Tall, Dark... Collection

‘Is it the horses you are so fond of visiting, Jane, or do you have some other reason for haunting my stables in this way…?’

Jane gave a guilty start at the sound of the Duke’s voice behind her, turning so sharply to face him that her slippered foot lost its purchase on the thick layer of straw that covered the floor, causing her to lose her balance completely.

She barely had time to register how handsome the Duke looked in his work clothes—a tight-fitting brown jacket and thigh-hugging breeches above highly polished brown boots—before the world tilted on its axis and she toppled over backwards.

Luckily the stall she was in had been cleaned earlier that morning and laid with fresh straw, and this sweet-smelling mattress cushioned Jane’s fall. She lay sprawled on her back, slightly winded, as she stared up at the dumbfounded Duke of Stourbridge.

He did not stay dumb for long, however. ‘Are you making me an invitation, Jane? Or is it that you suddenly felt a need to lie down?’ He moved farther into the confines of the stall to look down at her, heavy lids lowered to shield the expression in his eyes.

So giving Jane no idea whether the Duke was just being his normally mocking self, or if he actually meant her to take his first question seriously…

Considering the impatient manner in which he had deserted the dinner table the previous evening, Jane decided that he was being his normal mocking self!

Her own eyes glittered with impatience as she sat up. ‘I would not have lost my balance at all if you had not crept up behind me in that sly fashion!’she said waspishly.

‘Please do not get up, Jane,’ Hawk drawled derisively as she began to do so. ‘After the dampness of the dune which we once shared, the stables are a much cosier place for us to converse,’ he assured her dryly, before dropping down onto the clean straw at her side.

Hawk grimaced inwardly, knowing that if any of his grooms had seen him do so they would probably seriously question the Duke of Stourbridge’s state of mind. And quite rightly so!

‘Converse, Your Grace?’ Jane echoed guardedly, as she made a show of picking stalks of straw from the sleeve of her gown.

Several more tufts had attached themselves endearingly in the brightness of her hair, but Hawk decided that now was perhaps not the right time to point them out to her. Nor, indeed, to attempt to remove them himself…

He was aware that, apart from the slight movement and snorting of a horse in one of the other stalls, the stables were very private and quiet at this time of day, his grooms having moved on to other chores about the estate after completing the exercising of the horses and the cleaning of the stalls earlier this morning.

Meaning that he and Jane were completely alone here, with little chance of interruption.

He felt a reawakening of the same desire to take Jane in his arms and kiss her that he had known the previous evening. A desire Hawk had resisted yesterday evening by leaving her so abruptly but which he was not sure he would be able to a second time…!

Perhaps, in the circumstances, it had been unwise on his part to suggest they remain here.

He would not have sought her out at all had Jenkins not informed him that, ‘Miss Smith left the house half an hour since and walked in the direction of the stables.’ It transpired from his groom that she had already done so yesterday, instantly arousing Hawk’s curiosity as to why it was she had felt the need to visit his stables twice in as many days.

Unfortunately, as he looked now at a slightly dishevelled Jane, her face flushed, the soft pout of her lips slightly parted, Hawk knew that it was no longer just his curiosity that was aroused.

‘Your Grace…?’

He frowned down at her darkly. ‘Jane…?’

She looked at him quizzically. ‘You said you wished to talk to me.’

‘Did I?’ Hawk blinked, but the movement did absolutely nothing to dispel the tempting vision of Jane’s moistly parted lips.

Jane felt a frisson of alarm course through her as she saw the direction of the Duke’s gaze, quickly followed by a wave of heated awareness as that gaze moved down to the creamy swell of her breasts above her simply styled muslin gown.

She could hear him breathing now, feel the softness of that breath move over her skin as he suddenly seemed much nearer. Had he moved? She had not been aware that he had, and yet he was definitely much closer than he had been a moment ago.

Jane stared up at him in mesmerised fascination, held in thrall by the deepening gold of his eyes as he moved even closer, her lids dropping, lips parting, as he raised one of his hands to cup her cheek. The soft pad of his thumb caressed those parted lips with an eroticism that made her gasp as she raised her lids to look up at him with darkened green eyes.

He stared long and hard into those emerald depths before he groaned achingly, ‘Dear God, Jane…!’ His mouth claimed hers, his arms moving about her as he drew her close against the hard strength of his body.

His gloriously male body that only days ago Jane so clearly remembered viewing in all its almost naked glory. Inexperienced as she was, she had still been able to appreciate the broadness of his shoulders and chest, the stomach muscles clearly defined, his hips lean and powerful…!

And those firm lips—lips that could so often be thinned in disapproval or quirked in mocking humour—now moved against hers searchingly, devouring, causing Jane’s pulse to leap wildly and heat to course wantonly throughout her whole body as she arched closer against him in urgent need.

