Pursuing Lord Pascal (Dashing Widows #4)

Chapter Twelve

R emaining still under Amy’s touch pushed Pascal until he teetered on the edge. What a glorious surprise she turned out to be. He’d expected to need to coax her into revealing her sensuality. Long ago, he’d realized that for a widow, she was close to innocent.

So when she’d tugged off his neck cloth and kissed his bare chest, his heart slammed to an astounded stop. Then he’d stood trembling as with unashamed enjoyment, she touched him. Finally she’d laid her hand on his cock, and the pleasure threatened to immolate him.

All impulse to prolong the preliminaries into the evening vanished. He’d never wanted a woman as much as he wanted Amy Mowbray. Now, praise God, he was going to have her.

He drew out of that blazing kiss and stepped away to sit on the bed. Clumsy with urgency, he yanked off his boots and flung them aside. Then he stood and directed his attention to unwrapping this incomparable gift fate had given him. Quickly he unlaced the pretty rose-pink dress and let it fall to the floor. Her filmy undergarments soon followed.

When at last she was naked, he released the breath he felt he’d held all day. She’d led him such a chase, he’d never been sure of her. Even when he’d carried her upstairs. But her melting expression now told him she cast aside reluctance and offered him everything.

The compulsion to rush to the end while she was here and she was his set his blood alight, but he made himself linger to admire her. “You’re temptation personified.”

Her body was lithe and graceful, more athletic than he’d imagined in those feverish nights when he’d lain awake wanting her. Full, high breasts. Rich, female curves. Long legs.

Nervously Amy raised one hand to cover the brown curls below her pale stomach. The other hand hovered above her beaded pink nipples.

“I’ve…I’ve never been naked with a man before,” she admitted in a cracked voice. “Wilfred came to me in darkness, and we always kept our clothes on.”

How much she had to discover. How much he had to show her. “There’s no need to be shy. You’re glorious.”

Despite her pink cheeks, she tilted her chin and subjected his body to a thorough inspection. Heat sizzled through him, and his balls tightened in anticipation.

“I want to please you.”

“You do.” He ran his hand down her arm, delighting in her silky skin, and laced his fingers with hers. “You will.”

Her fingers twined around his with a swift trust that made his heart somersault. Pascal leaned in and placed his lips on hers, leashing his ravenous passion.

She responded with the sweetness so essential to her nature. Under his gentle exploration, she sighed, and the tension gradually seeped from her body. Taking exquisite care, he began to touch her, finding the places that made her tremble. His hands learned the line of her back, the dip of her waist, the flare of her hips, the lushness of her buttocks. Deliberately he avoided her breasts and sex. His control balanced on a knife edge.

He nudged her toward the bed and broke her fall when she tumbled back onto the sheets. She was panting with excitement.

He pulled away to strip off his breeches, until he, too, was naked. When she stared at him with what looked like wonder, he blushed for the first time in twenty years.

“I’m a lucky girl.”

He gave a broken laugh. “Not as lucky as I am.”

“We’ll argue about that later.”

“Much later.” He had difficulty summoning coherent speech. The endless beat of desire was too powerful. He came down over her, sliding his hips between her spread thighs. The friction of skin on skin was delicious.

“Yes.” Readily she curved her hands over his shoulders and raised her knees, cradling him closer to where he longed to be. Her musky arousal mingled with the scent of the flowers. For the rest of his life, he’d think of this as the perfume of paradise.

When he bent to take her nipple between his lips, she jerked and cried out, digging her fingers into his back. He reached down to stroke her cleft, dipping his fingers into the hot female honey.

When she was writhing in demand against the sheets, he lifted his head to see her face. Her eyes were half shut, and a flush colored her cheeks.

“Don’t stop,” she murmured, sliding one hand up to caress his jaw. “I love what you’re doing.”

Ruthlessness tinged this kiss, then he took her other nipple into his mouth, flicking his tongue over it again and again until she quivered and moaned. Between her legs, his hand moved more purposefully. His thumb brushed the center of her pleasure, and she released a sharp little cry.

Carefully he slid a finger into her. She tightened in swift welcome, and he gritted his teeth against spiraling arousal. How he longed to taste her there. To bring her to climax with his tongue. But his primitive, irresistible need to claim her made further delay unthinkable.

He caught her thighs and held them apart. On a powerful surge, he rose and thrust forward. As he pushed into her body, she hissed with satisfaction and dug her nails into his back. The sharp sting heightened the avalanche of sensations overwhelming him.

