Eliza watched, riveted, as he gripped his cock at the root and stroked upward, pulling and stretching, swelling further until he was certain he’d never been this hard and thick. Ropey veins coursed the length of him, making him look as brutal as he felt. His bollocks were drawn up tight and hard, his seed churning with the need for release.

She made a soft, anxious noise.

“Are you frightened?” he asked for the second time that evening. Knowing she had to be. Aware that he would have been kinder to shield her from his size until she knew enough to appreciate it. But he was willing to cast aside what little gentlemanly considerations he had to gain what he wanted from her, using every advantage he possessed to distinguish himself from the others who hoped to win her and take her from him. She liked to look at him. And she was attuned to him on the most basic level. Her mind might shy away from his primitive display, but her body understood…and would react accordingly.

“Yes,” she answered softly, her knees drawing closer to her abdomen. “I have always known you were too much for me.”

“But you want me regardless. Face the other way.”

Rolling, she gave him her back. She curled in a manner that drew her feet up to the lush curve of her buttocks. The discovery of her voluptuous derriere had been a delightful surprise when she’d crawled across his bed earlier. On the surface, Eliza appeared as moderate in form as she was in temperament, but even in this, her private landscape was the most picturesque. He was certain her backside was the most perfect he’d ever seen.

“Who knew you hid such a curvaceous bottom beneath your clothes?” he murmured, joining her and pressing a kiss to a cluster of freckles on her shoulder.

“You tease me,” she accused without heat.

“You spoke of men who appreciate certain hues of hair.” Jasper wrapped his body around her, pulling her against his chest with an arm around her slender waist. “Is it so hard to believe I might have my own preferences?”

“For freckles and buttocks?”

“You, Eliza. All of you.” He inhaled sharply when she leaned into him, and he became further inflamed by the smell of her. “My patience is thinner than I would wish,” he confessed hoarsely. “I must beg you in advance for greater license. You trust me with your life; will you trust me in this? Trust me to give you pleasure, even if I am rough or hurried?”

She looked at him over her shoulder. Her lower lip was caught between her teeth and her eyes were shadowed, but she nodded.

With no further preliminaries, he took his cock in his hand and arched his hips forward. Her breath hissed out when he tucked the thick head against her and slid upward, parting the slick folds of her sex and gliding across her clitoris. Up, then down. On the downstroke, the furled underside of his cockhead caught the swollen knot of nerves. On the upstroke, the swollen crest rubbed over it. He notched the tiny protrusion into the weeping hole at the tip of his cock and stroked himself from root to crown with his fist. A hot pulse of pre-ejaculate flowed over her sensitive flesh. She moaned, arching backward.

Jasper restrained her with a hand at her breast, fighting his turbulent need to pound into her and spew violently, expending his lust in a violent taking that would slake his craving. The sense of desperation was nigh intolerable. He couldn’t shake the apprehension that she might be removed from his grasp before he was ready. It was too soon. His need for her too sharp…

Eliza’s hand covered his.

Her nipple pebbled into his palm, tightening deliciously. He felt its sensitivity when he kneaded the whole of her breast. Her entire body trembled, and her hips pushed back. Her legs parted, one foot hooking behind his calf, giving her leverage to undulate against him.

She was finally unrestrained, and it was better than he’d imagined. She whispered his name. He pulled back, finding the clutching entrance to her body. There was a moment of hesitation; a brief second when reason reminded him that she was above him in station. Too good for him.

His jaw clenched. He pushed his cockhead deliberately into her tight, resisting flesh. She was scorching hot and drenched.

“Christ,” he hissed, seared by the silken heat of her. The delicate muscles inside her bore down on the exquisitely sensitive head of his cock. A violent shudder wracked his frame.

Eliza’s head thrashed against his chest. Her nails dug into the forearm he pinned her with. Her movements altered, writhing away instead of into him. She tried to close her legs, but he blocked her, moving his hand from her breast to her cunt in a lightning-quick lunge.

“Trust me,” he said gruffly, pushing deeper. “Breathe.”

Registering the tremendous strain in Jasper’s voice, Eliza tried to obey, gasping air into seized lungs. He slid deeper, despite the panicked clench of untried tissues. She understood the use of the oil now. It gave her body no traction to deny him, no means of resistance.

Her eyes closed on a shuddering exhale. Her mind filled with the vision of Jasper standing beside the bed fully naked, skin gleaming, abdominal and chest muscles rippling from the rough movement of his hands on his magnificent erection. She knew how to judge proportions. She’d known she could never accommodate him, but she wanted to. Needed to.

He withdrew a scant inch. She sucked air into her burning lungs, and his hips lunged forward, tunneling his rigid penis into her. She made a broken sound, unprepared for the feeling of being so utterly possessed.

“God.” He stilled, panting, his chest working like a great bellows against her back. His cheek nuzzled against her temple. “Am I hurting you?”

“No…Too full.” Stretched to the point of aching, but she was not pained.

“You can take me.” His fingers rubbed between her legs, starting a hot, sweet trickle of sensation in her core. “Let me in, Eliza. Don’t fight it.”

Eyes stinging, she gave a tentative, tiny swivel of her hips. He slid a fraction deeper.

“Yes,” he purred, nudging forward then withdrawing. “Like that.”

She forced her taut frame to relax, sagging back against his supportive chest and deliberately modifying her breathing. Slow deep breath in. Steady breath out. She concentrated on his touch, the way he expertly circled her clitoris with callused fingertips, urging pleasure outward across devastated nerve endings.

