Worth Lord of Reckoning (27 page)

* * *

“It occurred to me,” Worth said as he settled in beside Jacaranda, “a storm is brewing tonight, and you might appreciate some company. No bricks, my dear?”

“No bricks.” The comment was literal and figurative, because she wasn’t hurling writs of ejectment at him either. Tonight she laced her fingers through his and let his hand rest over her midriff.

His patience was paying off—finally.

“You’re feeling a bit more the thing?” He stole a kiss to her shoulder, the happiest occasion of thievery.

“A bit. That tickles.”

“This?” He ran his nose along the top of her shoulder again. “You’re like a bouquet, you know. Your shoulders have one fragrance, your hair another, you hands yet another. I could cheerfully sniff you for hours.”

He had, in fact. When last he’d called upon her under the covers, her scents had quieted his mind as much as her company had.

“You’d get no rest.” Jacaranda sounded happy to contemplate his misery, and her happiness meant a great deal to Worth.

“You’re either coming to trust me”—he kissed her nape—“or you’ve secreted a frying pan under your pillow and you’re confident you can subdue me with it if I get out of line.”

She rolled to her back, and in the moonlight her features were breathtakingly lovely. “Are you soon to get out of line?”

And there it was, the Jacaranda Wyeth battle flag, demanding honesty and a surrender of privacy from him. He hadn’t been sure even a few days ago that the sacrifice would be worth the reward, but now… He was willing to sacrifice much to have
her
honesty and
her
surrender. Willing to wait, willing to campaign all summer.

Except summer was half over, and his dear Wyeth was increasingly restless, for reasons he could not fathom.

“I will never cross the lines you draw for us,” he said. “I’ll push, I’ll tease, I’ll negotiate, and I’ll dare, but you hold the reins, Jacaranda. You will always hold the reins.”

“If I didn’t, what would you do, were you at liberty?”

Bold question.
Clever
, bold question.

“Honestly? I’m supposed to say I’d ravish you blind, make love to you until neither of us can walk, and those would be sincere sentiments. I desire you until… Well, I simply do.”

He shut up in defense of his beleaguered dignity.

“But?”

“I desire more than a quick tumble, a tickle and a poke. I’m not sure what exactly I mean, but I conclude your timing on the matter is to be trusted more than my own.”

He watched her digest that, not even sure himself what he’d said, what he’d been trying to say.

“Explain something to me,” she said, rolling over to her side again. “When can we pursue this ‘matter’ with the least risk of conception, were I so inclined?”

He couldn’t help himself, he cuddled closer, a hot spike of lust giving the lie to his earlier more philosophical words. He’d meant those words of course—one did not dissemble with Jacaranda Wyeth—but her question boded well for his objectives.

Whatever they might be.

He opened his mouth to breathe in the scent of her neck. “After a lady’s indisposition has departed, it’s reasonably safe for a few days, a few nights. I would love to pleasure you, Jacaranda, all night.”

“Yes, I know, until we’re both lamed, though how that results from pleasure escapes me.” She fell silent as Worth pushed her gently to her back, settling his mouth over hers before she could offer more tart, frustrated observations.

“You want to know, Jacaranda,” he murmured against her mouth. “Your curiosity is consuming you. What would we be like, together? How would I feel, inside you, over you? Under you? Behind you? Just how much pleasure could I bring you with my mouth on your privy parts? Or maybe you’d like to put your mouth on me?”

He cruised that mouth of his over her features, gathering tastes and textures with his tongue: her delicate, delicate eyelashes, the exact curve of her brows, left then right, the span of the bridge of her nose, the soft buttery substance of her earlobes, the pulse at her throat.

“You are delicious, an edible bouquet.”

“Stop. Worth, you must stop, now.”

Chapter Twelve

Worth paused, hoping Jacaranda had ordered him to a parade rest, not the onset of yet more sexual frustration.

“You’ll overwhelm me,” she said, hiking up on her elbows. “I have not decided to—”

“Join,” he suggested, “to join with me intimately.”

“I haven’t, but you said…” She traced his eyebrows with her index finger, as he’d traced hers with his tongue. “I intended that you and I should have a certain difficult discussion, and I still do. But for now, lie on your back and behave, Worth.”

He rolled to his back as obediently as one of Hess’s hounds and prayed to a merciful God this
behaving
was a form of progress for them. As for the difficult discussion, he could only hope that meant she was reconsidering his proposal. Difficult for her, to admit she’d erred, though in victory he would be gracious and charming. Why, he’d even—

She took up where she’d left off, imitating him, tracing her fingers over his features, then following with her mouth.

“You bathed tonight. I can smell the flowers on you.”

“You like that,” he said, “that I bathed for you. I get hard when I’m bathing, thinking of you doing what you’re doing now.” One of many times throughout the day that arousal afflicted him.

“Oh, please hush.” Not her usual dismissive admonition, more a moan, a prayer, and she settled her mouth over his, ensuring his compliance.

He stayed on his back, where she’d told him to stay, and he resisted mightily the urge to roll her under him and the need to snug her body to his so he’d have something to thrust against.

He instead put all that lust and longing and frustration into his kiss, sealing his mouth to hers, cupping her head in his palm and sending his tongue foraging into her heat. He explored, he plundered, he teased, he feinted, all in aid of encouraging her own forays. When the tip of her tongue limned his teeth, his cock leapt and his belly tightened.

He dropped away from the kiss. “Too much.”

“I don’t understand.”

She was frowning again. Frowning wasn’t good.

“Hell and the devil.” He took her hand and drew it down, to the arousal rampant against his belly, rampant, straining, weeping with the need for completion. “You do this to me, Jacaranda. I’m close.”

