“You told me what you wanted. If I am asking you to show me, then the responsibility for the asking is mine. You need not worry about it.”
Thomas stared at her for a long, quiet moment, as if he was now only really seeing her. Then he reached out and took the notebook from her hands, setting it aside without looking at it, and closed the remaining distance between them.
When he kissed her, it was not like the first one they had shared. That one had been startling and unfairly quick, ending before she had been given a chance to fully submerge herself in what was happening. This – this was much different.
It was slow, purposeful, the way he held cupped her face, the slight tilt of his head as he slotted their mouths together, brushing his lips against hers once, twice, before his kisses became insistent and greedy.
Jane's eyes fell closed and she revelled in the weakness in her knees and the thundering beat of her heart, stepping even closer towards him. This time, she had the chance to think about kisses, to realize what she felt now was unlike the specific way they had been talked about in the books she had read.
This – the moment between them was much more than what she had expected. She was aware of so many things between them, the warmth of his palm against her jaw, the gentle way his thumb traced her cheek bone. The unhurried and certain pressure of his mouth, as though he couldn’t think of anywhereto be and fully intended to remain by her side for as long as she would permit him.
Her free hand found the bare skin of his chest without her quite deciding to put it there and she trailed her fingers down his chest lightly, getting lost in the feeling of his warm skin beneath her touch. She felt strangely eager, almost hungry to explore, to learn the story of each scar that sat starkly on his skin, a small bump or mark in his flesh with a much larger story behind it.
She felt him exhale – not quite a shudder, but close to one – and something about that undid her a little. The knowledge that she could render him a little off kilter and had, apparently, done so. It made her excited, the hunger becoming even more obvious now as it threated to consume her completely.
He gathered her closer, one arm sliding around her waist, and Jane went up on her toes to better meet him and thought – with the small portion of her mind still capable of coherent reasoning – that she had gravely underestimated what she was asking for.
When he lifted her – simply lifted her, as though she weighed nothing of consequence, her stomach dipping at the effortless ease of it – she made a soft, startled sound against his mouth. Thomas paid her reaction no mind as he carried her the short distance to the bed and lowered her onto it with a care that was almost laughably at odds with the intensity of the previous moment. Then he leaned over her, and the afternoon light caught his eyes, capturing her in the nearly endless green of them, and she forgot what she had been about to say.
Which turned out to be well and good because he kissed her again, slower this time, one hand braced beside her head. Jane's fingers curled around the warm skin of his shoulder – tracing, without meaning to, the edge of a scar there – and she felt him still for just a moment before he pulled back to look at her.
“Still curious?” he murmured, his eyes darting all over her face.
“Insufferably so,” she managed.
He kissed her jaw. Then her throat. She tipped her head back and tried to remember whether breathing was something she had ever needed to think consciously about before, because it appeared to require considerable effort now. His mouth moved to the curve of her neck, unhurried, and she felt the gentle graze of his teeth and gasped before she could swallow the sound.
“You are,” he said quietly, against her skin, “Extremely extraordinary. Do you know that, duchess?”
Jane laughed, breathless and steady. “You cannot possibly think that.”
“I know what I see.” His hand moved to the buttons at the back of her dress, patient and careful. “I have been unable to look away from you for days, darling. I am quite certain by now.”
She meant to say something – could have sworn she had a response somewhere, if she could only locate it – but his mouthfound the hollow of her collarbone and the response dissolved entirely.
Thomas,she thought. And then, because she was apparently doing this:Thomas.
His hands continue to explore her body, just like he had said he wanted to do, tugging at the fabric of her skirts, pushing her legs apart with ease as he settled between them, raising up her torso, over her chest to fondle her breasts. Jane arched up into his touch, aware only of the warmth of him, the careful attentiveness of his hands, the way he seemed genuinely interested in the sounds she made.
It was as though he intended to save them in a private catalogue, only for himself to visit and relieve. She found it alarming, how easy it had been for him to dismantle whatever idea of carefulness she had stored within herself, how quickly she had lost herself to ever sensation.
She was not prepared for any of it, the yearning for more when his fingers made his way up her thighs and lightly caressed her most secret place between her legs. She was not ready for the way her body shuddered, the way it answered him, as though it recognized something she had not yet caught up with. She was not prepared for the wanting, for the way her lips parted to demand more.
“Thomas,” she begged, breathless, hungry and thirsty. “Thomas, please – I cannot –ah–”
“Simply exquisite,” he murmured against the skin of her jaw, as his fingers pressed deeper through her folds, seeking and exploring the moist heat no one else had ever once touched, not even herself.
Jane felt herself lose control further, as her body sensed the dawn of something new, once more leaving her in the dark as the sensations continued to rise higher than she believed they could. His fingers were moving faster, his touch more insistent, fracturing her thoughts completely into dust.
When it crested, it was like stepping off a ledge she hadn't seen coming – a sudden, overwhelming rush that pulled a broken sound from her throat. It left her clutching his shoulders, desperate and breathless, blinking at the ceiling of his bedchamber while her heart attempted to find its previous rhythm.
Thomas pressed a kiss to her temple, the tenderness of it helping her mind settle back gently in her body.
“Good girl,” he murmured softly.
His words echoed in her head as she drifted off into a sudden, deep slumber.
CHAPTER TWELVE
