“Hush.” She lay facing his strong, broad back. Slowly she smoothed her hand over his rigid side and inched forward until she hugged against him. She inhaled his scent, rising with the heat of his body. He was warm and comforting, and she gave a little sigh, her face nuzzling his wide shoulders. He’d been stiff at first, but now he relaxed, as if conceding the moment to her. She smiled. All her life she’d slept alone. Now she did not.
Finally, she was home.
JASPER WOKE TO feminine hands sliding down his back, and his first emotion was shame. Shame that she knew he slept on the floor like a beggar. Shame that he couldn’t sleep in a bed like other men. Sha soths sme that she knew his secret. Then her hands moved lower, and lust uncurled in his belly.
He opened his eyes and found it still dark, the fire having died down. Normally he would light a candle, but at the moment, the dark didn’t bother him. Her hand crept around his side to clasp his cock, and he groaned. To feel those cool, slim fingers curiously exploring his heat was the stuff that men dreamed about late at night when they were far from home. She fingered the head of his cock and then wrapped her hand about the shaft, slowly sliding up and down. His balls were drawn up hard and tight; he could feel the press of her small, lovely breasts against his back, and it was more than he could take this early in the morning.
He turned over. “Climb atop me.”
Her hair was down, waving about her face, and in the dim glow of the fireplace, she looked like some fey creature come to lure him away from his mortal existence. She sat up and swung a long slender leg over his hips. Then she sat straight and tall and so prim on top of his throbbing prick.
“Take me inside, my lady wife,” he whispered. “Put me in your pretty cunny.”
He thought he saw her frown in the dark, as if disapproving of an inappropriate subject at tea. She might look prim and proper when at tea in the afternoon, but at night and with him she was a wanton creature.
“Ride me, my heart,” he urged. “Ride me until you weep on my prick. Ride me until I fill you with my seed.”
She gasped then and rose. He could feel her hands about him as she sank down, and it was all he could do not to cry out. Tight wet feminine heat. Holding him. Yielding to him. He arched up and at the same time grabbed her buttocks to pull her firmly against him.
She placed her hands on his chest and slid against him, her back straight, her long hair brushing his face. She rode him, biting her lip, grinding her pelvis against his. He waited, holding back, watching her expression. Her eyes were closed, her lovely face tipped back. He moved his hand to palm her breast, and she arched her back. He pinched that pretty little nipple, torturing that bit of flesh until she gasped. And then he flicked it lightly.
“Jasper,” she panted. “Jasper . . .”
“Yes, my love?”
“Touch me.”
“I am,” he said lightly, innocently, though his face shone with sweat.
She jolted against him, swiveling her hips to punish him, and for a moment he lost all coherent thought.
Then she said, “Not like that. You know.”
He shook his head gently and flicked her nipple again. “You’ll have to say it, my heart.”
She sobbed.
He should’ve taken pity, but alas he was a wicked carnal man, and he wanted to hear those sweet, prim lips utter the words. “Say it.”
“Oh, God, touch my pussy!”
And he felt the first spurt, just at the words. He gasped and thumbed her wildly rocking cunny, feeling his hard flesh working in and out of hers, and it was too much.
He arched up off the floor and caught her mouth to his to muffle his yell. And he came, exploding into her, showering her with his soul.
Chapter Fourteen
The next day, the king announced the second trial: to bring back a silver ring that was hidden atop a mountain, which was guarded by a troll. Once again, Jack waited until everyone left, and then he opened his little tin snuffbox. Out came the suit of night and wind and the sharpest sword in the world. Jack put on the suit and took up the sword and then whoosh! Whist! there he was, quick as you please, in front of the nasty troll and his blade. Well, this battle took a little longer than the first, but in the end, the result was the same. Jack had the silver ring. . . .
—from LAUGHING JACK
When Melisande awoke the next morning, Vale was already gone from the room. She brushed her hand over his pillow. It was still warm, and she could see the indent where his head had been. She was alone, just like all the other mornings of her short marriage, but this time it was different. She’d lain in his arms last night. She’d listened to his breathing, heard the slow thump of his heartbeat, been warmed by his hot, bare skin.
She lay a moment smiling before rising and calling for Suchlike. Half an hour later, she was downstairs, ready for breakfast, but her husband was not to be found.
“Lord Vale went riding, my lady,” a sheepish footman said. “He said he’d be back when ’twas time to leave.”
“Thank you,” Melisande said, and went into the little dining room to break her fast. It was no good chasing him. Besides, he’d have to come back eventually.
But Vale chose to ride his horse beside the carriage that day, and she swayed inside with just Suchlike for company.
They made Edinburgh by late afternoon and pulled up beside Vale’s aunt’s stylish town house just after five in the evening. Vale opened the door to the carriage, and Melisande only had time to place her hand in his before his aunt was welcoming them. Mrs. Whippering was a small, stout lady wearing a sunny yellow dress. She had rosy cheeks, a perpetual smile, and a rather loud voice, which she kept constantly in use.
“This is Melisande, my lady wife,” Vale said to his aunt when she paused for breath in her effusive welcome.
“So happy to meet you, my dear,” Mrs. Whippering yodeled. “Do call me Aunt Esther.”
So Melisande did.
Aunt Esther led them into her house, which had apparently been redecorated on the occasion of her marrying her third husband. “New man, new house,” she said merrily to Melisande.
Jasper just grinned.
It was a lovely house. High on one of Edinburgh’s many hills, it was of Whitestone and had clean, classical lines. Inside, Aunt Esther favored white marble and a checkered black and white floor.
