“I should move,” she said. “Give you some room.”
“I’d like to spend on your belly,” he said. “I want you wrapped around me when I die of too much pleasure.”
Jeanette raised herself up again to peer at him. “On my back?”
He nodded. “Only if you’d enjoy it.”
Sycamore Dorning had showered Jeanette with pleasure so far beyond mere enjoyment… she could tolerate a few moments on her back in the name of reciprocity.
“I’ll manage.”
Before she could climb off of him, he caught her by the hand. “Don’t manage with me, Jeanette. Demand, ask, state terms, parlay, listen, as our bodies do when we make love. I am so randy right now, I could close my eyes and finish without moving. You don’t owe me a penance because you finally enjoyed yourself in bed for once.”
“If you smother me, I will pinch your bum,” she said, extricating herself from him and sliding to the mattress at his side.
“I would like for you to pinch my bum,” he said, easing his body over hers. “I’d like it a lot.”
He braced himself over her on his elbows, while Jeanette waited for a familiar sense of distaste to cloud the moment. When she expected Sycamore to crowd closer, he instead kissed her cheek.
“Get comfy, Jeanette, but you needn’t pinch me. ‘Sycamore, I need air,’ or ‘Get off me, you oaf,’ will suffice.”
Sycamore was a sizable man, much more substantial than the marquess had been, and yet, when he slid his cock over Jeanette’s damp sex, she was too fascinated with the resulting sensation to be much bothered by the position they were in.
“That is almost like having you inside me.”
“No, it is not. Not nearly.” He pressed closer and kept moving. “This is heaven’s front terrace, I grant you, but not the celestial hall itself. Don’t let me crush you.”
Jeanette shifted lower, seeking a better fit, a tighter fit. “Hush. I like this.” The sensations were different, but rather than crush her, Sycamore took his own weight while enveloping her in his presence. She lashed her legs around his flanks and began to move with him.
“When you do that…” he muttered, lips near her ear. “God, Jeanette.”
She’d sought to arouse him, but the result was greater sensation for her. Without him even inside her, her body was preparing for another flight into pleasure. Such a thing should not be possible, but it most certainly was, until Jeanette was clinging to Sycamore, and wet heat spread in the tight seal of their bodies.
“I am…” Sycamore panted, crouched above her. “I am… I don’t know what I am. You steal my wits, Jeanette, and please don’t ever give them back.”
Tucked beneath him, she felt safe and sweet, and utterly baffled. “I’ll keep yours if you’ll keep mine.”
He kissed her nose and rolled with her. “A bargain, dear heart. We will document the agreement if we ever find the strength to leave this bed.”
Jeanette lay atop him for another moment, then bestirred herself to fish the handkerchief from beneath the pillow. She sat up and mopped at her belly, then scrubbed him off too. While he watched, she refolded the linen so the soiled portion was inside and set it on the bedside table.
“You are rosy,” Sycamore said, brushing a finger over her breasts. “A good loving leaves a lady rosy. I am rosy too, though in different parts.”
She glanced at his softening member. “Isn’t that part of you always rosy?”
“Metaphorically speaking, perhaps, and physically, but I referred to my heart, Jeanette. Right now, my heart is very rosy. May I hold you?”
“Yes.” She longed to be held, to be cuddled and cosseted, and Sycamore was sparing her that admission.
When she lay down beside him, and he took her in his arms, she was surprised to realize that she also wanted to hold him, to caress him at leisure, to learn the contours of his muscle and bone, and the rhythm of his breathing. This longing was different from sexual hunger, having more of tenderness and loneliness about it.
She would memorize him against the day when he was no longer her lover. Then she would torment herself with recollections of when he had been hers for a magnificent hour here or there.
Chapter Seven
If Sycamore lived to be a hundred, he’d never forget the sight of Jeanette finding her pleasure in his arms. She’d seized her courage in one hand and Sycamore’s heart in the other and surrendered to passion.
For him to hold back should have been difficult, nearly impossible in fact, but he’d been so fascinated with Jeanette’s responses, that he’d entered into a sort of meditative state. He had both shared every delight with her and been the awed observer, enthralled with her reactions.
Lovemaking had never gone in that direction before, and he feared it never could again. This encounter had been unprecedented, and the end, when it had come, had obliterated any distance between him and his lover—physical or mental.
Considering that he hadn’t even been intimately joined to her at the time, he had much to ponder.
Jeanette, poor lamb, had fallen asleep against his side. Sycamore savored that gift while his mind drifted idly to the rise and fall of her breathing. He felt when she awoke, though she did not open her eyes.
Was she stealing a few more minutes in his arms or plotting an escape? Did she want another round—please, heaven, let him be equal to that challenge—or would she take her clothes behind the privacy screen and leave without sharing a meal with him?
His heart would break if she abandoned him now.
“You are awake,” he said, kissing her temple. “What have you to say to your lover, Jeanette?” He would not allow himself the insecure questions new bed partners were prone to: Was I good enough? Did I satisfy you? Or, the easiest dodge of all: One more before we
