The Beloved Scoundrel

by Iris Johansen

  “I don’t care. It doesn’t matter.” She bit down on her lower lip. Why did he not move and stop the emptiness? She instinctively arched up against him.

  “Don’t!” He moved carefully into her. “Don’t move.”

  Stretched. Throbbing. Empty.

  She arched against him again. More. She had more, but it still wasn’t enough.

  His features were contorted above her as if he were in pain. “No,” he said between his teeth.

  She was suddenly furious with him. “You’ve said yes for over a week. Now isn’t the time to say no to me. It’s not fair.”

  He looked down at her with glazed eyes. “Heaven forbid I be accused of such a crime.” His hips moved back, and for a panic-filled moment she thought he was going to withdraw.

  He plunged forward to the hilt.

  Pain!

  She cried out, her head arching back on the rug.

  He stopped, his weight on her, filling her completely.

  He closed his eyes. “Shall I stop?”

  The pain was fading, and she was becoming accustomed to the bold clublike hardness within her. She should feel full, but spasms of sensation were shooting through her. She knew what came next. He had described it to her every night of their stay here, and she would not be robbed of it. “No.”

  “Good.” His laugh had a note of desperation as his lids flicked open. “I don’t know if I could have stopped anyway.” He drew out and then plunged deep. Again. And again. And again.

  Rhythm. Hunger. Fast. Slow.

  His hands beneath her buttocks, lifting her to every thrust. He was making low sounds deep in his throat, primal, animal sounds that made her own excitement more intense. Her head thrashed back and forth on the floor as the need became wilder, the tension tighter.

  It was growing, coming nearer. “Jordan,” she gasped. “Jordan …”

  He began rotating within her, his fingers seeking out the nub he had found before.

  “Up,” he said hoarsely. “Come up to me.”

  She was sobbing, her hips moving upward in rhythm to the motion of his thumb, helplessly obeying every command.

  “More!”

  Her spine arched off the floor. She cried out as he reached her womb.

  He held her there, suspended, pulsating. The sensation was indescribable. Her mouth opened to scream.

  He put her legs on his shoulders and kept her there. “Come to me,” he said through his teeth. “Now.”

  She moaned, unable to move, the spasms growing.

  “Let it come.”

  She mustn’t scream. Only animals screamed when they mated.

  She could not stand it. The tension climaxed, and she convulsed.

  She screamed as her her nails dug into his shoulders!

  Beyond anything.

  He had said it was beyond anything, and he spoke the truth.

  She was only vaguely aware of him changing position, easing her, moving, still stroking deep. Was there more? She wondered hazily.

  Then he went still and an instant later gave a low cry. He fell forward, his arms around her, holding her. He felt weak, in need, in her embrace. Jordan was never weak, never in need, and yet, in this moment, he needed her.

  Her arms tightened fiercely about him.

  Beyond anything.

  May we go upstairs now?” Jordan asked as soon as his breathing steadied. He lifted his head. “You probably have bruises. This floor is damnably hard.”

  She stared up at him dazedly. He was still within her; she felt as if he had been there forever, a part of her. “I … don’t think so.” Perhaps she was bruised, but it didn’t matter. It was a small price to pay for what had gone before. “It felt …” She did not go on. There were no words.

  “I’m glad your first time was not a disappointment.” His lips gently brushed her forehead before he moved off her and adjusted his breeches. “But now it’s time to go to bed.” He stood up and pulled her to her feet. “Ready?”

  Her knees felt weak, and she swayed. He caught her and lifted her in his arms.

  Her glance fell on the chair, and, incredibly, she felt a faint stirring.

  “Oh no.” He instantly shook his head. “I’m beginning to regret telling you about that particular vision. We have to go slowly.” He left the workroom and climbed the stairs two at a time. “Everything in its time.”

  She became suddenly aware of her nakedness against his fully clothed form. It gave her an uneasy feeling of vulnerability that caused a little of the dreamlike sensuality to disperse. “Where are you taking me?”

