Stand and Deliver (3 page)

He ought to turn her down with some pretty speech about respecting her too much to take her as his lover. If he had any sense, he would do so right now, before she took her experimentation any further. But Bess’ soft hand stroking down the length of his hard cock robbed him of any sense he had left.

If she was offering, he was ready to take.

He tugged at her skirts, pul ing them up above her knees so he could slide his hand under them to stroke her plump, white thighs.

She shivered at his touch, but she made no move to pul away.

His hand inched higher and higher up her legs until he was stroking her hip. He moved to the juncture of her thighs, but he could find no entrance there. Her knees were stil locked together, forbidding him more than the barest brush of the downy soft hair that covered her mound. He pushed his hand between her thighs. “Open your legs for me,” he whispered, gently pushing them apart as he spoke. “Let me touch your pussy. Let me feel how wet you are, how ready for the touch of a man, for the slide of my fingers against your center of pleasure.”

With a soft sigh, she al owed him to push her legs apart, letting her knees drift wide open in invitation. He gave a grin of triumph and redoubled the passion in his kiss. Al her secrets were open to him now. She would be bucking under him, her pussy fil ed to bursting with his eager thrusting cock, before too much longer.

As he kissed her, he slid his fingers across her mound, caressing her firmly, but gently, as he would tame a skittish horse. He found her nub of pleasure and rol ed it between his thumb and forefinger, making her gasp and arch her back. “Do you like that?” he whispered. “Do you like it when I play with your little clit?”

Wordlessly, she nodded. Her panting and the flush on her face told him al that he needed to know. Though she was an innocent, she wanted him.

Finding the entrance to her cunt, he probed it gently with the tip of his finger. She was wet. Sopping wet. His finger slid in easily, her pussy wal s tightening around him as he pushed into her as far as he could go.

Christ, but he wanted her pussy to be tightening like that around his cock. He wanted to sink into her, to claim her with his loving.

Slowly he withdrew his finger and took his hand out from under her skirts.

She looked at him in mute protest and her hand stopped its delicious stroking of his cock.

The look of disappointment on her face nearly made him laugh out loud. Only his desire not to break the mood that had grown between them stopped him. “Time to make ourselves more comfortable before we go any further.”

He reached down and pul ed off his boots, tossing them into one corner of the room. His jacket quickly fol owed, and then his other garments, one by one, until he stood before her, proudly naked. Coming close to her, he traced the line of her bodice with one finger. “Your turn now, sweetheart. Take off your clothes and let me see your naked body.”

With a shimmy of her shoulders, her robe fel away, leaving her dressed only in a thin cotton nightdress.

Through the fabric, he could see the outlines of her nipples, tight and hard, and the dark thatch of hair between her legs.

Her hands went to the buttons of her nightrail, slowing undoing them one by one. When every last button was free, she took a deep breath and slid her nightgown off her shoulders to pool at her feet.

His breath caught in his throat. Clothed, she was a pretty lass. Naked, she was a stunner. Pleasingly plump and curved in al the right places, with generous breasts tapering to a narrow waist and then curving out again into a bottom as juicy and ripe as a summer peach. Over her shoulders, like a veil, hung her long, hair in thick, black ringlets, al owing only the tips of her breasts to show through. He reached for her, drawing her against his body.

Her skin, flushed with desire, burned against his as he buried his face in the perfume of her hair. “Come, let me love you as a woman deserves to be loved.”

Intent on his pleasure, he tumbled her on to the bed and came to lie on top of her, nestled between her legs, his cock poised at the ready. He nudged at her opening. “Do you want me now, pretty Bess? Do you want me to fuck you? To thrust my cock inside you until it reaches the center of your being? To thrust into you until I am ready to spil my seed?”

Though her face was burning with embarrassment at his blunt words, stil she angled her hips up to meet him in invitation. “Do not…do not spil your seed inside me,” she whispered. “I do not want a babe to come from this.”

So, pretty Bess retained enough sense, even in the throes of desire, to demand he take some precautions. A level-headed lass, evidently. “I wil not,” he promised her, hoping that he would remember in the heat of the moment to pul out in time. The way he was poised over her, he would promise her the moon if it meant he could sink into her body sooner.

Her fears assuaged, she put her hands on his shoulders and pul ed him close enough to place little nibbling kisses on his neck.

He smiled, satisfied that he’d done his duty by her innocence. While his self-respect had demanded he give her one last opportunity to pul away from him, now that she had turned the chance away, he wasn’t going to give her another chance to change her mind.

Thrusting his hips forward, he pushed the head of his cock into her narrow channel. She gave a squeak of surprise and bit him on the shoulder.

God, but she was tight. Hot and wet, and as tight as his fist.

Gently, but inexorably, he pushed forward until he was buried to the hilt inside her.

She moaned softly as he slowly pul ed out of her moist heat again.

He held himself stil , wil ing himself not to move. “Did I hurt you?”

“No. You couldn’t hurt me. I just don’t want you to leave me yet.”

Her trust in him made him feel as powerful as a king.

“I’m not leaving you, sweetheart. Just readying myself to do this.” And with that, he thrust back into her in one powerful movement.

Her pussy muscles tightened around him as he pushed into her, squeezing him until it felt as though every drop of blood in his body had rushed to his engorged cock. He had never been so swol en or so hard before. He’d not thought that a simple innkeeper’s daughter could have such an effect on him.

