Pride and Pleasure

“Shh,” he murmured, gentling her.



The feel of his breath gusting across her ear made her nipple harden into his palm. A rough sound escaped him and his hand flexed convulsively around her.



“Let me show you what you did to me,” he whispered, withdrawing enough to coax her onto her back.



Eliza stared up at him, awed anew by how handsome he was. How was it possible that such a man would find her so desirable?



She didn’t care. She was just grateful for her good fortune.



With no further warning, he lowered his head and surrounded her nipple with the humid heat of his mouth. She arched upward with a gasp, startled by the violence of her response. His tongue curled around the aching tip, and his cheeks hollowed on a deep suckle. She cried out, her nails scratching into the velvet coverlet. His callused fingertips rolled her other nipple, then tugged. She began to pant.



“Jasper.”



He growled and sucked harder, his tongue stroking the underside of the straining point with wicked skill. The flesh between her thighs pulsed in time to the rhythm of his mouth, clenching deep and feeling empty. Her hips lifted, seeking. The hand at her breast slid lower, across the flat of her belly and into the dark red curls at the apex of her thighs.



The shock of the caress froze her. She was too sensitive there, too wet and swollen.



“Touch me.” His voice was so gruff, she barely recognized it.



He withdrew and caught her wrist, urging her hand to mold around the outline of his erection. He showed her how to move, rubbing her palm up and down his thick length. Heat rushed up her arm and spread throughout her body, easing her stiffened muscles. Exploiting her distraction, he resumed his quest, his fingers slipping through the lax barrier of her thighs. His palm cupped her, the breadth of his hand easily laying claim to the part of her that had always been intensely private.



His dark head lifted. He watched her reaction as his fingers moved, gliding through the slickness clinging to the entrance of her body.



“Open,” he breathed. “Let me feel how wet you are.”



When she hesitated, he took her mouth, his lips slanting across hers in a brazen seduction. His tongue followed the outer curve of her lower lip, tracing the shape before teasing the seam with flirtatious licks. She opened with rapacious hunger, her head lifting in an attempt to deepen the kiss. He pulled back, maintaining the provocative distance between them, denying her the full possession she sought.



Eliza made a frustrated sound and his fingers tapped lightly against her sex.



Challenged by his silent bargain, she spread her legs, draping one thigh over his so nothing was barred from him.



“Yes.” His lips lowered to hers. “Be wanton…”



His tongue and fingertip breached her simultaneously, above and below. She writhed into the unexpected intrusion, moaning as sweat misted her skin. She gripped his erection with desperately clenching fingers. Bolder than she’d ever imagined she could be.



“So snug.” His finger pushed inexorably deeper, then pulled back. When he stroked back into her, her legs fell open, and her hips arched. “Snug and very hot.”



Her fingertips found the plush head of his penis straining above the waistband of his breeches. She hungrily explored the satiny curve, fascinated with the heat and silky smooth texture. Moisture beaded on the crown. She wished she could clench the length of him, caress him fervently from root to tip.



“No more,” he said harshly, pulling back from her.



She grasped for him to no avail. He slipped further down the bed, away from her greedy lips and tormented breasts.



“Jasper!” she protested, trying to sit up but losing the leverage to do so when he pushed his shoulders under her legs.



There was a blazing moment when she realized what he wanted, then her thoughts scattered beneath the lash of his tongue. An unvoiced protest died on her lips. She couldn’t muster the will to stop him, even to appease her scandalized sense of modesty. Instead she moaned and rocked into his mouth, trying to find his rhythm so she could ease the terrible yearning within her.



“That’s the way,” he coaxed darkly, lifting her hips.



His tongue lapped through the tender folds of her sex, parting her, licking her with velvet roughness. He toyed with her, flickering over the knot of nerves with the pointed tip of his tongue. She bucked upward, knowing there had to be more. Wanting more. Needing it. She mewled in torment.



His finger returned, sliding easily through greedily clenching tissues.



“Oh…” she moaned, her eyes squeezing shut against the unbearable intimacy. “Oh, God!”



In and out. Pushing and withdrawing. Pumping. She writhed, and he pinned her hips with a heavy arm.



