Jane leaned in closer, so curious and needy for answers she knew would steal her breath.
“Well? What were you thinking about?”
He stared down at her, his gaze weighed by a particular directness, the kind that had begun to make her breath unreliable. “What I was thinking,” he said, his voice dropping slightly, “Is that I wanted to mark you.”
Jane went still, her breath rattling within her chest.
“So that there would be no question,” he continued, “About who you belong to.”
“That's –” She started to say something about howchildishorridiculousor any of the other words she had prepared, and then his mouth found her throat, exactly where her pulse was doing its most obvious work, and all available vocabulary left her.
His lips were warm and deliberate. He was not hurrying. He pressed his mouth to the curve of her neck – not a kiss exactly, more like aclaim, the soft drag of lips that moved up to beneath her jaw, and she felt her hand find the back of his neck without having planned to put it there.
“Thomas, wait –”
His name came out wrong to her ears. Her utterance was far too soft, clearly the voice of someone whose issued objection was purely formal.
“Tell me to stop,” he said, still against her throat, the words warm as he pressed his lips there again, and she felt it everywhere, the particular current of it that ran from her throat to the backs of her knees. “I'll stop.”
“Someone could –” She stopped herself.
The circumstances were much different than they had been last time. They were alone, in their own home, with the door closed in a house full of staff who know better than to burst into a room they knew could be occupied by the duke or duchess.
The argument she had been formulating dissipated into smoke in her head and she gave into the desire brewing within her.
His hands found her waist and pulled her closer, his grip a steady warm insistence that rearranged the distance between them. She was pressed against his side, his mouth still at her throat, and she was aware of the fire and the quiet of the room and the completely unfair specificity of his attention.
His hands traced the line of her waist, the curve of her hip, slow and thorough, and she pressed her lips together and made a small sound she immediately tried to reclaim.
“Stay with me,” he murmured against her jaw.
She meant to tell him something – likely important, or perhaps not – and instead she exhaled slowly and turned her face toward him and let him take it for what it was.
His lips moved hotly against hers, nibbling and sucking, moaning when she opened up for him, slipping his tongue into her mouth. Jane could feel her body relax as he touched her infuriating deliberateness. His hands mapped her through the fabric of her dress in slow strokes, learning the curves and dips she was made of by feel.
Eventually, his hand found her spot between her legs and she clenched her thighs shut, whining breathlessly into his mouth as his fingers insistently probed past her folds.
His strokes were unhurried and languid, gradually ridding her of the thought that could distract her from the sensations being revealed to her. His mouth dropped kisses all over her face, down her jaw, following the curve of her neck. Then he settled over her pulse and sank his teeth into her skin.
“Ah!” Jane gasped, breathless and heady with desire and pleasure.
She could feel it budling within her, the crescendo of her release and she clutched at his arm, willing him to go further and faster.
But just as it was within reach, when she could swear that she could taste it, he pulled back. The disappointment hit her and threated to smother her, drawing a petulant whine as she tugged at his sleeve.
“No – why? It was... I was so close,” she whined, feeling as though she had lost her senses.
“I know,” he smirked down at her and kissed her, beginning his ministrations once more.
And just like before, just as her peak approached, he pulled back, the barest degree, and she felt the absence of him like a held breath.
“Thomas.” She moaned name again, in protest.
“Mm.” He mumbled, dragging his lips along the line of her collarbone.
“You are doing this on purpose,” she managed to accuse.
She felt him smile against her skin. “Yes.”
