The Passionate Love of a Rake. Jane Lark

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ he could discompose her. In fact, the thought sent his blood thrumming in his veins and a weight into his groin.

      How would it feel if she shivered from his touch and his kiss when they lay naked?

      The muffled sound of his carriage drawing up outside penetrated the door and his thoughts. A footman opened it and stepped back. Robert splayed his hand across her back again and felt her muscles tighten further. Her head was high and her back straight, apparently ignoring the footman’s speculation.

      James, Robert’s groom, stood before them, holding the carriage door open. The step was already lowered.

      Robert nodded up at his driver, Parkin, before taking Jane’s hand and helping her ascend. Once she was inside, Robert turned and whispered instructions to James, then followed her in, climbing the step and ducking inside.

      He neither lit the internal lamp nor drew the blinds. Instead, he let the gas lamps in the street give them a little light, but there were not many, and the carriage was frequently thrown from light into shadow as it rolled forward.

      She’d taken a seat in the opposite corner, her back still stiff, her fingers clasped on her lap, and her eyes turning to the view from the far window.

      He did not break the silence, but leaned against the window beside him, propping his shoulder against the pane of glass, his elbow resting on the narrow sill and his chin on his fist. He lifted one foot to the seat on the far side, leaving his knee bent. But he did not look out the window; he looked at Jane.

      Lord, she was beautiful. At times, he’d thought her beauty embroidered from his patchy memories, as much of a fiction as her personality had been. Yet she was sitting before him now – it had never been a fabrication.

      He’d spent his entire life since Jane honouring the beauty of women, learning to appreciate their every form, and Jane was the pattern card he judged them all by. But when he’d appreciated a woman’s body and compared it to Jane’s, it had only ever been an imagined view. He’d never seen her naked, never touched her beyond a superficial fondle. She’d been innocent, so had he, and he’d treasured it then, and treasured her.

      Now, though? Now, they were experienced, mature players of the game. Now, he would know if she was all he’d dreamt.

      The thought was disarming. In a way, he almost did not wish to know. He did not want his blissful illusion shattered. No, he’d loved a fictional Jane, and perhaps he had idolised a fictional Jane all through these empty years, too. Did he really want to know the truth?

      She neither moved nor spoke, her eyes on the street, but he was certain she was not looking at anything in particular, just away from him.

      He remained silent, too. He was in no mood to be conciliatory or ease her path.

      If she’d been his intended companion, Lady Baxter, he would have had the woman pressed down upon the seat by now and his hands up her skirt.

      A smile pulled at his lips. Sometimes he did not even get a woman as far as Bloomsbury Square before he had taken what he wished and set her down.

      But with Jane, he required more than that. He intended to savour each moment, to learn every inch of her body and consign it to memory. It would take hours of slow appreciation to satisfy the thirst which had been in his blood for years.

      His mind began crafting images, the ideas, the method of her seduction, and the achievement of their completion. Oh yes, he intended to enjoy this, and he intended to enjoy it in the comfort of a bed, unrestrained by time or space. The weight in his groin grew denser merely at the thought of touching her.

      His impatience beginning to build, he reached up and tapped the carriage roof twice, ordering Parkin to stir up the horses.

       Chapter Three

      The carriage lurched forward a moment after he’d tapped the roof.

      Jane grasped the strap.

      He watched her with such brooding intensity, she felt as though she’d leapt from the frying pan into the fire. Of course, she’d realised abruptly when he began leading her from the ballroom, he was not the man she’d known before. Yet since they’d sat in the carriage, numerous memories of him sulking as a youth had spun through her head.

      In childhood, his temper had always shown in this moody disengagement, when he’d not gotten what he wished, or hadn’t won, or been unable to have the final say.

      But surely, he was getting his way now, wasn’t he? Or did he expect her to do more? How on earth would Violet behave in this situation? Should Jane speak? Should she move closer? She had no idea what to do or say. She had never been party to anything more than the light flirtation they’d shared before.

      The silence stretched between them. She looked out the window and listened to the low rumble of the iron-wrapped carriage wheels striking the cobble, the horses’ hooves hitting the stone, the creak of the wooden shafts beneath the carriage, the encouraging call of their driver, and the crack of his whip.

      She couldn’t stand it any longer.

      Her head spinning to face him, she said, “A penny for them?”

      His slouching silhouette was etched against the passing gaslight and silver moonlight that reached into the carriage as bars of light ran across him then disappeared. He was the epitome of all she’d heard and seen of a town rake.

      “I’m sure if I spoke them, you’d blush.”

      “As it is too dark for you to see, why would I care?” Her words were braver than she felt, yet if his thoughts were of her, she wanted to know them.

      “I am thinking of how I shall make love to you. What do you like, Jane? What makes you sigh with pleasure? What brings you to conclusion?”

      His tall, lean frame unfolded from his slumped contemplative pose, and his foot fell back to the floor. Then he slid closer and leaned forward, taking her hands in his while his elbows rested on his knees. His thumbs began gently stroking across her palms. She felt it all the way to her stomach, and a deep longing, a thirst or hunger, settled in the back of her throat.

      “I shall begin by touching you, everywhere.” The movement of his thumbs slowed and became more sensual. “Then I wondered how you’ll taste.”

      Her heart hammered, and the ache in her throat descended to her stomach. She wanted all of that. Did it make her wicked? She wanted to share it with him.

      “Jane.” He brought her to her senses. “What do you want?”

      She wanted to reach her hands to his face and draw his mouth to hers, to kiss away all that had happened before, to go back to him and the hopes they’d once shared. To be in his arms forever. For the rest of the world and her past to simply melt away and become a forgotten history. Could he give her that? Perhaps for an hour or two, if she accepted what he was offering, but not forever. She’d lost forever with him. Yet she could take what he was willing to give. She could have now.

      What would Violet say? She wondered. How would Violet respond to this?

      Violet would not merely СКАЧАТЬ