“Close.” She kept her hand around him as he drew his away, leaving her to grip his shaft lightly. “I see.”

“Close your fingers around me. Please.”

She did, her grip still too tentative.

“Tighter, love. I’m begging.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.” But her marvelously competent hand closed around him securely, and the pleasure of it stole his breath.

“If you move your hand, fondle me, stroke me, put your mouth on me, I’ll spend. I’ll leave if you ask it, Jacaranda. I don’t want to, but I can manage to abandon you now if I must.”

A fine lie, that, and when honesty was one of the aspects of Jacaranda Wyeth he treasured most dearly.

She held him firmly, while he willed her to find the fortitude to take this step with him.

She sleeved him and moved her hand up and down about an inch. “Like this?”

“Higher.” He got both syllables out through clenched teeth. “Not like… Here.”

He showed her with his own hand, a few loose strokes, enough to get most of the length of him and enough that his ballocks threatened to draw up.

“Draw my stones down,” he said. “Gently, yes… God’s dancing slippers.” The cool, soft slide of her fingers, the surprising assurance with which she complied with his request surprised him.

“You like this?” She had her hand on his cock again, letting the circle of her fingers slip up to the crown and down the shaft.

“Love…it. Jesus at the wedding feast.” He had to move his hips, had to, but he kept his undulations slow, wanting to savor the torture, wanting it to build and build. Knowing she was watching him by moonlight, though, watching the tension in his face, watching his body become a mindless, pleasure-maddened beast, made the whole experience so much more intimate.

She was learning about sexual intimacy, yes, but she was learning about
him
, too.

He grabbed the pillow on both sides of his head to keep his hand from fisting around hers. Bright, hot pleasure roared through him, out through every particle and sinew he owned and on into the dark, summer night. He groaned, he bucked, he strained to withstand the bliss and strained harder to surrender to it, on and on, until he couldn’t hear, couldn’t see, and couldn’t move for the pleasure wringing him out.

When he was once again aware of crickets chirping and the breeze billowing the curtain, Jacaranda’s cheek was pressed to his abdomen, and her hand cupped his rapidly softening cock.

Words
. Women wanted words at such times. Worth had none. Couldn’t imagine when he would find any, either.

Jacaranda rose and fetched a flannel and basin from the bureau across the room. She swabbed him off and took a few brisk swipes at her fingers.

“A man’s pleasure is indelicate.” The most blissful indelicacy Worth had ever endured. “I’m sorry.”

She set the towel and basin aside. “It’s intense. I suppose you’d like to sleep?”

“Sleep, when I’ve just…? I’ll sleep later.”

“I’ve never seen a man do that before.” She gestured vaguely at the cool air over his genitals. “My brothers were forever being coarse when they thought I couldn’t hear them, but I’ve never…well. I was afraid I’d hurt you.”

She was so brave, and so shy about climbing back into bed with him.

“Some people enjoy an element of pain. I’m not one of them, but stop looking at me as if I grew horns. I am in want of affection.” He was a little alarmed at his admission, for that was the truth coming out of his idiot mouth.

Sex scrambled the brains; this was scientific fact, he was sure of it.

She climbed on the bed and busied herself rearranging the pillows he’d cast into chaos. “We’ve shared affection already. You can’t be in want of affection.”

He wanted more than simple affection, and the vexing creature would make him admit it.

“I want to know,”—he paused, gathering his courage—“I need to know you are not repulsed, you aren’t shocked. This wasn’t how I intended to go on. I don’t want you to have a disgust of me.”

She appeared to consider this, and then subsided onto the mattress, facing him, not touching him, damn it. Because she was closer to the window, her face was obscured by night shadows, and that about drove him ’round the bend.

But from somewhere, he found the resolve, the courage, to hold his position and keep his hands to himself.

“What comes now?” she asked, a frown in her voice.

Let me hold you
, he wanted to say, but there was that frown.

“Jacaranda, what would you like to come now?”

“Honestly?”

“Love, you’ve seen me
in extremis
when I hadn’t planned to be that way. You’ll have to tell me where this leaves us, and yes, of course I expect honesty between us. I adore your penchant for honesty.”

The frown intensified. “We still need to have that discussion, but can you do that
in extremis
part again?”

* * *

Jacaranda’s face heated as she put the question to Worth, and she battled the urge to flee. What stopped her was the suspicion, the strong suspicion, that Worth’s feelings would be hurt if she tucked tail and ran.

They would be hurt even more if she unburdened herself of the two deceptions she yet perpetrated on him.

She was leaving him at the end of the summer, and her name wasn’t Jacaranda Wyeth. She hoped never to burden him with the knowledge he’d dallied with an earl’s spinster daughter.

“I can manage it again,” he said, studying her in the moonshadows. “I need a few minutes to recover, but I could if you assisted. Is that what you want?”

He traced her eyebrows with a single finger then let that finger trail down her nose, and chin, and across her collarbones, his expression reverent.

“Sometime, yes.”

“Enough of this long-distance negotiating, Wyeth.” He moved across the mattress to bundle her against his side. “Slap me if I’m being presumptuous.”

“Slap—” As if lying in his arms were more presumptuous than…well. She cuddled down against his chest, though the wretch could probably feel her cheeks heat.

“On my bum would be nice should the slapping appeal,” he said, gathering her closer. “I’ll happily reciprocate if you’d like a little spanking.”

“Oh, do hush.” She put her hand against his naughty mouth, but some of the awkwardness of the situation dissipated. She could see him enjoying her hand applied smartly to his backside, too.

Which gave one reason to ponder.

“This feels better,” he said, his hand stroking over her hair.

“Better than what?”

“Than you, regarding me so solemnly from halfway across the Channel. Erotic intimacy is an odd business, isn’t it?”