Heiress in Love (35 page)

He was shirtless, but he’d been put to bed in his breeches, barely able to stand when he’d arrived home the previous afternoon.

Now, she waited for him to take her, but Constantine sat curiously still, his features hard and drawn. More than anything, she wanted to hold him, to tell him all would be well. She slid her arms around his torso, but it was like embracing a statue. He didn’t yield to her, didn’t return her embrace.

Hurt, she sat back, her brows knitted in confusion.

Suddenly, with a muttered curse, he caught her face between his hands, kissing her desperately, driving his fingers through her hair. Then he hauled her into his arms and buried his face in the crook of her neck.

His breathing was harsh in her ear. “Oh, God, Jane. I need you. I need you and I can’t—”

“Hush, it’s all right.” She wanted to give herself to him. Wanted it more than anything, more than her next breath. She no longer cared whether she could accommodate him comfortably or not. She would suffer pain if that was what it took to give him some measure of release. He was torturing himself with needless guilt and it killed her to see it.

His fingers were already fumbling at the ribbons of her bodice. “But I can’t be … I can’t go slowly, make it perfect for you. Not this time.”

“It
will
be perfect,” she said, smiling a little. “It will be perfect because it’s you.”

He found her breasts then, gathered them in his hands, and the power of speech abruptly deserted her. He lavished attention on first one breast, then the other, and when she gasped with delight, his fingers found her sex, delving into the wet folds, touching her as he’d instructed her to do that first night.

No longer did such liberties feel wrong, or a violation or a precursor to pain. She moaned with pleasure as he pushed one finger inside her, then two. She let her legs fall open, giving everything to him, letting him in.

This time, she suffered no embarrassment. It felt right—utterly perfect—when he covered her body with his. The heavy flesh of his penis came to rest against her thigh. Instead of fear, a wave of longing swept over her. She needed this as much as he did. She ached for him, deep inside.

Jane opened her eyes and looked up at Constantine as he reached down between them. Her heart was so full of love for him that fear became a state beyond her comprehension.

She loved him!
And the joy and terror of it were beyond anything she’d ever imagined.

Jane slid her hands up his braced arms to his shoulders, glorying in his muscular beauty.

She knew she had to tell him what she wanted, so that even if he did cause her pain at the crucial moment, he would know how much she’d craved him.

“I need you inside me,” she said. “Constantine, please.”

His shoulders tensed beneath her hands. The head of his erection nudged forward, and with one great thrust, he was sheathed inside her.

And it felt … a little strange … but mostly …
wonderful
.

Constantine groaned, the tendons standing out in his neck. “Did I hurt you?” he gasped.

“No.” She threw back her head and laughed, wrapping her legs around his waist.

“Oh, thank God,” he managed. “I’d die if I had to stop now.”

That struck her as so amusing, he had to kiss her to muffle her relieved, delighted laughter.

She gloried in their closeness, in the way their bodies fit together. He began to move inside her and she stopped laughing and moved with him, chasing after a prize that she hadn’t even dared to dream about for so long.

She loved the feel of him, so warm and hard, yet with skin so smooth beneath her touch; she loved watching sunlight define the musculature of his shoulders and gleam in his thick dark hair. She loved the scent of him, earthy and masculine. She loved the husky timbre of his voice when he whispered her name.

I love you,
she wanted to tell him, but she didn’t know if she deserved to say it yet. She’d misjudged him and she had yet to pay the price.

He changed the angle of his thrusts and she lost that thread of thought altogether, became a mindless collection of pleasured nerve endings and sighs and building heat.

“Ah, Jane. I can’t hold on much longer.”

He reached down and pressed the flesh above where they fitted together. A sudden burst of light scattered across her eyelids as all the heat inside her gathered and exploded, sending waves of pleasure through her body.

She clung on, coasting the waves as his thrusts increased in power and speed. His breathing grew more labored until his entire body jolted and he pulled out of her with a hoarse cry. Shuddering, he collapsed on the mattress beside her, one arm lying heavily across her breasts.

Jane lay beside him, entranced by the echoes of delicious sensations that still played like ripples of music through her body. She was sore in places she’d never known existed, yet she’d never felt so alive, so full of joy, so connected to another human being. How could she have survived without this for so long?

Constantine turned on his side and gathered her to him, so that his front curved around her back.

His hand closed possessively over her breast. His lips skimmed behind her ear. “I lost my sanity back there.” He hesitated. With a soft laugh, he said, “I never thought I’d need to ask this question, but tell me how it was for you.”

With a sigh, Jane snuggled back against his chest.

“Perfect,” she said. “It was perfect. As I knew it would be.”

He captured her hand and held it pressed against the valley between her breasts. The gesture was so intimate, so tender, that she had to blink back a tear.

They lay there for a long time without speaking, until soon, Constantine’s deep breathing told Jane he’d fallen asleep. She ought to leave and seek her own bed, but he held her fast, his long, muscled legs entangled with hers. She wouldn’t wish to wake him by moving, so she let him be, and allowed her eyelids to drift shut.

When Jane woke again, it was dark, but candles lit the room and a fire crackled and snapped in the grate. She turned her head to see Constantine staring at her with that intensity back in his gaze.

He smiled. “I’ve never seen someone so dead to the world as you were just now.”

“You’ve been watching me sleep?” She wasn’t sure if she liked the idea.

He leaned over to kiss her. “Sleeping Beauty. You enchant me.”

She frowned. “I don’t recall Sleeping Beauty having any magical powers. Didn’t she just doze through the entire book?”

He grinned. “You have a very literal mind, my dear.” He sat up. “Are you hungry? I’m sure you must be. I’ll go down to the larder and see what I can find for us.”

