Chapter Twenty-seven
Seasons collide.
Jack had never…
He floundered. None of his normal expressions for amorous congress felt right.
Not for Tamsyn.
“I’ve never…made love to an innocent.”
He ought to resist those tremulous lips and misty eyes, her lithe naked body and wandering hands. The thunder had now dwindled and instead gently rolled from the distant heavens but in fury or approval, he couldn’t be sure.
“I want you to, Jack. I want you to make love to me.” Slender fingers brushed his nape.
And he was lost.
All his vows abandoned, his rules undone, beneath her delicate touch and breathy plea.
He drew back and she shivered, bringing her hands up to cover herself, but he grasped her wrists and held her gaze to his own.
Candlelight played in her eyes, but for all her spirit, he could see deep-rooted anguish, trepidation.
And so he leaned close, pulled her wrists away and kissed her scars.
“You are beautiful, Tamsyn.” And he placed arms beneath her, lifting her from the tub.
After letting her feet rest upon the plush rug, he tenderly dried her with the towel, brushed his palm across her skin. Supposedly, he was a master of seduction and yet his hands trembled. Indeed he knew a hundred ardent tricks, and they’d be expected from a rogue, but with Tam, his skills were for naught. She needed candour and…care.
Soft as a cloud, their lips met, learning, seeking and finding. He trailed kisses down her throat, collarbone and the swell of her breasts, delighting in the silk, the almond, tasting the droplets of water that dripped from her wet hair.
Candlelight flickered over her skin, the scars stark, and he kissed them once more, tried to convey everything he felt, unable to voice feelings he couldn’t fathom.
He paused to caress her face, had to slow, not frighten her with carnal demands and hurried touch.
But Tamsyn’s fingers took their chance to explore, skimmed his spine, grabbed his arse.
Impatient woman.
Her lips met the soft of his nape as he bent to her bare breasts – a curvy, tempting handful of pink and white. Drawing the peak into his mouth, he laved and flicked until he heard her moan, felt her nails dig, suffered his own maddening hunger.
Tonight, he would make passionate love. No rules.
Tamsyn’s meandering fingers were wrenched away, and she was hauled up into Jack’s arms before he strode to the sea-blue bed and gently laid her upon the coverlet.
Candlelight still lent some modesty, but no longer did she feel ugly or flawed because her honest rogue thought her beautiful. All the same, she ducked beneath the coverlet and watched whilst Jack proceeded to peel off his breeches.
Gosh.
Never had she ever seen anything so exotic, erotic, scary or downright magnificent as a naked Jack Winterbourne.
Brazen strength, slender hips, not an ounce of excess flesh, the lantern by the bed casting shadows to be discovered.
“You’re gawping, Miss Penrose.”
Before she could think of any droll retort, her wits having melted, he joined her on the bed and kissed her. A bold kiss that spoke of everything he would do.
Tongues darted and roughly plunged, stubble grazing and causing irrepressible shivers.
Impudent hands swept away the coverlet to caress her breasts, stomach and thighs, and she ought to have felt nervous or alarmed, but this was Jack.
Beautiful Jack, whom she trusted with her body and soul.
Their dalliance at the bathtub had simply been a prelude. Now all was hastening intent and gasping deeds whilst she juddered in delight, pleaded for more. She scratched her nails down his spine, bit his shoulder, until she knew he could take no more.
Wind whipped the old house and a shutter rattled, rain pounding in a sudden onslaught, and Tamsyn shared the storm’s wildness, its need to unleash.
Jack’s lean hips parted her legs, which gripped and refused to release, feeling as though she’d always waited for this moment.
For Jack.
Blunt virility nudged her core and although it should have frightened her, all she felt was freedom and anticipation and joy, heart leaping uncontrollably.
A sharp burn caused a flinch, yet she didn’t care. She welcomed it, drove her own hips to his, because it meant Jack was a part of her.
