Chapter 24
One of them moved first. Jane wasn’t certain which. All she knew was that their mouths captured each other, colliding in symbiotic need.
A sudden, startling glut of pleasure quickened her blood. It pooled deep in her midriff where their bodies met, separated by fabric and gathering heat. But this malady inside her demanded more. She needed pressure to assuage it.
Scarcely had the thought entered her mind when one of Raven’s hands roved along the curve of her spine, splaying possessively and pulling her flush against the hard plane of his torso. They were now so close that she could feel the buttons of his waistcoat and the tiny silken bow of her chemise ribbon between her breasts. She nearly sighed in relief. This was so much better. Almost enough, in fact. But not quite.
She still wanted more.
Hungrily, she opened her mouth beneath the insistent pressure of his, their tongues tangling in a delicious port-and-pudding-tinged impact. She loved the textures of his kiss. The firmness of his lips. The damp silk inside. And the sharp edge of his teeth, paradoxically gentle as he nibbled into her flesh while the flat of his hand coasted over the generous slope of her bottom.
Then he cinched her tighter, lifting her feet effortlessly off the carpet. A gasp escaped her as she groped for purchase, gripping his shoulders. This position aligned their bodies in a perfect placement—navel to navel, chest to chest—and it caused the last remaining breath to shudder out of her in a rush.
He grinned at her, nipping her chin. “Surely, you’re not scandalized already. I’ve barely begun. And there’s so much of your little body I’ve yet to touch. To taste.”
He was trying to make her blush, she knew. Well, he’d succeeded. Even so, she saw the challenge in the arch of his brow, testing her determination and willingness.
She threaded her fingers through the short silken strands of his hair and played the mimic, nuzzling against his nose, pressing soft kisses to his cheek and brow. Then she nibbled into the corner of his mouth. “Perhaps I’ll be the one who tastes you first.”
He growled, his lips fusing to hers in a searing kiss and, next, she found herself perched on the edge of the map table.
Perhaps she may have been too bold just now? But when his teeth rasped deliciously over her earlobe, and the hot drift of his breath on her skin awakened a siege of new receptors, she could not compel herself to recant. Instead, her neck arched in supplication under the skillful mastery of his tongue as he laved the pulse at her throat.
This wasn’t about research for the book, and her brain wasn’t the only part involved. Her heart, body and mind were completely enmeshed.
No one ever saw her the way Raven did. Not even Ellie, Winn or Prue understood the pain at the core of her lifelong need to bury herself in books and facts. To them, she was intelligent and capable—the friend always prepared with a plan. To the ton, she was merely a culmination of oddities and idiosyncrasies. To Raven, she was still all those things. But she was more, too. She was a woman, someone desirable despite her peculiarities. Perhaps even because of them.
He proved it now in the way he kissed her and held her face so tenderly. And also in the way he tilted her head back as his mouth hungrily ravaged hers, like a man half-starved and hunched over a bowl of ripe fruit. But she felt the slightest tremor in the hands that cradled her cranium as if he were suppressing a stronger desire than he revealed.
Jane wanted him to gorge himself on her. And the very notion made her feel juicy beneath her skin, compelling her to mold her body to his.
“You don’t have to hold back. Not with me,” she said against his lips.
His hand tightened at her nape, a low sound vibrating deep in his throat and tingling her lips as he fed it to her. Without any argument, he slid her closer to the edge of the table, nudging her knees apart until their hips were flush.
She felt the hardness of him roll with sinuous command against her as he greedily swallowed her gasp. Having studied sketches of the male anatomy a number of times—not to mention her statue encounter—she knew what this part of him was, and knew that the process of copulation required a man’s penis to gain an erection. It had all seemed so clinical in the texts. Mere lines on a page. Being an active member in the process, however, was quite a different matter altogether. Her body responded in heated, liquid pulses. She clung to him.
Wanting more, she suckled the tip of his tongue deeper into her mouth. He drew in a surprised breath, then exhaled a gruff grunt, his hips hitching against hers. A corresponding identical reaction happened in her, hips tilting, welcoming.
Friction at its finest.
Shifting her closer still, he eased her back onto the table amidst the crinkle of forgotten maps and a crunch of taffeta. Intuitively, her knees lifted higher, locking him in the throbbing cradle of her thighs. She needed to keep him here. Forever.
“What are you thinking? I have to know all the thoughts turning in this lovely skull,” he said in a rasp against her lips, his fingertips gently tracing the outline of her face, skimming the shell of her ear, the line of her jaw.
His tenderness only made her want to hold him tighter.
She slipped beneath his coat and embraced him, bearing him down upon her aching breasts and quivering midriff. “I’m thinking about friction, and the combustion properties of silk and wool when rubbed together. I’m thinking about hard, geometric angles and how I never fully appreciated them until now. And I’m thinking about the canning temperature of jam.”
He smiled against her lips. “And why jam, exactly?”
“Because I’m certain that my insides have turned liquid, like a pot of plums and sugar bubbling over.” Her hips arched, tilting automatically in that same instant so there was no mistaking her meaning.
His eyes were the color of smoke and steam, burning down into hers. Then he took her mouth again.
Jane stopped thinking. She gave herself over to the feel of his hand rising along the curve of her waist, splaying over the cage of her ribs, and settling with firm possession over the swell of her breast.
She knew she was small. Certainly not endowed like any of the prostitutes she’d seen that night at the brothel. But the vibration of Raven’s gruff growl of satisfaction put any insecurities to bed. The hard bud of her nipple crested against his heated palm. Skillful flicks of his thumb drew it tighter still as his mouth scorched a damp path down her throat with tender bites along her clavicle. A glorious agony!
Teasing the edge of her gown at her shoulder, he gripped the silk and the ruffled edge of her chemise and petticoat, tugging them down together. Still not one to wear a corset, she soon found the moon-white globe exposed to the flicker of pale apricot light. And to Raven’s ardent attention.
His breath came out in a hot rush against her vulnerable skin. “Ah, Jane. Just look at you, all cream and berries and . . .”
His observations ended on a brush of lips. She gasped in wordless pleasure as his mouth closed over her, his tongue laving the crest with slow, wet licks. Holding him to her breast, her fingers tangled in his hair. She never knew anything could feel so electric and wondrous, sensations collecting on a current, coiling tightly inside her body.
Just when she thought the pleasure couldn’t get any more intense, he suckled her flesh. Volta’s battery! Her back bowed off the table. Rapture bolted through her like lightning and settled in demanding throbs between her thighs.