Miller, Raine - The Undoing of a Libertine (Siren Publishing Classic) (35 page)

She told him he couldn’t stay with her though.

“You must go back… There are those who need you. You have much yet to do. And she who loves you will help. This is not your destiny…today. Love well, my son.”

* * * *

His hand felt peculiar, all tingly and numb. Something was pressing on it. Jeremy cracked open an eye. Dark blonde hair hovered over the general direction of his deadened hand. He flexed it and she shifted, removing the pressure. He sensed the blood go rushing into empty veins.

Blood… There had been a lot of blood. He remembered blood and Gina frantic and begging. He remembered other details, too. Like Gina in the arms of a madman. The fight. Recovering Marguerite, the state of her a vivid rendering of what Gina had once suffered—

Don’t think of it!

Some things were better left buried, he thought. He had Gina safe now, and he was alive. Given a second chance it seemed. Jeremy vowed not to waste it.

That dream had seemed so real.
“Love well, my son.”
Those were her parting words.
“My son…”
Could it be? He tried to remember all of her words.

His hand, now restored to normal sensitivity, reached out and touched the silky hair. Jeremy buried his fingers in the golden softness and combed through a loose portion, reveling in the simple gift and cherishing the moment.

He felt her stiffen and continued with his finger-combing. “Jeremy?” Gina breathed his name. The most beautiful sound in the world. He knew she was awake, but she kept her head down. Then she stopped breathing.

“You’re stuck with me a bit longer, sweetheart. Death, it seems, is not willing to have me just yet.”

Gina whipped her head around so fast, his hand fell away. “Thank the heavenly angels,” she blurted, gripping his palm and showering it with kisses.

“You have no idea,” he murmured. He smiled at her and noted she looked bone-weary, dark circles under her eyes, a bruise on her left cheek, a small pressure cut at her throat, and very pale, but still the most beautiful vision he’d ever seen or imagined to see.

“I prayed so hard. I was so afraid of losing you—” She lost her words as the sobbing took hold. “Couldn’t—live—without you—” She hiccupped.

He cupped her face with his one hand. “Nor I without you, my sweetheart.” He brushed his thumb over her unmarred cheekbone. “Your face is the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen, but you look like hell, love.”

Her lip trembled for a moment. “You’ve come back to me,” she whispered.

“How about you lie down with me? On my good side.” He winced as he shifted over on the bed to make room for her.

“Jeremy, you’re in hospital!”

“Am I? I hadn’t noticed,” he teased, his eyes grabbing hers. “All I can see is you. You’re all that matters to—”

“Well, well, this is a good sign! Awake and even coherent from all indications.” A doctor had appeared, voice booming over him before taking his wrist to check the pulse.

Jeremy blinked. “Cameron, is that you?”

The doctor grinned. “It is. What’s it been, Greymont, ten years?”

“Good God, Cameron, you’re a doctor! You’ve made quite a transformation since university. Never would have thought it possible. I remember you had an aversion to the sight of blood, for Christ’s sake!”

“Yes, well I grew out of it.” He arched a brow. “Your pulse has steadied. That’s encouraging. How are you feeling?”

Jeremy grunted. “Like I’ve been sat on by an ox.”

“Not a surprise,” Cameron countered.

“And thirsty. Can you spare a drop of something—anything?”

“Also not a surprise. You’re dehydrated from blood loss. Watered wine, broths, and tea will have to do. No spirits for you yet.”

“As you say, Doctor.” Jeremy grinned and turned back to Gina, grateful just to take in her presence,
safe
and whole next to him.

 
“You should know I’ve shared quite a few stories about your dissolute youth with your wife here.” Cameron winked at Gina. “And for all your faults, she seems to be blind to them. She is devoted to you regardless. You are a lucky man to have her, Greymont.”

“I know. Have always known it.”

“No, I mean
lucky
it was her with you,” Cameron insisted. “Greymont, you are only alive because of her. She kept your wound from bleeding out and got you here while you still had a pulse. No woman I know could have done all that and remained so focused.”

“But I am not surprised.” Jeremy kept his eyes on Gina and answered the doctor. “And you are right. My wife is like no other woman. She is brave and strong and brilliant—and I truly couldn’t live without her.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

A feeling heart is a blessing that no one,

who has it, would be without…

—Samuel Richardson,
History of Sir Charles Grandison
(1754)

Three days abed and Jeremy still relished the simple pleasures of life, only now he did have his wife in the bed next to him. His discharge from hospital had come with some strict directives though. For both of them. His old school friend, and now physician, Nathaniel Cameron, had ordered Jeremy unfit to travel for at least a month, so they wouldn’t be returning to Hallborough before the New Year, at least.

The good doctor had also been very firm about Gina, declaring her worn out to the point of collapse and in much need of restorative rest. It was still too early to confirm a pregnancy, he’d said, but quite likely for she’d not had her courses since they’d married.

For himself, Jeremy was positive his seed had taken root. He couldn’t say how he knew, but he believed it true and for the first time in his life felt as if he had accomplished something worthwhile. Honorable. And he liked feeling that way.

