Jo Goodman

by My Reckless Heart

  "Go to hell," she said tightly.

  There was no humor in his curt laugh. "No, that isn't it, though it probably should be." This time when Jonna tried to loose herself she was twisted in Decker's arms and brought flush to his taut frame. Only a hairsbreadth separated his mouth from hers. "Yes," he said. "My answer's yes."

  Decker closed the distance between them, crushing her mouth with his. It was not so much a kiss as a first volley on the field of battle. Jonna's entire body jerked in reaction. The movement didn't free her, but made her intimately aware of the shape and power of the man who held her. Her arched back flattened her thighs against his, and Decker thrust his hips forward so she cradled him.

  Jonna's breath came shallowly as Decker lifted his mouth. She couldn't turn in his embrace. The arm at the small of her back was like an iron bar, and the fist he made in her hair tilted her face toward his. He watched her, his blue eyes burning cold as he took in her pale complexion and the flushed, swollen line of her mouth.

  Decker bent his head slowly, tugging on her braid and exposing her throat. His lips settled on the curve of her neck, and he tasted her skin with the edge of his tongue. Her pulse beat frantically against his mouth. He touched the hollow of her throat, the underside of her jaw. His lips sipped her flesh. His teeth caught the delicate gold chain at her neck, and when he pulled the ivory pendant was lifted from between her breasts.

  Jonna felt as if her heart were being torn from her chest. She caught the necklace in her palm and closed her fingers around it. Her lips parted around the word "no," but it was a soundless protest. Decker let the chain drop, and when he looked at her again triumph edged his cool smile.

  He caught the corner of her mouth as she tried to turn her head. His tongue traced the closed line of her lips, not pressing, merely learning their shape. He moved on, grazing her cheek, her temple, then lower to the sensitive hollow behind her ear.

  Decker released Jonna's braid, and she didn't move. His fingers slipped around her throat. He kept her head tilted upward with the lightest pressure of his thumb. Then even that was taken away. His hand drifted to the small buttons at the neckline of her nightshift, and he began to unfasten them.

  Jonna released the pendant when Decker's hand brushed hers. She didn't push against his shoulders or try to slip from his grasp. Her arms dropped to her sides and she closed her eyes.

  Parting the material, Decker's mouth found her exposed shoulder. His hand slipped over her gown and cupped her breast. His thumb made a pass across her nipple, and he felt its rise through the fine cotton nightshift. Jonna was arched over Decker's arm as he began to lower her to the floor, his tongue making a damp trail from her shoulder to her breast. His teeth caught the material first, then her nipple. He felt her shudder.

  Firelight glanced off her hair. The carpet was under her knees now, and the fireplace was at her back. Decker opened a fourth button, then a fifth. Jonna's nightgown slipped completely off both shoulders, trapping her arms at her sides. When Decker's mouth closed over her breast this time, there was no damp and abrading material between them. His lips were on her skin, his tongue laved the swollen tip of her breast, his teeth worried the hard bud.

  Where firelight licked her skin Jonna was warm. Where Decker did the same she was warmer. His hand slipped under her gown and stroked her flat belly. Each pass brought his fingertips closer to where her thighs were pressed tightly together; each pass forced a fractional parting.

  Decker lifted his head from her breast. This time when he touched her cheek with his lips he tasted the salty wetness of Jonna's tears. They pooled at the underside of her dark lashes like beads of dew then slipped soundlessly over her cheeks. He found one at the corner of her mouth and kissed another away before it fell.

  There was no anger in the way he touched her now, no edge of steel or hint of conquest. Neither did he give any quarter.

  Decker's lips moved over hers, insistent rather than forcing. His tongue slipped along the ridge of her teeth, and her mouth parted under his. He pressed the entry and engaged her in the kiss, drawing a response that he sensed she resisted even as she gave it.

  He guided her the rest of the way to the floor and removed his arm from behind her back. He deepened the kiss, winding his tongue around hers, and then teasing her with just the taste of him at the tip of her mouth. When she raised her face slightly in response to his withdrawal, he drove his tongue against hers. The intent of the kiss was clear.