  He shifted her in his arms and opened a door. “Your chamber, my lady. I thought you’d prefer it to mine.” He laid her on the bed and turned away. Only embers remained in the fireplace, and Jordan was moving about the room in darkness. “It’s easier to accept new experiences if you’re surrounded by the familiar.”

  Clever, she thought drowsily, Jordan was always very clever. “I believe you’re a trifle late. I’ve already accepted the new experience.”

  “Not entirely.” He was suddenly on the bed beside her, drawing her into his arms.

  Solid, warm flesh. Naked flesh.

  She instantly flinched away from him.

  “Gently.” His hand gently stroked her hair. “You’ll grow used to me in your bed. It’s only the next step.”

  “You have your own chamber,” she said stiltedly. “You need not be here with me. Dorothy says, even in marriage, gentlemen usually only pay their wives visits in order to indulge their lust or beget children.”

  “I admit it’s not my custom either, but I find I want this. Indulge me.”

  “I don’t wish to indulge you. It makes me feel … uncomfortable.”

  “Did your father only pay visits to your mother’s bed?”

  “No, but then our cottage was very small.”

  “Would he have occupied a separate room if he’d had a residence as large as Cambaron?”

  “No.” She was silent a moment. “But that was different. There was not only lust between them, there was true feeling.”

  He kissed her temple. “And is there no feeling between us?”

  “Not love,” she whispered. “You do not love me, and I do not love you. There is something … but it’s not what they had.”

  “Perhaps it’s something far more interesting. I’ve noticed that given time, what people call love usually degenerates to mawkish sentiment.” His arms tightened possessively around her. “At any rate I intend to stay here with you. Become accustomed to the idea.”

  He would not be dissuaded, and she was too weary to argue with him at the moment. He had said it was not his custom; perhaps it was only a whim, and he would grow bored after tonight. She tried to relax her stiff muscles.

  The room was silent, the darkness comforting. She was beginning to grow drowsy again when he asked in a low voice, “Was I brutal to you?”

  “What?”

  “I … wanted to be gentle,” he said haltingly. “I was afraid I’d remind you of what happened to your mother.”

  He meant that horrible night and the beasts who had raped and tortured Mama. Strange, she had not even connected the two acts. Her need had been so great, if there had been violence, it was she who had provoked it. “You weren’t like them.”

  “Did you see it?”

  “No, when the soldiers came, she made me take Alex out the back door and run to the forest. She said it was my duty to take care of him, and I mustn’t come back until after the soldiers left.” She swallowed to ease the tightness in her throat. Why was she telling him this? She didn’t want to remember that night. Yet the words kept coming, tumbling out into the darkness. “I didn’t see them, but I heard them. I stayed close because I wanted to find a way, any way, to help her. I couldn’t leave Alex. She made me promise. I had to listen … I couldn’t leave Alex.”

  “Christ.”

  He drew her closer, and her tears rained down on the warm flesh of his shoulder. “I kept my promise
and didn’t come back until they left. They had hurt her … terribly. They thought she was dead, but she wasn’t. She didn’t die until the next morning.” She closed her eyes. “I couldn’t stay. I had promised her— I went to the priest and left a note on his doorstep to tell him what they’d done to Mama. I don’t even know where she’s buried. I asked them to bury her next to Papa. Do you suppose they did?”

  “I’m sure they did.”

  “I don’t guess it matters. She wasn’t there anyway. I stayed there and held her hand, but she wasn’t there anymore. She had gone somewhere else.”

  “She was very brave.”

  “Yes.” She was silent a moment. “I’ve never spoken about that night. It … hurts to even think of it. I don’t know why I—”

  “Perhaps because it was time to make peace with it.”

  “Peace?”

  “Guilt. You had to choose between Alex and your mother and the promise you had given her. You loved her, you wanted to help her, and you stood by and let her die.” He said roughly, “It was a choice no one should have been forced to make, dammit. No one should carry a burden like that.”

