“I was rather enjoying touching you.”

  He groaned. “You can’t. I can’t. Last. I can’t last. Tell me something else you want.”

  “This, too.” All of it. Not just his hands on her, his kisses, but his dominance. He’d thrown her on the bed, and a thrill had raced through her, a primal notion she’d chosen a man who could protect her. If she needed it. Right now, she didn’t need his protection. She needed his devotion. “Touch me. Kiss me. Everywhere.” Such power as she’d never felt before rushed through her. Not even when all the wealth she’d been promised by her aunt had become hers, had she felt such delirious power. Money was nothing. A man like this above her, beneath her, surrounding her, wanting her, needing her—everything.

  His hand stroked down her belly, and his mouth found her nipples, sucked them, licked them. She cried out and grasped his hair. Not a demand he stopped. A plea he continued.

  “I love your breasts,” he said as he kissed them. “Like perfect little cakes, sweet and round.”

  She laughed and stroked her fingernails down his back, making him hiss.

  And then his hand found that aching spot between her legs, the pleading nub, and circled it, sliding a finger inside her. She gasped and arched off the bed, and then everything happened so quickly. If the world had slowed down in her sad march through the forest, even her blood marched to a more sedate rhythm as the snow froze it, now every bit of her sang time into a frenzy.

  Until she broke apart. Entirely. The growing pleasure at her center reached its pinnacle beneath his tender, fervent ministrations and made her cry out his name to the heavens, made her soul leap up and follow there, becoming a constellation in the winter night sky.

  Limp and shattered, she knew it was not over, and he moved, groaning her name and placing the throbbing, hot length of himself at her entrance. With one hard stroke he entered her, and she cried out once more, a cry he gathered into his mouth with a kiss, his body stilling, his hands caressing, his lips promising everything through the kiss.

  Words caressed her ear a moment later, and his promises became solid things.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. A mantra. “I hurt you. I’m sorry. I could not stop myself, and—”

  “I’m not hurt.” She stroked her fingers down his hair and flattened her palms as she rubbed them down the length of his back. “I’m not hurt. Please, Josiah. Please.”

  “Yes.” And he moved, in and out, slowly. Oh-so-slowly.

  So slowly she arched up and pressed her mound against him to ask for more, demand it. And he gave her what she asked for. Of course, he did. He pumped faster and faster as she clutched at his shoulders, his neck, his wonderfully muscled backside. Something else wonderful rolled within her as well. Another of those soul-singing moments. Impossible. But obviously possible, because when he thrust one last time and threw his head back to call her name, her entire body shook and shivered, a tree in the wind, and melted once more into peaceful perfection.

  He collapsed atop her but didn’t stay long, wrapping steel-banded arms around her and rolling so she lay atop him. Warmer than before, with a mountain of blankets on top of her. Better than before. So much better than ever before.

  Chapter Nine

  December 26

  “Only marry a man who intends to spoil you in the manner you wish. No such man exists, though, so prepare to never marry.” –from The Masculine Inconvenience: Memoirs of a Superior Lady

  Josiah awoke before the sun, and he did not need its snow-brightened yellow light to illuminate the focus of all his attention. He’d been watching Georgiana sleep, and even in the dark, he’d seen her well, loved her entirely.

  Still so much lay between them, though. Namely, the entire distance between London and Apple Grove, but he’d figure out how to shrink it.

  She stirred, her long legs stretching out, tangling against his, and then her eyelids fluttered open, revealing wide, shocked eyes that melted in memories, then sparkled with a smile.

  “Good morning,” she said, as if this were not the first time she’d welcomed dawn in his arms.

  “Good morning.” He loved her. He wanted to say so, but she’d not said the words yet, and he wanted to hear them, wanted to do something that might make her feel them so sharp and so true that she could not but speak them out loud.