  Decker raised himself on one elbow and looked down at her. Firelight bathed her face. Her mouth was damp. The lower lip was faintly swollen and it was thrust forward in a sulky, sensuous line. She was watching him; the centers of her violet eyes were very dark and very wide. Long, spiked lashes presented the only evidence that there had been tears.

  His fingertips grazed her cheek, then her jaw, and finally slid along her throat. He watched his hand move slowly over her skin, following the flicker of light and shadow. Her breasts were pale and tipped in virginal pink. Her flesh swelled in his palm as he made an almost weightless pass across one.

  His fingers drifted down and were dragged lightly along the center of her abdomen. The edge of her parted night-shift was pushed lower until her arms and hips were free, then her thighs. Finally he removed it altogether and held it away when she tried to reach for it.

  Decker tossed it in the fireplace, silencing her cry with his mouth. His body restrained her but not heavily. One hand rested on her shoulder, and his leg lay across both of hers. Jonna was weighed down more by her own need than anything that was done to her. She moaned softly as he lifted his mouth.

  The ivory pendant lay between her breasts. Decker's eyes fell on it again. Save for where it covered her skin she was naked. He didn't try to remove it from her. There was something erotic about her wearing nothing but what he had given her.

  He fingered the ivory. "You should never wear anything else," he said lowly.

  Jonna's eyes closed against the intensity in his. She turned her head.

  "And in bed," he added, "I won't let you."

  She bit her lower lip as he let the pendant fall against her skin. Her chin was cupped in his hand, and her face was lifted in his direction.

  "Look at me," he said.

  He would not even allow her this one small rebellion, she thought. Her eyes opened and she stared at him. His face was close to hers, the lines tautly drawn. His mouth hovered about hers, and when he spoke his breath was warm on her lips. He told her she was beautiful.

  The flush that filled Jonna's breasts and cheeks with heat vanished. She was suddenly cold all over. For a moment she didn't breathe. Her body was still as stone beneath his and almost as lifeless. "I'm not paying you to lie to me," she said tonelessly. "Only with me."

  Decker stared at her.

  "Don't say it again," she said. "Ever."

  For a long moment he said nothing at all. "As you wish," he whispered. Then his mouth punished hers.

  Decker's knee wedged between her thighs. His hand slipped along her rib cage, past the inner curve of her waist, then across her hips to finally press lower and more intimately between her legs. He cupped her mons and his fingers parted her moist, silky passage.

  Jonna pushed against the floor, trying to escape at first, then only trying to feel more. Her back arched and her hips lifted. As the heel of his hand pressed against her, sensation rocked her forward. She was damp where his fingers touched her at first and wet where he explored later.

  "Do you know what you want?" he asked against her mouth.

  She shook her head.

  "Shall I show you?" Before she could answer he slipped one finger inside her and on the next stroke, he slipped two.

  Jonna raised her knees; her heels pushed against the floor. Her eyes were closed again, and if he had asked her to look at him just then, she would have only been able to look away.

  He swallowed her low keening cry with his kiss. He could almost feel the shimmer of heat under her skin. It rushed
up from the center of her and spread out across her taut belly and breasts. A flush followed in its wake, and tension extended the tips of her fingers outward, strained the smoothly muscled line of her legs.

  A log jumped in the fireplace, and the flames crackled. The sound accompanied the sudden jerk of Jonna's slender frame, the spiraling of heat along her limbs.

  Decker held her there, teetering on the brink of pleasure, letting her experience the first faint stirrings. The rhythm of his stroking changed and slowed and finally stopped. She was breathing hard. He was hardly breathing.

  Jonna grasped his wrist as he started to lean away from her. He merely stared down at her hand until she lifted it. She let it fall to her side where it curled into a loose fist. He looked at it and smiled. That made her want to hit him.

