He scowled. “What the devil are you talking about?”
She tilted her head back, which caused her body to brush his. “What Shakespeare is always saying. The only way to make you quiet is to stop your mouth.”
His eyes widened, and he pulled her into him, arching her body against his. Finally, he let go of her hand, but only so that he could hold her fast, pressing her hips into his hard body.
She gasped and reached up, clasping his shoulders to keep steady.
Slowly… Oh, so slowly, he lowered his mouth.
She twined her hands about his neck, slid her fingers into his hair at his nape, and offered up her lips to him.
He did not think. He couldn’t. All thoughts vanished until all there was…was Jack.
His mouth stole over hers, and the sweet heat of it nearly undid him. As did the fact that she did not simply wait for him to lead; now that his mouth was tracing over hers, she was most definitely kissing him back.
And it was the most glorious, provocative, thrilling thing he’d ever experienced in his entire life. All because it was her.
She was no wild woman. She was a young miss. And yet she was doing exactly what she had asserted she might try to do. She was seizing the moment. Not waiting to be led.
It was astonishing, and it filled him with hot desire for her.
James let his hands roam down her back, pressing her into him, allowing their bodies to have nothing between them, not even a bit of air.
The feel of her breasts pressed against his chest was utter torture. He longed to free them, take them into his mouth.
Their lips met again and again.
They each took and gave from each other until their mouths parted and he touched her tongue with his. She gasped in shock, but he did not stop.
No, he allowed his tongue to explore her mouth, and she moaned, enjoying it beyond all possible measure, it seemed.
She arched back, her pelvis teasing into his body, unknowingly asking for more. His body responded in kind, his cock hard now and demanding it be allowed to give her pleasure.
He loved the feel of her pressed into his body, and he let go of all concerns because she drove them away so easily.
James traced his hands down her ribs, over her buttocks, amazed to find that he quite liked her in breeches, for there were not yards of fabric between them.
He did not wish to have reason any longer.
He did not wish to have rules. He only wished to have Jack. In this particular moment, she was all he required. Nothing else mattered. Not rules, not promises, not the world, nothing but this instant and the fact that she saw him and he saw her.
Bloody hell, he loved it. He loved the taste of her, the feel of her, the warmth of her, the way that she had teased him and taunted him and told him things that no one else had ever said.
This kiss, he did not ever want it to end.
And then, much to his shock, he began to pull at her linen shirt. He pulled it up and out of her breeches, and he yanked it over her head in one swift go as their kiss broke.
She stared up at him, eyes wide with surprise, standing there in the lightest chemise tucked into her fawn-colored breeches. And then she gave him a slow smile of anticipation.
He dropped her shirt to the floor then took to the ribbon of her chemise. Pulling it, he opened the neck until he could slip it downward, exposing her shoulders, her clavicles, and then her breasts.
James leaned in and savored the touch of his mouth to her neck. He traced that curve going ever slowly downward, kissing the fine bones at the base of her neck. Eager for every discovery.
He was like a man who had drunk too much wine, who simply needed more and more and could not stop himself. She was the most vital drink he had ever had, the most enticing embrace he’d ever known, and he could not stop.
It was as if something had possessed him. Jack possessed him. That was what it was. She had bewitched his mind, his body. His soul.
He kissed lower and lower, and she encouraged every single moment of it with her soft moans. He resisted for one moment before taking a nipple into his mouth, circling his tongue around it, tasting his fill.