Chapter 9
Jericho believed, for all her defiance, Jocelyn would join him in the kitchen within the time limit of five minutes he had given her. Possibly only by a second or two as a show of further defiance, but she would be here.
He was right; there was just four seconds of that time left on his pocket watch when Jocelyn appeared in the kitchen doorway.
She looked completely unlike the disheveled woman of earlier. Her face was clean and slightly flushed. Her dark hair was no longer secured at her crown with loose tendrils falling about her shoulders but had been released from its confinement. It was now tied back at her nape with a pink ribbon that looked distinctly like the ones running along the top of and fastening her chemise.
He had never seen the robe she was wearing before, but its color—bright red—and the luxurious material—pure silk—told him it had, in all probability, once belonged to his mother. Her favorite color had been red, and she had always clothed herself in the richest and most expensive materials.
His mother’s figure had been more voluptuous than Jocelyn’s, but the material was such that it clearly showed the outline of her breasts tipped by budding nipples. A matching silk belt was fastened about the slenderness of her waist before the sensuous material molded lovingly over curvaceous hips. Her feet were bare and must be feeling the cold of the flagstone floor of the kitchen, although the heat from the range had succeeded in warming the room itself.
She tossed her head back in challenge. “I could find no slippers to match.”
Jericho stood up. “As my mother never entered the kitchen, I doubt she ever saw the need for them.” His narrowed gaze swept over her from foot to head. “Are you wearing anything beneath that robe?” His voice sounded strained even to his own ears.
Jocelyn’s chin rose another notch. “As you did not see fit to bring any of my other clothing with you, I had no choice but to wash my undergarments and hope they will be dry enough for me to wear in the morning.”
Jocelyn’s lack of clothing was an oversight on Jericho’s part, but at the time, his only interest had been to take her away from Wessex Manor to somewhere he might question her without interference from Cousin Gwendoline. Which was no excuse, he accepted, only fact. Knowing Jocelyn wore nothing beneath the robe did nothing to deter his rapidly hardening cock.
That knowledge made him speak more harshly than he had intended. “As you appear to only be wearing that robe, and I warned I would make you remove one item of clothing every time you disobey or defy me, I advise you to curb your tone of voice when talking to me.”
She gave an indignant huff. “Next you will require me to get down on my knees in subservience to you.”
If Jericho had Jocelyn on her knees in front of him, it would not be in subservience, but in order to have her service his now fully engorged and straining cock.
He turned his back on her to hide that arousal as he moved toward the hot range where the stew had simmered for most of the day. He ladled some of the steaming food into the two bowls he had left warming. “At the moment, all I require is that you to sit down and eat.” He placed one of the bowls on the table before taking the other and resuming his seat on the opposite side.
Jocelyn sat, giving a pained grimace at she did so. But she still made no move to pick up the spoon beside the steaming bowl of tasty-smelling stew.
“Eat,” Jericho instructed abruptly.
“I am not hungry.”
“Eat,” he repeated through gritted teeth.
She drew in a ragged breath. “Even if it makes me sick?”
“It will not make you sick.”
“You cannot know that.”
“Just try it, damn you.”
Jocey gave one glance at Jericho’s angrily glittering eyes before picking up her spoon and dipping it into the bowl, sure that the first mouthful of food would choke her.
Except it didn’t.
She almost groaned as the flavor of the rich and meaty stew burst on her taste buds, her cheeks warming as her stomach gave an unladylike growl of approval of the first food she had eaten today.
“Good?”
Jocey kept her lashes lowered. “Very good.”
“The more so because of your efforts to collect the wild vegetables and herbs this morning.”
She gave him a quick glance. “Does that mean I am forgiven for leaving the house?”
“Am I forgiven for having spanked you for disobeying me?”
She glared. “No!”
He gave a dismissive shrug. “Then it would seem we are at an impasse where neither of us is willing to forgive the other.”
Jocey made no reply as she continued to eat the thick and flavorsome stew, feeling more like herself with each meaty morsel.
Jericho could stand the situation no longer after they had eaten in silence for ten minutes, the only sound their spoons entering and leaving the bowls. “I was not merely being bloody minded earlier when I instructed you not to leave the house in my absence.”
“No, you were being unreasonable and dictatorial too,” she came back pertly.
Jericho agreed with the latter but not the former. “There are wild animals roaming this part of the forest. You might have been attacked and seriously injured by one of them whilst I was gone.”
She snorted. “As if you would care.”
“You are my ward.”
“I am your captive,” she corrected meaningfully. “Besides, I saw no wild animals.”
“That does not mean they did not see you.”
“You are merely trying to alarm me now,” she accused.
He placed his spoon carefully down in his half-empty bowl. “And I believe you are deliberately trying to provoke me into administering another punishment.”
Her cheeks flamed bright red. “I am not!”
Jericho leaned back in his chair to consider her through narrowed lids. Her cheeks were that blushing red, her eyes feverish, her lips slightly parted. Of course, she could merely be coming down with a cold, but he did not think so. “I believe you are.”
“Believe what you wish,” she snapped. “You intend doing so no matter what I say or do.”
Since the numbing ice had melted about his emotions, Jericho found that he was feeling altogether too much. Desire. Arousal. Anger at feeling both those emotions for a woman who might be a traitor to England and in part responsible for the death of one of his closest friends. Contradictory emotions that were playing havoc with his self-control and resolve. None of it was helped by how beautiful Jocelyn looked with her hair down and wearing only that red silk robe.
A red silk robe against which Jocelyn’s nipples now clearly showed as being plump and fully engorged.
Because she felt those same conflicting emotions toward him?
