well, except for her tart opinions. And her fierce determination to make him tell everything in his soul. Though he had to admit that after confessing his secret fears to her earlier, he felt freer, as if the boulder he'd been carrying for years had dropped from his back.

“I knew it would be perfect.” He gave her a lingering kiss, then drew back to cup her pinkening cheek. “With you it could be nothing less.”

Shyly avoiding his gaze, she finger-combed his short hair. “Nancy always said that sharing a man's bed was something to ‘endure.' That marriage was more pleasant without it, but it was required for having children so she'd had to put up with it.”

He skimmed a hand down her lightly freckled arm. “And what do
you
think, now that you've experienced it for yourself?”

“I think I could ‘endure' it with great enthusiasm.” Jane flashed him a mischievous smile. “But I'm not ­really sure. Should we try it again so I can make certain?”

Stifling a laugh, he tried to look stern. “We're lucky none of the grooms have stumbled over us already.” He managed to sound even-toned, though the prospect of taking her again—here, now—was already making him
hard. “Speaking of that, we'd better get dressed, before someone finds us here naked.”

A sigh escaped her. “You do have a point. Though I don't know how you can be so sensible and industrious when all I feel is lazy and content.”

“I'm not being sensible and industrious at all.” Reluctantly he slipped from her arms to go hunt up his drawers. “I'm simply being selfish. The longer you stay naked, the more the chance that I will attempt to ravish you again.”

“That sounds perfectly . . . awful,” she said as she struck a seductive pose.

God save him.

He swept his gaze over her thrusting breasts, her slender belly with its delicate navel, and her auburn thatch of curls. The taste of her was still on his lips, the smell of her still in his nostrils. He wanted her again. And again and again . . .

Muttering a curse under his breath, he tossed her shift at her. “Put some clothes on before I combust.”

She laughed, a delicate tinkling sound that tightened his cock. Fortunately for his self-restraint, she did as he bade and donned her shift. Only then was he able to breathe, to concentrate on putting on his trousers rather than on the erotic sight of her drawing her stockings up those luscious legs.

He turned and nearly stumbled over the carriage lamps. “These are a lost cause, now that I recklessly dashed them to the floor in my . . . er . . . enthusiasm, sweeting.”

“Good,” she said cheerily. “Now you
can't
run off to London without me tonight. Besides, I gathered from my eavesdropping that none of you even know where to go to look for Nancy and Samuel.”

“I
have
decided on a starting point.” He weighed the wisdom of revealing it, but she most assuredly had the right to know
that.
Besides, it would allow him to gauge her feelings. “I mean to speak to your fiancé as soon as I reach London. Surely he knows something about where his brother lives. Assuming that he'll tell us.”

With a scowl, she tied her garters. “Of course he'll tell us. He'll certainly tell
me
. That is, if he knows. I'm not sure that he does.”

Dom watched her shimmy into her stays, wondering if she would say any more about Blakeborough. She couldn't still be thinking of marrying the man, could she? It wasn't in her character to let one man bed her and wed another.

But she merely turned her back to him. “I'll need help lacing up.”

He moved behind her to tighten her laces. The intimacy of it made a lump catch in his throat. “I suppose I'd better get used to this for when we marry.”

A long pause ensued.

“Are we marrying?” she asked lightly.

“Of course.” When she didn't say anything, he felt it like a punch in the gut. And as always, that made him dig in his heels. “We have to marry now, Jane. You know that. I took your innocence.”

“You did not take my innocence,” she said with a bit of an edge to her voice. “I gave it of my own free will.”

Was she really arguing the matter? “That doesn't change anything. We still must marry.”

She slid away from him to pick up her petticoat. “So I get no say in it?”

“You had your say when you let me bed you,” he remarked, more coldly than he'd intended.

But damn it, he had understood from her giving herself to him that she meant to marry him. Otherwise, he would never have made love to her. And there was no way in blazes he would let her go off to wed the earl. Not now, not ever.

“You're not marrying Blakeborough,” he added. “Not after this.” He'd meant to phrase it more as a question, but fear of losing her to the bastard had twisted it into a command.

And she most definitely heard that, for she tensed and finished tying on her petticoat with rigid motions. Then she faced him with a challenging glance. “Edwin won't care that I'm not chaste.”

Edwin? God, was she still considering marriage to that arse? “I doubt that. And if you think I'll let you test that theory, you're mad.” Jealousy made him harden his voice. “You and I
must
marry, and that's an end to it.”

“Is it?” With a storm building in her expression, she planted her hands on her hips. “Tell me, Dom, do you ever
ask
for anything? Or do you always just assume that everyone will fall in line when you give orders?”

That took him aback. Hadn't he asked? Perhaps he
hadn't. But then, he shouldn't have had to after what they'd just done.

In any case, he'd be damned if he let her flounce off after Blakeborough. “Jane, you must listen—”

“
Must
!
” Her eyes blazed at him. “Stop issuing commands! That's what Papa always did to Mama: ‘You must obey me, Kitty. You must keep quiet around the servants. You must not coddle Jane so much; she needs a strong hand.' ”

A strong hand?

Too late he noticed the latent fear in her face. Too late he realized his mistake.

Yesterday when she'd told them about her father, she'd made it painfully clear how she felt about men who gave orders, but he'd been too focused on what her tale had to do with the hunt for Nancy to recognize how having a bullying father must have affected Jane
.

This argument they were having wasn't about Blakeborough at all. It was about her father. And not just her father, but
Dom
—the way he'd made the choice for them both years ago, the way he was making the choice for them now.

Blast, what an idiot he was.

Jane showed her agreement with that assessment by glaring at him. “I'm not just going to fall in with your plans because you dictate them. I did that once; I'm never doing it again. If we marry, it will be because we
both
choose it, because you trust me enough to
ask
me. Not because you have
willed
its occurrence.”

Good God, he'd gone badly awry. But surely she knew him better than to think—

“Dom, are you out here?” called a voice from somewhere beyond the stables.

Damn it all. It was Tristan.

Swiftly Dom donned his shirt. “Be quiet,” he whispered to Jane, “and he'll go away.”

Tristan's voice sounded again, even nearer now. “I swear to God, Dom, if you ride off to London in the dark and make a liar out of me before Ravenswood, I will kick you from here to France!”

“He won't go away,” Jane whispered back, a hint of desperation in her voice. “He promised Ravenswood that you wouldn't head for London with broken carriage lamps, and now he'll want to make sure that you don't.”