She waited for Jonas to mock her boldness, but the mattress dipped as he shifted. Sidonie kneeled above him to stroke his rod through the opening of his breeches. She tightened and released her grip in a primeval rhythm.
“Damn it.” He sounded in pain.
“Should I stop?”
“Good God, no.” He demonstrated his sincerity by raising his hips. “How the hell do you know to do that?”
“I want to please you.” Changing the pressure, she drew upward to the tip. Her thumb smeared a drop of moisture across the head.
“Holy merciful God.” He slid away, breaking her hold.
An incoherent complaint escaped her. “What are you doing?”
“Undressing,” he muttered.
Quivering with impatience, she waited. “Can I take off the blindfold?”
“No.” He leaned over her, pressing her onto her back.
When he scraped his teeth over her nipple, she jumped at the sharp pleasure. She wriggled and bent her knees to frame his hips. When she reached down to continue her intriguing experiments, he grabbed her hand. “No, Sidonie.”
Chagrin flooded her. “You said you liked it.”
His laugh was rueful. “If you touch me, I’ll explode.”
“I’ve never—” She drew a shaky breath. “A man’s body is a mystery.”
“My apologies for curtailing your investigation.”
Odd how humor stoked desire. Last night, giving herself had been such a desperate matter. Now laughter lent spice to passion. “I’ll further my inquiries later.”
He gave an exaggerated groan. “If I survive that long.”
She loved his laughter. She loved that he faced the world with a reckless smile on his scarred face. Her heart crashed against her chest. A revelation descended. A revelation unrelated to the desire heating her blood.
She didn’t just want Jonas Merrick. She didn’t just find him fascinating. She liked the reprobate. She liked him more than she’d liked anyone. When she left, longing for the lover would burn like acid. But the true tragedy was she’d miss Jonas himself. Nothing would fill the gap he left in her life.
He ran his hand down her body to her mound. She felt another of those surges of wet heat then forgot self-consciousness when he kissed her with ravenous hunger. Still kissing her, he stroked along the sleek folds. He found a particularly sensitive place and circled his finger until she whimpered and dug her fingers into his shoulders. He slid one long finger into her and worked it in and out. A powerful pulse beat in her belly and her breath emerged in broken sobs. He pushed her higher, but every time she came close to breaking through into that bright world, he’d stop, only to build response again.
“You devil.” She shifted restlessly. Lights flickered behind her eyes. His fingers curled against a spot inside her that vibrated with delight. She felt herself beginning to fall, to melt, to yield. He pulled away again.
“Stop tormenting me.” She was a tortured mass of nerve endings. Pleasure hovered out of reach, more agony than delight.
“Not yet.”
Another of those fiendish strokes. Another flash of response that pushed her to the edge but didn’t tumble her over into relief. Every muscle was on fire and only Jonas had access to lakes of cool water to ease her fever.
“You leave me no pride.” She stretched up in an instinctive attempt to snatch her bliss.
“I want your hunger.” For the first time, through the thunder in her head, she heard the strain in his voice. This long seduction wore him down, too. He wasn’t far from losing control.
“I hunger,” she admitted, hardly aware what she said.
“Not enough.”
“Will you tease me until I cede everything?” she grated, flattening her heels on the bed to change the angle of those satanically tormenting caresses.
“Hell, yes.” He bent to her nipple.
The rough friction of his tongue made her jerk against his stroking hand. She raised her hand to his head. This time when he thrust his fingers into her then retreated, she tugged sharply at his hair, eliciting a grunt of discomfort.
“You’re a beast.”
“Do you want me, Sidonie?” Demand throbbed in his voice.
He kissed her breast with such tenderness that it blasted a chasm in her heart. A chasm she suspected might never knit. He was a devil indeed.
And she was damned alongside him.
He kissed her other nipple with the same breathtaking tenderness. The hand in his hair relaxed into caress. Her pride seemed a paltry thing compared to this need. The desire. The admiration. The… affinity which she refused to dignify with a more potent name.