  He gathered her into his arms before she could say another word, before the reality of their lives, their preferences became a wall between them, and he stroked her to arousal, kissed her until she was a mewling mess breaking beneath him. Her nails scratched down his back, and he grabbed her, rolled, wanting to see every glorious inch of her before clothing became, once more, a necessity.

  She straddled him, but confusion blinked in her lust-fogged eyes until she found a focus and grabbed his cock, rubbing the pad of her thumb against it, dipping low to kiss its tip, to lick its length, washing him in exquisite pleasure from head to foot. He tangled his hands in her hair and tugged, wanting inside her. He bent her head back, and their gazes locked, and then he drew a path with his nails down her neck and shoulders and ribs and waist until he could clasp her hips, encourage her to position just where he wanted her, and thrust into her. She sank down with a hiss and toss of her golden curls backward. Hair so long it teased his thighs. He kept his hands dug into her hips, helping her ride him, helping her find the right rhythm, the rhythm that made them both tighten and groan. Then he slipped his hand to the center of her body and rubbed her throbbing nub, and she shattered, and if he could watch her fall apart above him every day of his damn life, he would. He’d do anything. Give anything.

  Her arms went limp for a brief moment before she dropped her gaze to his, heated his chest with her palms, splayed fingers, and dropped to kiss the place where his heart beat.

  And he couldn’t hold out any longer. Faster, faster, until he shattered too, grabbing her to him and holding her, giving everything to her, whispering her name in her ear, whispering his love though she never did, welcoming sleep when it found them both.

  The next time he woke, she was gone. He snapped upright, flinging his feet to the floor.

  “Josiah. You’re awake.” She smiled at him from near the fire, half dressed in stockings and shift and untied stays. “Can you help me?”

  He prowled toward, aware he was naked and heavy and hard and wanting her once more.

  Her eyes widened. She’d noticed too, and she turned from him to offer him her back. He tightened her stays and then tied the tabs of her ruined gown. When she put her pelisse on, worry poked at him.

  He found his own pants and shirt and threw them on, looking out the window. “Where are you going? The snow is too deep. We should stay here for a while.”

  “Surely there’s a way to make a path to Apple Grove. They’ll be worried. And I’m certain you’ll wish to be there to give the tenants their baskets.”

  True enough. But it felt like she was running.

  “The sun is out this morning,” he said. “The sky is blue. No more snow on the horizon. It will soon melt, and then we can safely return to the big house.”

  A bite of her lower lip and her wandering gaze riled the poke of worry into a gnawing creature, but he turned to the window and let her think, observe, and talk in her own time. Following his rampant desires had led nowhere good last time. He must allow her to set the pace. He pulled his waistcoat on as he watched her reflection move about the room in the window’s glass. She ran fingertips across rows of books and round the gilded edging of the looking glass where he shaved each morning.

  “It’s a charming room,” she said, almost as if to herself.

  Charming? He winced. He’d never thought the room or the house humble, but with this heiress standing here, judging, the rather rustic nature of everything hit him like Gentleman Jackson’s fist to his gut. Could she ever be content with this? With him?

  Her slow but constant movement stilled at his desk. Like a thief, she rifled through the papers, and he could not rouse himself to feel bothered, to feel like it was an intrusion. Her rummaging about in his life could never be that.

  She picked up a leaf of paper and turned to him, her gaze a burning coal on the page. “What is this?” A quirk in her voice he could not identify. “It makes no sense.”

  He turned, too, leaning his hips against the windowsill and crossing his arms over his chest. “Let me see.” When she handed the paper over, he knew it in a glance and grinned. “That is for you. For us, really.”

  “It appears to be a list of confectioners and bakeries.”

  “Precisely.”

  “But why?”

  “So, I know where to look for houses. They are all on the outskirts of London. I will have to travel much and perhaps stay here some weeks, but by finding a home for us right outside London, you can have what you wish, and I can, too.”

  “And the bakeries?”

  “Are so I can buy you sweet things as often as you like. Good to have them conveniently located. Watching you eat sugar is the next best thing to kissing sugar off your lips. Hm. Not done that yet. We should try it soon.”

