NSFW. This scene takes place immediately after Rochester confronts Jane about her lack of interaction with him and his guests in the drawing room.
“Goodnight, my—” he stopped, bit his lip, and abruptly left me.
My heart sank, and those threatening tears finally did fall, hard and fast. The thought of seeing Sophie or Adele in this state was impossible; no, I needed this private pain to remain private. How can he act this way after what happened? I wondered as I groped my way down the hall, blinded by my tears. We had been so intimate that night of the fire, and then he had all but bolted from Thornfield, leaving that very day for the Ingrams’ estate. And now to return, amidst rumors of marriage, only to parade that dark, curvy woman in front of me.
No, I told myself sternly as I opened the nearest door. This is not about you. How could it be about you? You know what they have always warned about men and sensuality—Mr. Rochester acted as any man would and now he must return his attention to marrying well for his family. As I closeted myself inside the room—the library as it turned out—I tried to tamp down the betrayal and anger from whence the tears sprang. It was unreasonable. I should not expect anything different.
I leaned against the back of the sofa in the dim firelight, my breathing slowing to normal and my emotions once again coming under my control. And then the door opened suddenly, revealing Mr. Rochester.
“Jane.”
I pressed myself further against the sofa, not trusting him or myself.
He closed the door softly behind him and approached me. His hair was wild, as if he’d run his fingers through it several times, and his expression was uncertain, pained.
“Jane,” he said again, softly now. We were only inches apart.
“You must attend to your guests, sir,” I said, looking away.
He reached for me, but I pulled away, maneuvering so that the sofa was now between us.
“Why do you insist on provoking me?” he asked. “First, I arrive and receive no warm greeting from you—in fact no greeting at all.”
“I was not sent for,” I replied.
“But I sent for you in the drawing room, did I not? And yet you still said nothing, no word at all. You would barely meet my eye, just as you are doing now.”
At that, I did look up and immediately regretted it. His eyes were darker than I remembered, almost black, and the desire in them was almost overwhelming. I felt my body respond to his gaze, recalling the caresses and kisses he had bestowed on it two weeks ago. I blushingly looked down again, and I was grateful that we had this piece of furniture between us.
He continued, his voice a map of frustration and something else—longing perhaps. “And now I reach for you, to take your hand, and you draw away, as if I’m not to be trusted. But haven’t I already proven that I am, Janet?”
Memories of him over me, his fingers stroking and his mouth kissing the most secret parts of me, flooded my mind. I could not erase the sight of him shirtless, breeches straining with his erection, his eyes raking over my body as he promised to leave me intact for my wedding night.
“You did, sir,” I answered faintly.
He stepped to the left slowly, like someone trying to coax a wild cat. “And was that not satisfactory for you?”
I meant to step to my left as well, to keep the distance between us the same, but found that my body didn’t want to move. “You are a man, Mr. Rochester. I know enough of men to know that it is not wise for us to engage any further than my employment requires. Especially with your guest in the house.”
“Ah,” he said, moving toward me once again. “But I have multiple guests at the moment. To which do you refer?”
“You know quite well I refer to Blanche Ingram,” I said.
“Are you jealous, Jane Eyre?” He seemed amused, and now we were on the same side of the sofa. He stepped closer.
I meant to say no. Of course I couldn’t be jealous of Blanche—it was tantamount to a starling envying a swan. But instead I said nothing, not trusting my lips to utter the correct word.
He came forward, and the top of his shoe brushed the hem of my gray dress as it slid underneath. I felt the sole of his shoe come to rest against my worn leather boot. He placed his hands against my shoulders and gently pushed me down so that I was seated on the sofa. He stood over me, still amused, although the lines around his mouth and eyes suggested some sort of internal struggle. He took my hand and pulled it up so that it was pressed against his chest. I could feel the rapid beating of his heart underneath his silk waistcoat. I tried to pull it back, but he held it fast, all while gazing at me.
“Come now, Jane. Don’t pretend that you aren’t jealous. Falseness doesn’t become you. You can be honest with me.”
I fought vainly to regain control of my hand. “There is nothing to be jealous of, sir. She is a lady of gentle birth and I am not.”
