by Goodman, Jo
It was not her apology that stopped him, or even the incongruity of being addressed by his surname. It was the bleak, ruined whisper that was Jenny's voice, the reminder of earlier tortures she had suffered, that made an impact on Christian.
He sucked in his breath on a harsh sob and pushed Jenny away, rolling sideways at the same time. He lay face down on the tick and buried his face in the crook of his arm.
Jenny scrambled to a sitting position, covering her naked thighs and legs with her skirt. Her torn drawers lay on the floor by the bed. She looked away from them quickly, then sat very still as Christian sat up, threw his legs over the opposite side of the bed, and righted his own clothes.
"Why aren't you running, Jenny Holland?" he asked, keeping his back to her. His thumb and forefinger were pressed to his eyelids. "Why aren't you running as fast and as far as you can?"
"Am I still in danger?" she asked quietly.
Christian shifted, half turning toward her. He lowered his hand. His face was drawn, haggard. Irritation lingered in the taut line of his mouth and in the cool color of his eyes. "Don't you understand?" he asked, his narrow glance darting over her. "Don't you have any idea? As long as you are under this roof you will be in danger from me. I want you all the time. I wake up hard thinking about you under me, your legs wrapped around me, your breasts taut and swollen from my hands, my mouth. I ache from wanting you." He took a sharp, uneven breath. "Do not mistake this for some passionate declaration of love. I could more easily despise you than love you for what you've done here. What I want from you is strictly carnal pleasure. Don't try to make it pretty in your own mind. I assure you, it's not pretty in mine."
Lightning quick, Christian reached across the bed and slipped his hand around the side of Jenny's neck. He exerted just enough pressure to force her back down to the mattress. He changed his position so that his head was directly above hers. Only his hand touched her, and it seemed to her that she remained unmoving through the strength of his will alone.
"You see how it is, Jenny?" he asked. "I still want you. And it is not going to stop until I have you, and probably not even then. I will want you again and again... and again. You are a need for me." He paused, waiting for a response from her. When it didn't come, he gave her a small shake. "Say something. Tell me you will stop pushing your way into my life, into my thoughts. Promise you will stop following me with those wounded eyes of yours."
"I—I'm not certain th-that I can," she said. "I—I've never known anyone like you before."
"You've never known anyone before me," he said. His thumb touched her swollen lips. He remembered how soft they had been under his. She was so fragile, so very delicate. Christian knew he was going to destroy her before he let her open him up to more pain. "Be my mistress."
"What?"
His thumb continued to trace the sensitive line of her lower lip. "Become my mistress. You will make yourself available to me whenever I choose, for whatever I choose. I will give you jewels, gowns, furs... anything you want in exchange for the right to have you in my bed, open to me... your hands, your mouth, there for me... for me."
Jenny returned his stare unblinkingly. "I don't want any of those things you said," she whispered. She took a careful breath and released it slowly. "But there is something..."
Christian's smiled, satisfied. She had a price; she could be bought. "What is it?"
"My portrait," she said. "I want you to paint me. That's what you must do to have me as your mistress."
It was all he could do not to recoil. "No."
"Then, no."
"What?"
"Then my answer is no. I will leave in the morning." She sat up but did not remove herself from the bed. With deliberate and economic motions, Jenny began to unbutton the bodice of her gown. When it was loose enough, she pulled on the hem of her dress and eased it over her head. The strap of her chemise fell over her shoulder when she dropped her gown on the floor. She unlaced her corset and took it off. When she leaned forward to drop it over the side of the bed, heavy ribbons of hair fell over shoulder and brushed the neckline of her chemise. The room was cold, and when she looked down at herself, she saw her nipples were pressing their rigid outline against the thin fabric.
"I thought you said..." Christian did not finish. He watched her with growing confusion as the shadow of a smile changed the shape of her mouth.
"I did," she said steadily. "I meant it as well. I will not be your mistress, and I will be gone tomorrow, but you are not the only one who needs. Tonight we will exchange payment in kind."