“Curse you, Jonas, of course I want you,” she admitted on a rush.
Finally he touched her where she needed him and release crashed down over her in a headlong torrent of rapture.
Chapter Eighteen
Jonas gave Sidonie no chance to recover from her climax. He inched inside her, feeling tantalizing resistance. Her hands clenched against his shoulders and she bowed up on a moan to take him deeper.
“Are you all right?” he asked roughly, holding still so she grew accustomed to his size. He’d hurt her last night. He couldn’t bear to hurt her again. The delay before she replied extended for a millennium. He prepared to withdraw, although stopping would break him. Then miraculously her body flowered around his and she inhaled on a shaky breath.
“Sidonie?” he prompted, although he felt how perfectly they fit.
“I’m fine.” Her choked laughter vibrated through him and almost made him spill himself. “More than fine.”
Thank God.
He buried his face in her shoulder, his senses replete with Sidonie. Her musky scent, her choppy gasps for air, the softness of her skin, the burnished flow of her hair. He shut his eyes and basked in the knowledge that in this instant she was unequivocally his. Their communication was silent and complete. They existed in a radiant world separate from harsh reality.
If only this connection could last forever.
Her hands relaxed against his shoulders. He relished the play of muscles around his cock as she caressed him from the inside. He’d never felt so cherished. He tightened his buttocks and pressed farther. She made a sound low in her throat.
“You’re… smiling,” she said breathily, stroking his arms down to his hands.
“How do you know?” He linked his fingers with hers, leaning his weight on his elbows. The union, body to body, hand to hand, mind to mind, was unearthly. She touched every atom of his being.
“I can feel it against my skin,” she said huskily. “It’s… nice.”
“What about this?” he asked gruffly, lifting his hips.
Again she met him. She gave another of those intriguing murmurs of pleasure. A man could become addicted to those murmurs the way an opium eater turned slave to his drug.
Very slowly he withdrew, relishing the way she released him inch by inch. She exhaled on a shivery sigh then sighed again when he thrust. Immediately there was that ineffable heat. How would he live without this? He’d been cold all his life. She made him feel alive.
Her hands curled around his and she arched. A vermillion wave of need overwhelmed him and he began to pound into her, going deep and hard. But even in his extremity, he still felt the link between their straining bodies, between their clinging hands.
She rushed toward her peak. He braced above her and accelerated the cadence. The searing friction drove him to the brink. He thought his jaw must crack with his efforts to rein himself in.
At last, at last, she released a hoarse cry and her hands clenched on his. Passion blazed through him like wildfire. He shuddered over her, pouring his life into her. When at last he slumped exhausted in her arms, he knew he’d never be the same again. Sidonie had carved her name on his soul.
Sidonie woke to darkness. Not the darkness of night, but of the blindfold. Jonas’s hands were running in long caresses down her naked body from breasts to hips.
/> Automatically she shifted to remove the cloth around her eyes, but he caught her hand. “No.”
“Jonas, I want to see you.” He’d made love to her three times last night and each time, she’d been blindfolded.
He kissed the hand he held. “It’s better this way.”
She fought the weakling urge to let him have his way as long as he kept touching her. “Better for me or for you?”
“For both of us.”
“Liar.” She wrenched away and this time managed to rip the blindfold off. As she’d thought, it was morning. Jonas had opened the curtains and sunlight poured into the room, turning the mirrors into dazzling reflections. Jonas lay beside her, his head propped on one bent arm, the blankets drawn up to his waist.
He turned away from her regard. “Don’t.”
“I know what you look like,” she said steadily, tugging the sheet over her breasts. Something about the brightness, the mirrors, and the blindfold made her self-conscious as she hadn’t been self-conscious during the tumultuous night.
His voice turned harsh in such contrast to the husky praise he’d heaped upon her last night. “And so do I.”
