“Wrap your legs around me,” he gasped, and she did, and oh, that was better. Closer. Tighter. Harder.
The pressure built inside her as before. She clung to him, rocking in rhythm, her body clenching around his powerful male body, feeling gloriously powerful, demanding faster, harder, more, more, more. He gave one last thrust and groaned loudly. She felt a hot gush of liquid inside her and heard herself give a high, thin scream as she shattered again, this time around him.
* * *
* * *
She might have slept for a little while—she wasn’t sure—all she knew was that she slowly floated back to awareness, like a feather languidly drifting to the ground. Feeling so wonderfully good. Sleepily euphoric.
She opened her eyes and found him lying on his side, watching her. “All right?” he murmured. He’d pulled the covers up over them, and she felt warm and safe and so comfortable.
She opened her mouth to tell him she felt wonderful, but instead, her mouth crumpled and her eyes filled with tears. “Oh, sweetheart.” He gathered her against him and held her, rubbing her back in a gentle, soothing rhythm.
Sobs jerked through her. “I-I’m s-sorry. It’s n-n-not—”
“Hush.”
“I’m n-not—”
“Don’t try to explain. It’s all right.”
“They’re g-goo-good tears,” she managed to choke out between sobs.
He gave a soft laugh. “I see. Just let them come. I don’t mind.” And he didn’t. He just held her, lending her his warmth, his strength. His acceptance.
After an embarrassingly long time, the hateful sobs stopped. There was no handkerchief, so Alice found her chemise at the foot of the bed and wiped her face with it. “I’m sorry,” she said on a gulp. “I don’t know why I’m crying. I—”
“Has that happened to you before? The climax, I mean.”
Climax, was that what it was called? She shook her head. “I didn’t even know it was possible.”
He brushed damp hair off her face. “Then perhaps your emotions were a little overwhelmed.”
She nodded. “But it was wonderful. I feel wonderful. I don’t know why I had to go and spoil it all by weeping all over you. Men hate tears, I know.”
He pulled her closer. “Usually when women cry, I want to rush out and kill a dragon for them or something, but good tears I can cope with. Just.”
They lay entwined in silence for a few moments, listening to the rain and the wind outside. “Do most women experience that in the marriage bed?” she asked, thinking about what Lady Peplowe had told her.
“If the man pays attention.”
Yes, that was it. Thaddeus had never paid attention. Suddenly she was angry. Eighteen years of marriage and she’d had no idea there could even be pleasure in the act, let alone . . . that.
She reached up and kissed him. “Thank you for showing me.”
He smiled, that slow smile that always made her insides curl—and she knew now why. “Thank you for trusting me. Now—”
At that point her stomach suddenly gave a loud, long rumble.
She glanced at him, mortified, and then suddenly they were both laughing. “I think before we go any further in this conversation, I should feed you,” he said. “Wait here.”
He slipped out of bed, and she watched shamelessly, admiring his bare, muscular body as he pulled on his breeches and left the room. He was a magnificent specimen of a man.
Her lover.
She snuggled back down in the covers and thought about all she had learned in the last hour. It was, for her, the revelation of a lifetime. All those wasted years feeling like a failure as a woman—unattractive, undesirable, barren.
She wasn’t ever going to let anyone make her feel like that again. She would not allow bitterness and regret to poison her life any longer. She wasn’t even going to think of Thaddeus. She had a future. And she was the mistress of a wonderful man. Her lover.
She lay curled in her nest of blankets and relived the lovemaking in her mind. There was so much to learn, she realized. He’d brought her to climax simply by touching her with his mouth and hands. Did it work the other way around? With her touching him?
“Here you are.” He entered with a tray. With one hand, he caught up his shirt from the rail at the foot of the bed and tossed it to her. “You might feel more comfortable in this.”
She slipped his shirt over her head—it was far too big and swamped her, but she enjoyed its faint masculine smell of James. Rolling back the sleeves, she sat up and arranged the pillows to lean back on.
He passed her the tray and slipped in beside her. Her eyes widened. It was a veritable feast. “Where did all this food come from?” She hadn’t noticed it before.
His eyes glinted with humor. “I knew we’d be hungry, so I had my cook pack a hamper.”
Her stomach rumbled again at the sight and smell of the food. There was a pot of tea and a little jug of milk, crusty fresh bread, curls of golden butter, tender slices of ham, a pot of honey, cold egg-and-bacon pie, little lemon curd cakes and a dish of—“Strawberries?” she asked in amazement. “At this time of year?”
“Last season’s, preserved in syrup. The cook at Towers, my country estate, makes them according to a secret recipe, and she sent some up to London when she heard the girls and I were living there for the moment. It’s a ploy to get us to return to what she considers our proper place, which is, of course, Towers. Try one—they’re delicious.” He scooped one up with a spoon and popped it into her mouth. It was utterly delectable, sweet and succulent.
To Alice’s surprise and secret pleasure, he fed her by hand, all sorts of delicious morsels, a little of everything, all washed down with fresh hot tea, until she was utterly sated. He took the depleted tray away and returned a few minutes later.
“I had thought we might go for a walk, but it’s still pouring. Any thoughts as to what you’d like to do now? We could talk or read or even sleep if you’d like.”
Alice felt herself blushing. “Could we do, um, that again?”
He threw back his head and laughed, uninhibited, masculine and joyous. “A woman after my own heart. Indeed we can.” And he slid into bed again.
* * *
* * *
Gerald was regretting his choice of riding to his grandmother’s. The fine mist of rain had stopped, but he wouldn’t have minded being in the carriage. There were things he wanted to say—and do—to Miss Lucy Bamber, but her blasted maid was in the way. Which he supposed was the purpose of chaperones.