Free Jonathan and Amy by Grace Burrowes Page A

silence, found the opening to her body. She drew in a quick breath at the first nudge of his cock, so he waited until she’d relaxed again to push against her heat.
    From somewhere, he found the resolve to move slowly. To listen to her —violins, be damned—to her breathing, to the way her body lifted into his deliberate thrusts then subsided, to the feel of her fingers closing more tightly around his.
    He brushed his thumb across her palm. “Relax, my lady. I’m not going to sneeze, and this will take us more than a few moments.”
    As he set up a voluptuous rhythm in the sweet heat of her body, he prayed joining this way would in a figurative sense take them the rest of their lives.

Four
    At her first sight of Jonathan Dolan, Amy had liked that he was a brute of a man. Not only tall, but broad shouldered and braced with an ungenteel complement of muscle. He had calluses and scars, he raised his voice on occasion with his business connections, and did not suffer fools. Such a man would take up his responsibilities with competence and determination.
    He would dower his poor relations, and from the portraits and sketches on the walls of his office, he had a number of those. As her interview with her prospective employer had progressed, Amy had found him keenly intelligent, a conscientious parent, and unflinching when it came to discussion of difficult subjects—his daughter’s safety, money, Amy’s character. He’d even made her sign a dauntingly lengthy contract.
    In a manner many women would not have comprehended, Jonathan Dolan was a brave man.
    In the ensuing months, Amy’s estimation of him had risen further. He was not merely conscientious where Georgina was concerned, he was devoted to the child. He could not only discuss money, he could quietly share it with any numbers of charities, and was gruffly generous with Amy herself.
    Now she found he was also, beneath his finely tailored attire, gorgeous , a breathtaking specimen who made poor Robert, with his skinny chest and soft hands, look like the mere boy he’d been.
    And Jonathan Dolan knew things about generosity that had nothing to do with coin, and everything to do with patience. He brushed his thumb across her palm again.
    â€œI like when you do that.”
    â€œThis?” He repeated the gesture, a slow, sweet slide of flesh on flesh.
    She turned her head and kissed his forearm. “When you do that with your thumb, you say you want to touch me every way you can.”
    He spoke very near her ear, so close she could feel the shape of his breath against her neck. “I want to touch you in ways that haven’t been dreamed of yet—not by you, not by the naughty angels themselves. I want to put my mouth and hands to places on your body that will shock and delight you equally. I want to embolden you with my passion such that you shock and delight me with your own.”
    A hint of a brogue had slipped into his voice, giving it a musical quality that counterpointed the undulations of his hips.
    â€œJonathan, I want to cry.”
    He rested his forehead on hers and slowed his thrusts even more. “Hold on to me.”
    She wanted to tell him the tears would have been for that girl in the haymow, the one whose back was itchy, who’d watched the wooden pulley hanging from the roof beam creak in the breeze while a selfish boy had fumbled and sneezed over her.
    â€œHold onto me, Amy.” Jonathan’s voice had taken on a rasp as he repeated the words. She locked her ankles at the small of his back, clutched his hand in hers, and focused her awareness on the slow thrust and retreat of their joined bodies.
    A sense of vertigo stole over her, of gravity slipping its moorings. She closed her eyes and clung to him, begging with her hips for less deliberation and more passion.
    He hitched up, shifted the angle, and abruptly, passion was too much.
    Amy’s body went into a frenzy of pleasure, a