He let go of her and lay back. He put his hand to her mound and found her hardness with his thumb.
“Oh,” she said.
His hand chased her as she rose up on him for the first time and came back down. Then she began to set a rhythm of rising and falling, her legs flexing. At first slowly, then more quickly, more powerfully, her small bottom slapping against him every time she sat down. He could not keep his thumb on her so he moved his hands to her hip bones and held her there.
Her brown hair had tumbled down, her face had flushed pink. He felt he was about to come, but she had not released yet.
“Are you close, Helen?”
“Aye. I’ve been close ever since I put yer cock in my mouth.”
As if her words were a spark set to a fuse, her upper body quivered, her thighs trembled, and her walls clenched around him. She stopped moving up and down. Her mouth hung open. Her eyes were vague, not fierce. Her shoulders slumped and her head bowed.
He jerked himself up, roughly lifted her off his cock and set her on his thighs. He stroked himself and gasped, releasing his seed up and onto her abdomen.
“Oh,” she said.
He lay back and held out his arms. “Come here, Helen Boyd.”
She collapsed onto his chest, with no concern about his stickiness on her body. He wrapped his arms around her and they lay together, unmoving, for long minutes.
In time, she spoke. “We’re leaving tomorrow.”
Nausea swept over Jack. This was what he had felt when he had come into the rooms. Thesomething elsethat was wrong.
“No. Why?”
He lifted up her shoulders to see her face. But she rolled off him and lay on her side, her back to him.
“I got a look at a real duchess today.”
He rolled too and cupped her body with his, her buttocks against his groin, her back against his chest. “Who? Which one?”
“The Duchess of Dunmore.”
Fear joined nausea in Jack’s belly. Helen had met Elizabeth or seen her. Had the two women talked? Had the fact Jack Pike was also John MacNaughton been mentioned?
Calm down, Jack. You have to stop getting spooked. Helen wouldn’t be able to hide if she knew you were the duke. She doesn’t have your talent for lying and deception.
“Have ye met her or seen her, Jack? She is a goddess.”
Jack mumbled something that could have been yes or no.
“When there are women in the world like that, a duke would never pick me. In fact, when there are women in the world like that, I wonder why ye are spending so much time in my bed. Do ye feel sorry for me?”
He rested his chin on her shoulder and spoke next to her ear. “Helen, I don’t know if you realize this or not, but a man’s cock doesn’t get hard because he feels sorry for someone.”
“Does it need a reason to get hard?” She shifted so her back was on the mattress and she looked up at him.
“Yes.”
She ran one finger over his lips. “It dinnae just need a few words about a man’s handsomeness? A sunrise and some stars?”
He snugged an arm around her waist. “Let me put it this way. I would rather bed you than the Duchess of Dunmore any day.”
A flush rose from her breasts to her face, tinting her red.
“But . . . I’m so ugly, Jack.”