  He kissed her briefly, tugging on her lower lip and running his tongue sweetly across it. He'd let her hit him later, he thought, if that's what she wanted or needed. But not now, not just yet.

  Decker sat up. He removed his dressing gown and then his drawers. Unashamed of his nakedness or his arousal, he knelt between Jonna's thighs. Drawing her legs up and around him, he lifted her bottom and leaned forward slowly.

  He had not asked her to watch him now, yet Jonna's vision was filled with him. His shoulders and arms were trim and athletic, the muscles cut cleanly so their shape and movement was defined under his skin. His chest was smooth, yet still held a hint of summer color from working shirtless on board the clippers. A lock of dark hair fell over his forehead. It lent an oddly youthful look to a face that had seemed older and harder than mere years could explain.

  His blue eyes held hers until they closed briefly, and only once, as he guided himself into her.

  All of Jonna's senses were filled with him, just as she was filled with him. Her hands lifted and she touched his shoulders, lightly at first, then tightly as he pressed himself forward and her body stretched to accommodate him.

  There was a moment's pain, no more, before it was replaced by an aching sort of fullness that had pleasure at its center.

  He rested on his elbows and looked down at her. She was searching his features, her violet eyes darting across the planes and angles of his face. He liked the fact that she was looking at him, that he didn't have to command her attention, that she couldn't mistake his possession of her for anyone else's. He thought it might be enough. It wasn't.

  "My name," he said, brushing his mouth across hers. "Say it."

  She resisted at first because she knew why he was asking and why he needed to hear it. She felt him begin to withdraw. "Decker," she said. The ease with which she capitulated frightened her. It made her want to strike out, to hurt him, and she was too vulnerable not to let him see it.

  "Do you want to hate me, Jonna?" he whispered. "Would that make it better for you?"

  If only it were so simple, she thought, then even that thought died away as he thrust into her again. He buried his face in the curve of her neck as he began to move in her. The cadence was slow and deep and hard. Her body lifted. His plunged. Her breasts were crushed against his chest, the nipples hard and aching. His mouth moved over her throat, her shoulder. She held him close, and firelight caressed her hands as she moved them along his back.

  Sparks of heat returned to her skin, spreading outward from the place where they were joined. As her body tightened around him she heard him groan softly. He rocked her back, harder now, faster. His open mouth captured hers, and he kissed her over and over, making her seek his face, his lips, each time he paused.

  There were no sounds outside herself. She heard only her own body: the roar in her ears, the thrumming of her heart, the caught breath at the back of her throat. The pitch changed as sensation accelerated and the power of pleasure shifted.

  Decker watched her neck arch and felt the surge of her body under his. She cried out, shuddering, and his own body quickened as the vibration seemed to slip under his skin and ripple through him with equal intensity. He raised himself up and drove into her one last time.

  Jonna wasn't prepared for the second skimming pleasure that pulled her taut and then left her limp. Unaccountably embarrassed by her body's aftershock, she avoided Decker's probing eyes and turned her face in the direction of the fireplace.

  Careful not to let her see his smile, Decker eased away from Jonna. One hand lingered near her breast for a moment, then he withdrew that as well. "Don't move," he said. Scooping up his drawers, he got to his feet and padded soundlessly into the adjoining room. He returned a few minutes later, this time wearing the drawers and carrying a basin of water.

  Jonna was sitting up, her legs curled to one side. Most of her braid had been unwound and she was combing it out slowly with her fingers. She didn't look at him as he knelt beside her.

  Decker set the basin on the carpet. He touched her throat and fingered the lapel of his satin dressing gown which she was now wearing. "I thought I told you not to move."

  She kept her face averted, but her fingers stopped their idle combing. "You weren't serious," she said.

  "I thought I was."

  "I don't take orders from you." There was no anger; it was only a statement of fact.

  Decker nodded slowly. "That's right," he said softly, as though the truth of it had just occurred to him. "I take them from you."

  Jonna's head lowered once in agreement. "Yes," she said. "You do."

