Bliss trembled and bit down on her lower lip to stifle a delighted cry as he found what he sought. She could see his grin in the darkness.

“You forget yourself, Mrs. McKenna,” he said.

Bliss’s legs moved apart as he thrust his fingers inside her. The sensation was new and delicious and it was all she could do not to blurt out a lot of silly words of surrender.

Gingerly, Jamie turned so that he could enjoy the breasts he’d bared, while subjecting Bliss to the sweetest torment she could have imagined.

“Oooooh,” she whispered in desperation as he intensified his efforts, driving his fingers deeper and, at the same time, using his thumb to caress her. “Jamie, Jamie—”

He circled one straining nipple with his tongue, made a sound that was half amusement and half misery far down in his throat, and drew from Bliss a comfort that the Scotch whisky waiting on the tabletop could not have given him.

Chapter 8

EVERY PART OF JAMIE’S BODY ACHED, AND NOW THE WANTING OF A woman had been added to the general malaise.

Beside him, Bliss slept soundly, well satisfied. Jamie allowed himself a moment or two of stark envy before letting out a long, ragged sigh. Even if he’d been able to forget the legal and moral requirements for an annulment, there was the little matter of the beating he’d taken. It would be a day or two, at least, before he’d be nimble enough for making love.

In the meanwhile, it was a sweet sort of torture to lie beside Bliss in a warm bed, well aware of the lush contours and silky feel of her flesh. Involuntarily, he recalled her wholehearted surrender to the small pleasures he’d offered her, and he swallowed a groan of need.

She stirred beside him, then lifted her head and asked, through a yawn, “Jamie?”

He closed his eyes for a moment, concentrating all his efforts on speaking normally. “Aye, Duchess.” The words sounded gravelly and harsh. “What’s wrong?”

Bliss yawned again. “I was going to ask you the same question.”

Jamie moistened his dry lips with his tongue. “Go back to sleep,” he said brusquely. “It’s nothing you can do anything about.”

Bliss immediately bristled; inadvertently, Jamie had stepped on her formidable pride. “I’m not so naive as you think, Jamie McKenna,” she told him stiffly. “You’re suffering from more than bruises and cuts.”

Jamie was annoyed. “Is that so? And exactly what malady would I be sufferin’ with, Duchess?”

Beneath the blanket and sheet, her hand touched his bare abdomen lightly, then progressed to the heart of matters. He gasped hoarsely and closed his eyes, and Bliss’s gentle amusement was all around him, like the scent of her and the feel of her skin against his.

“Oh God,” he whispered as she began a rhythmic stroking that must have come to her by instinct.

“Tell me how to please you, Jamie,” she pleaded quietly.