Two fingers. Her body shuddered violently at the unfamiliar stretching. His mouth surrounded her, tongued her, sucked her…



Eliza climaxed with a serrated cry, her fingers digging into the counterpane, her thighs quivering.



At the height of her pleasure, Jasper thrust his fingers deep and scissored them, rending the barrier of her virginity. She scarcely felt the pain, so lost was she to the wonder of his talented tongue.



He didn’t stop, groaning as if he felt the same surfeit of feeling, prolonging the waves of sensation until she pushed his head away, unable to bear any more.



Chapter 9



Jasper pressed a kiss to a freckle on Eliza’s thigh before sliding off the end of the bed. She curled onto her side, flushed and trembling, her slim, pale limbs drawn tight to her body. Her blue eyes followed his movements, looking dazed and sated at once.



His blood was raging, his cock throbbing. He yanked open the placket of his breeches and pushed them down. Kicking them aside, he took his penis in his hand and stroked the pulsing length. Crimson skeins of moisture—her virginal blood—clung to his fingers. The sight aroused him, luring his seed to leak from the tip of his cock.



He’d pushed her far and fast, needing to take her past the twin hurdles of inexperience and virginity so he could have her as he needed to. He had tried to warn her, attempted to explain, forced himself to give voice to a craving he didn’t understand. Small comfort to a woman overwhelmed by her first physical attraction.



Jasper had taken advantage of that fact, remembering how riotous the flush of first lust was, how ill-considered and desperate it felt. He remembered it well, because Eliza made him feel that way again. Hot-blooded. Randy. Impatient.



With harsh strides, he went to the washstand and grabbed a handful of freshly laundered towels. On the way back to the bed, he caught up the bottle of oil he’d purchased at Mrs. Pennington’s shop. He tossed the towels on the counterpane, then poured a small pool of the fragrant golden liquid into his palm. The bottle was set aside on the nightstand by Eliza’s head.



Deliberately, he rubbed his hands together, releasing the scent of bergamot and spice into the air. He’d chosen a masculine scent on purpose, wanting it to linger in her mind after the night was over, goading her to remember the things he had done to her body. Thus far she hadn’t been subject to the sorts of lewd imaginings he suffered through, but he intended that to change. Whether she was balancing her ledgers or dancing with blasted suitors, Jasper wanted her to be thinking of sex with him.



Eliza watched, riveted, as he gripped his cock at the root and stroked upward, pulling and stretching, swelling further until he was certain he’d never been this hard and thick. Ropey veins coursed the length of him, making him look as brutal as he felt. His bollocks were drawn up tight and hard, his seed churning with the need for release.



She made a soft, anxious noise.



“Are you frightened?” he asked for the second time that evening. Knowing she had to be. Aware that he would have been kinder to shield her from his size until she knew enough to appreciate it. But he was willing to cast aside what little gentlemanly considerations he had to gain what he wanted from her, using every advantage he possessed to distinguish himself from the others who hoped to win her and take her from him. She liked to look at him. And she was attuned to him on the most basic level. Her mind might shy away from his primitive display, but her body understood…and would react accordingly.



“Yes,” she answered softly, her knees drawing closer to her abdomen. “I have always known you were too much for me.”



“But you want me regardless. Face the other way.”



Rolling, she gave him her back. She curled in a manner that drew her feet up to the lush curve of her buttocks. The discovery of her voluptuous derriere had been a delightful surprise when she’d crawled across his bed earlier. On the surface, Eliza appeared as moderate in form as she was in temperament, but even in this, her private landscape was the most picturesque. He was certain her backside was the most perfect he’d ever seen.



“Who knew you hid such a curvaceous bottom beneath your clothes?” he murmured, joining her and pressing a kiss to a cluster of freckles on her shoulder.



“You tease me,” she accused without heat.



“You spoke of men who appreciate certain hues of hair.” Jasper wrapped his body around her, pulling her against his chest with an arm around her slender waist. “Is it so hard to believe I might have my own preferences?”



“For freckles and buttocks?”



“You, Eliza. All of you.” He inhaled sharply when she leaned into him, and he became further inflamed by the smell of her. “My patience is thinner than I would wish,” he confessed hoarsely. “I must beg you in advance for greater license. You trust me with your life; will you trust me in this? Trust me to give you pleasure, even if I am rough or hurried?”



