Chapter Thirty-Three
Phoebe led him into her house, asking Nancy to bring tea to the drawing room.
Nancy was quick, and the moment she had delivered it, Phoebe dismissed her, telling her that she and the marquess had some pressing matters to discuss, and they were not to be disturbed until Phoebe called for her. Whether Nancy understood the undertones of the conversation or not, Phoebe wasn’t sure, and Nancy didn’t seem to care.
“I suppose she will likely be outside flirting with your driver anyway,” Phoebe murmured, but then her thoughts of Nancy and the driver fled as Jeffrey stepped up behind her. His body came flush against her back, and he bent his face to her neck as his fingers began to trail up her arms. She shivered, though she was far from cold, and his lips kissed the sensitive skin above her shoulder. She arched back against him, reveling in the fact that this man was hers, that he accepted her for all she was and all she did. There were no secrets now, nothing between them—except, perhaps, a few too many layers of clothes.
“Come,” she said again, this time in near a whisper. She opened the door of the drawing room, taking his hand and leading him down the corridor to her own chamber. She pushed the door open, the crimson and cream room greeting them, and she saw Jeffrey pause momentarily to take in the cascading curtains, the writing table, and the bed, where his focus remained.
“And just where has the redecorating occurred?”
Phoebe flushed and turned to face him as she bit her lip at his question.
“We may have used the redecorating excuse as a ruse to explain my busyness,” she said, looking up at him quickly, hoping he wouldn’t be upset at what had been another lie, although it was connected to the first and had actually been Elizabeth’s quick thinking and not her own.
He shook his head at her as he hid the grin that seemed to be teasing his lips, and Phoebe realized that he had never believed the fib.
She now took both of his hands in hers, looking up at him with a smile, but he intercepted her.
“As we are to be married … we should likely wait to make love once more, should we not?” he asked, but his voice was gruff, husky, his throat filled with uncontained lust—for her. It made her quiver with anticipation to feel him against her, inside her, once more.
“Perhaps we should,” she responded, keeping her face a mask, and he nodded, though his was in turmoil.
She gave him but one more moment of suffering before she began to laugh at his agony and he looked at her, perplexed.
“I’m sorry, that was evil of me. Perhaps…” she said, her smile fading as she leaned into him once more, “We should live in the moment and succumb to what both of us are currently longing for very, very much.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck then, and he groaned before leaning over her, taking her mouth with his. It was a kiss of desperation, true, but there was more to it. It was also a kiss of promise, one that solidified the love they had spoken to one another, as the pent-up desire and emotion flowed between them.
In one fluid motion, Jeffrey swooped down, a strong arm coming underneath her knees as he lifted her up and carried her to the bed. He laid her down upon it gently, and for a moment she wondered where his passion had gone as he stilled. But then she looked up at him and saw it pooled in his eyes, which were sharper than ever before.
“This time,” he murmured, “I am going to do this right.”
“Was it so wrong the last time?” she asked, arching an eyebrow.
“I wouldn’t exactly say there was anything wrong with it—in fact, it was very right, for that particular moment,” he confessed, and a lock of his blond hair fell over his brow. “However, today, you will feel loved, Phoebe Winters, soon-to-be Worthington.”
He began by raining tender kisses over face, before repeating the featherlight kisses she loved so much over her neck. He began to inch down the bodice of her dress, his touch driving her mad as he reached behind her and began to unfasten the buttons down the back of her gown. Fortunately it was a simple day dress, not anything complex that would cause him any sort of vexation. He had the dress down around her waist in moments, and with the ease of a magician, he had soon banished it to the floor. He began to work on her undergarments next, and her body tingled with anticipation. When he finally had her lying naked before him, however, Phoebe—who never in her life could recall being shy—had the sudden urge to cover herself. What would he think of her? Before, she had not fully undressed, but today—
“You,” he said, his voice even deeper than it had been before, “are incredibly beautiful.”
She felt a flush covering her body, then, beginning in her cheeks and racing down to her toes, from more than just the fact she was lying here exposed to him.
“Your turn,” she said cheekily, and he grinned and acquiesced. She sat up then, undoing the buttons of his jacket, his waistcoat, and eventually practically ripping off his cravat.
“And they say women wear far too many layers,” she grumbled, and he chuckled.
“This is no laughing matter,” she muttered as she dispensed with her attempts to unbutton his shirt, leaving it to him as she went to work at the fall of his breeches, satisfaction filling her once she finally freed him.
“Well done, love,” he said, before descending upon her once more, scarcely giving her time to take her own fill of him. What she saw, however, made her nearly pant breathlessly. For he was divine. He was all hard muscle, his well-defined chest covered with the slightest sprinkling of blond hair, his torso sculpted all the way down to where the muscles descended into a vee. If she hadn’t known better, she would have wondered how it would be possible for the two of them to fit together.