He should never have been tempted into kissing her, Hawk admonished himself impatiently, even as he began to press Jane back onto the warm cushion of straw. But the warmth of her body, her own enticing perfume, both acted as a heady temptation it was impossible for him to resist.

He lay half across her as he deepened the kiss, knowing by the way Jane’s body arched against his, by the fact of her hands now beneath his jacket as she restlessly caressed the length of his back through the thin material of his shirt, that Jane was as aroused as he was—even if her inexperience gave her no idea how to deal with that arousal.

Neither did Hawk know quite where this was taking them. He was aware only of the need he had to touch her, to taste her. His lips left hers to travel the length of the arched column of her throat, down to the creamy swell of her breasts, his fingers dealing deftly, quickly, with the buttons of her gown as he lowered the material to reveal pouting breasts covered only by the thin material of her chemise.

His fascinated gaze fastened on the rosy hardness of her nipples, clearly visible through that material, and lightly caressing fingers moved across those aroused tips, causing Jane to gasp before arching her back in breathless supplication.

It was too much. Jane was too much tempation for Hawk to be able to deny her. His glittering gaze briefly held hers before he lowered his head to draw one of those rosy tips into the heated cavern of his mouth, his tongue rasping across the already aroused nipple as he suckled her deeper into his moist warmth—harder, fiercer. He heard her groans of pleasure and felt her fingers curl convulsively into the hardness of his back, nails scraping as she held him tightly against her.

Hawk’s hand moved to cup her other breast, and he felt it swell beneath his touch, her nipple a tight bud as he ran the pad of his thumb across it in the same rhythm with which he suckled its twin.

His thighs were rigid with arousal, with the need to claim her fully, to slide into the heat that awaited him inside her before giving them both the release they craved.

He should stop now—should pull away from her before that need overwhelmed them both. But he was powerless to resist as he felt Jane’s hands unfastening the buttons of his waistcoat and shirt to push the material aside. She sought to touch his naked flesh, her hands echoing his own caress, and his groan was one of aching defeat as her tiny fingers touched his own hardened nubs.

No woman had ever touched Hawk so innocently, so erotically before. Jane’s lack of experience in physical intimacy gave her no boundaries, no set of rules to follow, and her fingers touched, caressed, her nails gently raking his hardness, causing his thighs to pulse wildly as he grew more swollen still, his arousal almost painful.

He wanted her. Now. Here amongst the sweet-smelling straw. He was filled with such an urgent need for posession, that his senses were fully awakened by the pleasure-ache of her caresses, the sweet, drugging sensation of her womanly perfume.

Jane had known herself lost to reason, to caution, at Hawk’s first touch, and she was totally unable to deny him now, as she felt his hand move from her breast to push the material of her gown up to her waist. He caressed the length of her leg from her knee to the aching heat that had pooled between her thighs. Her hips arched invitingly against him as he placed that hand against her most intimate place, cupping, pressing, those caressing fingers igniting a pleasure that Jane could never have imagined even in the nightly dreams she had of this man.

She gasped, falling back weakly against the straw, as Hawk’s lips, mouth and tongue continued to minister to her aching breast and his fingers began to stroke against her. Her head moved restlessly from side to side as she felt the pressure building inside her, her legs parting in heady expectation as the heat between her thighs became hot and urgent.

‘I told him that, no, I hadn’t seen the Duke out and about at all this morning. How about you, Tom? Have you seen him anywhere on the estate?’

Reality, like the icy shock of a bucket of cold water, penetrated Hawk’s desire-befuddled brain the moment he heard the voice of his head groom talking of ‘the Duke’. He raised his head sharply. The look of dazed shock on Jane’s face as she stared up at him told him that she was also aware they were no longer alone.

Hawk’s gaze darkened as he stared down at her—as he acknowledged the rumpled dishevelment of her gown, its skirt pushed up almost to her thighs, its bodice unbuttoned. Her chemise was clinging damply to her breasts, their nipples still hard and aroused from the ministrations of his lips, tongue and hands.

He gave a low groan of self-disgust as he fell back onto the straw beside her to stare up at the wooden ceiling above.

Dear God! Seconds ago, before this timely interruption, he knew his intention had been to make love to Jane fully. To take her here in the stables as if she were some willing serving wench, enjoying a tumble with her wealthy patron. As if he were some untried youth unable to keep his arousal in his breeches.

Forget his employees questioning his state of mind—Hawk now questioned it himself!

‘Hawk—’

‘Silence, Jane!’ he hissed fiercely, even as he moved to place his fingers against her lips. His head tilted as he listened intently and waited to see if his head groom and Tom, one of the grooms Hawk had brought with him from London, would venture farther into the stables in their search for him.

‘Nah. We’d see ’im if he was in ’ere,’Tom dismissed. ‘Better go an’ tell Mr Jenkins that we don’t know where ’e is neither.’

The sound of their boots retreating could clearly be heard before the stable door closed noisily behind them.