Bond of Fire

by Diane Whiteside

  Her great eyes lifted to his, full of sincerity and—need. Possibly hunger, or even lust, two emotions he knew very well. He could not allow himself to believe it was anything more, even though they’d known each other for almost five months.

  Even so, words leapt out of his throat to answer her, without consulting his brain. “If you will call me Jean-Marie.”

  “My pleasure, Jean-Marie.” She lingered over his simple name, like a delectable bonbon. A brilliant smile lit her face.

  He shouldered open the door to her room, cursing his cock for swelling in response. He needed to leave before he leapt on her like a wild animal.

  Sunlight flowed over everything within, bringing it to life.

  Hélène’s boudoir was a miracle of feminine simplicity, like the marquise herself. Bas-reliefs of goddesses and flowers swept around the walls. Great alcoves, where rich green silk flowed from gilded rods, marked the multiple windows of the corner room. A great cabinet, taller than a man, carved and painted to match the bas-reliefs, stood ready in one corner to yield her beautiful wardrobe. A small, elegant desk, its tambour lid neatly shut to preserve her privacy, and a matching bench, waited to serve her, as did a pair of fragile chairs. Beautifully inlaid parquet floors and scattered soft rugs were silent testimony to feminine delight in elegance.

  But Jean-Marie paid little attention to any of that fashionable nonsense. The bed drew his entire attention, nestled as it was in an alcove with silk draperies sweeping from the ceiling to veil it. The embroidered dark green coverlet had been turned back to invitingly offer pristine white pillows and sheets.

  Ah, to see Hélène stretched out across the silk, her hair as golden as the willingness in her eyes…

  His mouth dried, and a heavy pulse began to beat slowly, demandingly through his veins.

  “Hélène,” he rumbled, his voice as deep and harsh as his emotions, the need to use the bed, remove her clothes, find pleasure for them both…

  A single finger tapped his cheek, then a second.

  He glanced down.

  Naked desperation and yearning gleamed in her eyes.

  “Do not let me think too much, je vous en prie.”

  Everything masculine within him roared its demand to protect her. Nothing and no one should be allowed to make a proud lady like Hélène d’Agelet beg.

  “Hélène—” he began.

  She caught his face in her hands, pulled it down, and kissed him full on the mouth. It was the move of an experienced woman who knew what she wanted and how to take it.

  He met her more than halfway, pouring his own hunger into the kiss—a night’s pleasure with a beautiful, willing woman. But surely not for someone who cared more about him, than what they needed.

  She moaned softly, sweetly, into his mouth, her fingers caressing his head. She turned in his arms to face him, pressing herself against him. The busk, that damned stiff strip of ivory running up the center of her stays to support her breasts, tugged at one of his coat’s buttons. It forcibly reminded that the delights of undressing were yet to come and should be undertaken soon, lest he start tearing impatiently at the fabric like a beast.

  He set her on the bed, following her to kiss her again—to adore her face, her throat, her fingers with his mouth. To whisper sweet words of her beauty and grace and charm. But not love words, like mon coeur or mon ange, my heart or my angel. Not those, never those, not in this lifetime.

  She purred under him, threading her fingers through his hair and teasing the long strands free. Her legs rippled against him between the layers of cloth, whispering of her eagerness.

  Jean-Marie leaned up on one elbow, dropping kisses on her forehead, her eyelids, the top of her head. She chuckled and closed her eyes, exactly the response he’d wanted.

  He slipped his free hand inside her fichu, resting it across her breast. Ah, mon Dieu, her skin was soft as the finest silk.

  She moaned and twisted closer.

  His thumb brushed her nipple, modestly hiding just below the top of her rigidly boned stays.

  “Ah, mais oui!” She arched up to meet him, tossing her head back. “Ah, Jean-Marie!”

  Hot fumes of lust, rich and spicy, rose into his brain.

  He rumbled approval of her hunger and kissed her again, fondling her, rubbing her nipple again and again until it stood tall and stiff and aching, continually teased by either him or her stays through the silk. He shifted and adored her other breast the same way, rousing her until she was a writhing, sobbing woman under him.

