Free Jade Lee by Winning a Bride Page A

then, meeting his gaze with a steady regard. “This quiets the wildness inside? This is why men rut?”
    He nodded, but honor made him tell her the truth. “It works for a time.”
    “And then?”
    “And then…” He squeezed her breast and she shuddered. “And then the need rises again.”
    She nodded as if she understood. She didn’t because she was a virgin. But that didn’t stop him from shifting his fingers, trailing them along the low scoop of her bodice. Her dress was what she often wore on her nighttime wanderings. It was a dark color so she wouldn’t be seen, and it buttoned down the front so she could take it on and off by herself.
    He found those buttons most interesting now. He could undo them. He could have her dress at her feet in a moment. She would have a shift on underneath. She was, after all, a proper woman. But there would be no corset because the restriction of those tight bindings would be too much for her at night. Too much restraining her at a time when the wildness pushed her outside.
    But even as he thought these things, he wanted something different. He wanted to show her something more.
    “Have you ever had a man with his fingers inside you? Ever come apart in a man’s arms?”
    “What?” She blinked at him. She had no understanding of what he said.
    “You have a brother. Did you never come upon him by accident and see him stroking himself? Heard the noise he makes?”
    She swallowed, a blush staining her skin. “I…” She looked away. “Once.”
    “Did you wonder what he did?”
    She nodded. “I learned from my sister that men do that. That it is pleasurable.”
    He slid his hands from her breasts, slowly spanned her waist and then hips. Bit by bit he gathered her skirt and started pulling it up.
    “What are you doing?” she cried, and he heard a note of real alarm.
    “A woman can enjoy that too. Her bud is not a rod like a man’s, but it is equally pleasurable. And it can be done all alone in the privacy of your bedroom.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “Because no one has taught you. No one has shown you how to ease the wildness inside.”
    She pressed her hands to his forearms as if to restrain him. But there was little strength in her, and besides it was his fingers—not his wrists—that steadily lifted her skirt.
    “It is not proper.”
    “Does that matter?” he pressed. “If you can tame the scream inside you without wandering through the night, without falling into the creek, does it matter how it happens?”
    “A secret trick,” she said, with a high, tight giggle. “Like lifting mud off a dress.”
    He had no understanding of what she meant, but he didn’t argue. He was too busy finally touching the creamy expanse of her thighs. He stroked the outside of her legs, feeling the smooth silk of her skin. What he wouldn’t give to be in her right then. To forget the seduction of the woman and give in to his hunger.
    But he didn’t release his beast. He would not sacrifice his plans for the glorious pleasures of the moment. And yet the temptation was so strong!
    “Many women do it,” he said. “Even the married ones. But they have to be shown how.”
    “I will stay a virgin?”
    “Of course.”
    “No one need know?”
    “No one but you.”
    “And you.”
    He smiled. He liked that she would think of him every time she touched herself.
    “Say yes, Miss Josephine. Let me show you what so many others already know.”
    “Yes.” The word was so quiet, he wasn’t sure he’d heard it. But he’d seen the shape of her mouth as she agreed.
    He smiled. He had her. So he shifted his hand and began to seduce her in earnest.

Seven
    Josephine cried out as his fingers rose to cup her most intimate place. She pushed up on her toes against the tree, feeling both alarmed and awed by what he was doing. No hand had ever touched her there. Not like that.
    He stilled, letting her grow accustomed to his presence and in time she exhaled a long, quiet breath. What was