“You are using your station as a shield, not to ensure your humility as you think you are, but in order to protect yourself. From what? From human love? Are you truly a fairy or an elf, that you cannot allow yourself to bestow your affections on me?”
“Stop!” I said sharply. “You are teasing me and it’s not fair.”
“Is this a jest?” he asked huskily. He moved my hand from his chest to his pants, and underneath I felt the evidence of his desire straining against the fabric, very much real. I could feel so much through the material, the warmth and the hardness of it, and I surprised myself by giving it a light, experimental squeeze through the thin velvet. It swelled in my hand and he groaned.
“If this is you expressing your jealousy, Jane, I should like to have you express more of it,” he said.
I withdrew my hand, shocked at myself, shocked at Mr. Rochester, shocked that all of the moral and Christian education had led me to this: touching a man I wasn’t married to—my employer no less—in a shadowed library, and what’s more, I had let him touch me. It was as if he made me forget all the things I knew, all the good and righteous intentions I had to keep my distance.
As if reading my thoughts, he said, “Jane, there is nothing wrong here. Surely, this is the most right thing there can be, the two of us together.”
“You are not to be trusted, Mr. Rochester. You are a sinful man.” I meant it to be an accusation, a barrier between our desires, but my voice came out provoking, almost flirtatious.
His eyes sparkled. “As always, your honest words do more to stir me than a thousand hours of flattery.” He lifted my chin with his finger so that I was forced to look him full in the face. “Will you consent to lay your conscience aside for a stolen hour with me? If I once again promise to honor your virtue?”
I hesitated. “Virtue is more than passing a test on the advent of marriage. And it is something that belongs wholly to me.” I could not say that about many things, but my mind, my thoughts, my beliefs—they were truly mine.
Mr. Rochester knelt. He gently parted my legs, which I found my body powerless to stop, and he moved forward so that he was once again close to me. “You are so singular, my little elf. How many men have found such a one as you?” His words hypnotized me and I stayed frozen, warring between desire and conscience, as he nipped at my earlobe. He trailed light kisses over to my mouth, and then finally pressed his lips against mine. I didn’t move for a long moment, but finally, desire won, and I parted my lips, allowing our tongues to meet. His kisses were deep, intense, as if by kissing me, he wanted to lay claim to me, to all of my feelings and all of my needs.
One of his hands slid down to my chest, but access to my breasts was restricted by my corset. He swore.
“Sir—”
But then his hand slid up my dress, underneath the layers of petticoats, underneath my simple chemise, and he once again found that hidden part of me. I jumped as his fingers traced the outline of my folds, then ran teasingly down the center. There was nothing I could say, nothing I could do, because this felt too good and the look in his eyes was so warm, so hungry…
His thumb began tracing circles around the bundle of nerves at the top, and as my back arched, he reached behind me and started unhooking my dress. Soon it was undone, and he tugged impatiently at the gray silk, pulling it off my shoulders and urging me to stand, so he could finally cast it aside. He took in my slender frame appreciatively, tracing the upper lines of my breasts pushed up by the corset, no longer hidden by the dress. He untied my petticoats, and soon those were discarded as well, so that I was in only my corset and chemise, which came to the middle of my thighs.
“Much better,” he breathed, and I was bade to sit once more. He raised my chemise to my waist, parted my legs and knelt between them, shrugging off his dinner jacket as he did. He kissed his way up one of my thighs, making me shiver, and then he finally laid his mouth to me, licking and kissing and swirling. I gasped again and again, and the pleased hiss he made when my fingers laced through his hair sent another spike of lust through me, leaving no room in my mind for anything but this--this sensation, this sight of the man I wanted with his dark head between my thighs, the firelight flickering off the yellow silk of his waistcoat.
But before I could mount to the climax that my body craved, he stopped and stood. His face was so hungry, it was almost unrecognizable, but he looked all the handsomer for it—wild and rakish and so very, very sinful. His hips were now at my eye level, and I gazed at the telltale ridge in his pants, a sight that had occupied so many of my lonely nights these past two weeks.
“Pull it out, Jane,” he said.
