Regency Christmas Courtship. Louise Allen

and demanding. For a first kiss it was anything but tentative, but nor was it impatiently demanding. Here I am, Grant seemed to be saying. I want you, you want me. Shall we?

      Her body knew the answer, it seemed. Her arms curled around his neck, pulling him closer as her tongue stroked against his. Yes. He felt so different, so new. Taller and more muscular than Jonathan, his hands slower, yet more assured, his taste absolutely new and very arousing. Her hands slid over his shoulder and the right one encountered long, rough tracks of scar tissue. Grant shrugged away from her touch and she took the hint, curling her fingers around his neck instead. Then she forgot all about scars.

      When Grant broke the kiss, gathering her in against his chest, she rubbed her cheek against the dusting of coarse hair, learning his scent. Citrus from the soap he had washed with, a faint hint of leather, a distant tang of brandy, a musk that was very male, very much him. The scent she remembered from that long desperate night when he had sat close beside her and she had clung to his hand, patterning it with bruises, spiced now with arousal.

      ‘That tickles,’ he said, his voice a rumble under her cheek. His hands were beginning to stray, down over her hips, up across her ribs, curving around her buttocks. Kate let her own fingers wander, exploring the flat stomach, dipping into his naval, which made him gasp with laughter, running up and down the thicker line of hair, not daring to follow it all the way.

      Grant seemed content to let her roam, but his own hands became more purposeful, stroking up over the curve of her breasts, rubbing across her nipples just enough to make them peak and tingle, then down to brush the curls at the apex of her thighs.

      Kate began to move, restless, and found her fingers were gripping Grant’s hips. Jonathan had been faster, more urgent, rougher. Did Grant not want her with the same desire?

      His lips closed over one aching nipple and she moaned, arching up against him. She felt his lips curve into a smile and then shivered with nerves as he shifted and pressed one hand gently between her thighs, opening her.

      ‘Oh, yes,’ he said, the words vibrating against the puckered skin of her nipple, and his teeth nipped gently as he slid one finger into her. Then his thumb found the place that Jonathan had rubbed against so impatiently. Only, Grant was gentle, teasing, and the raw, almost intolerable sensation became one of pulsing sweetness mixed with a desperation that had her squirming against his hand.

      ‘Shh, slowly, slowly,’ he murmured against her neck.

      But she did not want to be slow. She wanted him now, wanted the more that she could sense, just out of her reach. Her right hand moved from his hip, stroked down, touched the heated flesh and stroked again until he groaned aloud.

      ‘If you do that—’

      ‘Yes,’ Kate urged. ‘I want… I don’t know. I need…’

      Grant’s weight was a fresh arousal as their bodies touched down their entire lengths, hot skin against hot skin. He shifted, lifted on his elbows and then, holding her gaze with his, sheathed himself within her.

      ‘Ah…sweet Kate.’ He closed his eyes, dropped his head so his forehead rested on hers and held still. She felt the tension vibrating through him as she grasped the broad shoulders, tilted her head so her lips found his. The urgent need to move became a longing for peace as she lay there, so close, so much at one with him. She let her body encompass his, ease around it, holding him within her.

      When he began to move it was at first so slow, so gentle, that she hardly realised that her own body was rocking with his, yielding to the slow thrusts, the need building again as she released the hard flesh only to accept him back with a soft gasp of pleasure. The rhythm increased until she was clinging to him, gasping as they rode the gathering, building storm together.

      Grant shifted, lifted her against him, and the pressure built until she was curled around him, her ankles locked at the small of his back, striving desperately to catch hold of whatever it was that was tormenting her so deliciously, promising something that was just out of reach. And suddenly she broke apart, heard herself cry out, felt Grant tense and arch over her, and then the world went black, save for the lights in the darkness behind her lids as she let go and flew.

      What had just happened? Kate lay in the circle of Grant’s arm, her cheek against his chest. His skin was damp, his heartbeat strong, rapid, but slowing as she sensed him drifting into sleep.

      What had happened? she asked herself again, lying wide-eyed in the flickering candlelight. She hardly knew this man except as the Good Samaritan who had saved her that bleak Christmas. Saved her, saved her child, turned her life upside down. Yes, he was an attractive man, but a man with secrets, a man with barely hidden darkness in his soul.

      She had married him, accepted the protection of his name, his status and his wealth. Accepted, too, that she had a duty as his wife to lie with him and perhaps, if she was fortunate, to bear a child of his. And I had become excited by the thought of him, she admitted to herself. Aroused. Which was good, because it would have been hard to accept lovemaking with a man for whom she could feel no attraction.

      But this wonderful physical experience—where had that come from? She had known Jonathan a little, liked him, thought she loved him, considered him a handsome man and had been eager to go to his arms. Yet his passion had left her strangely untouched, unsatisfied, confused. I talked myself into love with him, didn’t I? Kate told herself. But she did not love this man, either, so what was the difference? Why did I not burn up in Jonathan’s arms as I did with Grant?

      Because Grant is the better lover, of course. So it was all a matter of technique, of arousal, and in her imaginings when she met Jonathan she had told herself the romantic lies that it was all about love.

      Kate turned away from the comfort of the warm, strong body beside her to lie on the edge of the bed on cold sheets. I deserve the chill, the nagging little voice of her conscience chided. Wanton. ‘Jonathan,’ she whispered. What a fool she had been, how eager to experience love, when really what she had been seeking was this, this physical delight. And as a result of her naivety and Henry’s cynical scheming she had been ruined and was now hundreds of miles from home, living a lie.

      That had been…incredible. Grant let himself drift in utterly relaxed drowsiness, his body boneless with sensual pleasure. He had never expected it, never thought that Kate would catch alight in his hands, that her body would answer his with that joyful, urgent sensuality.

      She curled against him now, warm, soft. Kate, his wife, who did not react to his kisses and caresses as though forcing herself to yield to her duty, but as though she wanted to join him in creating magic. To find a compatible lover was not such a novelty, but to find that, quite by chance, he had married a woman who took and gave with such sweet, almost innocent, eroticism, that was a miracle.

      Kate moved, turned away, and he woke fully to see she was lying, her back to him, on the edge of the bed. ‘Oh, Jonathan…’ He caught the faint whisper and even with that thread of sound, the unhappiness.

      Something cold and heavy lodged in his stomach. Disappointment? Jealousy? So, Kate was still in love with Anna’s father, still mourning him, which must explain her shyness and confusion earlier. Now she was feeling guilty for enjoying making love with her husband.

      Because she had enjoyed it, that was not arrogance on his part—even the most accomplished courtesan could not have feigned that reaction. Grant reached out his hand to touch her shoulder, then drew it back before his fingers reached the curve of exposed skin. Reluctant to intrude, he turned on his side away from Kate’s tense body and pulled the covers up over both of them. If he touched her now, she would think it was a demand for more sex. If he tried to console her, then she would know he had heard that whisper. He had no idea what to say to make things any better. At least now he understood her strange mood, the evidence of interest, of arousal, and yet the fear that forced her to ask for his presence in her bed had driven her to want to get it over with.

      Grant