She frowned. “Do you think I’m going to start screaming because I’ve realized my lover is scarred?”
“I’d rather not remind you that you’re in bed with a monster.”
“I’m not in bed with a monster. I’m in bed with Jonas Merrick, the most breathtakingly exciting man I’ve ever known.” She drew a deep breath and prayed for patience. “Don’t you trust my desire, Jonas? After last night?”
“Don’t you trust me if you can’t see me?”
“Don’t you trust me if you can see me?”
The blindfold wasn’t just about trust, although she recognized that was a large part of it. It was also about the emotional distance that, in spite of the blazing physical satisfaction they’d shared, he still struggled to maintain. When she’d seduced him in the dressing room, he hadn’t had a chance to raise any barriers. For all the heady bliss she’d experienced last night, she’d known that he’d fought to establish a breath of space between them. An infinitesimal gap between the breathtaking lover who transported her to ecstasy and the real man. Even as his body pounded into hers, a hidden corner of his soul remained separate.
Was she greedy to want that hidden corner to become hers, too?
“Your scars don’t matter.”
Temper flared in his eyes, turned them molten silver. “Of course they fucking matter.”
“Oh, my dear…” she whispered. He was so hurt. She couldn’t bear it. “Forget what you look like. The total of what you are is so much greater than what you see reflected in all these mirrors.”
His voice was toneless and the stare he turned on her was stony. “The women I’ve bedded find my scars offer a piquant thrill. A titillating glimpse of gothic horrors.”
“You underestimate yourself.” She knew even as she spoke that his self-hatred was so deeply seated, he wouldn’t heed her. How she loathed those unknown women who had convinced him he was less than other men.
“When I was younger and not quite so arrogant, I may even have noted an element of compassion in a lover. Gruesome adventure for a bored widow or charity case? I find either option distasteful. The blindfold ensures equality. The mirrors remind me that only blindness can perpetuate that equality.”
Yet again, her heart broke for him. The world had bruised his noble spirit, until he started to beat his enemies at their own game. Knowing him as she did, she could imagine he delighted in turning women who had scorned him into slaves to pleasure. Was that what he felt when he took her? She couldn’t bear to countenance the idea. “You know I want you.”
“That’s no mystery. You’re an innocent who’s discovered bed sport. A man with my disadvantages quickly learns how to give a woman pleasure.”
His cruel response made her stomach churn with sick anger. Even after the night they’d just passed, he couldn’t bring himself to trust her. Every day she spent with him gave him greater capacity to hurt her. She’d always sworn she’d never put herself at a man’s mercy. It seemed by giving herself to Jonas, she’d opened herself up to a world of pain. She’d been right to be wary. But it was too late to protect herself. “Don’t insult both of us.”
He sighed and raised himself against the headboard. “Bella, let’s not fight. Having you in my arms is such a joy. Don’t spoil it.”
“You don’t need to blindfold me to find joy, Jonas,” she snapped, wanting to hammer the truth into his stubborn head.
His eyes were bleak as they settled upon her. “Let me play my games, Sidonie. They harm nobody.”
Frustration coiled in her belly. He wouldn’t admit that she was different from those other women who had scarred his soul as deeply as some assailant had scarred his face. “We made love without the blindfold the first time.”
A grim smile flitted across his lips. “You assaulted me before I made my usual preparations.”
“You didn’t offer much resistance.”
“I thought you’d left me forever. I wasn’t myself.”
Ah, at last. An admission of need, even if he didn’t recognize it as such. It gave Sidonie hope that perhaps before the week was done, he’d surrender his whole self to her. “And you’re yourself when you blindfold me?”
“Precisely.” He picked up the blindfold and extended it. He’d retreated from harrowing honesty. She could see his defenses go up against her as clearly as if he erected a physical wall between them. “It’s my eccentricity, but I hate the idea of anyone watching me when I’m with a woman.”
“You hate the idea of losing control,” she said shortly.