He pushed his chair back and turned so that his legs were free of the table. “Come and sit here.”
Jocey gave Jericho a startled glance in time to see him patting the top of his muscular thighs in invitation. She pushed her back against the chair. “I do not think so. Thank you,” she added quickly in case he should take offense at her refusal. But her bottom was sore, far too much so to take another beating just yet.
Just yet?
Did that mean that she might wish Jericho to spank her again in the future?
Absolutely not. It was barbaric to treat a lady in such an undignified manner.
Even if it had aroused her?
Even then!
“My only intention is to kiss better that which I hurt.” Jericho spoke softly.
“I— What?” Jocey’s eyes widened in shock at the implication of those words.
“You were obviously in some discomfort when you sat down earlier.”
Was Jericho suggesting— Was it his intention to kiss her there? “I am not a child whom you might kiss better and all is forgotten and forgiven,” she dismissed indignantly.
His jaw tightened. “Come over here now,” he repeated in that voice which brooked no argument.
Jocey rose slowly to her feet, tears blurring her vision as she stepped closer to Jericho.
He gave one of his thighs another inviting pat. “Sit.” Again, he used that deep and compelling voice.
A compulsion Jocey was unable to withstand as she stepped between his parted legs to lower herself until she sat stiff and uncomfortable on that muscular thigh.
“I apologize for having spanked you earlier.”
Jocey gave Jericho another quick glance at the unexpected apology. He certainly looked sincere, and he was no longer talking in that voice that demanded she obey. “It was humiliating.”
“Was that all it was?”
“And unforgiveable,” she stated firmly, her cheeks hot from the things she was not saying. Having Jericho alternately spank her and then caress between her thighs had been beyond pleasurable too.
“But you will forgive me?”
“I—”
“Perhaps if I were to say I will never to do it again?”
“Saying it does not make it so.”
His mouth twisted. “You are very astute.”
It was a fact that Jocey could do without the spanking, but did she feel the same way about the pleasure that his caresses afterward had evoked? And would that pleasure have been so intense without the spanking?
“Do you…? Have you behaved in that manner with other la—women?” Her lack of experience meant she was not sure if ladies were meant to or did enjoy such things.
“Other women, yes. Ladies, no.”
A red tide rose up inside her. Of anger? Or jealousy? She was unsure which. “Why?”
Jericho had considered that question several times himself in the past. Those thoughts had led him to the belief he treated the women of demimonde in that way in his sexual encounters because he had no wish for them, or him, ever to mistake it for anything other than what it was: sexual arousal followed by release. He did not trust any woman with his emotions, and had learned from observing his father’s obsession with his mother, and her contempt for her husband, how destructive love could be.
No doubt gentlemen more learned than himself in such matters would even go so far as to say Jericho deliberately kept women at a distance, by his behavior during sexual encounters, because of his mother’s abandonment of her husband and son in favor of her many lovers.
Earlier today, Jericho had tried to put Jocelyn into the same category as those other women he had spanked, restrained, and pleasured, and by doing so, he had not only hurt Jocelyn but also himself.
Spanking her had aroused him. He would be lying if he claimed otherwise, but touching Jocelyn, feeling the rise of her pleasure again and again, before denying her release…
That had aroused him so much, Jericho had been unable to think of anything else for the rest of the day. Unable to feel, breathe, or taste anything but the essence of her arousal, even as he tried to keep himself busy by making the stew, feeding the horses, and bringing in enough wood for the fire for a week or more.
He answered her question with one of his own. “Do you forgive me?”
“I— Yes.” She glanced at him, but her gaze could not quite meet his.
“Sure?”
“Yes.”
One of Jericho’s hands moved beneath her chin to turn and tilt her face up to his. “Then should we not now kiss and make up?” he murmured.
She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. “Is that sensible?”
Jericho gave a self-derisive snort. Any vestige of sensibility he might have possessed had deserted him the moment he had gone to Jocelyn’s bedchamber in Wessex Manor and carried her off into the night.
Because, despite the pain and anger that had consumed him over Worthington’s death, he had also known being alone here with Jocelyn would ultimately lead to this?
The honest answer to that was a resounding yes.
No matter her guilt or innocence, he desired Jocelyn more than he had ever desired any other woman.
“Not in the least,” he acknowledged before his lips claimed hers in a kiss.
If Jericho had been in the least demanding or rough with her, then Jocey knew she would have balked at the intimacy. As it was, she had no defense against the gentleness with which Jericho tasted her lips, deepening the kiss as his tongue stroked across them before slipping inside the heat of her mouth.
Nor did she have the strength or will to object when she felt his fingers loosen the belt at her waist before pushing the robe from her shoulders. Her desire sharpened and heated as he bared her breast to be cupped in the palm of his hand.
Her nipple instantly hardened in response to his assured touch. Jocey turned so that her arms might move up about Jericho’s shoulders. Her fingers became entangled in the thickness of hair at his nape as she returned the heat of that kiss.
Arousal shot through her entire body as one of her nipples was held and pleasurably squeezed between Jericho’s fingers and thumb, that now-familiar dampness gushing copiously between her thighs.
Her earlier arousal was nothing compared to the aching of her body now. A need for release that totally consumed her.
Her arms tightened about his neck instinctively as she felt herself being lifted in Jericho’s arms when he rose to his feet. His lips still devoured hers as he carried her through to the warmth of the candlelit sitting room.
He laid her down on the thick rug in front of the fire, parting and pushing aside her robe completely before lying between her parted thighs. He took most of his body weight onto his elbows, his hands cupping either side of her face as his lips now claimed hers with a devouring passion.