  She had never allowed herself to consider that it was guilt that kept that painful memory from healing. Yet now she could not see how she had ever been able to ignore it. “There should have been something I could do.”

  “Against a troop of soldiers? You would have died, Alex would have died, and your mother would still have died. You did the only thing possible.”

  “She shouldn’t have died. There should have been something I could do.”

  “Hush.” His hand pressed her face into the hollow of his shoulder. “It’s done, and you have no blame. Believe me.”

  She drew a shaky breath. “Why should I believe you? Are you a priest to grant me absolution?”

  “A priest? Good God, you should know better than that after the last week.” He suddenly chuckled. “But after years of having Gregor try to pound the iniquities out of me and a conscience into me, I’ve become something of an expert on guilt.” His lips brushed her nose. “And you don’t have a particle.”

  She didn’t quite believe him but was aware of a slight easing of the pain from the wound that had never closed. Perhaps there was some truth in what Jordan said. She had already acknowledged his cleverness, and no one could deny his experience in the infinite facets of wickedness.

  “Now please have the goodness to go to sleep, and I shall do the same.” He kissed her temple. “You’ve completely exhausted me both physically and mentally. I never imagined I’d be called upon to do anything tonight but service you as a good stallion should. You never cease to surprise me, Marianna.”

  And he never ceased to surprise her, she thought as she closed her eyes. Seducer, scoundrel, a man who had relentlessly undermined her will and taken her body, and yet, when she least expected it, he gave her gifts.…

  She was sleeping deeply, like an exhausted child.

  What the devil was he doing in her bed? Jordan wondered. His decision to stay in her bed had been an impulse, and he was not given to impulses. Except in the act itself he preferred to maintain a certain distance. Yet he had cared enough to argue with her to remain here.

  Jordan shifted away from her, staring into the darkness.

  After three years the battle was over, and he had won. Not that there had been any doubt of the outcome. He had deliberately set out on a course of seduction, and he was too skilled not to succeed with an innocent like Marianna. She had been fighting herself as well as him, and it had only been a matter of time before she capitulated.

  He had won. Why did he feel so little satisfaction?

  Lust? He had wanted her again almost immediately after he had left her, but it was was not only lust.

  He moved to the edge of the bed, sat up, and swung his legs to the floor. He would ignore this reluctance to leave her and go to his own room. By tomorrow he would have regained his objectivity and realize this unrest was only a temporary madness. Now that his body had been sated, his mind would be clear and he could concentrate on trying to persuade her to give him the Jedalar.

  He was crossing the room toward the door when he noticed the dying embers in the fireplace. It would do no harm to lay wood on the fire so that she would not wake to a cold room. He knelt, built up the fire, and stoked the blaze until it flared brightly.

  Always before, after he had succeeded with a woman, he had felt a sense of triumph and then almost immediately the stirrings of boredom and discontent. None of those emotions were present now, and he was uneasy about identifying what he was feeling.

  He glanced over his shoulder at the woman in the bed.

  No, not just a woman. Marianna.

  He slowly stood up and moved to look down at her. Her golden hair was a silky cloud on the pillow, and her mouth was soft and vulnerable. God, he did not want this. All he had wanted was release from passion. He wanted to regard her as a woman to take or discard. He had never thought he would be caught in the trap he feared most.

  Possession.

  CHAPTER 10

  She woke to see him standing naked at the window, staring out at the dawn sky.

  Shock rippled through her, jarring her to wakefulness. She had studied the paintings of great artists, but she had never seen a nude man before. She found him far more pleasing than even the men created by Michelangelo. To her eyes they had seemed pale and overly brawny, while Jordan was tanned, sinewy, full of power and elegance. Tight buttocks flowed into lean, strong legs, and his shoulders were corded, not bulging, with sleek muscle.

  She must have made some sound, because he turned and looked at her. “Good morning.”