But her mind cleared of everything except the sensations coursing through her when his hard, hot body came flush against hers, and she moved restlessly against him. He found her lips with his, while his hands held her head, divesting her hair of the pins that had kept the chignon on top. Soon she could feel her hair flowing loosely around her shoulders, as she had come to learn was exactly how he liked it.
His hands seemed to be everywhere at once—in her hair, then skimming down her arms, the gooseflesh rising behind where he touched her. He was slow and gentle, as much as she yearned for him to simply take her, to have her right then and there. This was torture, she thought with a gasp as he circled her nipples with his thumbs, and by the look on his face, it seemed that he felt as she did. So why, oh why, was he not releasing her from this madness, allowing them both to find fulfillment? He bent his head then, his tongue coming so lightly to her breast, circling it, and she cried out his name.
“Jeffrey, will you just … oh, my—”
She had no words as he continued to do delicious, torturous things with his tongue, to first one breast and then the other. His hands began to find their way lower, until they were on her hips, which jerked up toward him in response. He slid his fingers down her legs to her knees, and then ever so slowly they began to find their way back up the silk of her.
Having had quite enough of this, Phoebe decided she would show him just exactly what he was doing to her. She placed her hands on his own chest, feeling coarse hair underneath her skin, before running them down over the fine, supple muscle of his torso. She kneaded insistently as she went lower still, and just when she had found the vee below his waist that she was so admiring earlier, she wrapped her arms around him, bringing them to his backside and digging in as she pulled him toward her.
“Phoebe,” he gasped. “Do not … you are—”
“What? Torturing you?” She asked wickedly, and he closed his eyes tightly and nodded. She laughed then, and before he even realized what she was doing, she flipped herself up, throwing a leg over him so that now she was on top and in control.
“Phoebe, what are you—”
“Hush,” she said, bringing a finger to his lips. “We are doing this my way now.”
“You do understand that my intention was to delicately make love to you,” he said dryly, and she laughed, shaking her head.
“Well, you will be sorely disappointed then,” she said in a low voice, leaning down to nip at his bottom lip, and he let out another groan.
She wasn’t altogether sure what she was doing but knew only what she needed at this moment, and that was him.
Phoebe lifted herself up, and, with his hands on her hips helping to guide her, she slid down on top of him, then experimentally began to move back and forth. Oh, this was beyond words, she thought as she threw her head back as the pleasure filled her. Jeffrey guided her back and forth, and when she looked down at him she saw the mix of pain and pleasure on his face that equally filled her entire body.
She leaned forward over him, her body now finding the pace that was as natural as anything had ever come to her before, and soon she was near sobbing in anticipation of what was to come. His hands rose once more to her breasts, and the moment he began to tease her nipples, pleasure began to course through her in waves, an inexplicable exhilaration that she could not put into words.
Jeffrey gave a shout himself, and soon was pulsing into her, her release allowing him to find his own.
Phoebe collapsed down upon him, both spent as well as filled with a joy she had never known possible. For unlike the last time, now she knew that this was not just a moment in time between the two of them, but rather the beginning of a life to come together. She could still hardly believe it, and wanted to check with him once more that this—she—was what he truly wanted, and yet she knew it was true, knew that he was the man for her, just as she was the women for him.
“Have I told you how much I love you?” he murmured into her hair.
“A couple of times,” she said, “though I do not believe I should tire of hearing it.”
“I love you, Phoebe,” he said. “And while I could spend all day in this bed making love to you, I have been distracted for far too long. There are a few … urgent matters that we must discuss. Your future—our future—could depend upon it.”
“Well, that sounds awfully grave,” she said, sitting up now, and when he nodded, she was shocked at the serious expression that had once more covered his face. All she wanted to do was lean over, take his perfectly clean-shaven face in her hands, and kiss those strong, grimacing lips. She would kiss away his frowns, smooth the lines that covered his face, soothe away his worries. All she vowed to do for the rest of their days together. But first, he clearly had something on his mind, and she knew better than to continue to distract him from his purpose. So instead of doing as she wished, she clumsily slid off him, off the bed, and began to pick up their garments.
Finding that her dress was even dirtier that she would have thought, she crossed over to her wardrobe, searching through to find something appropriate. She chose a violet dress that was fairly similar to the red and turned around to find Jeffrey pulling his shirt over his head.
“Do you fancy the role of lady’s maid this afternoon?” she asked, and when his face was visible again, he nodded.
“I promise to do my very best, my lady,” he said, “though I confess I can do nothing with your hair. I am much more adept at taking apart, so it seems.”
“So you are,” she said wryly, donning her chemise and then lifting her gown overhead, turning around toward him. “I’m ready.”
Even the brush of his fingertips against her back set her nerves on edge once more, but apparently there were things to discuss. Once the two of them were each dressed—to an extent—she led him back out the door into the drawing room, where the tea had grown cold, though the pastries remained, beckoning to them.
“So,” Phoebe said, taking a seat on one of the settees. “What is it that you have to tell me?”