“That would be most appreciated.” She threw her arms over her head. “Ah, I could live in this bed forever, but there’s so much work yet to be done.”

He smiled and reached for his shirt. “Yes, but the work must wait until daylight, so we still have tonight.”

While he was gone, Jane donned her wrapper and got back under the covers. Her body was alive with sensation, her mind alert. She could scarcely believe that after all the agony of self-doubt she’d suffered since her wedding night, Constantine had so quickly and easily made her feel like a full-blooded, passionate woman, a sensual, healthy whole.

The revelation was stunning in its simplicity. She was a normal woman, after all.

She was tender and achy in some intimate parts of her, but it was a good and satisfying ache. A delicious thrill scintillated through her. They would have all night.

When Constantine returned bearing a tray stocked with a feast fit for two kings, they both fell upon it and ate with gusto.

“Mmm.” Jane closed her eyes in delight. “This tart is pure heaven. We must increase Cook’s wages immediately.” She wiggled her fingertips, which were covered in fruity goo.

“It seems I forgot napkins,” said Constantine. With a wicked glint in his eye, he reached for her hand. “Allow me.”

Jane gasped as he bent and closed his lips over one fingertip. The moist, warm flesh of his mouth made a languorous pleasure steal over her body. His gaze never left her face and that gaze was hot with desire.

When he’d finished making a meal of her fingers, he turned her hand and pressed a kiss to her palm, then moved up to her wrist. Her pulse quickened under his lips, leaped at the touch of his tongue.

“Oh, you are a wicked, wicked man,” she breathed.

“I can be far more wicked than that.” He drew her toward him for a kiss, this time so suggestive and lascivious that he might have been making love to her mouth. Her body melted; her mind grew dazed.

He drew back. “Jane, we have to talk.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

After that kiss, Jane took many moments to regain her focus.

“Talk?” she said vaguely.
Talk?
When she had years of experience in the bedchamber to catch up on?

“Yes. I need to tell you about what happened all those years ago.”

He picked up the tray and set it down on the table by the window. Then he shucked his breeches and crawled back into bed with her.

She tried to keep her eyes off certain intriguing parts of him. It was rude to stare. And of course, he pulled the covers to their waists so she didn’t have the opportunity to investigate further. Jane sighed. So much to learn.

A quirk of his lips told him he guessed the reason for her sigh, and she blushed.

“You wanted to tell me…” she prompted, gathering her tattered dignity around her.

He looked a little grim at that. “Yes, I must.” He paused. “You asked me to explain about my disgrace. Well, I suppose you might say it’s a little like the boy who cried wolf.”

Perplexed, she shifted against the pillows. “How do you mean?”

Constantine lay back against the banked pillows, one bent arm behind his head, one arm around Jane.

He exhaled a long breath through his nostrils. “Oh, I was a wild child as a youth, there’s no doubt. I was bored and rich and reckless and I discovered early on that I loved women. I was nearly sent down from Eton for various transgressions and my father refused to send me to Oxford because of it. He said I’d waste my time there, just as I had at school.

“Certainly, my pranks weren’t at all to my credit, but there was no great harm in them. I grew out of it, but my father was a stern, righteous man, and he didn’t understand that. He thought my character fixed at the age of seventeen.”

“That does seem severe,” Jane said. “My cousins cut all kinds of larks through school and university. I don’t think it did them any harm.”

“Ah. But then came Amanda.” He gave a dry, sardonic laugh. “Lord, she was the answer to a man’s prayers, the beauty of the Season. Her parents weren’t wealthy or titled, but they invested all they had into giving their exquisite daughter a chance at a great marriage. They were determined to make a large return on their investment.”

Ordinarily, Jane might have been jealous at his praise of this young lady, but his biting sarcasm made it clear he harbored no residual feelings for her.

“What happened?”

“I fell head over heels in love with her, of course,” said Constantine. “I wasn’t quite the glittering prize her parents wanted, but in the months they’d been in Town they must have realized that without a large dowry or grand connections, Amanda was not destined for a coronet. The Blacks are an old family and the property at Broadmere that I stood to inherit, while not as grand as Lazenby Hall, was large and prosperous. They must have thought I was the best prospect she had.”

Jane had a feeling she knew what was coming.

His mouth curved in derision. “It was so ludicrous, so
unnecessary
. I fully intended to offer for her once I’d secured my father’s blessing. He was being difficult about it. I thought at the time, as young men do, that he was determined to thwart me whatever I did. Looking back, I believe he suspected Amanda’s parents were the grasping, mercenary kind. I knew that—Amanda had confided some of her woes to me—and I didn’t care. I wanted to be her knight in shining armor.” His mouth twisted. “But the truth was, she was no princess.”

He reached for his wine glass on the bedside table and offered it to Jane, but she shook her head. He took a deep, contemplative sip. “No doubt you’ve heard I compromised Amanda at a house party. The truth is—and this is for your ears only—she compromised me.”

He set down the glass with a snort of derision. “So wet behind the ears as I was at—what?—twenty? I had no more notion of trying to seduce a gently bred lady than I had of flying to the moon. Yes, I was a wild ’un, but I wasn’t a fool. I knew compromising a lady went beyond the pale. I couldn’t believe it when she appeared in my bedchamber in the dead of night like that.”

“You were discovered,” Jane said, taking his hand.

“Oh, yes.” He stroked her palm with his thumb. “By design, of course. Nothing had transpired between us, but the mere fact of her being there … And the most amusing part—really hilarious—is that I would not have twigged to the scheme if Amanda hadn’t shown me her triumph. She told me, you see. She’d never cared for me. She was as ambitious as her parents and twice as clever, for she’d never let down her guard, as they had.”