Tight, hot and wet, she clenched around him. How could a man survive such bliss?

She arched up and kissed his neck. “Gervaise.”

Just his name. No more. But it was enough. He heard every ounce of her pleasure in the single word.

With heavy strokes, Pascal moved, staking his possession with every plunge. The soft music of her moans, the grip of her body, the flutter of her hands against the bare skin of his back and arms, all fed his fierce arousal. His thrusts intensified, pushing her into the mattress. Still she rose to meet him, lifting her hips to take him deeper.

Her breath escaped in erratic gusts. Pascal was so close, but through his approaching crisis, he held back. He needed her to go first, to find what she’d never known before. She jerked her hips higher, but still didn’t cross over into release.

He shifted to lean on one elbow so he could touch her and take her over. For a fraught moment, she tautened into quaking stillness. He rose on his arms to slide into her again, and she cried out in astonished discovery. The storm finally broke and made her shake and sob under the onslaught of pleasure. The eyes that met his shone liquid gold.

Through her shuddering peak, he poised over her, battling to hold still. The moment stretched into rapturous agony.

At last, with a guttural growl, he wrenched free to spill his seed on the soft curve of her stomach.

In blind, primal release, he pumped his passion onto her skin. Then he slumped beside her, burying his face in the pillows.

Pascal felt elated, exhausted, free. While some wicked, hungry part of him regretted that he hadn’t flooded her womb with sweet heat.

* * *

Amy lay naked and shaking beside Gervaise, as those unearthly, shattering feelings slowly ebbed. The peak had flung her clear of the world and sent her soaring through blazing light. She still felt lost among the stars. She’d had no idea. No idea at all.

Now the world was made anew. And her principal reaction was poignant gratitude. That fate had seen fit to place her in Lord Pascal’s path. That she’d finally mustered the courage to act on the attraction. That she’d had a chance to discover the magic a man and a woman could conjure from two naked bodies in a bed.

She spared a moment’s pity for Wilfred, who had never known this ecstasy. The few times he’d come to her, their union had been quick, fumbling. Hidden, because he felt ashamed of wanting her, even though she was his wife.

There had been none of the unabashed enjoyment Gervaise had taken in her. And Wilfred’s discomfort with his physical needs had made her feel awkward and ugly, so she’d never asked more from him.

Now she looked back on her marriage and thought how sad it was that delight had been a stranger. Wilfred had been a good man. She was sorry this rich fulfillment had been denied to him.

The irony was that she’d felt a thousand times more shame, lying with her lawful husband, than with her dissolute lover. She was now a fallen woman, and she’d never known such happiness.

Clearly she was a brazen hussy.

“Why are you smiling?” Gervaise asked softly.

She turned to find him resting his head on his arm and studying her. “I think you know.”

When attractive amusement crinkled his eyes, his physical beauty struck her anew. She’d never seen his expression so unguarded. With a shock, she realized that even with her, he’d maintained a slight detachment.

Long ago, she’d guessed that Gervaise’s outstanding looks were as much burden as blessing. But she only now understood how he cultivated a constant emotional distance. Essential, she supposed, when the whole world wanted something from you.

“I can guess.” His kiss expressed a searching tenderness that made her toes curl against the rumpled sheets. “Or at least hope.”

The thread of intimacy spinning between them was too fragile to bear the weight of vows and plans. She drew him down for another kiss, trying to tell him without words how he’d changed her. Because after this afternoon, she’d never go back to being frightened, crippled Amy Mowbray, closing herself away from life and joy and danger.

He rolled out of bed and crossed to the washstand. How she admired his comfortable nakedness. Even now, after those extraordinary moments in his arms, she wasn’t quite so brave.

Amy was reaching for the sheet when he splashed some water from the ewer into a bowl and began to wash. Her hand stilled, and she lay transfixed. Something about observing this private activity strengthened the invisible net drawing them together.

Once he’d finished, he poured fresh water into the bowl and approached the bed. “Let me wash you.”

His seed was sticky on her stomach. She thought back to the fiery moments when she’d burst through into transcendent pleasure, followed by the faint disappointment, even then, when he’d withdrawn.

As a man of honor should, he’d protected her. But the abrupt intrusion of worldly practicality into that profound experience had tainted her wholehearted surrender.