He was Jack Hal , a highwayman and a thief, not some cal ow youth to be bowled over by a mere slip of a girl.

True, Bess was more than a pretty face—she had a good heart and bore no more love for the King’s men than he did.

Stil , she was only a woman and he had no desire to test her loyalty. He intended to be far gone from here before she learned the price he carried on his head.

In the meantime, however, he would make sport with her for as long as he could entice her into his bed.

He took her breasts in his hands, squeezing them as her cunt was squeezing him. Her nipples had contracted again into hard peaks. He took one between his thumb and forefinger, pinching it gently. Under him, she bucked and moaned as he fucked her, matching him thrust for thrust.

He’d seldom had a more eager bedmate, or a noisier one. If they carried on much longer like this, they would wake the entire inn.

Not such a good idea. His life would not be worth a bean if the innkeeper or his wife caught him fucking their daughter.

Deliberately, he hurried the pace, thrusting into her long and hard until she stiffened under him. She gave a cry of almost agony, and he felt her pussy convulse around him.

Reluctantly, he pul ed out of her warmth. Only just in time. The friction of pul ing out of her as the ripples of her pleasure surrounded him made his orgasm overtake him.

With one last effort of wil , he delayed the eruption of his cum until he could spend safely on her bel y.

Spurt after spurt of his seed burst out of him as he held himself over her, paralyzed by the intensity of his pleasure.

Only when he was drained as dry as a drought-stricken field and the last throbbings of his orgasm had subsided was he able to col apse on top of her, sated at last.

He had barely caught his breath back when she wriggled out from under him and swung her legs over the side of the bed. “I’d best be going.”

He reached out for her and pul ed her back into his arms, suddenly reluctant to let her escape him quite so quickly. After the pleasure they had just shared, her indecent haste to leave was almost insulting. “Stay the night with me. Sleep in my bed tonight.”

With a sigh that said she ought to know better, she al owed herself to be pul ed back into the warmth of his embrace.

Bess woke, as always, at first cock crow. Her head ached a little from the wine she had drunk, and her body ached somewhat more from their lovemaking. She moved her legs gingerly as she sat up in bed, doing her best not to disturb the man sleeping next to her.

It was done. She was no longer a maiden, and she did not care.

Not that she harbored any romantic fantasies that Jack would now fal in love with her and carry her away on his coal-black horse and live happily with her in a cottage by the sea. She was no fool. Such things did not happen in real life. At most, he would spend a few pleasant days with her and remember her fondly once in a while after he had ridden away.

It had been her choice to give him her maidenhead and she was glad of it. He had made her feel like a woman, like a desirable woman. Like a strong woman in charge of her own destiny.

She had taken him as her first lover and the world had not ended nor had the sky fal en down upon her for her wickedness. He had pleased her wel , and she would be content with that.

Jack stretched his booted feet in front of him as he tucked into the plate of good pork sausages that Bess had brought him for breakfast. Catching her eye, he winked at her, and she colored and turned her head away. Her lack of inhibitions, it seemed, did not stretch so far as to flirt with him under the eagle eye of her mother.

He liked her the better for it. No tavern lightskirt was his Bess. Prim and proper in company, but as wild as a tiger in his bed at night. His business could wait another day. He couldn’t wait until the evening, when he could tempt his Bess to his room and strip her of al her clothes and make love with her again.

His Bess. One side of his mouth curled up in a wry grimace. When had he started thinking such nonsense?

She was no more his than the wind that ruffled his hair or the moonlight that lit his way in the dark of night. He couldn’t afford to indulge in such sil iness. Soft thoughts like that could get him kil ed.

He would tumble the wench again, if she was wil ing, and then ride off into the night, to business. The sheen of her hair was nothing beside the sheen of a stack of golden guineas. Enough guineas, and he could emigrate to the Americas and start life again as a wealthy horse-breeder.

He would reclaim his rightful place in society, the place his father had forfeited when his customers, blue-blooded aristocrats every one of them, had driven him to bankruptcy.

He would make a fortune and avenge his father. No woman was worth giving up such a dream for.

Just then, she turned her head over her shoulder and smiled at him. Her smile lit up the dingy parlor of the inn like the sun at midday. In her eyes, he could see a promise of warmth and of joy. Al he had to do was to reach out his hand to take what she offered.

Bess’ mother caught her staring at Jack, her hunger for him shining in her eyes. She lowered them hastily, but not before her mother had seen the covetous gaze she gave him, and the answering warmth in his face.

“Bess, you’re wanted in the kitchen.” Her mother’s voice was sharp and she glared at Jack as she gathered her daughter.

“What’s the big hurry?” Bess grumbled as she fol owed her mother into the kitchen. Everything was as spotlessly clean and organized as ever, with no sign of any incipient disaster that required her immediate attention. Her time with Jack was limited and she prized every minute of it.

“Those eels out the back need to be made into a pie before they spoil.”

Bess wrinkled her nose. “It’s already too late for them. I was going to dig them into the vegetable garden. Not even the cats wil touch them.”

Her mother shrugged. “Dig them into the garden, then.”

“You did not drag me out here to tel me to dig a brace of rotten eels into the garden.”

Her mother wiped her hands on her apron. “Bess, there is something you have a right to know. And I think it is high time you learned the truth.” She gave an uncomfortable cough and then fel silent.

A trickle of unease skittered down Bess’ spine. Her mother was not usual y lost for words. “What is it?”