Chapter 10
Christian decided it was possibly the most brazen proposal he had ever received. This was the woman he thought of as a fragile and delicate spirit? He stared at her.
Jenny unlaced her shoes and kicked them off. "Don't mistake this for a declaration of love," she said, rolling down her stockings. She buried her feet beneath the goose-down comforter. "All I want from you is... how did you phrase it? Oh, yes... carnal pleasure."
A muscle worked in Christian's lean jaw as his ugly words were impassively hurled back at him. She was watching him through the long, heavy fan of her lashes, her head tilted to one side. A sigh parted her lips, and her hand paused in the act of lowering her chemise strap. Her thumb made a light pass across her collarbone, drawing Christian's eyes.
"That's what you said, isn't it?" she asked softly. "Not to make it pretty? Well, I'm not."
Christian's eyes darkened, but remnants of his earlier anger lingered and turned in on himself. He could have told her that when he was with her, that when his body joined hers and the sensations of their coupling were shuddering through him, it was so exquisite, so beautiful that it made him afraid. He did not believe he had done anything in his life to deserve the kind of pleasure he had known with her. He said none of it, though. He could not expose more of himself to Jenny Holland. She already knew too much. She had seen his paintings.
"Christian?" She said his name with a whisper-soft huskiness. "Should I go how?"
He shook his head, reaching for her wrist. "But perhaps we should go to my room," he said on the same thread of sound. "It's too cold for you here."
"Warm me."
"Oh, God, Jenny Holland." Christian tugged on her wrist so that the gap between them was narrowed. "I will. I will." His palms stroked her arms from wrist to shoulder, suffusing her skin with heat, but it was his mouth on her lips and his tender, tasting caress that warmed her from the inside out.
The embers of desire were buried deep and faintly lit, but Christian found them, nurtured them, and brought out the fiery response that Jenny wanted to know again. He brushed her mouth lightly, teasing her with gentle kisses at the corners of her lips until she opened her mouth and asked for something more. The tip of his tongue made a damp outline of her lips, traced the ridged barrier of her teeth, and finally dipped into her mouth deeply and took up the sweet battle with hers.
He kissed her temples. The dark strands of her hair tickled his mouth. There was nothing more fragrant, more alluring than her soft, sable hair. Christian found it difficult not to tell her that. He rubbed his cheek against her instead and was awash in the silky cascade that was Jenny's hair. His teeth caught the lobe of her ear. He tugged and heard the tiny catch in her breathing. "Sweet Jenny," he whispered just before his tongue followed the whorl of her ear.
Christian's mouth touched Jenny's brows, her eyelids, the delicate line of her pared nose. He kissed the faint hollows just below her cheekbones, the tip of her chin, the exposed line of her throat as she arched it beneath him. Her pulse beat warmly against his mouth.
There were words exchanged, hurriedly whispered instructions that substituted for other words, other phrases neither of them dared to think, let alone say aloud.
"Help me with this," he said, fingering the neckline of her chemise.
"Later. Your shirt. Take it off."
When they were naked: "Put your hand there."
"There?" she asked.
"Yes," he said, sucking in his breath. "Yes."
The goose-down comforter covered them from head to toe. "This must be what a chrysalis is like," she said, pressing herself against the length of his body.
"Do you want to be a butterfly?" His fingertips slid up the soft skin of her inner thigh.
"Yes."
"Then spread your... wings, Jenny."
Christian's breath was hot against her neck. His mouth moved to her breasts. They were sensitive from the earlier manipulations of his hands. He took one coral-tipped peak in his lips and tugged. He could almost feel the cord of fire that snapped in a whip-like fashion from her breasts to the core of her pleasure. Her thighs opened to him and his fingers found her, exploring, stroking. She held him tightly, placing her mouth against his shoulder so that he could feel the murmurs of her desiring against his flesh.
