Page 49 of To Swoon and to Spar
“This all sounds very serious,” she said. He watched her carefully, clearly waiting for some sort of unforeseen attack. “But not as serious as the fact that you won’t admit you were wrong!”
She jabbed an accusatory finger into his chest, which was surprisingly firm for a man she had supposed to be an idle aristocrat, and she was reminded of his fondness for swimming. She then hastily tried very hardnotto be reminded of his fondness for swimming, because that conjured up an entire litany of mental images involving very little clothing and a lot of… activity.
“Fine!” He reached up and caught her hand in his and looked directly at her. “I was wrong. I’ve spent days thinking about Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth and… well, I was beginning to grow concerned that they weren’t going to work it out!” He clutched her hand more tightly as he said this, and Jane had to try very hard to keep herself from smiling.
“I knew you’d like it,” she said. “Would you like to tryNorthanger Abbeynext? I purchased it in the same set, you know.”
“I believe that one was in the stack you forced upon me, so it’s likely already on my bedside table,” he reminded her.
“You should read it,” she urged. “It involves a possibly haunted house. Perhaps you will experience feelings of empathy for its heroine.”
“I doubt that,” he said darkly, but his gaze on her turned thoughtful, and Jane instantly wished that she hadn’t brought it up. She was very careful when it came to discussing the supposed haunting of Trethwick Abbey—and she did not wish for him to suspect that she might have been inspired by any of her reading.
“In any case,” she added hastily, “I will sleep the happiest sleep of my life tonight, knowing that you have come to realize the joy of novels.”
“Jane.” He now sounded reluctantly amused. “I’ve discovered that I enjoy one novel.One. I don’t know that you should get too carried away in your excitement.”
“Oh?” she asked. “Did you care to wager on the likelihood that you’ll like another one I select for you?”
“Interesting you should mention our wager,” he said, resting his head against the back of his chair and allowing his eyelids to lower lazily as he regarded her. “I don’t recall that we’d worked out whatIwas going to do foryouif you won.”
“We… didn’t?” Jane asked uncertainly, realizing as she spoke the words that he was correct.Shehad promised to behave sweetly to his sister, should she lose—she reflected cheerfully on all the energy she would save in May, not having to keep that particular promise if her plan to frighten off their houseguests proved unsuccessful—but they’d never discussed whathewould do if he were the loser.
“Is there something you wish me to do for you, Jane?” he asked her, and Jane suddenly felt warm. She cast a glance at the fire, which had not instantaneously doubled in size and strength to explain the sensation.
All at once, she could think of nothing but the moment the weekbefore, when he had kissed her in the open air, the wind whipping around them. She wondered what it would be like to kiss him here—indoors, where there were no people who might see them, where they were not wrapped up in layers of coats and gloves, where it was quiet and warm and still.
She licked her lips.
She also wondered what he would do if sheaskedhim to kiss her.
Or if, better yet, she did it herself, without asking—if she took what she wanted instead.
She rather thought she might like to find out.
She reached a hand down to his face, the stubble on his cheek rough against her palm in a way that she found strangely pleasant. He tilted his head back, pressing his cheek into her hand, and then turned his face so that he could press a soft kiss to her palm. His gaze upon her was unwavering as he did so, and Jane felt her pulse in her throat, then the slow, heavy slide of warmth within her, seeming to pool in the base of her stomach.
She swallowed once, and then she leaned down and pressed her mouth to his.
It was a soft kiss at first, tentative and searching, and Jane let her eyes fall shut, seeing nothing, her entire world becoming the feeling of his lips on hers and the warmth of his cheek against her hand, the sudden press of his fingers at her waist—as though he were anchoring her to him. And Jane, who had never felt particularly tied to anyone or any place other than this old house, found she liked the feeling of being tethered to him, however gently.
Tentatively, she pressed her tongue to the seam of his lips, and he opened his mouth with the faintest guttural sound that sent the pool of heat settling even lower, between her legs, in a way that she was notunfamiliar with, but which she’d never thought to experience with anyone so mundane as ahusband.
The husbands in her books were solid, dull sorts—it was the kidnappers, the pirates, the incorrigible rogues that sent the blood racing in her veins and her pulse pounding in parts of her body that she hadn’t even been aware it was possible for a pulse to take up residence.
But then, when she had imagined a hypothetical future husband, she hadn’t imagined anyone like Penvale. He wasn’t solid and dull—but neither was he a rake or a rogue or a seducer.
He was… complicated.
Jane was coming to find that shelikedcomplicated.
And she certainly liked everything about the way he kissed her, with his other hand at the nape of her neck, the warmth of his palm on her bare skin sending sparks coursing up her spine. His fingers slid into the silky mass of her hair, pinned back in a windswept knot, and she heard the faintplinkof a hairpin falling to the floor.
Even as his fingers were busy, he continued to kiss her, his tongue sliding against hers, and Jane, despite all her reading, had not realized that kissing could feel likethis—this needy, this utterly consuming, this intimate.
Her mouth curved against his in a smile—there was no need to be clever or witty, to converse easily, to make jokes, to offer a tinkling false laugh. Here, there was just her mouth and his tongue and his hand brushing the underside of her breast, setting all her nerves ablaze, and the low sound in her throat that she knew should have embarrassed her but which she could muster no shame for, not when she felt his mouth curve against her own in reply.
His hand left her breast, and Jane would have objected, would havevoiced some protest, if she could have drawn her mouth away from his long enough to do so, but then it was at her waist, his other hand joining it there, and he was pulling her down so that she was straddling him in his chair, and—oh.
