So…amazing.
She felt her lips curve. Eyes still closed, she gave herself up to the golden glory sliding through her veins, and let the peace and the sense of fulfillment soothe her, let them both seep to her soul.
Jack stirred. Eventually. Not because he wanted to; he could happily lie on her, feeling her soft and sated beneath him, feeling her sheath hot and wet occasionally contracting about his sated flesh, for any number of hours.
But although she was relaxed beneath him, he was worried he was crushing her, and as he had every intention of persuading her to repeat the exercise later, not just tonight but frequently in the future, it seemed wise to exercise some degree of restraint and not push his luck.
Besides…
He rolled onto his back, lifting her half over him, draping her long limbs about him, securing her, still boneless, within the circle of his arm.
Where she belonged.
That wasn’t a thought he’d intended thinking, but he couldn’t deny what he felt. That, however, was only one of the disturbing mysteries their actions of the past half hour had uncovered.
Head back on the cushions, he looked up at the ceiling, at the dappled shadows that shifted as the breeze played in the treetops outside. He stared unseeing at the changing patterns while he cataloged what he knew, and what he didn’t yet understand.
Minutes passed, then she stirred. He felt the infusion of tension into her muscles, the change in her breathing as she came fully awake. He didn’t move. For a long moment, she lay cradled in his arm, then, hand splaying on his chest, she pushed back and sat up. He let his arm slide down, permitted her to move away. Smoothly, without looking at him, she swung to sit on the edge of the daybed, then rose.
He had to fight to squelch the urge to reach out and haul her back. He watched as she walked, not to where her clothes had fallen, but to the wi
ndow. She stood and looked out. The moon had risen; half-full, it shed a gentle light, one that bathed her white skin in an unearthly radiance, making it glow softly, pearl-bright. Her hair…he’d avoided disarranging it earlier; now it hung in a heavy knot low over her nape, still coiled and partly anchored in her usual chignon, but with dark tendrils their lovemaking had teased loose curling over her shoulders and down her long, exquisitely lovely back.
Her spine remained regally straight; her stance gave no hint that she was uncomfortable in her nakedness. She’d moved through the room with her usual grace.
He shifted onto one side, coming up on one elbow, settling, raising one knee. “You were a virgin.”
Clarice turned her head and looked at him. Studied the body that had so recently joined with hers. “‘Was’ being the operative word.” She’d foreseen the comment, one reason for her clear rules of engagement. “I was, now I’m not. That’s all there is to it.”
She couldn’t see the frown in his eyes, but she knew it was there.
“You should have told me—I could have hurt you.”
She raised her brows, faintly skeptical. “I’m twenty-nine. I’ve ridden all my life. It was unlikely there’d be much pain.” Just the faintest of stings, as it had happened; she’d hoped he hadn’t noticed. She kept her gaze on his face. “My virginity wasn’t something I valued. It was something I’d been left with long past the date it should have been gone. Pray accept my thanks for eradicating it.”
A ripple of something passed through him, but she could read nothing in his shadowed face. He lay there, flagrantly male, blatantly strong, his chest—that glorious expanse that fascinated her—wide and heavily muscled, tapering past a rock-hard abdomen to much narrower waist and hips, and long, strong, legs. All naked, blatantly displayed for her delectation.
Except…was it her imagination, or had some dangerous quality, one she couldn’t name, crept in, infused his body, his stance, something that was not quite a threat, but a hint of displeasure?
“Your thanks…” His voice was low; she hadn’t noticed before how gravelly it had grown. Now she felt it slide through her and fought to quell a shiver.
His gaze hadn’t left her; she could feel it like a flame. Slowly, he let it slide down her body, a caress, intimate, frankly possessive.
Oh, yes, she’d been right to state her terms, and make them clear.
Slowly, his gaze rose, returned to her face. “Perhaps you should tender your thanks in more than just words?”
She couldn’t help hear the challenge in his voice, couldn’t help read it in his frankly masculine pose. Couldn’t help meet it. Coolly, she raised her brows.
With slow deliberation, he held out one hand. “Come here.”
For one long moment, she studied him. Then she pushed away from the window, crossed the room unhurriedly, and placed her hand in his.
Walking home through his fields in the dark hours before dawn, Jack detoured via the rose garden. He sat on the cold stone bench in the alcove and stared at the still pond, giving his mind, his thoughts—hell, his body—time to rediscover their equilibrium.
She’d thrown him. Not just off-balance but into some disordered reality where he wasn’t entirely sure which way was normal, which was safe.
He’d started the evening sure he was in control, that he had the reins of their affair—that’s how he’d thought of it—firmly in his grasp. Even after she’d surprised him with her unexpectedly straightforward view of the matter, he’d believed all was, if not quite as he’d anticipated, then only slightly off-track. His urge to oppose her, to disagree and change her rules, even if he hadn’t previously been one to react to feminine suggestions with mindless, instinctive opposition, he’d assumed that was all his reaction was.