The smile built. “That, too.” He paused. “Are you complaining?”
She sighed. Curse her soft heart. He needed her and if the only gift he’d accept was sexual pleasure, she’d live with that. For now.
“No.” She reached out and snatched the blindfold. “I’ll give you your way.”
“I’ll make sure you don’t regret it.” He waited for her to cover her eyes, then lunged forward to kiss her with a passion that incinerated lingering doubts.
The next two days whirled by in a daze of sensuality. Sidonie existed on a plane that retained no link to her life before Jonas Merrick took her to his bed. She should be ashamed of the wanton she’d become. Instead for the first time she felt utterly true to herself. But for all the joy she found in Jonas’s arms, she was poignantly aware that each hour together was measured.
Inevitably, remorselessly, their last afternoon arrived. Neither mentioned the fact, but mutual awareness of approaching separation weighted the air like a miasma. Sidonie watched Jonas now across the library, memorizing every detail, because soon memories of him would be all she had.
Can I bear to leave tomorrow?
An hour ago they’d ventured downstairs. The bedroom had become a private universe that neither was eager to escape. But Jonas had mentioned something in a book, the route of a yacht trip he’d taken with his father down the Greek coast. He lounged on the window seat, a large atlas open on his lap.
Since she’d become Jonas’s lover, golden hours of physical pleasure had spun into eternity. The prospect of relinquishing this rich, vibrant connection so soon after discovering it made Sidonie want to weep. Although she hadn’t cried. Not once. She’d have ample time to cry once she left.
“What is it?” Jonas turned a page of the atlas before looking up.
“I’m wondering what’s for dinner.” She perched on the desk, flaunting herself. She wore the red dress and her hair tumbled in disarray down her back.
A smile lit his eyes. “Is that so?”
She cast him a look under her lashes that she’d learned drove him wild. “All right, should I tell you what I’m really thinking?”
“If you must.” Light through the tall windows gleamed on his overlong black hair. He wore breeches and a loose shirt open at the neck. How could she resist touching him? A
lthough delay built potent suspense.
“I must.” She smiled and swung her bare feet in a consciously provocative action. “I was thinking if I’d known what fun debauchery was, I’d have chased the gardeners years ago.”
Jonas slammed the book shut, surged to his feet, and covered the distance between them in three strides. “Stay away from the gardeners, madam.”
“They wouldn’t mind.” Goodness, when had she become this flirtatious trollop? She shouldn’t enjoy his blatant jealousy quite so much.
“I’m sure they wouldn’t.” He placed his hands flat on either side of her, hemming her in. He didn’t touch her but his big, powerful body was near enough for her to feel his heat. “But they’re off limits. As are footmen and postboys and cowherds—and butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers.”
She drew Jonas’s scent deep into her lungs. Even trembling with desire, she fought to maintain her light tone. She liked teasing him. Over the last few days, she’d discovered teasing him had one certain outcome.
She liked that outcome even better than teasing.
Slowly she tilted back on her hands until her bosom tested the gown’s décolletage. On first wearing, she’d considered this dress indecent. After two days mostly naked, wearing clothes at all felt like a major concession to decorum. “How appallingly dull.”
“Exactly.” His gaze dropped to her cleavage, shamelessly displayed, and his nostrils flared. She’d always considered herself ridiculously over-endowed, but she’d quickly discovered Jonas liked her generous breasts.
“And unfair.”
“It seems perfectly fair to me.” He leaned in until only an inch separated them. The yen to bridge the gap pulsed pleasurably in her blood. “You’re too dangerous a weapon to fall into careless hands. You should be locked away where you’ll do no harm. With me.”
“How would we pass the time?” She adopted an air of boredom. Her heart pounded so hard, surely he must hear it. She arched her neck so her hair cascaded across the blotter behind her.
“Let me demonstrate.” His laugh trickled down her backbone like perfumed oil. “Brace yourself.”
Seven Nights in a Rogue's Bed Page 18