  On hesitant, rocking feet, she stepped toward him. “When… when did you do this?”

  “While you were sleeping. I needed to occupy my mind, and thoughts of you surviving were best suited to the occasion.” Itching to hold her, to prove to himself she lived and was unharmed, as if last night and this morning’s activities had not already done so, he swept across the sparse distance between them, backed her up against the desk she’d so recently pilfered through, and lifted her, setting her atop it and nudging her knees apart with his hips.

  Her arms wrapped tight about his neck, and each breath pushed her chest against his. “I’m not important. I never have been, except as a pawn to sell and be bought, to seek revenge with, to—”

  “You are most important. To me, you are everything.” He nudged the side of her nose with his own. “Happy Christmas, sweet one. You’re no pawn, and you know that. If you forget it, I’ll remind you.”

  She kissed him, lips searing his and fingernails digging into the skin at the nape of his neck, demanding he get closer. He hiked up her skirts to her waist and fell into the kiss, and then pulled at her, demanding the same.

  “Josiah.”

  “Gee.”

  “Josiah!”

  He frowned, kissing the curve of her neck. The arrow of his name penetrated the fog of lust rolling through him, but he brushed it aside. Of course, she’d be saying his name. He’d pulled her to the table’s edge and nudged his knee against the bit of her body already wet for him.

  “Josiah!”

  But that wasn’t her voice calling his name.

  They looked up at the same time, abandoning each other’s body with shock-widened eyes.

  And the bedchamber door flew open.

  Georgiana dove into Josiah’s arms, hiding her face in his chest, and Josiah lowered her skirts below her knees.

  Josiah’s father stood in the doorway, his head cocked, his gaze greedy on them before he burst into laughter. “Here we’re all worried sick, and you’ve cornered the heiress, my boy.” More laughter.

  Georgiana slowly straightened, her gaze narrowing on the intruder.

  “I think you should leave, Lord Westgrove.”

  “Indeed,” Josiah growled. “Get. Out.”

  Georgiana slid to the floor and turned from his father, straightening her clothes, her hair, likely her nerves as well.

  But his father did not get out. He leaned a shoulder against the doorframe and crossed one ankle over the other as if he intended to stay for a chat. “Compromised a fortune. Not gentlemanly, but men in your situation can’t be choosy about how they acquire wealthy wives. Likely can’t get one at all without a little coercion.

  “And what exactly is my situation, Father?” Josiah asked.

  “Working.” He spat the word like it was dirt on the tongue and looked around Josiah to Georgiana. “Once you’re married, you’ll get him to stop this nonsense, yes?”

  She swung around, and Josiah stepped out of the way. He’d seen that particularly sharp dagger of a gaze aimed at fortune hunters, who she cleanly dispatched with no remorse. She stopped when she stood directly before him and… melted, the sweetest grin gracing her lips. “Oh, yes. It is such a shame Josiah wastes himself making sure your estate is running well. How scandalously insupportable that he ensures your tenants are happy. How horrifically insupportable that he cares about something other than…” She cocked her head to the side. “What is it a gentleman like Mr. Evans is supposed to care about?”

  Josiah’s father’s brows had knit together, and he looked first left, then right as if he weren’t quite sure she was talking to him. When his gaze once more landed on her, he straightened, shifted from foot to foot and said with more hesitation than Josiah had ever heard him use before, “His mistress?”

  “Josiah,” Georgiana said, sugar dripping from his name. “Do you keep a mistress?”

  “Not since earlier this year. March, to be exact.”

  She glanced at him over her shoulder. “March? Before or after—”

  “After Xavier and Sarah’s wedding.”

  “Hm. Fascinating.” She returned her attention to his father. “What else?”

  “Well, young men of his station should focus on… pleasure. Gambling, drinking. He has money of his own and does not have to work. If he must have a profession, it should be more gentlemanly. The church perhaps. Or the military.”

