Page 19 of Submitting to the Widow

Soon the sound of heavy breathing and grunting coupled with the slap of skin against skin also found its way down the dark passage.

Stephen swallowed Jane’s laugh with his mouth and then deepened the kiss while he explored her tongue and warmth inside. He was still kissing his way down her neck with playful puffs of breath and sucking at the sensitive skin there when the other couple made their way back toward the flickering candlelight of the kitchen tunnel.

He dropped suddenly to his knees and lifted the pirate overskirt, the better to access her cunny. This time, when he began his lazy licking of her outer lips, Jane didn’t stiffen or push him away. Instead, she spread her legs wide, leaned back against the wall and bent her knees a bit, humming in pleasure.

Stephen was overcome not only with desire but something else. He wanted this time to be perfect for her, he wanted her so satisfied, perhaps someday she’d come to his bed because she wanted him for himself, not just because she wanted him to perform like some damned sex monkey who had to have those bloody journal pages back.

Just then another couple brushed past them on their way to what was a spot Stephen hadn’t remembered being so popular back in his student days.

He could see Jane’s eyes widen in the dark at the latest intrusion, so he moved to the next level of what she’d asked for from his journal’s exploits. He leaned as close as he dared and whispered, “Do you still want to replicate what I wrote in my journal?” He could feel her body shake a bit, but she nodded her head vigorously.

He dropped to his knees and slid one long finger into Jane followed by two. When liquid still gushed from her quim, he moved on. She was ready. He stood again and leaned against the wall, his arms to either side of her. She bent and released his cock from the falls in his costume breeches, caressing him gently from the base to the tip. It was his turn to moan aloud before a rustle of whispers reminded him they were not alone.

They leaned so close together, he could see the depths of her pupils. “Do you remember the steps I described?”

She nodded her head while they exchanged places, and he leaned against the wall before peeling off his shoes and breeches.

* * *

Jane marveledat how relaxed she was this time and open to whatever came next. And then she remembered the spicy wine. Whatever was in the drink, its magic had taken over her body. Her limbs were loose, wetness oozed freely from her quim, and she’d barely noticed the second couple when they’d slid past them to find their own hidden spot in the passageway.

She leaned closely into Stephen’s body and wrapped her arms around his neck. They kissed silently for a long moment, breaking only to breathe in and out together. She tentatively laved at his tongue with hers and when she sucked on his, he went still.

Finally, she wrapped one leg around his hip while he bent his knees to position his cock at her entrance. He took control of her hips so that she could wrap a second leg around him whilst he plunged inside her. He grasped her buttocks and slowly moved her up and down until his cock was fully seated.

When she tried to move on her own, he shook his head and whispered. “No, my greedy little flower. Wait for me.”

And then she ceased hearing anything else he might have said. Pleasure pumped into her like water pouring over a drought-shriven desert. She was so open to him she couldn’t stop the sensations exploding in her womb. Jane closed her eyes tightly, and tried to lean away but it was too late. He refused to let go and kept moving within her until he suddenly lifted her free of him and put her back onto her feet. When he took his still hard cock into his hand, she stopped him and replaced his hand with hers.

This time, she knew exactly what he needed. He didn’t have to prompt her. And in that moment, she realized this game she was playing with the barrister had turned dangerous to her heart. She no longer thought of him as the man she only read about in the naughty journal pages whilst pleasuring herself.

She couldn’t send him back, like a ribald text from a lending library. He was human, he was warm, he’d been inside her body. She didn’t know if she could let him go.

10

APRIL 1826

BATH UPPER ASSEMBLY ROOMS

Kitchen Passageway

Stephen produced the piece of linen cloth he’d brought along stashed in his highwayman’s cape. He and Jane cleaned themselves and then straightened their costumes as best they could before making their way back to the servants’ passageway. When they passed a third couple about to take advantage of their mutual hideaway, all of them averted their eyes even though the passageway was too dark at that corner for any of them to recognize the others.

When they exited at the servants’ entrance to the tea room, supper was well under way and the room was every bit as mobbed as the ballroom had been earlier. If anything, the crush was worse than when they’d walked through earlier.

“Stay close,” he whispered over Jane’s shoulder in front of him. He had his hand lightly on the small of her back when in a moment of shifting of the crush of the mob she disappeared. It was as if she’d never been there.

He made a panicked turn and swept the room with his gaze. The dessert course had been served, and the usual rush to obtain the elaborate sweets before they were gone had commenced.

Heavily made up women dressed as pirate queens seemed to be everywhere at once. He took a deep breath and began to walk around the room. He was convinced he’d find her, because never again would he forget the particular scent that belonged to Jane alone.

He was about to circle close to the display of iced cakes where a large cluster of costumed women gathered when an insistent tap on his shoulder jolted him back to reality.

“She’s not there,” the rough voice insisted. When Stephen whirled to face the bastard, a swarthy man with a heavily rouged face stood there dressed as a goat-man with horns.

When Stephen instinctively reached for the man’s throat, he stepped nimbly out of the way. “What? You’re going to engage in a public brawl in the Bath Assembly Rooms, Counselor?”

“I’ll have you stripped and flayed alive if anything’s happened to Baroness Trevellyn.”