It was an order. A plea. Either way, I would not have refused for the world.
I slowly unbuttoned the brass buttons on his pants, feeling his breathing hitch whenever my fingers grazed him. I took my time on purpose, somehow knowing that the squirming discomfort we felt was part of it somehow, that the end would be all the richer for protracting the means. Finally his pants were undone, and I carefully pulled them down, exposing all of him.
“Touch it,” he commanded, and I did, running my fingers down the underside, which judging from his reaction, was a very sensitive part. I stroked the length of him, circled the crown and watched as a drop of fluid glistened in the light as I did. I explored him, this part that I had never seen, satisfying my own curiosity and my own urge to make him feel as he made me feel. Knowing that his kisses made me wild, I leaned forward and licked at him, letting my tongue mimic the patterns he had used on me, swirls and licks and teasing little darts. His hands were laced behind his neck and he leaned his head back, soft groans the only noise filling the room other than the spitting of the fire.
Experimentally, I pressed my lips against the crown and opened them, letting him slide into my mouth. “Jane,” he said hoarsely. I moved my mouth up and down slowly, feeling him shudder and tense as I did. “Jane,” he said again. He pulled back, his cock proud and erect, harder than I’d ever seen it.
He put a hand behind my neck and one around my waist and made me lie down on the sofa. He climbed over me. “Do you trust me?”
I nodded. What I didn’t trust at this point was myself, but there was no power on earth that could move me from this sofa. He took himself in his hand and, still holding himself over my body, touched the swollen crown to my folds, which were now slick with want.
The touch was so intimate, so unexpected and yet so perfect, that I reached for his narrow hips, wanting him to go further, to sink inside of me and quench the need that had dogged me day and night since he had awoken my body. He resisted my pulling, rubbing himself up and down my folds, and both of our eyes were on the undeniably erotic sight of his cock rubbing against me.
“Please,” I heard myself whisper. “Just a little bit.”
His body was trembling with restraint, and he stopped, letting himself press against my entrance. I bucked forward, sending him inside a fraction, and he pulled back abruptly. With a growl, he lifted me up, and in a matter of seconds, I was seated on his lap, facing away from him, his arm wrapped around my corseted waist, while he assaulted my clitoris with deft fingers. I could feel his erection nestled against the bare skin of my backside.
“There’s a good girl now,” he murmured as he worked me. “Such a bad girl earlier, but so good now.” He dipped a single finger inside of me, and my head flew back as I began moving my hips instinctively against his hand.
The muscles tightened around my body, winding and winding and winding until all I wanted was to be unwound, and I wanted Mr. Rochester to be the one to do it. “Edward…”
“Call me that again,” he ordered.
“Edward…”
He bit my shoulder and his erection blazed against my skin as his fingers finally gave me release, and my body undid itself, my core pulsing and pulsing and finally unraveling. I leaned back against him and we sat there for a long minute, soaking in the rays of pleasure. But his shaft was still hard underneath me, and I felt determined not to leave him in discomfort as I had last time. I sat up and turned around, so that I was still on his lap but now facing him, his cock underneath my pussy, which was wetter than ever. I slid back and forth, so that my slick folds stroked that sensitive part of him. He ran his hands down the back of my corset to the bare skin of my legs and rear, and then around to the firm crests of my chest.
“I’m going to come,” he said breathlessly, and then as I pressed down harder, his fingers dug into my thighs and he cried out. His climax sent long, white ropes of semen onto his vest—a vest more expensive than my entire wardrobe combined—and the sight was so wantonly sexual that I found my body responding once again, wanting more.
A knock at the door sent us both scrambling. He gestured for me to lay down on the sofa out of view. “Enter,” he called, fastening the last button of his pants as the door opened.
“Where have you been, Edward? Are you ignoring us? Have you grown bored of me?”
I recognized that sultry, pout-filled voice. Blanche.
“That, my sweet, would be impossible.” He pulled on his evening coat and buttoned it as well, the coat covering the large stain on the front of his vest. And then, with the evidence of our tryst covered, he left, without a glance for me, still nearly naked and hidden on the sofa.
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