Page 100 of Lord Garson's Bride
“Shut up, Jane.” The hard, sucking kiss he placed on her neck would leave a mark. “And spread your legs.”
How could she deny him? He stroked her. Now both of them knew that for all her defiance, she was hot and ready. Unforgiving hands seized her hips, and his body went taut against her back.
She couldn’t restrain a yearning sob at the delay. Then a cry of satisfaction as he plunged deep inside her. With one powerful thrust, he filled her aching emptiness, and she clenched around him in helpless welcome.
He groaned against her ear, and his kiss on her neck this time expressed a longing to match hers. Even knowing that was only wishful thinking, she released another choked sob and bumped backward. Her wordless consent drew a low growl of satisfaction from him.
He began to move in and out, each time claiming more of what she’d tried to deny him. Soon, astonishingly soon, she began to quake with a climax that had her moaning in pleasure.
She closed her eyes and bit her lip and battled to keep some distance from him, even as every muscle quivered and tightened with rapture. She felt a great liquid surge from her womb, then Hugh thrust one last time and flooded her with every drop of his passionate heat.
* * *
Garson collapsed exhausted on Jane’s back. He’d found his release, and he’d brought her to climax. He should feel triumphant, relieved, purged.
Instead he felt dirty, as though he’d desecrated something holy.
He made himself stand upright and tug down her skirts, hiding those delicious pink folds between her legs that glistened with his seed. He stepped back. Clumsy hands fastened his breeches and straightened his shirt. He felt cheap and mean. His wife deserved better of him.
“Jane, you can stand up now,” he said tonelessly. “It’s over.”
Slowly she lifted away from the chair, so slowly that he worried if in his savagery, he might have hurt her. “Are you all right?”
When she turned, her face was flushed and her eyes were dazed. “Yes.”
One trembling hand rose to her chest. The pretty dress was creased, although he took his hat off to her maid. Jane’s hair remained mostly in place, apart from a few garnet tendrils clinging to the damp skin of her neck.
“Good,” he said shortly.
He left her and returned to the room she’d assigned to him, where he stood in the center of the floor until he stopped shaking. Despite that massive orgasm, he felt sick and unhappy and discontented. Their encounter had been like diving into the sun, but it only proved that he wanted his wife back where she belonged. With him.
* * *
Garson didn’t expect to see Jane before his departure. After all, they’d done what he came for, and she’d made it humiliatingly clear that beyond that, she had no use for him. Butwhen he led his saddled horse out of the stable, she waited in the yard.
She’d changed into one of her old gray dresses. If she thought that might quash his desire, she was mistaken. The dress reminded him of those radiant days and nights in Salisbury, when he’d dared to believe that this marriage might lend his life purpose and joy.
For a month, regret had haunted him. Now it rose so strongly, it tasted rusty on his tongue. He regretted hurting this lovely, ardent creature, until all she offered him was this afternoon’s bitter passion. He regretted that despite everything he knew of honor and goodness, his body basked in a glorious afterglow. He regretted most of all that he couldn’t give his wife what she wanted, so that she trusted him to make her happy.
Garson brought Lysander to a stop. “What is it, Jane?”
He was too weary and heart-sore to be angry. He hoped like hell that she conceived soon. Too many meetings like this would finish him.
He hoped that she never conceived, because this was all she’d give him, and he couldn’t bear the thought of never touching her again.
Jane looked equally wrung out. Her brief animation after her climax had faded to more of that watchful composure. “I wanted to say goodbye.”
He didn’t take much encouragement from that.
“Goodbye,” he said curtly. But he didn’t get on his horse and ride away. Not yet. “You’ll write.”
“Yes. Another visit may not be necessary.”
“No.”
She didn’t move. “Has all the talk been horrid?”
What was this? A sign of some interest in his life? The brief impulse to sarcasm didn’t last. He’d been here long enough tosee that she was at least as unhappy with their current dilemma as he was. “The gossips have had a field day.”