  But it wasn’t enough. Oh no, even though he, too, was breathing hard and fast, his skin flushed as if they stood in the Sahara desert.

  He lifted her waist up and untied her fichu in the back, drawing the long, pretty streamers forward. It was the work of a moment to tug it free from her neck and toss it aside. Its mate, which had been tucked into her bodice, was already so disarrayed and dislodged that it gaped prettily for him, offering a superb frame for her delights.

  While most men certainly enjoyed breasts, they were not the inspiration for poets or the subject of much conversation. But he’d swear Hélène was lovely enough to make even the most blind beg for a chance to worship her. Hélène, who was even more beautiful than a goddess of old.

  “Jean-Marie…” Her hands moved convulsively and fell back.

  “You’re so lovely, you take my breath away.”

  “Ah, mon bébé,” she crooned approvingly—and he caught the last syllable with his mouth. Her affection was delightful beyond belief, especially a silly endearment like “baby” since it didn’t threaten his commitments elsewhere.

  Mapping the perfection of her breasts’ blue veins led inexorably to the concealed seam down the front of her dress. He muttered his acclaim for her fashion sense and unhooked her dress.

  “Stand up, please.”

  “If you will take off your coat?” She kneaded his shoulders gently, emphasizing the layers of fabric. “And maybe more?”

  “Of course, Hélène.” He kissed her fingertips and nodded.

  He drew her dress off and set it aside. He turned back and stopped dead, savage lust racking his bones.

  Her blonde curls were tumbling from her once precise coiffure, yet she still wore a marquise’s eye-catching earrings, the three pearls stroking her neck like a lover. Her gold silk corset was another jewel enhancing her skin’s creamy beauty, while her embroidered white petticoat floated over her legs and ankles from her hoops. Beautifully embroidered silk stockings led to a pair of delicate shoes offering her feet for worship.

  Her green eyes were dark with lust under heavy lids, her mouth swollen and hungry. His concubino compañero sense of smell told him clearly she was melting with lust, her sweet petals unfolding and cream flowing in welcome.

  His lover, dammit, hot and willing. His for tonight, if no longer than that.

  She took a step toward him and another—and snatched his lapels. Their lips met, passion running between them like the finest cognac. His cock was hard-pressed against his breeches, wildness thrumming in it.

  He could toss her across the bed, flip her skirts out of the way, and be in her within moments.

  No. He’d promised her something. But what was worth delaying their mutual delight?

  “Jean-Marie, mon bébé.” She sighed into his mouth, their tongues dancing together more enticingly than any contredanse. She kneaded his shoulders, her nails pricking him through the silk.

  Clothes. His clothes, to be precise.

  “Chérie,” he muttered against her cheek. Merde, but he sounded hoarse and out of control. He tried again. “Chère Hélène, I too need to disrobe—as you asked.”

  She blinked up at him and ran her tongue over her lips.

  Passion ripped through him, firing white-hot darts from his lungs through his heart and cock. He jerked himself up short before he could slam her up against a wall.

  “Stand back, chérie, please.” Before I act like a rutting boar…

  She did so, her bo
som heaving above her stays. Her hand crept up to her mouth when he yanked off his coat. Her eyes grew enormous when he started to tear off his waistcoat. She murmured something about his poor buttons but his glare silenced her.

  He tugged hard on his cravat. She squeaked, he lifted an eyebrow, and she nipped her finger. A total disregard for his valet’s sensibilities brought the rest of it quickly off his neck.

  She was flushed, restless, her legs twisting against each other. She glanced down, back up to the bulge of his cock against his breeches, and down again. Shy and hungry? Lord help them both, feasting on each other visually had fired them both up for the banquet that was to come.

  He unbuttoned his shirt as fast as possible and pulled it over his head.

  Her gasp echoed across the room.

  “Ah, oui,” she sighed, her eyes roaming over him. “You are very finely made.”