Her hips bucked as he continued to caress her with his fingertips. Her heels dug into the tick. Christian could feel her nails in his back, her palms sliding along the length of his taut skin from shoulder to buttocks. Her knuckles brushed his thighs. She cradled him with the heat of her body. Her legs entwined with his so that he knew the long, lithe shape of them.
"Invite me inside," he said throatily, grinding his hips against her.
Jenny's hand traveled down his chest, flickered across the hard tips of his nipples, then followed the narrowing path of hair past his flat belly and lower still, until her hand curled around his throbbing erection. She guided him into her.
There was no holding back then. Christian drove himself deeply, feeling her contract all around him. "Did I hurt you?" he asked, levering himself up on elbows. He couldn't see her face in the darkness of their cocoon.
"No." She touched his cheek. "This is what I want. You. Inside me. Does wanting you like this make me a—"
Christian stopped her. Ducking his head, he had no trouble finding her mouth with his. "Shh," he whispered against her lips. "No talking. Just feel, Jenny. Just feel."
It was not a difficult order to obey. Christian began moving inside her, slow, deep thrusts that raised slender threads of tension in her arms and legs.
Jenny moved against him, sounding her pleasure in sharp little gasps that, had she but known it, excited Christian as much as her fingers curling into the hair at the nape of his neck. Their passion mounted as they made their payment in kind, bartering kisses, caresses, touches, and tastes until the sensations between them became too great to sustain.
There was a shared cry as tension melted, making their limbs liquid and lazy. They were awash in sensual pleasure; everything they felt in that moment was so clearly defined the very endings of their nerves seemed to sparkle with heat and light.
Christian was a long time moving away from her. She did not seem to mind that he stayed inside her or that he remained partially aroused. Jenny just held him, her long, slender arms a gentle chain around his waist. The back of his hand traced the curve of her hip.
"We should go downstairs," he said.
"No. Let's stay here."
"All right."
Silence settled between them, and Christian thought Jenny had fallen asleep until she said his name. "What is it?" he asked.
"Do you ever still think I am mad?"
"No."
"Never?"
"Never."
"Thank you for that," she said. Jenny rested her head on his shoulder. "If I were someone else... someone—I don't know—someone comfortably set... would you still have asked me to be your mistress?"
"Meaning, I suppose, that you think if you were the daughter of some wealthy society matron I could be induced to offer marriage. Well, nothing, not even an outraged father with a gold-plated shotgun, could make me offer—"
Jenny placed her index finger over his mouth. "You don't know what I was thinking," she said, amused. "Would you still have asked me to be your mistress?"
"Yes," he said. "Now what did that prove?"
"That I am not merely a convenience to you because I happen to live under your roof. That you would want me in the same way if I came to you on a silver platter."
Christian's brows pulled together in a thoughtful frown. "And that is all right with you? You wouldn't want to be anything but my mistress?"
Jenny laughed quietly. "Have you forgotten? I do not even want to be that."
"But—"
She shook her head, cutting him off as her hair rubbed against his shoulder. "That is not what tonight is about. It is about goodbye."
Christian did not believe her, but he didn't tell her that. The surest way to force her out the door was to inform her he believed she was bluffing. He had every intention of keeping her with him until he decided their odd, strangely satisfying, relationship was at an end.
"I want you again," he said, and was caught unaware by the edge of despair he heard in his voice. It mocked him, warning him that he might not know her as well as he thought. "Now."
"All right," she said.
Their lovemaking was like a punishment. It did not have the hard, brutal selfishness that Christian had tried to force on Jenny when he found her in the studio, but it had a certain wild fierceness to it that was more like the animal coupling he had professed to want.
Their touching was greedy, their caresses clumsy with need. The force with which he claimed Jenny left her breathless. His mouth was hard on hers. His teeth nipped at her throat, her shoulder, the tips of her breasts. He left tiny bruises where the hard, humid suck of his mouth caught her flesh. She left crescent brands on his skin with the tapered ends of her nails.
