“Yes, but I’ve been thinking about something specific. Something having to do with you.”
He leaned forward, needing to touch their lips together. He didn’t deepen it into a kiss but brushed his lips across hers. Back and forth while he heard her breath catch and his own lips tingled.
“With me?” he whispered as he darted his tongue out to wet her lips.
“Yes,” she said, and the breathy quality of the word shot hunger straight to his groin.
“My favorite word.”
He deepened the kiss. How could he not? She was in his arms, her body pliant, and with every shift of her mouth against his, she seemed to be asking for more. He hugged her to him, he plundered her mouth. And when she shifted her weight to the side, he rolled them both over until he could press her into the blanket. He kissed her as he had never kissed anyone in his life. He kissed her as if he had already asked for her hand and she had already said yes. He caressed her breasts as if they were already filling with milk for his children. And he gloried in her gasps as he would give pleasure to the woman he loved. Because he did.
His hands were full of her breasts when she spoke. He was trailing kisses along her neck, heading for her nipples when she put her hands to his shoulder. She didn’t press him back so much as hold him steady. And when he lifted up to look at her in dazed confusion, she spoke words that he had to repeat three times in his head before he heard them over the roaring in his ears.
“I should like you to make love to me.”
“What?”
“I’m on the shelf, you know.”
“What?”
“Well, that means I shall never marry. I have already told you that.”
“What?”
She pursed her lips, and not to kiss him. “Try to listen, Jackson.”
His cock surged at the sound of his name on her lips.
“I don’t think it’s fair that I should never enjoy carnal pleasure just because I’m not going to marry anyone. So long as we ensure there will be no children, I see no harm in experiencing it.” She looked uncertain for a moment. “And I should like to experience it with you, please. If you would.”
If he would?
“Will you marry me?” he rasped.
“Oh, don’t do that. You don’t have to do that. I’m on the—”
“I am blasted tired of hearing you say that. You are young, beautiful, and incredibly attractive. Men want you.”’
She simply blinked at him in obvious confusion. Frustrated, he grabbed her hand and set it to his cock. He meant to show her without words that he desired her. And perhaps he meant to frighten her a bit. The reality of a man hard and throbbing set many virgins to the vapors. Not her. Of course not her, because she immediately began to explore the length and breadth of him. And while his wits fled and his body thrust against her, she gasped in delight.
“I had not thought it would be so warm. Are you not hot? Do you wish to—”
“Don’t say it.”
“Open up and allow it free?”
He groaned and set his forehead to her shoulder. His blood was pounding and the scent of her filled him with a steady thrum of need. He wanted her, wanted her, wanted her.
“What can I say,” he rasped, “that will convince you I wish to marry you? Not for your dowry, not for this act, but for life. With you.”
She pursed her lips as she thought. How she could look so sexy and so academic at the same time was beyond him, but the sight nearly undid him.
“I think you should have to ask me when there is no need for me at all. When you do not need my dowry nor my body. When we are simply two friends sharing tea. Then you should ask, and I shall believe you.”
He raised his head to stare down at her. “And what will you say then? Will you accept?”
Her expression softened and she touched his face. It was a slow caress of a wistful kind of happiness. “If that should happen, Jackson, then I would probably say yes.” She smiled. “But I will not be sitting at home waiting for that wonderful day, because I doubt it will ever come. I am a woman, here for the moment. You are a man under enormous pressure to succeed in a way no one else ever has before.” She coiled her fingers around his ear before stroking into his hair. “I should like to experience this now and I will not hold you to any promise for the future.”