“Yes.” He kissed her temple next, burying his nose in the curls which had burst forth to frame her face in the absence of the abysmal cap. “I want you to do it again. Now. Here.”
“But I promised Mr. Sutton…”
He kissed her ear, the sweet dip behind it, smiling against her silken skin when she sighed. “To the devil with my brother. He ain’t my king, and he ain’t yours either.”
Some part of him warned him this was foolish. That of all the terrible ideas he’d had in his years, this was by far the worst. But Persephone was in his arms, where she belonged. What would be the harm in keeping her here, just a bit longer?
He sensed the moment she surrendered to her own desires, the rigidity seeping from her body. She went pliant, her hands sliding along his shoulders to lock behind his neck. When her fingers slipped into his hair, her nails gently grazing his scalp, he could not suppress his groan.
“Your hair is so soft,” she said, wonder in her voice. “I never knew a man’s hair could be this silken.”
According to his long-departed ma, he had been born with a head of curls, and it had never left. As a lad, it had been a bane, but when he’d been old enough to draw the eyes of the lasses, he had realized it was his glory. And then later, as a man, he’d discovered it was not his only glory. Saints be praised for that.
“I like your hands in it,” he told her.
She touched him in a way no other woman had, with a hesitant admiration, as if she did not trust herself. And yet also with such tenderness, it made him ache. In his heart and lower, too.
“Have you always worn it longer than fashion?” she asked, still sifting through his hair as if it were a newly discovered treasure.
Damn, but he loved everything about the way she made him feel.
“I have always worn it as I wished, and to the devil with fashion.” He grinned against her skin.
“I should return to my room,” she said, but there was scarcely any intent in her voice to accompany the words.
No doubt about it, she should. She ought to run. Flee as fast as she could back to the safety of her small
room. But he could not bear the thought of watching her go.
He pressed a line of kisses down her throat. “Or you could stay a little while, now that you’ve risked all to find your way into my chamber.”
He was being reckless.
But where she was concerned, most of his good intentions had absconded.
He was consumed by his need to keep her here with him. To kiss her and pleasure her. Aye, there were ways to bring a woman to her pinnacle without tupping her. And no one would ever be the wiser. What Jasper didn’t know couldn’t hurt him.
“I…oh…”
He found a particularly sensitive spot on her neck and centered all his efforts there, sucking and licking and nipping her lightly with his teeth. She liked that, his prim governess. And suddenly, he would give his very life to make her come. To make her shudder and weep and know the heights of pleasure given as it should be, rather than to know the force of another’s attempt to wield his physical strength over her.
“What do you say, lovely?” he asked, holding his breath as he awaited her answer.
* * *
What did she say?
Good heavens, what could she say with his lips working their magic on her? Persephone was dressed in one of her most drab gowns, and yet, her modest bodice and the dull, gray linen and mobcap had apparently done nothing to dull his ardor. His hands were on her, his kisses too. Moving, shifting all the determination she had garnered within, and she was helpless to resist him.
His words swirled through her mind, adding to the pleasurable delirium being in Rafe’s presence created.
Because I wanted you to kiss me, Persephone. And I bloody well loved it.
For as long as she lived, and despite whatever came to pass in her future, these were sentences she would place in her heart and carry there forever. They would always be a part of her, as would these stolen, wicked moments with him.
She had come to his chamber this evening, knowing it would be a risk to do so and yet feeling indebted to him for his kindness to her. Mr. Sutton had been displeased, and she would no sooner cause strife for Rafe than she would herself. If Mr. Sutton wanted her to stay away from his brother, then she must honor his wishes. The alternative, losing her post, was tantamount to failure.
She would sooner die than return to Cousin Bartholomew in disgrace, so close to having won her freedom from him and yet, at the last minute, denied. But the longer she had waited for Rafe in his room, pacing the carpets and rehearsing what she must say, reminding herself she needed to inform him of his brother’s suspicions and then leave, the more another, wanton part of her had wondered what would happen if she remained.