Whilst he pushed, sank deep inside, he kept his sooty gaze direct, watching for discomfort, pupils never straying, a growl nevertheless escaping his lips.
His teeth gritted as she reared, a dark flush upon his cheekbones, and Tamsyn gave her own wicked smile. “Show me, Jack. Show me life.”
He groaned, burying his face in her neck, nipped and sought, rocking leisurely despite her appeal. “You will be my undoing, Tamsyn Penrose.”
Oh, she did hope so.
The rocking grew fiercer, their breaths catching, lips meeting, breaking only for gasps of sultry air.
Lightning lit their bodies to white, no longer marble but warm wax, melding and supple, curving and pliant.
“Deeper?” Jack gasped, arms holding, muscles locking.
In answer, she scratched nails at his buttocks, had learned he shuddered in pleasure with it.
Rougher, reckless, harder. She wanted it all. All the years she’d not lived, not had Jack in her life, and all the coming years without him.
She’d take it all.
“Give me deeper,” she pleaded. “Give me wilder, faster, give me the rogue.”
“I’ll give you more than the rogue,” he rumbled sinfully.
Jack clutched her thigh around his now pounding hips, rhythm relentless, the thunderous skies no match for the storm brewing within.
So savage and powerful, and the pleasure, gushed, spilled, seeping into every crack, every limb, bone and scar. She cried out his name, relished his fierce black gaze, before her eyes closed in endless rapture and searing intensity.
Jack could restrain no longer as her beautiful eyes glazed and perfect body clenched. He wanted all of Tamsyn – her wild passion, quiet strength and indomitable spirit.
He’d dreamed of tangling fingers in her hair whilst being deep inside her, and now at last, he did so, fisting the chestnut length whilst he thrust, tempestuous and overcome, drowning in her sweetness.
The pleasure when it surged was as fierce as any tumultuous sea, pitching him under, leaving him breathless, straining over Tamsyn’s slight form with sharp grunts and errant words.
His senses erupted, filled with nothing but joy, light and Tamsyn’s sky-blue gaze.
∞∞∞
Having tiptoed her fingers over his muscled arms, Tamsyn swept them across his firm chest as it fell and rose in slumber.
They had dozed lightly in each other’s arms after that first wild joining, until Jack’s fingers and lips had roamed once more.
Rather mistakenly, she’d thought that fierceness would have abated, simmering to slow and sweet, but intensity at being alive, at knowing how passion felt had added a breathless potency – skin had been nipped, thrusts had grown savage and cries had been muffled beneath sparring mouths.
Tamsyn’s body still roiled in heat and she splayed her hand over the flat belly and then skimmed dow–
A hand firmly trapped it. “Have mercy, Tamsyn. Even rogues need their rest.”
Propping her head upon an elbow, she gazed down as thick black lashes lazily lifted, the guttering candle barely able to illuminate his eyes.
Some while ago, Jack had risen to open a window, the rain having ceased its raucous onslaught and now merely falling in a steady patter. Fresh breeze fragranced with wet grass and sea salt now drifted in to cool their skin.
“I seem to remember reading that the Marquess of Winterbourne had the stamina of six men.”
“Don’t believe everything you read.” He winked. “It’s ten.”
She thumped his wounded arm, heard a pained grunt and recollections of the day filled her: Lynch, the perilous gallop, the rabid sea and…Mr Miggens coming to their rescue.
“Your valet is remarkable,” she murmured.
“Doubtless,” he replied, winding hair around his knuckles and closing his lids. “No one can quite starch my neckcloths like Oliver can.”
The flippant and affable rogue had returned, and she wasn’t sure she wanted him quite yet, not until morning.
“You are very…familiar with Mr Miggens.” She stared avidly at his face. “And you have similar noses.”
“Hmm,” he mumbled distractedly, using her fingers to draw patterns on his chest. “The Winterbourne nose.”
“Pardon?”
