The Valentine Legacy (Legacy 3)

“Oh no.”

She tightened her ankles.

“That’s a bit much, Jessie. Yes, a bit much, nearly too much actually but don’t loosen up any.”

He felt her heels pushing against his back, forcing him more closely against her. He brushed his fingertips over that wicked satin lace. It felt nearly as soft as her flesh.

“You’ve never touched me there before. It’s interesting. Do you like the chemise?”

“It’s not much like you,” he said. He was staring down at his brown, callused fingers that were again lightly stroking her breasts.

“Maybe it’s like me now that I’m different.”

“Or maybe it’s Maggie trying to mold you into her shape.”

“She has a shape that would be very nice to be molded into. The chemise was her wedding present to me.”

“She did well. Now, Jessie, just be quiet. Don’t you know what I’m doing here? How can you just chat about nothing at all when I’m touching your breasts?”

She turned her face away from him and was on eye level with a small dish of calf brains. Looking at those brains, all soft and cooked in butter, she said, “I’m scared.”

“So you’re scared, and I’m thinking that if I make love to you it will be incest. What a combination we are. Damnation.”

“What do you mean, ‘incest’?”

“Six years, Jessie—for six years you’ve been like a little sister to me. You’ve annoyed me endlessly. I’ve felt protective of you countless times. Remember how I’d come up to you and ruffle your hair or pull on your braid? Then, of course, I’d want to thrash you, but that was denied me, more’s the pity. Even when you sprawled all over me in the Blanchards’ garden, I didn’t think of you as a female. You were just Jessie, the brat in breeches who was always in the way.”

“I’m not your bloody sister, James. You didn’t even think of this incest business at all yesterday, did you?”

“No, I didn’t, but today’s different.”

He leaned over her, kissed her hard, and said into her mouth, “Yesterday you were tipsy, you were giggling, you had those cute little streamers hanging down.”

“So I have to get intoxicated for you to think of me as your wife and not as your sister?”

“No, it’s not that. Damnation, Jessie, if you want the truth, yesterday I didn’t do a damned thing to you. Do you think a man wants to be intimate with an unconscious female? You even snored a couple of times when I was hauling you to the horses. Do you think that’s conducive to amorous feelings?”

“You didn’t do anything?” She shoved at his chest, and he pulled back, standing between her legs, her ankles still locked behind his waist, her breasts still covered. Suddenly, he ripped open her chemise and pulled it wide. She gasped, trying to cover her breasts, but he grabbed her hands and pulled them over her head. He leaned down, kissed her, then brought her hands down and held them at her sides.

“I never realized you looked so nice, Jessie, or is this something you’ve added since you got to England?”

Not just nice breasts, he thought, unable to look away from them. Lovely breasts. Whiter than a cow’s fresh milk, her nipples all soft-looking, a warm pink, and he wanted to touch her and kiss her, but he held himself still.

“I just rub Maggie’s cream all over me every time I bathe, nothing more.”

“A magic cream. Fascinating. You don’t have any freckles on your shoulders or breasts.”

“No, just the line across my nose.”

“Your skin is very white.” He sounded in pain but Jessie was dogged, teetering on the edge of fury. “You really didn’t do anything to me yesterday?”

“Not a thing.”

“You didn’t take my clothes off when we got here?”

“No, Mrs. Catsdoor took care of you.”

“So this is the first time you’re seeing me at all unclothed?”