Page 44 of Love and Other Disasters

“Never beg for my attention, Sophie,” Jasper whispered. “You deserve it and more.”

He steered her out of the hall and into his bedchamber—his gaze locked on hers. She could not look away from him and what she’d started.

She was about to be made love to. Again. This time, though, she was under no delusions that love had anything to do with intimacy.

But she ought to make sure there were no consequences from what they did together. There were ways to avoid conception, and she mentioned their use to him.

He nodded slowly. “One child is more than enough for me to think about right now. Trust me to take care of you. I won’t take things that far,” he whispered as he kicked the door shut behind them. His lips descended on her neck next, and Sophie twined her arms about his shoulders, holding him close against her skin as they started their affair.

Lord Jasper was stronger than he looked. His scent was delicious, too. Sandalwood and some sort of spicy berry in the mix. She held him close as his lips worked their magic on her senses, scattering them to the wind. His kisses aroused her, and he probably knew that.

She felt herself pushed gently against a wall and opened her eyes.

Jasper lifted his head from her neck as he framed her face with his hands. “You are lovely. How did I not see that from the start?”

“You were busy looking at the other women invited for dinner that night,” she noted. “Probably wondering which ones breasts would spill from their gown before the dessert course could be cleared away. I had no interest in you then, either.”

“We must have been mad,” he said as he peppered soft, darting kisses on her lips with a smile tugging up the corners of his.

“You were always mad at me,” Sophie whispered. “No matter how small or innocuous I tried to make myself, you always frowned at me.”

“I apologize.” He drew back, frowning. “You know, it’s not the done thing to pay too much attention to servants. I can only apologize for my behavior and beg your forgiveness now. I should not pursue you.”

Sophie stared at him in surprise.

The man she’d been ruined by had not apologized and he had done far worse. Sophie might have expected Lord Jasper to have avoided the same. He was rather obviously in an aroused condition, but he had more control over his desires, and she acknowledged that he had more honor, too.

Sophie reached out a shaky hand and touched his face to lift his gaze back to hers. He looked flushed and flustered. Uncertain of his welcome. Sophie had told him what she wanted, and now he hesitated.

She teased her fingers boldly along his jaw, feeling it flex under her light touch. She drew closer to him and smiled. “I do not work for you or Ravenswood. I choose you of my own free will. Expecting nothing but the kindness, the warmth, of your passionate embrace.”

He gulped. “Sophie. Do you even know what you’re saying?”

“Yes, Jasper.” It was time to tell him everything. “I was ruined by a man who I thought loved me above all others once. By a rake much as I assumed you to be until now. He did not care for my objections. He took advantage of my vulnerability to ensure his own satisfaction was reached. I have not voiced any doubts to you, have I? Do not imagine I wouldn’t say no to you. I would if I did not feel as I do.”

“How do you feel?”

She wasn’t sure how to answer that question and not sound as vulgar as Ruby could be. But she felt something. A tingling excitement to be nearer to him. “Kiss me, my lord, and find out.”

He pulled her close and whispered her first name. “Sophie.”

She was back against the wall in an instant, Jasper’s kisses urgent and hard. Sophie returned them, hungry for the passion his kisses aroused in her. He brought her arms above her head and held them there with one hand. His other hand slithered down her body to rest upon her rear. Jasper slowly molded them together. The evidence of his arousal pressed against her sex. Those gentle movements ignited Sophie’s passions, made her long for the moment he might slide inside her and make her forget even her own name.

Despite what had come after her ruin, the moments leading to it had been exciting once. Passions stirred for the first time in years as she buried her face in his neckcloth and dared to nibble on his ear. Jasper moaned, and his thrusts against her sex became quicker and harder, and then he lifted her up in the air.

Sophie expected them to move to the bed, for her skirts to be lifted and her body taken possession of. Instead, Jasper merely widened her legs where they stood and renewed his thrusts against her sex. Only now it felt so much more intense with her legs wrapped about his hips. He kept hitting that hidden pearl between her thighs. The place she’d touched herself and exploded from. Jasper made her feel that same way. She could not get enough of the sensation, or this man.

She was lost to passion again. Desperate for more.

Jasper turned his face to hers and sealed their lips together. They kissed and ground against each other, caught up in their unexpected hunger. Sophie tightened her legs about his hips and the next thrust against her sex exploded her world and she cried out, over and over, overwhelmed and frantic to hold on to Jasper while she could.

When her spasms subsided, Jasper moved them finally to his bed and lay her down.

Chapter Thirteen

Jasper dragged his fingers slowly over Sophie’s gown, moving from her knee to her hip and up to her breasts, and knew he’d never had a more intoxicating woman in his bed. He was as yet unsatisfied, but he was vastly content. He was also profoundly humbled that a woman ruined by another rake might entrust her pleasure to him. Even if she said they were different, he was still a rake, and he was not offering the woman forever.

But for now, Sophie Radcliffe had become his.