  He said nothing for a moment. If she had turned just then and seen the look in his eyes or the set of his steely smile, she would have had good reason to question who held the upper hand. By the time Decker's silence captured her attention and she glanced at him, he had drawn a shutter over his features.

  "I shouldn't let you wear this robe," he said. "I burned your nightshift for good reason."

  "What good reason?"

  "I want you naked."

  Jonna averted her head and gave him her shoulder. "We should discuss the terms of our agreement," she said without inflection.

  "I suppose you'll want to insist on clothes."

  His amusement cut her. Tears welled in her eyes, and she dashed them away.

  "Jonna?"

  "Don't make light of me," she said quietly. "I can accept anything else, but not that."

  Decker's fingers slipped along the length of her hair. He stroked her back. He knew she was feeling the enormity of what had passed between them, and she hadn't yet looked ahead to the consequences. He didn't apologize for his humor, but he didn't goad her with it again. Decker dipped the washcloth hanging over the edge of the basin into the water. He wrung it out. "Look here, Jonna."

  When she turned he bathed her face, erasing all traces of tears. He let the cloth glide down her throat and lower, between her breasts, where her skin glowed with a sheen of perspiration. He unbelted the dressing gown, parted it, and moved his hand to her abdomen. Dipping the cloth again he drew her up on her knees. Her thighs were parted. The dark centers of her eyes reflected his gaze. She gasped a little as he placed the damp cloth between her legs but she didn't move. Jonna laid her hands on his shoulders while he washed away the evidence of her virginity and his seed.

  Decker dropped the cloth into the water and pushed the basin under a wing chair. He took Jonna's hands from his shoulders, encircling her wrists, and brought her to her feet with him. He led her to the bed where the covers had long ago been turned back by a thoughtful servant. Decker drew the dressing gown off Jonna and let it fall on the floor. He kissed her lightly once, then more thoroughly a second time. The backs of her thighs were pressed to the mattress, and then she was lying across it, covered more by Decker than the sheets.

  There was no place he could touch her that didn't bring a response. Every inch of her was sensitive to the passage of his fingertips. Her nipples rose in anticipation of his touch; her skin retracted when he drew his hand across her belly. She moved restlessly under him, wanting more, wanting less. Her soft cry was the inarticulate expression of her need to make him stop and of her desire t
hat he never should.

  Decker responded to her uncertainty this time. His mouth gentled on hers. There was a soft sigh of satisfaction that could have belonged to either of them. He felt her relax, felt her yield without surrendering. He couldn't have taken her just then, in spite of his desire. What he could have done, would have done, he didn't think she was ready for. His hand between her thighs had shocked her. She couldn't suspect he wanted to place his mouth there.

  Decker rolled away and off the bed. He held up the covers for Jonna to slide under them then he shucked his drawers and crawled in with her. When he turned back to her after extinguishing the bedside lamp, he found she had already moved to the far side of the bed.

  "Are you going to sleep over there?" he asked.

  "I was going to sleep in my own room," she said.

  "I thought you wanted to discuss terms."

  She stared at the ceiling. Her voice was almost inaudible. "Tomorrow morning."

  Decker shook his head. "We're speaking of my payment," he said. "I've learned that's the sort of thing that shouldn't wait. Tell me what you had in mind."

  It had been too easy to imagine that he had really wanted her. In those moments when he was touching her gently, seeking a response from her body to match his own, Jonna could believe that his desire was prompted by something other than her proposal. She died a little inside knowing it wasn't that way at all. Her suggestion had knocked him back, her terms had insulted him, yet his pride was insufficient to tell her no. It wasn't because he wanted her, but because he wanted what she had.

  Jonna mocked herself with a small, wry smile. She was a fine one to speak of pride when she had so little herself. He could have had her again on this bed and she would have let him. She would have given him license to do anything—everything—except amuse himself at her expense. She was not so wretched a creature that she could tolerate that.

  "I thought I would buy you a house," she said quietly. "Somewhere in Boston where I'm not known."