  He could not stop himself from strutting but he did keep it to only a step or two.

  “Ma chère Hélène.” He kissed her shoulder, licking and nibbling her collarbone until she moaned his name and her head fell sideways, allowing him free access. “You are a bonbon extraordinaire, made to tempt a man into madness.”

  “Hmm.” A single emerald eye considered him before her golden lashes veiled it again.

  He kissed the nape of her neck.

  He untied her petticoat, pushed it off her hoops, and let it fall to the floor, never pausing in his attentions to her throat and shoulders.

  She moaned something about the mountaintop being higher when it took longer to reach. He smiled privately, his body throbbing with both agreement and impatience, and moved to explore the best way to tease her delectable spine, to delight her back, to lift her breasts from their cocoon in her stays and plump them in his hands.

  All of which demanded that he unlace her stays, of course. Which gave his hands access to her waist and ribs, from underneath her hoops. More pleasure for her hidden areas, those restricted places that had been shut away from the world since early childhood, yet were so close to her center.

  She writhed restlessly, her hips twisting and turning. Her head lay against his shoulder, her soft hair teasing his skin, while her expression tore his heart with her need for release. Her soft pleas rippled through the room, each one diving into his blood and flashing straight into his balls, heating his seed.

  He untied her stays’ shoulder straps and lifted it over her head. Nom de Dieu, her silk chemise was almost transparent. He gulped, every drop of blood heading south.

  Even so, he was slightly incredulous when his hands shook while they untied her hoops. How many times had he done this before? And yet…She moaned again, and he had to bite his lip until blood flowed before he could continue.

  She began to jerk her chemise over her head.

  Fire jolted through, demanding fulfillment, from his spine, through his balls, to his cock. By the time her chemise joined her hoops and petticoats on the floor, his breeches were in the same untidy heap as his coat and waistcoat.

  He lifted her onto the bed, pausing only to kick off his shoes and drop hers onto the floor.

  He cast a single possessive glance at his lover—her green eyes dark with passion, her golden curls tumbling across the white sheets, her swollen mouth, supple tongue. Her taut breasts lifting toward him, her narrow waist begging for admiration. Her curving hips and sweet rump, which he hadn’t yet explored the wonders of. Her long legs gleaming in their silken stockings, leading to her beautiful golden delta, her plump feminine folds, creamy now with lust and welcome for him.

  His dream.

  “Jean-Marie, mon bébé.” She lifted her arms toward him.

  His wits dropped into his cock, and he joined her, logic gone.

  Her hand closed around him, pumping his cock gently.

  He threw his head back, groaning like ten kinds of fool. He knelt between her legs and gathered her up to him, slipping his arms under her shoulders.

  She delicately stroked his balls, and he all but howled.

  He found her entrance easily, gliding in on the warmest of welcomes. She was scalding hot, glove tight, and oh so very, very wet. Perfection.

  He forgot to breathe.

  She tightened herself around him, pulling him in, and locked her arms around his hips. “Ah, yes…”

  Heaven, heaven on earth.

  He thrust again, in…and out. In…and out. Faster and faster. Every stroke matched by her, her body arching to meet his, her core reaching out to hold him longer. Eager, desperate, as he was.

  Red touched his vision. He could see little, feel little except her and the blood pounding through him, the seed rising from his balls into his cock to fill her, the hard drumbeat of desire in his muscles and bones. Nothing except this mattered.

  She shifted under him—and his cock slipped deeper inside her. She jerked, and her nails scored his back, drawing blood for the first time. The salty, sweet smell filled the air—and he raced helplessly into orgasm.

  She screamed and bit down on his neck. Climax rocked unmistakably through her and her channel rippled around him.

  He jetted again and again, locked in an orgasmic dance with her. Every spasm, every pleasure that ran through one was given back to the other, spinning him through a galaxy of stars.

  She gasped, one last pulse running through her, and collapsed back onto the bed.

  The last stars burst behind Jean-Marie’s eyes, and his eyelids closed tight, bringing welcome sleep.

