Jasper stood behind her. His trousers teased her thighs as his knuckles brushed her hip. In this close space, she felt his buttons give way. Then he was there, prodding her center. She bit her lip to muffle her needy whimper.
A thud against the wall of the carriage startled her.
“Just me,” Jasper rasped. “This damn thing wasn’t made to stand up in.”
He pulled her to him with one hand and filled her deeply. Annabel’s groan of relief ended in a smile as she heard him echo it.
He withdrew and returned with greater force, hitting a spot that shattered her relief and replaced it with hot, shivering pleasure. She buried her face in the upholstery to muffle her scream.
It continued stroke after stroke, again and again, the same cushion rescuing them from discovery tormented her breasts with delicious pressure. Her nipples were likely wearing a hole in her corset. Her head nudged the wall, and Annabel braced her hands there, pushing away to avoid breaking her neck. The result brought him deeper and ripped a cry from her throat as her toes curled in her shoes.
“God yes, like that,” Jasper growled. “Take me, Annabel.”
She did, answering every delightfully brutal stroke with one of her own, coming apart as her husband snarled and swore above her. Her throat was raw, her dry tongue stuck to the velvet, and her shoulders trembled from exertion. She’d be on the floor if not for Jasper’s bruising hold as he poured himself into her.
It was incredible.
*
“Did I hurt you?”
Jasper found it difficult to do more than whisper as they rode through Hyde Park, piled together as though they were in bed. He was sated, exhausted, and more than a little in awe of his wife.
She brushed his cheek with a kiss. “I may have a bruise or two, but it was worth it.”
He’d have a crick in his back for days—and he’d smile with every twinge.
“How did you know?” she asked.
“I watched you in the theatre.” He’d almost taken her then, sent Frederick to fetch the carriage and pulled Annabel into the shadows against the wall. But he didn’t like public sex, and she would have had to be quiet. Neither of them would have enjoyed that.
She was as honest about her enjoyment as she was with everything else. Just thinking about it made him want her again.
“I’ll admit I thought it would be easier to do than it was.” He looked to the dimly lit walls and inconveniently low ceiling. “We need a larger coach.”
Annabel snuggled against his chest and pulled the blanket to her chin, which only worked to expose her feet. “We need a longer blanket first.”
We. The word warmed him from the center outward in a way he’d never expected. Jasper pulled her closer and pressed a kiss to her disheveled hair. As much as he liked her perfume, he enjoyed the scent of the real her, crisp and slightly sweet, with just enough salt to remind him of a few moments ago. “Certainly.”
When he’d thought about marriage, which wasn’t often, he’d always considered it a necessary thing in a longer line of necessary things. Title. House. Lords. Wife. Children. Done. He’d had a vague idea of what he expected from a wife. Pretty enough to catch attention, smart enough to not be embarrassing, and good enough at running the household. They’d see each other enough to create a peaceful home and go out enough to be interesting.
Good enough. He’d have had a life that was good enough.
Annabel had saved him from that.
His chest tightened, making it difficult to breathe, much less speak. “Dearest?”
“I know you’d hoped Graydon wasn’t involved,” she said at the same time. “I’m sorry.”
He shrugged as best he could while reclined against a seat with his arms full of his wife. “I just didn’t figure him for paying the queen’s money to his friends.”
“They aren’t friends.”
“Just because they were arguing? I hate to tell you, but male friends argue more than they have civil conversations. We save civility for other people.” He and Kit fought like devils at times. Perhaps that was because they were related.
“Spencer doesn’t have friends, Jasper. He has chess pieces.” She eased from his hold and straightened, putting them eye to eye. “Not all of us are pawns.”
She was no one’s pawn. He traced a finger down her cheek to the point of her chin. “You believe Spencer has something on Graydon.”
“I know he does.”
Her intelligence and her certainty excited him, but he envied her ability to form coherent thoughts. His brain was still after-sex fuzzy. “What do you know?”
“Jocelyn Fletcher threw Viscount Raines out of her…house for assaulting a girl.”
He liked Jocelyn Fletcher, trusted her, but she was as tenacious about protecting her staff as she was about ensuring her information was accurate. “Annabel, the ladies at the White Rose are paid for sex however their customers want it, within reason. If Raines got heavy-handed—”
“Not a lady, Jasper. A girl.” She put her finger to his chest. “And it shouldn’t matter who it is. Women have the right to be safe and respected in their own homes, whether they are paid for or bartered off for their dowry.”
The flash in her eyes reminded him of the night she’d scolded him at his own party. He’d suspected even then that, given the chance, she would fly. A smile stretched slowly across his tired face. “Yes, Lady Ramsbury.”
“Don’t patronize me over this. Under the super-fine and the horses, he is a brute and a bully, and—”
He pressed his fingers to her lips, and her breath warmed his fingers. “Tell me what you’ve learned.”
“Spencer was there when Jocelyn banned Raines.”
The road beneath them changed from the park’s gravel to city cobbles, rattling Jasper’s teeth and clattering through his head. He pushed himself upright.
