Page 73 of Never Tempt a Scot
My darling.She could have swooned. It had been too long since a man had used such an endearment for her.
“Jackson ...” She breathed his name as her senses spun.
“Yes?” He feathered kisses along her jaw as his heated body pressed against her own.
“Take me to bed,” she commanded in a whisper.
He lifted her up, carrying her straight to his bed. She lay back as he closed the door to his room.
Heavens, he was a beautiful man. There was something to be said about a man who kept his physique. He was strong, sturdy in a way that most younger men were not. There was a promise that he knew his body and a woman’s and she would not be disappointed with the outcome. He took his time, removing his trousers as she looked on.
“Your turn,” he said as he approached the bed.
Jane sat up and removed her dressing gown. She loosened the ties of her chemise at her throat, and the fabric dropped off her shoulders. He reached up to stroke his fingertips over her skin just above the chemise, which still hung over her breasts, before he carefully pulled it down to her waist to expose her fully.
Jane was blushing as red as her hair. Her body was not that of a young girl’s. Her breasts were larger, heavier with the passing of time and nursing children. She wondered if Jackson would find her disappointing, but she was stunned to find only heat in his eyes.
“Exquisite,” he said as he brushed his thumb over one nipple. Jane’s body came alive after years of being dormant.
He moved closer, laying her back on the bed so he could pull the chemise down the rest of her body and drop it to the floor.
“Jane, you are a vision.” Jackson groaned as he leaned over her and stepped between her parted thighs.
“As are you.” She gazed in admiration at his strong, muscled form and the boyish grin that covered his lips. “What is it?” Jane asked as he caressed her breasts before sliding a hand down her body to her folds. She hissed as he sank a fingertip into her, testing her readiness. She was ready—there was no doubt of that.
“I feel like an untried youth being allowed a night with a most beautiful buxom maid. I want to leap on you and take you fast, but I also wish to savor every moment. It’s been a very long time since I felt that way.” There was an undeniable softness behind the heat in his gaze. It made the moment between them so much sweeter.
“Let us savor it. It has been a long time for me as well, and I am honestly not sure I remember how to do it properly.”
Jackson laughed and leaned over the bed to capture her mouth. Just like that, they rushed headlong into the moment together. He thrust into her body. He was slow and gentle at first, and Jane threw her head back on the bed. His eyes drifted over her as he withdrew and entered her again, making love to her at a leisurely pace, and she started to beg him for more. As the pleasure built between them, Jane let go of every thought and simply surrendered to her feminine needs.
She cried out Jackson’s name as she came apart, and he followed her a heartbeat later, shouting her name. He held her hips as she trembled with the aftermath of pleasure.
If she was being honest, she hadn’t gone without private moments of satisfaction all these years, but there was nothing better than a real man and real passion. The simple touches in the privacy of her bath were but a shadow compared to this.
Jackson joined her on the bed and pulled her into his arms. “Do you have regrets?”
Jane rested her chin on his chest, and he ran his fingers through the loose tumble of her red hair. “Regrets? With you? No.” She was silent a moment as she collected her thoughts. “I do regret that I’ve gone so long without having a connection to a man again. I do regret that.”
“It is rather strange,” Jackson mused. “When I lost my Marianna, many women made it quite clear that they would happily marry me. But the thought of it, sharing my life with another woman, even a mistress ... I couldn’t imagine it.”
“You’ve had no women, not even a mistress, after all this time?”
His face reddened. “There was one night exactly a year after my wife died. I was wandering around in a rather bad part of London. I found a tavern and was quite determined to drink or gamble away every coin in my purse, but I ended up meeting a maid working in the taproom. She was not a prostitute, but a barmaid. Still young, but not so young as the others, and I felt she was closer to me in age and might be a nice companion to talk to. I paid her to sit and talk with me between seeing to her tables. Molly was her name. She was a sweet woman, and at the end of the night, she offered me her hand and led me upstairs. We coupled in the dark, and she let me call her Marianna, and afterward I wept like a young boy. It was ...” Jackson’s throat closed. “That was the only time.” His hazel eyes settled on Jane’s face.
“This was different, wasn’t it?” she asked. A wicked smile began to form on her lips. “You know, from the moment I saw you coming up the steps to Mr. Lennox’s townhouse, I knew it would come to this.”
“What?” Jackson looked at the two of them in bed.“This?”He scrunched the bedclothes up over his bare chest as though he was shocked. “Have I been taken advantage of?”
Jane laughed at that. “I believe that was a completelymutualpart of the matter. No, it’s just that, after all these years, I think in order to recapture my own life, I had to run away to Scotland again.” She smiled, perhaps a little foolishly. “I make no demands on you, Jackson. Whatever you wish this to be, I will enjoy it for as long as it lasts.”
He began to stroke her hair again, a thoughtful expression stealing across his handsome features. “I am yours, Jane, for as long as you desire me.”
She slid up his body a few inches and lowered her head to kiss him. All thoughts outside of this room, this moment, were banished, if only for a little while.
18
Lydia giggled as she watched Isla stand on the small platform in the dressmaker’s shop on the Royal Mile street in Edinburgh. Isla looked like a giant doll with her hair curled in long ringlets and her new dress on.
