A little laugh broke from his chest and he came over her, on his knees, looking down. “What would you like to do next?”

Josie was shivering all over with excitement, and trying in vain to think of something witty to say.

“I’m no virgin, Josie,” he said. He had a hand in the patch of curly hair between her legs, and now she was finding it hard to hear, let alone think.

“I guess not,” she mumbled.

“But damned if I don’t feel like one at this moment,” he said, lowering his head to her breast so she couldn’t see his eyes. Which she would have liked to do. He sounded rather bewildered.

“You do?” she managed.

But whatever response he might have thought to make was muffled because he was kissing her breast. She had trouble understanding words when he was worshipping her with his mouth. Even more so when he kissed down over her tummy, and left little nip marks on her hips, and then…

By then nothing he said was making much sense anyway, although she was dimly aware that he had kept talking. About how he felt like a virgin, and as if she was different.

Josie heard him, and threw it away. She didn’t need words. What she needed was just what he was doing with his hands, and then with his mouth…

Her toes were curled, and her back was arched, and she was whimpering for lack of air, and trying to keep it to a ladylike level. Except she couldn’t, not after he brought his hands to play as well. She was making all sorts of unladylike noises, and she couldn’t stop rising toward him, but she didn’t care.

He pulled her knees apart, and rose over her, and she had one startling moment, one picture that she never forgot, her whole life long, of Garret Langham, Earl of Mayne, his face rigid and his eyes wild, his shoulders braced, and a look in his eyes…

Suddenly she believed him. Believed that he felt new, as new as she did. Believed that for some strange reason it all felt as new to him as it did to her. Because she watched the ragged breath escape from his lips as he rocked against her. And heard the guttural sound that came from his lips as he entered her.

One of the reasons she remembered everything so vividly was that from about two seconds after that first nudge—which felt pretty good, she had to admit—the rest of it didn’t feel very good. In fact, that feverish heat evaporated from her legs as quickly as it had come, and instead of wanting to rise toward him, her only instinct was to get away.

Within another second the only things going through her mind were thoroughly unromantic swear words, things she’d heard in the stables, anything that would describe the awful stinging, painful stretching. It wasn’t at all the way Annabel had described it. It hurt like—like hell. That was the worst phrase she knew, and she wasn’t even sure it covered the situation.

Mayne was braced on his arms over her, looking down, and of course he could tell, so she gave him a tight little smile. “Is it almost over?” she asked, trying not to sound too hopeful.

His voice came out funny and hoarse. “Not quite. Should I make it faster rather than slower, Josie?”

“God, yes,” she said, wondering if it was still too late to annul. No, she didn’t mean that. But it was unfortunately true that unlike her sisters, she didn’t—

“Ow!” she cried. And then, on the verge of outrage she actually burst out with the unsayable: “Hell!” Because he had lunged forward and something broke inside her.

“I’m sorry, Josie,” he panted.

She wiggled. “It feels slightly better now,” she offered, ignoring the fact that she was indisputably ruined for life.

“Good,” he said with that odd strangled sound to his voice, “because I don’t think I could stop, so bear with me, please?”

Josie pulled her mind back to the business at hand.

And when she didn’t answer immediately: “Please.”

“Of course,” she said, trying to put a gracious tone in her voice. “Go right ahead.” Now she realized that Sylvie had been given better information than she had, though Sylvie’s offer of once a week sounded like a lot. Perhaps once a month.

It didn’t seem to hurt quite as much now. Garret’s shoulders were sleek and bulged with muscle in a way that she never would have believed, looking at his elegance in a coat. She would have thought his muscles would be all lean and ropy, but instead he had the kind that bulged, and rippled under pressure.

It was an odd thing they were doing. Or he was doing to her. Because once it stopped hurting so much, she could feel the heat trickling back into her legs. And then she started running her hands over his shoulders, because they were so beautiful and muscled in such a clean shape, and the heat increased.

In fact, once Garret lowered his head to her breast, well, she had to admit that it wasn’t half bad. The intimacy of it was—

But she lost that thought, because he changed position somehow, and now he was coming into her lower and slower, and it did something funny to her stomach, and pulses of fire were sparking through her again.

She gripped his arms.

“It doesn’t hurt as much, does it, Josie?” he asked.

The odd, guttural sound of his voice, so far from Mayne’s usual polished tones, that made her heart speed up as well. And then he said, “Because you’re mine now, Josie, mine.” Her heart started going so quickly that it did something to her body, because she started rising to meet him, just a little lift of her hips.

He readjusted again, and now there was something in what he was doing that made her feel rather crazed, and those whimpers started again, except she didn’t have time to worry about staying ladylike. He was pulling her up and she realized that his big body was sweaty and for some reason his sweat made her feel wildly excited. And then she happened to look down where they were joined.

It was as if lights exploded in her head and now she was crying out every time he came against her. And clutching him hard, pulling him back. And he wasn’t kissing her breasts anymore, he was ravaging her mouth, and all the time he was talking, saying things about her sweetness, and her taste, and the softness of her, and what he wanted to kiss, and bite and taste, and finally it came like a forgiving wind in the summer heat, rushing up from her curled toes and making her convulse against him again, and again, and again, crying his name in a bewildered kind of way.

Later she was never quite sure what he said, but she thought it was something to do with mercy and perhaps a deity or two, because a second later he let out a strangled groan and then took her mouth in the sweetest kiss she could have imagined.

37

From The Earl of Hellgate,

Chapter the Twenty-fifth

Doubtless, Dear Reader, you believed the flames of my lust had been quenched by despair and grief. And so they were, for a time. I had made up my mind to take another wife. Clearly, it was the only way to keep myself from damnation, and I felt all the agony of my failed relation with Mustardseed. Thus after a decent period of mourning, I came to London again, determined to find a wife.And then I saw her.

S un was coming in the window, so Josie rolled over in protest, intending to bury her head under the pillow. Except her arm was caught in the coverlet, so she pulled. And then like a fawn noticing the watchful eye of a fox, she suddenly came awake.

Her arm was pinned down by a male arm. A muscled golden-skinned male arm. She stared at it, while the night before poured back into her memory like water into a jug. She was no virgin now, immaculata or otherwise. Not anymore. They had sneaked back into the house in the middle of the night after Garret swore he couldn’t sleep on a sofa. Josie blushed to even think about what happened on that sofa.He was sleeping. Hardly daring to breathe, Josie inched closer. He was hers. And oh…he was beautiful. In his sleep that weary look was gone from his face and he looked happy. His curls were so black that they shimmered in the morning sunlight, like a lump of coal if you turned it toward a lamp. Even glancing at his lips made Josie’s stomach squeeze, and her toes curl reflexively…it was new, this feeling of hot desire. She had a feeling it would become commonplace.