Suddenly You(78)

“I need someone who will be solid and steady and faithful,” she gasped. “This will burn out someday and then—”

“Never,” he rasped. His mouth closed over hers once more, in a ravaging kiss that sent a jolt of need through her. He picked her up and set her on the massive four-poster bed, his lungs working like bellows as he fought for self-control. Standing over her, he stripped off his waistcoat and silk necktie, and began to unfasten his shirt.

Amanda’s mind was foggy with confusion and desire. He could not simply carry her off to his bedroom in this primitive manner…and yet she could not ignore the insistent clamoring of her own body. The past weeks of deprivation had suddenly become too much, and she wanted him with an urgency that was almost painful.

Red-faced and shaking, she watched as Jack shrugged out of his shirt and dropped it to the floor, revealing the gleaming muscled expanse of his chest and the brawny width of his shoulders. He leaned over her and reached for her legs. As he unfastened and removed each shoe, his warm hand clasped over her cold toes and chafed them gently. He raised her skirts to her knees, and his gentle fingers slid to her garters. “Did you do this with Hartley?” he asked, staring at her knees while he removed the garters and unrolled her stockings.

“Did I do what?” Amanda asked unsteadily.

Jealousy lent an abraded edge to his tone. “Don’t play games with me, Amanda. Not about this.”

“I have not been intimate with Charles,” she muttered, biting her lip as he stripped the layer of silk from her legs and stroked her calves.

Amanda could not see his face, but she sensed that her answer had relieved him. Carefully he tugged at her drawers, removing them from beneath her skirts, and reached for the back of her gown. She held still, her body filled with an ache of anticipation as he unfastened her gown and drew it over her head. A small murmur of relief escaped her when her corset was undone, and she was finally free of the biting pressure of her stays. She felt his hands on her body, gently searching through the paper-thin cotton of her chemise. He cupped her br**sts, the heat of his hands causing her ni**les to rise eagerly into his palms and harden with a stinging sensation. She moaned as he bent and opened his mouth over a ripe peak, licking and soothing. The delicate fabric became wet from his ministrations, and she lifted herself upward with an incoherent sound.

His fingers grasped the edge of the chemise and he tore it neatly, easily, exposing the abundant curves of her br**sts. Gathering the pale, cool flesh into his hands, Jack kissed and suckled until Amanda was tense and gasping beneath him. “Will you be my wife?” he murmured, his hot breath puffing against her moist pink ni**les. When she remained silent, his fingers squeezed the curves of her br**sts, urging her to answer. “Will you?”

“No,” she said, and he laughed suddenly, his eyes bright with passion.

“Then I’ll keep you in this bed until you change your mind.” He reached down to the front of his trousers, freed himself, and climbed over her. “You will, eventually. Do you doubt my stamina?”

Her legs spread, and her entire body jumped in reaction as she felt the stiff, blunt-tipped heat of his sex brush against the nest of dark curls between her thighs. She strained upward, wanting him so badly that she had to grit her teeth to keep from crying out. “You are mine,” he whispered, entering her slowly, the head of his shaft nudging inside. “Your heart, your body, your mind, the seed growing in your belly…all of you.” He filled her, impelling himself deeper until she had to lift her legs around his back to accommodate him.

“Tell me who you belong to,” he whispered, pushing rhythmically, stretching her swollen flesh until she groaned at the weight of him inside her, over her, around her.

“You,” she gasped. “You. Oh, Jack—”

He thrust again and again, his body tireless, his hand slipping between her thighs to touch and stroke the vulnerable peak hidden in the thicket of curls. She cl**axed at once, overcome with the searing delight of his possession.

Keeping their bodies joined, Jack rolled onto his back so that she straddled his long, muscular body, and he clasped her h*ps to guide her in a new rhythm. “I can’t,” she moaned, her br**sts swaying before his face, but his hands gripped and moved her insistently, and she felt the urgent need building again. This time when she convulsed, he joined her with a deep groan, driving the pounding cl**ax into the center of her body. They remained fused together for long, throbbing minutes, their skin warm and salty with mingled perspiration.

Clasping his hands around her curly head, Jack brought Amanda’s mouth to his. He kissed her lightly, his lips warm and teasing. “Sweet Amanda,” he whispered, and she felt him smile against her mouth. “I swear I’ll have a ‘yes’ out of you by morning.”

Amanda’s small, expedient wedding to Jack Devlin caused an uproar among family and friends. Sophia could not have been more disapproving, predicting that the union would someday result in separation. “I hardly need point out that the two of you have nothing in common,” her sister had said acidly, “except for certain physical appetites that are too indecent to mention.”

Had Amanda not been in the midst of emotional upheaval, she would have replied that there was one more thing that she and Jack had in common. However, she was not yet ready to impart the news of her pregnancy, and she managed to remain silent.