  At least Hélène wouldn’t think of the night’s events for a time.

  Hélène pointed her toes under the sheet and wiggled them. An hour or two, perhaps three, past dawn, and surely it was time to start a new life.

  It was amazing how being sore and tender in so many places, both inside and out, could make one feel so marvelous. Cher—cher? What a joy to be able to say that again!—Jean-Marie had kept her so delightfully busy last night, she’d scarce had time to sleep. But it was no hardship, not when he’d shown her time and again by his tenderness how much he cared for her.

  Surely she must mean something to him, else he wouldn’t have stood up for her against Monsieur Perez.

  She sniffed. The arrogant, high-handed brute—to think he could dictate exactly how those around him should live. She’d file a complaint against him this morning and see him thrown out of France immediately.

  The door into the small dressing room opened silently, revealing Jean-Marie, immaculate except for his coat and waistcoat, which he carried over his arm. He bowed politely to her. “Bonjour, madame.”

  Hélène jolted upright in the bed, clutching the sheet to her. A formal greeting after last night’s passion? She tried to return to the intimacy they’d agreed upon after those—vampiros had appeared. “Salut, Jean-Marie.”

  “I do not believe it wise for you to address me in that fashion, madame.” His expression was forbidding above his fingers, fastening his waistcoat as if they closed off both his body and any relationship from her. “Pray do not do so again.”

  “But—but we agreed!” She rose from the bed, wrapping the sheet around her.

  “That was yesterday.” An ice flow would have been warmer than his voice. “I am departing now, and nothing like last night will ever happen again.”

  Perhaps she’d been naive to place so much faith in the first man she’d given her body to, other than the marriage arranged upon her exit from a convent. But she’d lived in the world for ten years, run a marquis’s estate, kept accounts, judged men’s verity. She was no child to be fooled by a pretty face. She could not believe she’d been entirely wrong in everything she’d read in Jean-Marie’s attendance upon her these past five months—and the sweetness of his attentions last night. Surely there was something more, something worth fighting for.

  “Will you come back with me to the Vendée?” She pushed her hair back from her face so she could see him better. She ground her pride ruthlessly into the dust for the one man who’d interested her since cher Bern
ard’s death. “Leave the court’s corruption behind and the vampiros, for the countryside’s purity? I have a manor at Sainte Marie des Fleurs near the coast, which is very beautiful. Or we could build something larger, if you’d prefer…”

  “What?” He paused, staring at her. He shook his head violently and resumed shrugging himself into his coat. “You must be insane.”

  “Why not, Jean-Marie?” She pressed herself against him, letting the sheet droop to offer what had so excited him last night. His eyes traveled downward before jerking back up to her face, glittering like steel. His expression closed into an icy mask.

  Merde.

  She gambled on another asset, one every other man had found irresistible.

  “Do you have a personal fortune greater than mine? I also have monies flowing in from the marquis’s inventions. We could live very, very well anywhere you like.”

  “No.” The refusal was as emphatic as a mine’s detonation. He pushed her away from him by the shoulders before stepping back.

  For an instant, she thought she saw grief and a ravaging loneliness pass through his eyes. But his words erased the impression.

  “There can be nothing more between us, ever, madame. If you wish a husband—or a lover—look elsewhere.”

  Jealousy gripped her. Lover? Did he have someone else? Ah yes, of course!

  “You’re returning to that Spanish woman! All I’ve been to you was a momentary diversion, a way to make her jealous while she played so freely with other men at court.”

  Almost gibbering with rage, she swung for him. But his hand shot up and caught hers, just before it reached his cheek. “Do not try that again.”

  She glared at him, chin high. “Brute! You deserve the hatred of every woman for treating me so.”

  He inclined his head, his expression completely unreadable.

  She sniffed and yanked at her hand, praying her sheet would maintain her decency with its one-handed fastening. It was bad enough to know one had been used to make a Spanish woman jealous. But for a Frenchwoman to appear maladroit would be truly appalling.