On her next inhale, he thrust, sinking into her until his thighs were pressed tight to hers. Her held fell forward on a low moan.

“Eliza.”

Dear God, he was so deep in her…

He pulled out with painstaking slowness, then filled her again. With every withdrawal and return, his movements became more fluid. Practiced. His expertise became apparent. He knew just how far to pull out, how leisurely to push in, how deep to penetrate to drive her mad for the feel of him inside her. Her enjoyment grew, until she sought the pleasure purposefully, writhing into his thrusts to feel the sweet fullness she craved.

A low rumble of approval vibrated against her back. “You like this.”

She gasped at a particularly masterful stroke. The intimidating size of his erection was now something she relished. He was so long and thick. The largeness of him ensured that he rubbed and stretched every sensitive spot, awakening a voracious hunger. She struggled against him, resisting the position he kept her in that prevented her from increasing his depth and pace.

“Tell me you like this,” he coaxed darkly, rolling his hips and fingers simultaneously, arousing her with consummate skill so she clenched greedily around him. “Say it.”

“Yes.” She whimpered in torment, aching every time he pulled out and left her empty. “But…”

“I can give it to you.” His tone was rough and deeply sexual. “Tell me what you want, Eliza, and you can have it.”

“More,” she begged, shameless in her yearning. “Give me more…”

Jasper’s hand cupped her swollen sex and pulled her back into a powerful lunge of his hips. Heat washed over her. His pace increased, the flat of his palm applying just enough pressure to stimulate her on the outside as well as within. Sweat coated her skin and his, making them slide along each other, releasing the fragrance of the oil and Jasper’s scent into the air. The room became hot and the counterpane damp, creating a lush humidity that intensified the experience. He whispered lewd praise, his words slurring with pleasure, his abdomen and thighs flexing powerfully as he drove into her. Tears filled her eyes, the tension so fine she felt as if she might break at any moment.

“Please,” she sobbed. “Please!”

“Right there,” he groaned, holding still at the deepest point and grinding against her, screwing into her another fractional bit. “Right there.”

She arched violently. The climax hit, her vision narrowing until it blackened completely. Her mouth opened in a silent cry of pleasure. Inside, she convulsed, tightening on him in the most intimate of embraces. Blood roared in her ears, drowning out all sound.

A thick wash of heat flooded the depths of her. Jasper cursed and jerked against her, shuddering in unison with every wrenching spurt.

Eliza felt her name on his lips as he emptied himself inside her, his mouth moving against her shoulder in a sweetly broken litany.

There was no place in Jasper’s life for Eliza Martin.

He lay on his side with his head propped in his hand, watching her as she napped. Strands of her beautiful hair clung to her damp forehead and cheeks. Her lips were parted, her chest lifting and falling in the measured tempo of slumber. She lay on her stomach, baring twin dimples in each curve of her extremely enticing buttocks.

Spread out as she was, naked and rosy-skinned and debauched, it was easy to imagine keeping her there in his bed. But it was only an illusion. His gaze lifted and swept around the nearly empty room. Aside from the bed and washstand, there was only a wardrobe and chair for furnishings. This evening with Eliza was the longest stretch of time he’d spent awake in his bedchamber since he took up residence in the house. In the normal course of his life, there would be laughter and loud voices filtering up from the lower floor. He would be adhering to a tight schedule, working as many hours as possible to keep income flowing. After all, there was nothing he wanted done that didn’t require coin to see to it.

Try as he might, Jasper couldn’t picture Eliza in any part of his home beyond this private space. The men who worked for him were coarse and sometimes ill-mannered. They would have no notion of what to do with a lady like Eliza. He had no dining table at which to feed her, no formal parlor in which she could entertain what few guests would deign to call on her here. His home was less than half the size of Melville’s and located in a part of town that, while acceptable, had never been fashionable.

Things would have to change drastically…

Eliza made a soft noise. He looked at her and found her rousing. She blinked, then rubbed at her eyes. He watched her vision focus on him. Awareness swept over her face along with a heated blush. She grew unnaturally still.

“Ah,” he murmured, smiling. “You look scandalized.”

“You look smug,” she accused, but with warmth in her eyes.

“Do I?” He stroked his hand down the curve of her back. How could he resist, when she looked at him as she was doing now? “If I do, so should you.”

He knew some of her feelings were inspired by the aftermath of orgasmic bliss and gratitude for it, but some of them were more deeply rooted. God knew he had never expected nor wanted anyone to love him, but he’d have a better chance of keeping Eliza if her attachment deepened.

She looked at her fingers, which toyed with a wrinkle in the counterpane. “I did nothing.”

Jasper tapped the end of her nose with his finger. “You’ll have to take my word for it. There are many ways to have sex, ranging from horribly disappointing to quite nicely done. What you and I just experienced is another sort of matter altogether. It takes two people with singular chemistry to achieve such a delectable end.”

Eliza remained strangely quiet.

“Sixpence for your thoughts,” he said, aware of tension eating into his contentment. “Is regret setting in?”

“No. No regrets,” she replied carefully, glancing at him. “The first day we met, you spoke of rare skills in sexual congress, and clearly you have them. What woman could regret ending up in your bed?”

“Your thoughts on the matter are the only ones that concern me.”

“I fail to see how that can be true. I didn’t even touch you. You were required to do all of the work-”