“Oh,” she moaned against his neck, corded tendons straining against the skin. He thrust again, and a shout poured out of her. Oh, the way he was using her body…she couldn’t get enough of it. And, like only a few minutes ago, release began clawing at her, insisting she surrender to it. Another hard thrust of his cock, and there she was, tipping over the edge into climax, her quim pulsing against his cock that yet drove into her. Then off the precipice he followed her into the oblivion of release on a shout, his head arched back. He collapsed, careful to keep most of his weight off to the side of her.
Never in her life had she suspected it could be like this.
Oh, the man was bewitching her body and soul, something she should consider…
Tomorrow.
For now, she would close her eyes, feel the sticky press of his body against hers, and sink into the splendor they’d wrought together.
Life didn’t deliver many such moments.
Jamie’s breath slowedand settled into a rhythm at one with hers. He’d never felt so at-one with another person.
He rolled fully off her and slid one arm beneath her head, tucking her into the curve of his body. Unable to resist, he nestled his face into her hair, damp and scented with the oils from his bath. They combined well with her lemon sweetness.
Lazily, he began to reenter his body, and layers peeled away from the bud of an idea, before revealing a fully formed thought. Hortense wasn’t precisely experienced with the act of love, but neither was shenotexperienced. “You weren’t a virgin,” he muttered into the top of her head, without thinking.
She didn’t pull away. “I haven’t been a virgin in a good many years.” She stated it as a fact, carefully devoid of emotion.
Discomfort, even foolishness, traced through him. This woman had lived a dozen or more lifetimes in her short number of years on this earth. Of course, she wasn’t a virgin. “I have no right—”
“I was a spy for eight years.”
The words, and the implication that lay within them, struck him at a wrong angle. Before he knew what he was about, he bolted upright, hardly able to contain the sudden storm raging through him. She rolled on her back and met his eye.
“Did Nick order you to use your body to obtain intelligence?” Although framed as a question, it was a demand. Silently, he vowed Nick would have hell to pay.
“Never.” She pulled herself upright and sat against the headboard, her hair a tumble about her shoulders as she gathered the covers to her chest. She was a spent goddess. One who was weighing her next words carefully. “After the first time, it was my choice. Not that there were many.”
It was as if wool had been stuffed into his ears, for he wasn’t able to hear anything that followedafter the first time. He went cold with fury. “What do you mean by that?”
“By what?”
“After the first time.”
“The first time was not by my choice.”
Breath refused to enter or leave his lungs. “You were raped,” he ground out.
“I was in a household, playing the maid as usual,” she began, the words emerging mechanically, as if she’d removed herself from her past.
“An aristocrat’s household?”
She gave a curt nod.
“Which one?” There would be reprisals.
“It wasn’t in England,” she said. He thought she would speak no further on the matter, but she continued. “It was early morning when servants are up and the nobs are still abed or are only arriving home for bed. I hadn’t considered the latter possibility when I was hauling a bucket of wood up the servants’ staircase. It was dark.” Her gaze lifted, and all he saw was hollowness. “From start to finish, it couldn’t have lasted more than three minutes. I doubt the lord ever gave it another thought, or that it occurred to him he’d done anything wrong.” She shrugged, masking an event of life-altering significance with indifference, which only made Jamie want to howl with rage. “Most lords are that way. I got better at taking care of myself after that.”
Helplessness charged alongside his fury. “It isn’t your responsibility to make certain a man acts like a gentleman.”
Her brow lifted in disbelief. “That hasn’t been my experience of matters.”
He needed this woman who was now his wife to understand something. “You shouldn’t have totake care ofyourself.”
Her jaw tensed and released. “Every person on God’s green earth has to take care of themselves. That is what it is to be alive and out in the world. There is no escaping it.”
“Did you tell Nick?” If his brother knew about this and didn’t take measures—