Watching her sleep was something he could do for hours. And as he was confined to bed with Gina stretched out next to him, he could indulge himself. He propped on his good side and tucked his hand under his cheek and just focused on her features.

The dark of her lashes lay on her cheeks, her hair spilled over the pillow. She wore a scant green gown of silk that gave him a cockstand at first sight, even though he was in no shape to act on it. It was sleeveless in the way of a shift and clung to her body like paint. The flow of her breasts under the silk called to him. The impulse to bury his face between the swells before feasting on them got him painfully blue-veined.

Her soft snore punctured the silence of the dawn. Breathing in, he could smell roses blended with her feminine scent, and a small satisfied moan escaped from his throat at the thought of getting his nose right up against her skin.

It was very early in the morning, the quiet time right before the bustling activity of the day began. His woman was safe next to him and he was alive, and Jeremy couldn’t resist reaching out to touch…

* * * *

Georgina woke to warmth radiating into her body and hands on her skin. Jeremy’s lips, firm but gentle, kissed her shoulder. She felt the rasp of his whiskers as he swept them across her neck to the valley between her breasts.

She’d missed this—her Jeremy reaching for her, needing her. His mouth burrowed on below the neckline of her gown, closed over a nipple, and sucked the areola far up into a hot, wet, seeking mouth.
Divine.

She moaned and arched at the shot of pure pleasure that ratcheted all the way down between her legs. He grunted when she thrust up against him, and she realized why.

“Sorry! Oh, dear God, Jeremy, did I hurt you just now?”

“I don’t mind. You’re very worth it,” he mumbled, still suckling, seemingly undeterred by the pain she’d inflicted.

“But I hurt you!”

“Not quite in top form yet, m’dear, but I’ll get there, I promise you.” His words muffled by the fact his lips were busy with her breasts.

“Jeremy,” she admonished, “I can’t be bumping into your wounds and risk hurting you. We shouldn’t—you can’t—”

“Waste another moment talking about tiresome subjects like wounds when we could be doing other, more tempting things,” he interrupted, still laving his tongue over aching nipples that she wanted to push up hard against his mouth, but didn’t dare for fear of jolting his injuries more.

“You taste so good I don’t think I can stop. I don’t want to ever stop, my Gina.” He kept his mouth sucking, but his hand had worked its way up her gown and between her legs. “I need to feel you. Inside here. I need this with you right now.”

“Ahhh, and the way you touch me.” She rotated her hips in rhythm with his finger’s very pointed rubbing at her core, trying to be mindful of his wounds but unable to be still. When he did this to her, she couldn’t think or do anything but submit to the enslavement of the passion.

“Mmmmm, yesss. It’s all for you right now. Come for me. I want to watch you come. Please, Gina. I want to see it happen,” he begged, pressing a little harder on her clitoris with his thumb and sinking two fingers up inside. “You’re wet and so soft. I love that you’re so wet for me.”

Sweet Christ, the things he says!

His fingers slipped in and out of her slickness, working her into a frenzy of sensation she couldn’t escape. She arched toward his hand. Each thrust into her drenched depths was countered by a pass of his thumb over her pearl.

It wouldn’t be long now. She recognized a clicking sound was the friction of her wetness spilling out around his fingers, and she didn’t care, had no modesty or consciousness other than getting to the glorious end.

He would get her there, as he always had. In this she had complete trust, and her love for him just exploded around her whole body. It pushed the orgasm suddenly up from the depths, boiling over and hurtling her body into ecstasy.

“Look at me, love. Let me see your golden eyes on me when you find heaven.”

She did as he asked and shattered apart, crying out her love and her thankfulness for him. Real tears and true sobs. It was the only thing she could do. The fear of losing him, the relief that he had not died, that they were together now, was too much emotion to hold in for a second longer. The last thing she remembered was crying underneath his hands, his gentle voice soothing her with words of love and security so precious she hoped she could keep the memory of it forever in her soul.

When she woke later, he was staring, his eyes alighting on her with a smile. “You drifted back, sweetheart. Finally.”

Remembering how she’d cried in her climax, embarrassment flooded through her and she lowered her eyes.

“What is wrong? I see that shuttered look in your eyes.”

She shook her head and tried to hold back more tears. How many times would she cry in front of this man? Before he grew utterly sick of her, if he wasn’t already.

“Can you not tell me?” He brushed his right hand under her chin to lift it up, but did it gently. She could smell her essence on his hand, and she blushed at the thought of exactly where his hand had been. “You must know you may always talk to me about anything. Don’t be shy now. I want you to be at ease to tell me whatever you wish.”

“Jeremy…” She croaked out his name, the sound lost, swallowed in her throat. “I nearly got you killed—”

It was true. However their acquaintance had come about, that—that
creature
, Strawnly, had tried to abduct her. And he almost had done, nearly killing Jeremy in the process. And it was all her fault—her jealousy and the fact she hadn’t trusted him enough.

Georgina could hardly bear to recall the swipe of that knife coming down at Jeremy, stabbing him. Any closer to the vein in his neck and he would have bled to death even faster! Because of her. Because she had walked them both right into it, blindly stupid and careless.