  He was perfectly at ease in his nakedness. She wished she could be as composed. “Good morning,” she whispered.

  He stared at her without expression, and she had the uneasy feeling he was angry with her. That impression lasted only an instant before he smiled, once more drawing charm about him like a glittering cloak. “You’re looking at me as if I were about to devour you. Do I appear so formidable?”

  “No.” She found herself telling him the truth. “Actually I was thinking you were quite splendid. Much more comely than that statue of David by Michelangelo.”

  “I thank you.” He bowed, somehow making the gesture graceful even in his nudity. “I don’t believe anyone has ever likened me to a biblical statue before. I seem to provoke more earthy comparisons.” He started toward the bed. “How do you feel? Are you sore?”

  “No.” She was aware of a little soreness between her thighs, but she would not confess it to him. He had already discovered too many of her weaknesses. She had not thought surrender would bring this overwhelming intimacy. Why did she not admit it—she had not thought at all. She had flowed to him as helplessly as a leaf caught in a current, caring only for the ease he could give her. She sat up in bed, drawing the covers to her throat. “I’m quite well.”

  “Good.” He sat down on the bed beside her. “Then we can proceed.”

  Alarm shot through her. “I didn’t say that I wanted to— I’m not sure— This is not a good thing.”

  “It’s a very good thing. I thought you’d be having second thoughts this morning. Dorothy has done her work too well.”

  He slowly pulled the cover down to her waist, his gaze fixed on her naked breasts. “It’s always a good idea to get right back on a horse after the first lesson. Otherwise you have a tendency to lose the rhythm of the pace.”

  That brought to mind the erotic tale he had spun of the stallion and the mare, and she could feel the muscles of her stomach clench with excitement.

  He noticed the response, and he looked up at her face. He said thickly, “I need you. I’ve been standing at that window for hours waiting for you to wake. Will you take me, Marianna?”

  The same hot, helpless tide she had experienced last night swept over her. Why did it go on? She had hoped that once she had given in to lust, it would be over. Yet she wanted him as much in thi
s moment as she had last night.

  He bent down, his mouth hovering over her breast. “I promise I’ll reward you, if you do.”

  She gasped as his warm tongue stroked her nipple. “I told you I don’t want rewards.”

  He widened her legs and entered slowly, his very deliberateness tantalizing. “You want this one. First, we’ll make sure you weren’t lying to me about your soreness.” He began to stroke, thrust, gently and then a little harder. “And later we’ll go on to the second lesson … and the reward.”

  She closed around him, tightening, as the spasms of need began. She began to pant, her fingers clutching the counterpane of the bed. “What are—” She broke off and arched upward as his fingers found her. She forgot what she had started to ask.

  But Jordan had not forgotten. His hands reached under, gently pinching, kneading her buttocks. He bent closer until his lips were in her hair and began to whisper in her ear.

  You’ve worked long enough. I’m beginning to feel grievously neglected.” Jordan leaned back in the chair. “I’m sure you need some fresh air. Let’s go for a walk.”

  He just wanted to get her away from the workroom, she thought in exasperation. “I’ve worked only a few hours in the past four days. I’m going to finish this panel.”

  “What a stubborn woman you are.” He shifted restlessly. “It’s not as if you’re going to use the blasted panel. Gregor says you have a pile of discarded ones in the storeroom in the stable.”

  She looked down at the tulip she was cutting. “One never knows. Beauty is never a waste of time.”

  “That’s true.” He chuckled. “But I prefer active beauty to passive.” He paused. “And I particularly prefer you active.” His tone deepened, became honey-sweet. “Come here.”

  “No.” She ignored the familiar heat that moved through her. “I want to finish this panel before we go to see Alex tomorrow.”

  He went still. “Alex?”

  She turned to look at him. “You promised me.”

  “For God’s sake,” he said harshly. “You know he’s come to no harm, and you can’t pretend that’s why you’re in my bed.”