She looked at him over her shoulder. Her lower lip was caught between her teeth and her eyes were shadowed, but she nodded.



With no further preliminaries, he took his cock in his hand and arched his hips forward. Her breath hissed out when he tucked the thick head against her and slid upward, parting the slick folds of her sex and gliding across her clitoris. Up, then down. On the downstroke, the furled underside of his cockhead caught the swollen knot of nerves. On the upstroke, the swollen crest rubbed over it. He notched the tiny protrusion into the weeping hole at the tip of his cock and stroked himself from root to crown with his fist. A hot pulse of pre-ejaculate flowed over her sensitive flesh. She moaned, arching backward.



Jasper restrained her with a hand at her breast, fighting his turbulent need to pound into her and spew violently, expending his lust in a violent taking that would slake his craving. The sense of desperation was nigh intolerable. He couldn’t shake the apprehension that she might be removed from his grasp before he was ready. It was too soon. His need for her too sharp…



Eliza’s hand covered his.



Her nipple pebbled into his palm, tightening deliciously. He felt its sensitivity when he kneaded the whole of her breast. Her entire body trembled, and her hips pushed back. Her legs parted, one foot hooking behind his calf, giving her leverage to undulate against him.



She was finally unrestrained, and it was better than he’d imagined. She whispered his name. He pulled back, finding the clutching entrance to her body. There was a moment of hesitation; a brief second when reason reminded him that she was above him in station. Too good for him.



His jaw clenched. He pushed his cockhead deliberately into her tight, resisting flesh. She was scorching hot and drenched.



“Christ,” he hissed, seared by the silken heat of her. The delicate muscles inside her bore down on the exquisitely sensitive head of his cock. A violent shudder wracked his frame.



Eliza’s head thrashed against his chest. Her nails dug into the forearm he pinned her with. Her movements altered, writhing away instead of into him. She tried to close her legs, but he blocked her, moving his hand from her breast to her cunt in a lightning-quick lunge.



“Trust me,” he said gruffly, pushing deeper. “Breathe.”



Registering the tremendous strain in Jasper’s voice, Eliza tried to obey, gasping air into seized lungs. He slid deeper, despite the panicked clench of untried tissues. She understood the use of the oil now. It gave her body no traction to deny him, no means of resistance.



Her eyes closed on a shuddering exhale. Her mind filled with the vision of Jasper standing beside the bed fully naked, skin gleaming, abdominal and chest muscles rippling from the rough movement of his hands on his magnificent erection. She knew how to judge proportions. She’d known she could never accommodate him, but she wanted to. Needed to.



He withdrew a scant inch. She sucked air into her burning lungs, and his hips lunged forward, tunneling his rigid penis into her. She made a broken sound, unprepared for the feeling of being so utterly possessed.



“God.” He stilled, panting, his chest working like a great bellows against her back. His cheek nuzzled against her temple. “Am I hurting you?”



“No…Too full.” Stretched to the point of aching, but she was not pained.



“You can take me.” His fingers rubbed between her legs, starting a hot, sweet trickle of sensation in her core. “Let me in, Eliza. Don’t fight it.”



Eyes stinging, she gave a tentative, tiny swivel of her hips. He slid a fraction deeper.



“Yes,” he purred, nudging forward then withdrawing. “Like that.”



She forced her taut frame to relax, sagging back against his supportive chest and deliberately modifying her breathing. Slow deep breath in. Steady breath out. She concentrated on his touch, the way he expertly circled her clitoris with callused fingertips, urging pleasure outward across devastated nerve endings.



On her next inhale, he thrust, sinking into her until his thighs were pressed tight to hers. Her held fell forward on a low moan.



“Eliza.”



Dear God, he was so deep in her…



He pulled out with painstaking slowness, then filled her again. With every withdrawal and return, his movements became more fluid. Practiced. His expertise became apparent. He knew just how far to pull out, how leisurely to push in, how deep to penetrate to drive her mad for the feel of him inside her. Her enjoyment grew, until she sought the pleasure purposefully, writhing into his thrusts to feel the sweet fullness she craved.