A baby out of wedlock would be a disaster. During her marriage, she’d never conceived, but Wilfred had been old and mostly indifferent. She had a suspicion Gervaise’s seed was considerably more potent.

This chagrin was lunacy for a woman who wasn’t sure she wanted to marry again. Although if she were to choose a husband, she began to think Gervaise mightn’t be a bad option.

“Thank you,” she murmured, as he ran the cloth over her skin. She lay unmoving under his care, still not completely at ease with her nakedness. “For everything.”

“I don’t want you regretting anything we do,” he said softly, rinsing the flannel in the lukewarm water, then returning to his task. He parted her legs, and the water felt marvelous on the hot, swollen flesh between her thighs.

It was years since she’d had a man in her bed—and Gervaise’s proportions were considerably more generous than Wilfred’s. And he’d been much more energetic. She’d loved what he’d done, but now she felt stretched and a little sore.

“I should feel more remorseful than I do,” she admitted. “And shocked.”

“Yet you don’t?” He dropped the cloth into the water with a small splash and returned the bowl to the washstand.

“I must be irredeemable.” Amy pushed higher on the pillows and shoved the heavy fall of hair back from her face. She didn’t want anything to obscure the spectacular view. Female appreciation warmed her blood as her gaze traced his strong back and legs, and the firm globes of his buttocks.

When he turned to face her, the interest in his eyes echoed the interest his body betrayed. Late sunlight poured through the window and traced him in gold, as if even the sun couldn’t resist contributing to his splendor. “Oh, I hope so.”

She laughed. “You’re no use.”

His eyes narrowed with purpose. “I dare you to say that in ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes?”

“Maybe five.” His smile deepened. “Tell me what you feel.”

She stretched against the bedhead, luxuriating in how his eyes focused on her breasts. Her bashfulness receded under his blatant admiration. Nakedness had its advantages. “Naughty certainly.”

“That’s a start.”

Her voice lowered to seriousness. “I never imagined I could feel like I did in your arms. You have a gift, my lord.”

Unexpectedly, her heartfelt praise displeased him. “It’s not just me. It’s the two of us together. You’re incomparable, Amy. And the only person who doesn’t recognize that is you.”

She didn’t want to ponder her shortcomings. After all, the afternoon would soon be over, and she’d have to go back to London and pretend she was the same pragmatic creature she’d been before today. She stretched out her hand. “I’ll tell you something—I feel like the most beautiful woman in the world when you touch me.”

His smile filled with the sweetness that always turned her mind to soup. “Then it must be time to touch you again.”

“An excellent suggestion,” she said, fearing that she smirked. Difficult to resist smugness when he looked at her like that. Like she was a piece of Turkish delight, and he wanted to snap her up with one bite of his straight, white teeth.

Gervaise took her hand, but didn’t yet push her down for another passionate wrestle. “Are you sure you’re ready to do this? I’m not a brute. I can wait until next time.”

Her eyebrows arched in taunting inquiry. “Next time?”

“I don’t want a passing conquest.” He lifted her hand, and the graze of his lips across her skin made her quake with anticipation. Stronger than before, now she knew just what she anticipated. “If I had my way, I’d whisk you away to some secret haven and sate every appetite. Day after glorious day.”

For a dazed interval, she stared into those intense, perfect features and imagined what that would be like. Hour after hour in Gervaise’s bed. Night after night. Taking their pleasure, until they collapsed with exhaustion in a tangle of naked limbs. Then seeking pleasure anew. Nobody nearby to interrupt or observe or judge.

And endless time to talk to him. She wanted him. Of course she did. But more than that, she longed to see into his soul. He was such a compelling mixture of rake and hero.

A bird called from a tree outside and shattered the alluring fantasy of escape. It was impossible. She wasn’t some starry-eyed milkmaid in thrall to the amorous plowboy. With fishing rod or not.

She had responsibilities, obligations. If she forsook her reputation, she’d damage her family’s future. Silas and Helena and Robert all had children who would suffer from gossip about a notorious aunt.

Amy beat back the sudden wistfulness. Regret held no sway in this room. What she had was the fulfillment of a dream. Asking for more was greedy.

She rose to lace her arms around Gervaise’s powerful neck and draw him down for a bold, open-mouthed kiss. When at last he raised his head, she smiled and told herself to be content with the present.

“We’re somewhere secret now,” she murmured. “Let’s take advantage of it while we can.”