The Wicked Governess (Blackhaven Brides Book 6)(73)

But when she released his hand to reach up and hold him, he turned away from her. It felt like a blow. Under her bemused, desperate gaze, he picked up her old hairbrush and sponge from the washing stand and dropped them into her carpet bag that lay open on the bed. Then he went to the dresser and wardrobe, pulling out the few meagre garments he found there–a thin under gown, a pair of darned stockings, and Serena’s altered peach evening dress. They too went in the bag before he walked to the desk and swept up her pens and letters and laid them on top. He reached over and lifted the book from her bedside table, adding it before he picked up the bag.

“You have so little,” he said, “and yet, you give so much. What did I pay you?”

“I’m not sure we ever discussed that. A pair of boots, certainly.”

She heard his breath of laughter as he lifted the flickering candle. “Come.”

Her throat constricted as she followed him out into the passage. He turned left, in the direction she’d never been, toward his bedchamber. She swallowed convulsively. He was moving her to his own chamber. Because he was making the point that she was no longer merely the governess? To whom? To her or to the servants?

Or was this, at last, her wedding night?

A lamp and several candles bathed his bedchamber in a warm, friendly glow. The fire in the grate added to the atmosphere of welcome. Old but still heavy velvet curtains hung over the windows in two walls, for his was the corner room. Faded carpets broke up the polished wood floor. There was a grand wardrobe and chest of drawers, an escritoire under one window, and bookcases around most of the available wall space. An open door led to a small dressing room with a truckle bed and wash stand.

Her gaze came back to the main room, finally settling on the large, curtained bed that dominated the chamber.

“Could you be comfortable here?” he asked softly. “We can redecorate it to suit you, of course, change—”

“It’s perfect,” she interrupted. “At this point, there is nothing I would change.”

He dropped her bag on the floor, pushing it aside with his foot as he blew out the candle in his hand, and set it down on top of the nearest bookcase. “I have a question.”

“I hope I have the answer.”

He glanced at her over his shoulder, half of his face in shadow. His lips parted to speak, then closed again. His brow furrowed. And then he said abruptly, “Shall I sleep in there?” His head jerked toward the dressing room and the truckle bed.

Her instant reaction was pain that he did not wish to be with her. Only then she registered his erratic breathing, the difficulty with which he asked. He was considering her injury, her tiredness, her inevitable virginal fears. He was sparing her.

“I do not wish to be spared,” she whispered, all but running to him. “Javan, I love you.”

He caught her in one arm, still being careful of her wound, and cupped the back of her head. “Then, my sweet,” he said hoarsely. “May I take you to bed?”

She raised her face to his, searching for his lips, which came down on hers so suddenly that she gasped. His hands in her hair, drew out the pins until it tumbled loose about her shoulders, and he drew back to look.

He smiled. “That is how I long for you.”

Slowly, deliberately, he unfastened her ball gown and let it slip to the floor around her feet. Under gown and stays quickly followed, until she stood before him in nothing but her chemise. Taking her hand, he led her to the bed, and sat, drawing her down beside him while he kicked off his shoes and unbuttoned the skin-tight legs of his pantaloons.

Daringly, she slid one hand up under his shirt, caressing the warm, velvet skin of his back, finding other ridges, other scars that were part of his past and the man he had become. As he straightened, she drew the shirt up and over his head, and he gently pushed her back until she lay flat on the bed with him looming over her.

He lowered his head, kissing her until she was lost in his mouth and her own fire. Only then did he drag the chemise up her body and over her head. His already erratic breath caught. His Adam’s apple jerked as he swallowed.

In sudden shyness, she moved her arms inward, to cover herself, but he caught them, pressing them into the mattress above her head while his gaze devoured her. And somehow, she was no longer embarrassed but triumphant, powerful, and even more desperate for what was to come. He shifted, lowering his head once more to kiss her breasts, and she thought she would die of this new bliss.

Her eyes closed and she held him to her in wonder. He shifted, letting her feel his full, glorious weight for an instant. His pantaloons and undergarments were gone, for it was hot skin which caressed hers, the hard length of his erection stroking between her thighs.

“This will be a first for both of us,” he said shakily. “For I have never done this before with so much love. With true love.”

She touched his scarred cheek, kissing his lips with longing. His fingers roamed over her body, stroking and caressing in her most intimate places until her shock turned to wonder and pleasure.

“Tell me to slow down, or tell me to stop,” he got out. “I will. It may kill me, but I will…”

The fierce, male passion in his face should have frightened her, and perhaps it did, somewhere, but it seemed she trusted him more, for even the short pain, the strange stretching of her body was part of the wonder and somehow added to her blind desire. For the caresses of his hands and mouth, the movements of his body were all miraculously, deliciously tender. He was so gentle compared with the wild ferocity of his eyes, that she got lost in curious new delight. She held on to him, following him, until her body seemed to act on its own, undulating with him. She kissed him, bit his shoulder in this shock of need until waves of bliss began to grow out of it and consume her, building and flooding within her until there was only joy.