“In here,” she called, bustling down the hall. “Mr. Whippering is so looking forward to meeting both of you.”
She led them to a red sitting room with paintings of enormous baskets of fruit bracketing a black enamel and gilt fireplace. A man so tall and thin he looked like a knobby walking stick sat on a settee. He had a muffin halfway to his mouth when they walked in.
Aunt Esther flew at him in a flurry of flapping yellow skirts. “Not the muffins, Mr. Whippering! You know they are not good for your digestion.”
The poor man gave up his muffin and stood to be introduced. He was even taller than Vale, his coat hanging on him in folds. But he had a very sweet smile as he peered at them over half-moon glasses.
“This is Mr. Horatio Whippering, my husband,” Aunt Esther announced proudly.
Mr. Whippering bowed to Vale and took Melisande’s hand, twinkling up at her roguishly.
The introductions made, Aunt Esther plopped herself down on the settee. “Sit down, sit down, and tell me all about your trip.”
“We were attacked by highwaymen,” Vale said obligingly.
Melisande arched an eyebrow at him and he winked.
“No!” Aunt Esther’s eyes rounded, and she turned to her spouse. “Did you hear that, Mr. Whippering? Highwaymen attacking my nephew and his wife. I never heard the like.” She shook her head and poured tea. “Well, I expect you frightened them off.”
“All by myself.” Vale smiled modestly.
“You’re lucky to have such a strong, brave husband,” Aunt Esther told Melisande.
Melisande smiled and avoided Jasper’s gaze for fear she might laugh.
“I think they should be hung, really I do,” the little woman continued. She passed a cup of tea to Vale and Melisande and one to her husband, admonishing him, “Mind you don’t add cream. Remember what it does to your digestion, dear.” Then she sat back with a plate full of muffins on her lap and announced, “I must take issue with you, dear nephew.”
“And why is that, dear aunt?” Vale asked. He’d chosen the largest muffin, and now he bit into it, spilling crumbs down his shirt.
“Why, this hasty marriage. There’s no reason for such haste unless”—she peered at them sharply—“there is a reason?”
Melisande blinked and shook her head.
“No? Well, then, why the rush? Why, I’d hardly got the announcement that you had changed fiancées and in the very next post—it was the very next post, wasn’t it, Mr. Whippering?” she appealed to her spouse. He nodded, obviously well used to his part in her monologues. “I thought so,” Aunt Esther continued. “As I say, the ve {ay, Hery next post, a letter came from your mother writing that you’d already married. Why, I hadn’t even time to think of a suitable wedding present, let alone make plans to travel to London, and what I want to know is why marry so fast? Mr. Whippering courted me for three years, did you not, Mr. Whippering?”
A dutiful nod.
“And even then I made him wait nine months for a proper engagement before we were wed. I can’t think why you should marry in such a hurry.” She stopped to inhale and drink some tea, frowning ferociously at her nephew.
“But, Aunt Esther, I had to wed Melisande as soon as humanly possible,” Vale said, all wounded innocence. “I was afraid she might call it off. She was surrounded by suitors, and I had to beat them off with a stick. Once I had her pledge, I got her to the altar as swiftly as possible.”
He finished this outrageous pack of lies by smiling innocently at his aunt.
The lady clapped her hands delightedly. “And so you should’ve! Well done! I’m glad you caught such a fine lady to make your wife. She looks like she has a level head on her shoulders—that should balance your foolery.”
Vale clasped his chest and swooned in his chair dramatically. “You wound me, dear lady.”
“Pish,” said his aunt. “You are a silly fool, but then most men are when it comes to women, even my dear Mr. Whippering.”
They all looked at Mr. Whippering, who tried his best to appear suitably scampish. He was somewhat hampered by the teacup balanced on his knobby knees.
“Well, I wish you both a long and happy marriage,” Aunt Esther declared, popping a bite of muffin into her mouth. “And a fruitful one.”
Melisande swallowed at the allusion to babies and looked blindly down at her cup of tea. The thought of holding a small bit of her and Jasper, of stroking baby-fine reddish brown hair, sent a bolt of painful yearning through her. Oh, how wonderful it would be to have a baby!
“Thank you, Aunt,” Vale was saying gravely. “I shall endeavor to father at least a dozen or so offspring.”
“I know you jest with me, but family is most important. Most important. Mr. Whippering and I have discussed this on numerous occasions, and we both agree that children settle a young man. And you, dear nephew, could do with a bit of settling. Why, I remember the time—” Aunt Esther cut herself off with a start and a squeak as she stared at the mantel clock. “Mr. Whippering! Look at the time. Look at the time! Why didn’t you tell me it was so late, you horrid man?”
Mr. Whippering looked startled.
Aunt Esther rocked violently, trying to get up from the settee. She was hampered by her voluminous skirts, her teacup, and her plate of muffins. “We have guests for supper tonight, and I must get ready. Oh, do help me!”
Mr. Whippering stood and pulled his wife from the settee.
She bounced up and ran to ring for the maid. “We’re to have Sir Angus, and he’s a terrible stickler, but don’t {leront let that bother you,” she confided to Melisande. “He tells the most delicious stories after he’s had his second glass of wine. Now, I’ll have Meg show you to your room and let you wash up, if you desire, but be sure to come down by seven o’clock, for Sir Angus is sure to be on the doorstep at exactly that time. Then we shall have to somehow make conversation with him while we wait for everyone else to arrive. Oh, I’ve invited some lovely people.”