CHAPTER15
Jeremy reached across the covers. His eyes were still blinking open, but even in the last clutches of his slumber, he could remember where he was and what had happened the night before.
Sophia…
He reached for her, needing that touch. It didn’t seem to matter hours of sleep had now passed since he had made love to her. He could still feel the thrill of the pleasure as it had emanated through him. Nothing had quite felt like that before.
His hand only found empty bedsheets. When his fingers curled in the cotton sheets, his eyes shot open wider and he lifted himself up, looking back and forth across the room.
“Sophia?” he whispered into the air, but she was not there to answer him.
In the dawn light that filtered in through the window, the chamber was cast in bright orange, showing the sun had not been up for long. It revealed the emptiness of the sheets beside him, and the curve of the pillow where Sophia had rested her head all night. Jeremy sat upwards, looking for her clothes too, but they were not there either. There were only his own clothes discarded around the room to remember how fervently they had undressed each other in their need the night before.
She’s gone.
It gutted him. His stomach knotted, as if asps were alive within, writhing together. Flinging himself back down on the bed, he raised his hand and pinched his brow for a minute, trying to ward off that feeling, but it was no good. He wanted her back there beside him.
“This was not the way it was supposed to be,” he whispered aloud, as if somehow the air would have an answer to his woes.
Being completely with Sophia was supposed to free him of this desire, this enrapturingneedto be with her, yet it had done no such thing. If anything, it had only made him want her again. Even now his mind was tortured by fresh images of them together. He imagined new ways to make love to her, different things he could do in order to bring her pleasure and make her moan his name as she had done the night before.
Yet, that was not their agreement. They had decided on one night together, and she had left before he could wake, though for what reason? Was she afraid of an awkward goodbye this morning? Did she think it would be easier? Jeremy knew had he been awake when she had clambered out of this bed, he would have tried to persuade her to get back into it.
“What has happened to me?” Jeremy’s voice was abruptly angry. He thrust back the covers from the bed and rang the bell for his valet.
Within minutes, a bath was prepared in the garderobe next door. He bathed though he didn’t waste a long time enjoying it. The brush of the water against his skin simply reminded him of the touch of Sophia’s fingers the night before, and how much he wanted it again. In need of distraction from this madness, he clambered out of the bath just as quickly as he had climbed in, then he dressed.
He barely ate breakfast, still marching around the table as he ate and lifted things from his plate. The curious and rather worried gaze of his butler as coffee was served did nothing to help Jeremy’s mind. He kept looking at the second chair at the dining table, wondering what it could be like if someone sat there.
How much better would it have felt this morning to have Sophia come down with me and sit at this table?
He played out some of their conversations in his head, but it didn’t help. It only made the desire to have her there all the worse.
Soon, he abandoned breakfast. His horse was ordered, and he parted from the house in a hurry, heading far through the streets of London and going somewhere that he hoped for distraction.
“What is all that noise so early in the morning?” Stephen’s voice rang out from inside the townhouse as Jeremy thumped on the door. Eventually, the butler opened the door, and Jeremy was shown inside to see Stephen at his own breakfast table, though he looked barely awake, still yawning and leaning to the side, scarcely awake enough to hold himself straight. “Jeremy? What are you doing here so early?”
“I need to talk. I need… distraction.” Jeremy was unsure how else to put it into words. He was careful to close the dining room door behind him so that the butler could not follow then he moved toward his friend’s side. Yet, unable to settle, he ended up pacing the room instead, without any firm sense of direction. The result was an odd sort of circle beside the table.
“Is there a reason you’re wearing my rug thin?” Stephen asked, watching Jeremy over the rim of his coffee cup.
“Yes,” Jeremy murmured, though he answered no more.
“Hmm. I can see something is upsetting you.”
“How perceptive,” Jeremy said drily as he paced back the other way.
“Well, the first clue was the rather irate way you knocked on my door this morning,” Stephen added with an amused smile as he reached for the coffee pot on his table. “Here, have a coffee, Jeremy. It will help settle your nerves.”
Jeremy was not so certain it would, but as he had no better ideas, he took the cup, and gulped from it heartily, aware that Stephen watched him closely. His eyes seemed to widen, as if shocked by Jeremy’s eagerness for the drink.
“You going to tell me what is wrong, or shall I have to guess?”
“The matter we were talking of before. The lady I could not stop thinking of.” As Jeremy spoke, he looked down into the coffee cup, reluctant to meet his friend’s gaze. For years, they had been like minded, always the same when it came to women. What would Stephen say tothismatter?
“What about her?” Stephen asked carefully. He sat back in his seat, clearly patient as he sipped his own coffee.
“You advised me that if I wanted to escape these thoughts, this addition of thinking of her –”