Jack’s eyes snapped open. “I mean–”
“Are you saying he’s your sibling?” She raised up. “But of course. In the sea… I thought I’d heard… How did I not see it?”
Grumbling, Jack yanked her back onto his chest, fingers combing through her hair. They got stuck, gave up and started lower down. “He’s my half-brother but don’t tell Miss Treherne.”
“Why ever not?”
He sighed. “Oliver has an inordinate amount of pride – must be from his mother’s side – and he wishes Miss Treherne to like him for what he is. Valet and by-blow.”
“Lowdy is not narrow-minded.”
“No, I can see that but nevertheless she is an earl’s cousin. Although now a paid companion, she is still used to being waited upon. She dines at your table and shops at the modiste, has all the trappings of a lady. If she married a valet, she would lose all that.”
“Oh.”
But why hadn’t Jack helped his half-brother with land or patronage, and she parted her lips to ask when…she halted.
Whenever she’d thought less of Jack, invariably she’d been mistaken. He projected an air of frivolity, of glitter, but that was merely the surface.
Underneath he held deep affection.
“I expect you offered him land and he said no.”
“How did you…” He shifted to stare at her. “Yes, I did. There’s an unentailed estate in Somerset but he won’t bloody take it. The lone way to help him was to make him my valet and even then, he only draws half the wage I offer. Woolly-crowned lob-cock.”
She snuggled back in. “How did you find him? He worked for Lowdy’s cousin, didn’t he?”
Muttering ensued.
“Pardon?”
“I happened to come across him, ’tis all.”
She raised a disbelieving brow and prodded his ribs.
“I…seek out my half-siblings.” He pulled the coverlet around her neck. “Most of their mothers had been seduced and then abandoned by Father. Some are beyond help, some wanted a new start, and I helped the two girls buy a dressmaker’s shop in Whitchurch.”
Tears smarted for the sheer breadth of his generosity. Maybe she should bind him up with one of the fisherman’s nets, never to let him leave.
Instead, she kissed him.
“I like you, my rogue,” she said.
In truth, she loved him so very deeply, but she would not weigh him down with emotion, cause him to feel guilt when he left.
His lips curled. “That wasn’t the rogue who made delectable love to you earlier.”
“Who was it then?” she asked, laughing.
“It was me,” Jack declared seriously, “the me who cares for you so very much.” And he pulled Tamsyn tight, brushed a hand up her back, causing her to gasp and arch.
No rules had guided him tonight, wholly instinct and indulgence. Her shudder steered his fingers to her rump, to palm the soft handful.
Vaguely, the fact she’d been an innocent some few hours ago wafted through his mind. Tamsyn ought to sleep now, rest her aching body, and he should tenderly hold her with wholesome consideration.
But she wrapped a leg across his own, nipped his neck, long hair draping over his chest.
“Tam, you’ll be…”
She shifted, trailing a hand over his hip and lower, where good intentions ebbed and purely sinful gratification flowed.
“The storm,” she whispered in his ear, “still rages.”
A man could only take so much provocation, and he spun, trapping her beneath him. “My sweet Tamsyn, I believe it’s scarcely begun.”
Now he savoured, relishing every gasp, kissing every freckle, stroking every fragment and adoring every moment. And even when his control reached its limit, when she gasped for him, he continued in his torment.
Rolling, he yanked her astride him, smiled lazily at her shocked gasp, brushed his fingers over her kiss-swollen mouth, fitted her to his brutal arousal before she could think on the bold arrangement. She hesitated but let him guide her rhythm until her own innate chase for pleasure took over, causing him to twist and groan beneath.
He grabbed her hip, ground his body up, and reached to stroke her skin until she cried his name yet again, shuddering, fingers digging into his chest.
Only then did he allow his own desires free rein, welcomed their carnal savagery, the fall of her trembling body against his, as he followed Tamsyn fervently into the broiling storm.