“What?”

“I can’t make love to you otherwise,” he said patiently, as his entire body signaled perfect willingness to do whatever was necessary. “I have to taste you.”

“Nonsense!” she said. “You were perfectly ready to bed me just a moment ago.”

“Not anymore,” he said sadly, rolling over a little so she couldn’t see the fact he had an erection harder than he’d had since being fifteen. He kept up the gentle rub over her nipple, and he could tell she was a breast woman.

“I’ve never heard of such a thing,” she said suspiciously. But he could see her eyes going soft again.

“You can’t expect that making love to me would be the same as to—to that country squire you married,” he said.

She opened her eyes and he knew he’d nailed her husband. Of course he was a country squire. It was the only thing that made sense. She hadn’t been sheltered by some overprotective mama—it had been a hidebound country squire instead. Maybe he was one of those gentleman farmers.

“I suppose you have different demands,” she said, looking down her own body dubiously. “I just don’t think—”

“Don’t think,” he said. Then he planted himself between her legs and started to give her little bites on her thighs.

Just like that, Harriet started making soft sounds. His erection was pulsing against the floor, begging him, but by then he’d reached her core, his tongue sliding over her sweetness, driving her to arch her hips again and again.

She wasn’t being too incoherent now, though words kept flying from her lips. “No,” and “Yes,” and “Jem,” and a few things he couldn’t understand.

“I love the way you taste,” he told her, just in case she didn’t know that by now. “You taste like sugar and spice and lemon—”

“Lemon soap,” she gasped.

He took another few minutes on a particularly delicate spot, just to punish her for having been rational enough to mention lemon soap.

Then he stopped. “What did you say?” he asked, keeping his tone innocent.

She raised her head, eyes wild. He knew those eyes and loved them: that was the look of a woman who was about to strike a man.

“Sorry,” he said innocently, “did I lose track of what I was doing?”

She had her fingers in his hair, and she was panting.

All good.

A few minutes later, he raised his head again. “Lemon soap?”

She looked down at him, dazed. “Please…”

“Please what?” He couldn’t help grinning. He let his fingers play a bit, though he knew it wasn’t the same. She writhed under him.

“Please,” she said.

“Say kiss me,” he commanded. His Amazon needed to put things into words, to own them.

“Please,” she sobbed, “kiss me, please.” A lady to the end.

So he bent his head again and this time he let his fingers wander everywhere, because those “No’s” just kept being swallowed up by “Yes’s.”

And then he finally took her home.

It took all he had not to slip into her. But he coaxed her and commanded her and ignored her protests until she started curling her toes, and uttering little screams.

And he had her…she cried again and again, and her sweet body curled toward him, convulsing with pleasure.

“That’s it, sweetheart,” he said, “Go…go!”

Harriet stared at the ceiling of the picture gallery. It was far away, and seemed to be swinging slightly. It was as if the whole world had tilted a bit on its axis and dropped her off the side.

“Oh.”

Jem was above her again, arms braced. “Would you mind if we made love now?”

She looked at him, unable to form words.

He nudged his hips toward her. A strangled sound came from her throat. Her knees slid up of their own volition.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” he said. And then he stroked forward, hard.

It was unlike anything she’d ever experienced before. The pleasure she’d just experienced was in her bones, but it turned instantly into a clinging kind of joyful fire. She lifted her hips toward him without even realizing what she was doing.

“That’s it,” Jem said, his voice deep.

He was the most beautiful man in the world to her. She started running her fingers over his cheekbones, over those fierce, intelligent eyes, over his strong jaw. Down to his shoulders, hips, the muscles responsible for her little cascades of shivers.

He thrust again, and like magic, her hips rose to meet him.

And again. “Do you see how?” he said. His teeth seemed to be clenched. His face didn’t look purple, but there were little beads of sweat on his forehead. And his shoulders.

She tasted them—they tasted like salt, clean salt and Jem.

He kept stroking forward, long and strong, and she couldn’t keep her mind on her exploration of his body. She was starting to feel unmoored, as if her whole attention had narrowed to the fire caused by his movements. Long after Benjamin would have collapsed onto her, Jem just kept going, smooth, indomitable, as if he would never stop.

She couldn’t breathe. All she could do was follow him into the storm, her fingers clenched on his shoulders, little cries coming from her throat.

“That’s it,” he said hoarsely. “That’s it, Harriet.”

Her hands slid from his shoulders, clenched onto his arse. It was smooth under her fingers, muscled and strong. She could feel his body as if it were her own, throbbing, plunging, thrusting deep into her.

She didn’t even hear Jem because her world shattered and flew, remade itself into a different place, a place in which a kind of deep pleasure was possible that she never imagined.

Could never have imagined.

Chapter Twenty-four

The Scandal! A Woman in Breeches

D inner was an odd affair. Jem wasn’t expected to join the company, but he suddenly appeared.

Harriet choked.

Povy flew into a flurry of activity, rushing to get a chair and put it at the head of the table.

“Don’t worry so much, Povy,” Jem said. “I’ll slip in next to the Duchess of Cosway. If you don’t mind, Mr. Cope.”

Harriet hastily moved her chair to the left and allowed Povy to slip a chair between herself and Isidore.

“I’m upsetting our dinner symmetry, I know, and I do apologize for my late arrival,” Jem said, smiling around the table. “I simply couldn’t resist the chance to speak with the duchess.”

To her left, Nell was excitedly pinching Harriet’s arm. “Does he know?” she whispered shrilly into Harriet’s ear.

Jem sat down and his leg instantly pressed against hers. Harriet snatched up her napkin. Jem accepted a plate of food and began talking to Isidore, on his right.

Nell pinched Harriet again. “Did you give him the entire poem? That must be why he came down to supper. He almost never joins the company for supper!”

“I did give him the rest of the poem,” Harriet whispered back.

Nell took a deep breath and clasped her hands together. “I am going to marry him, you know. I’ve quite made up my mind.”

Harriet discovered that she no longer felt this wish was as humorous as she thought a few days ago. “Really,” she said, a bit coldly.