“Katherine?”
“Yes?”
Jasper shifted her in his arms, angling her in a way that her breasts were crushed against his chest. “Will you cease talking?”
“Er, right, yes, of course.” She peeked around his shoulder. “Jasper?”
He sighed. In addition to spirited, he would add loquacious to his wife’s sometimes endearing, in this instance, exasperating, attributes. “Yes, Katherine?” He pressed his lips to the place where her neck met her ear.
She giggled and swatted at his chest. “That t-tickles,” she managed to pant out between gasping laughs.
And ticklish. He could add ticklish to the growing list of his understanding of Katherine Waincourt, the Duchess of Bainbridge.
“You were saying?” he whispered against her neck.
She erupted into another fit of laughter. “Someone w-will undoubtedly hear us or see us.”
“Undoubtedly,” he said with a sardonic smile.
Katherine slapped her hand to his chest again. He grunted. She was rather strong for one so diminutive. “It wouldn’t do to create a scandal here.”
Jasper shook his head, bemused. “Katherine, you are my wife. There will be no scandal.” And if a servant was unwise enough to step into their path, then he’d sack the demmed fool.
Katherine frowned. “I do not like that dark glower, Jasper.”
It appeared she’d also come to know him. Jasper ignored her and carried her up the long, sweeping staircase, down the hall.
He paused a moment outside his chambers. No one had entered these rooms in a very long time. Not even Lydia had frequented his rooms. Instead, Jasper would pay visits to her, and then she’d insist for propriety’s sake he return to sleep in his own chambers.
Jasper pressed the handle and carried Katherine inside.
~27~
Katherine imagined this is how mere mortals felt upon entering the dragon’s lair. She shoved aside such silly musings as Jasper carried her over to his wide, four-poster bed, and deposited her amidst the center of the soft, feather mattress.
A little grunt escaped her at the unexpectedness of the movement.
She shoved herself up on her elbows and eyed her husband.
Jasper shrugged free of his jacket and tossed it to the ground. His black waistcoat and shirt followed. Her mouth went dry as his hands went to the fastenings of his form-fitting breeches.
Then he turned his attention to her.
Oh, God, I will never have enough of him.
Then, with the infinite gentleness she’d come to expect from him, Jasper sat at the edge of the bed. He held his arms out and Katherine scrambled onto his lap.
She captured his face in her hands. “I love you, Jasper.” Katherine willed him to hear the strength of her profession. “I…”
He kissed her until all rational thought fled with the magic of his kiss. His hands worked her gown up over her ankles, calves, ever higher, and then around her waist. The cool night air slapped her skin belied by the warmth of his kiss. Then his expert hands moved to the back of her gown.
Jasper paused. “I. Thought. I said. No buttons.” He punctuated the hoarse command between deliberately placed kisses to her eyelids, earlobe, the corners of her mouth.
Katherine moaned, and arched her neck back. “I don’t have any other gowns,” she managed to rasp.
He helped turn her around and devoted his attention to sliding each one of her pearl buttons free of the tiny grommets along the back of her gown.
Oh God, she’d never before realized how very much she detested buttons.
“There,” he whispered, and slid the silly ivory ruffled satin gown down her frame. It fell past her hips, and Katherine kicked it off.
Next, Jasper moved to her chemise and stays, removing them in short order so he’d bared her body to his hot gaze.
Katherine expected she should feel some maidenly embarrassment for the heated manner in which he studied her. But all she felt was a hunger for more. For him.
“What have you done to me, Katherine?” he groaned.
Their bodies met; hers soft and curved, his hard, and muscle-hewn.
Jasper worked his hand down between their bodies and stroked her damp core. “You are beautiful, Katherine. You’ve made me forget all the vows, all the pledges I’ve taken. I’m powerless against you.”
His tantalizing words wrapped headily about her. She clamped her legs tight around his hand, a ragged moan slipped past her lips as Jasper’s thumb pressed into her nub. As if of their own volition, her thighs fell open. Her head fell back. “I love you,” she said again.
Her words seemed to drive him to a frenzy. His lips slanted over hers, his tongue forced its way inside and she met his in a bold, nearly violent parry, even as his hand continued to deliberately torment her womanhood.