She wound her legs around him, and he was so deep inside her that she thought he must be touching her womb. Her willow-slender body was supple under the sinewy strength of his. "Christian," she said, "I can't... no more—"
"Yes, you can. Just a little more, a little higher... feel it, Jenny?"
She felt it. She felt him. The sensation and Christian were one and the same. She was enveloped by the shattering tension, and her body shuddered against him. Christian went rigid as her pleasure swept from her into him, and it seemed they were no longer individuals but shared a singular identity.
After their ragged breathing had calmed, they fell asleep in each other's arms. Christian woke several times during the night, and each time he reached for Jenny she was there. Still, in the morning she was gone.
* * *
Christian arrived on Scott Turner's doorstep just as Susan and Beth were sitting down to breakfast. He was carrying the stack of Herald dailies under his arm. He stamped his feet to brush off the snow as Susan opened the door to him.
"Christian!" She couldn't mask her surprise. "Come in, come in! Goodness, but it is cold out there this morning." Susan shut the door briskly as an eddy of snow and wind whirled through the entranceway. "Scott's not here," she told him. "He's already gone to the hospital. If it's something medical, then..."
Christian shook his head. "That's all right. There's no emergency. I can talk to him later. Mostly I came to see you. I need your help."
"My help?" Susan was astonished.
"You don't mind, do you?"
"Mind? No, of course I don't mind. I'll do whatever I can." Her smile was friendly as she held out her hand for Christian's coat, hat, and muffler. She watched him transfer the stack of papers from one hand to the other as he shrugged out of his coat. "Does it have something to do with those?" she asked, pointing to the papers. She hung up his garments in the entrance hall, looking at him expectantly.
"It does. Is there someplace I can put them?"
"Come into the dining room. Beth and I were just going to have breakfast. Would you like to join us?"
"A cup of coffee would be fine." He dropped the papers on one corner of the table as Beth slid off her chair to clutch at his legs. "Good morning, brat," he said, ruffling her strawberry-blond curls. "How is the kitten? Muffin, isn't it?"
Susan was not fooled by Christian's gentleness with Beth. She saw the strain about his mou
th and eyes, the forced smile and drawn skin, and realized that only something of extreme urgency could have brought him around this early in the morning. Sliding a cup of coffee in his direction, Susan broke into her daughter's excited conversation concerning the kitten. "Beth, why don't you eat breakfast in the kitchen with Mrs. Adams? I would not be surprised if she has a saucer of milk for Muffin."
That caught Beth's attention. She wiggled out from under Christian's hand with such alacrity that both adults laughed.
Susan shut the door to the dining room. "What's happened, Christian? Is it Mrs. Brandywine?"
"No," he said. "No, she's fine." He pulled back a chair and sat down, folding his hands around the steaming mug of coffee to warm them. "It's Jenny. She left me this morning."
"She's gone?" Susan's green eyes clouded, and she sank slowly into her seat. Jenny, he had said, not Miss Holland, and she had not merely left. She had left him. Interesting... and troubling. "But where could she possibly go? I was not aware that she had anyone."
"I think she might," he said slowly. "I'm not certain, but there might be someone who is waiting for her."
"Christian, maybe you had better start this story closer to the beginning." She saw him balk at the idea, his mouth flattening grimly. "All right then," she said, retreating a little, "begin with where you think she is. I know you probably imagine that Scott tells me everything, but he doesn't. I have never heard him hint that Jenny has family or friends."
"Because she has never said that she does. That's just it, Susan. Jenny's told us precious little about herself—next to nothing, in fact. What Scott and I think we know is mainly supposition, and even that is full of contradiction. Neither of us believes she is mad, but if she were held in that lunatic ward against her will, why has she never said so?"
Susan shrugged. "Perhaps she is afraid to talk about her experience. Why would she want to hold such an ugly memory up to the light? I should think you would be able to sympathize with her on that count." She held up her hands, palms out. "Forgive me. I should not have said that. No more pointed thrusts, I promise."