  “Of course, Lord Westgrove. It is all clear to me now. Thank you for that explanation. In short, you believe that Josiah should abandon work he’s good at. Abandon something that gives him purpose and delight.”

  His father grasped the edges of his great coat and snapped them tight. “Precisely. And you’ll make sure he does so, insist he move to London and—”

  She threw her head back with a laugh, strong and wicked. “Oh, no, my lord. I’ll do no such thing. You see, I’ve rather taken a liking to this charming little room and this charming house that provided such excellent shelter during last night’s storm.” She walked forward slowly, each step pushing his father backward and into the hallway until she stood just inside the bedchamber, her hand on the edge of the door. “And more, I’ve taken a liking to Josiah. A man of intellect and humor and kindness, quite worthy of all the love, paltry though it may be, I have to give him. I quite plan on moving into this house and sleeping in this bed and being proud of my husband for doing exactly what he is doing—ensuring the future profitability of an estate that belongs to you, you nodcock!” She slammed the door shut and slammed the lock home, then she turned to Josiah with a dusting of her palms together. “There.”

  Incoherent rumbles rolled under the door, then, “You harridan!”

  “I am, rather, aren’t I?”

  “Decidedly so,” Josiah assured her. He sauntered slowly toward her, wrapped his hands around her waist, and pulled her closer. “Tis a mystery why I love you.”

  “Clearly, you’re a nodcock, too. Must run in the family. I’ll have to watch for signs of it in our children and teach them good common sense.”

  “Like wandering alone in a snowstorm?”

  She swatted at his shoulder and laughed at herself. “Just so.”

  He leaned his forehead against her as his father banged on the door, yelling incoherent demands. “I love you. You do not have to move here. It is not the sort of luxury you are used to. It is quiet here, not as it is in London. I know you need—”

  “I need you. London had grown lonely long ago. After Aunt Prudence died, I sat alone every morning and night. And the closer Christmas came, fewer people were in Town, all my cursed suitors gone for good… everything was hollow. I felt too much like that little girl on Christmas day, sent away from her family forever.”

  “Never again, Gee. You’ll be with me today and every Christmas day after.”

  Her smile was small but strong, and she drew a delicate finger down his stubbled cheek. “I think… I think it was not the dare that brought me here. It gave me an excuse to go where I wanted to be.”

  “And where is that?”

  “Wherever you are.”

  He kissed her. And kissed her. And kissed her. He kissed her until the bellowing outside the door disappeared and the sun melted the glittering snow and they stood alone together, not needing an aunt’s approval or a father’s as long as they held each other in loving arms.

  Epilogue

  April 1822

  “The best man is one you love who loves you wildly in return.” –the working memoirs of Mrs. Georgiana Evans

  From across the crowded London ballroom at Sarah’s first event as hostess, Georgiana watched her husband eat cake. A brute, he was, shoving the dense, fruit-heavy slice right into his mouth without a care for the raisins that had dropped by his boots or the crumbs dotting his evening jacket. With a sigh, she bustled across the room. She’d have to clean him up. He saw her coming before she arrived, and the grin that grew on his lips—slow and knowing and hot-blooded—put speed into her steps.

  When she reached his side, she opened her mouth to read him a lecture and found a bite of cake between her lips instead, attached to his fingers. She tried to stay strong, but the sugar melted her as it melted on her tongue, and she chewed and swallowed her lecture with the cake. She took the plate from his hands and helped herself to more.

  He chuckled, then said, “You have been watching me all evening.”

  “Have I?” Oh, a crumb fell on her decolletage.

  He found it, swiped it away with the pad of his thumb, and sucked that thumb right into his mouth.

  Her mouth went dry.

  “I demand you stop,” he said, “watching me.”

  “Do you?” She managed to lift an eyebrow, unable to take her gaze from his lips. “Just because the hostess is your sister-in-law does not mean I’ll—”

 

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