by Liz Carlyle
He gave a half smile. “I would to God I were, Helene,” he answered calmly, lightly fingering her nipple through the thin lawn of her gown. She was on her knees, pressed against the headboard. “I want you, and I’m damned tired of waiting, of being tempted beyond reason by you.”
She blanched at that, and struck him hard across the forearm. “I do not ... I have not tempted you! Get your hands off me. I have no notion what you mean.”
“Do you not?” Cam yanked off his shirt, pitched it onto the floor, then crawled across her bed toward her. Her shoulders already pressed against the wood, Helene tried to scrabble farther away.
“Come now, Helene!” he said mockingly. “Don’t be shy. You were never so before.” Abruptly, he came to his knees, seizing her and dragging her hard against his chest, opening his mouth over hers, and surging inside.
Fleetingly, she fought him like a wildcat, clawing at his naked shoulders, raking her nails down his back, but Cam did not care. The pain was an exquisite torment, and he kissed her and kissed her until slowly, almost imperceptibly, she leaned away from the headboard and into his embrace.
Triumphant, his mouth left hers then, to open over the turn of her jaw, the curve of her delicate throat, skimming lower still, until he found her breast and drew it lovingly back inside his mouth. Helene whimpered then, and slid her fingers up through his hair. “Ahh ... ohh,” she said softly.
“Oh, Helene,” he rasped, pushing her down into the pillows. With his mouth still plundering her, Helene shivered in his embrace. Deftly, Cam shifted to one side, and after bathing his fingers in the brandy again, began massaging her nipple with his fingers, around and around, until she arched away from the pillows, moaning, her hands tangled in the sheet beneath her hips.
He looked up at her then, and saw her eyes, wide and limpid, fixed on his fingers as they worked her. “You want me, do you not?” It was a proclamation of victory, not a question.
“Yes—no—damn you,” she breathed, her head tipping backward, her voice choking with need as he drew her nipple between his teeth to torment her. He could feel her anger surging, shifting, and sliding into mindless hunger.
Then, unable to deny himself the pleasure of watching Helene’s face, Cam’s mouth left her breast as a soft sob tore through her. “Hush, Helene,” he whispered, letting his hand slide down to curve over the roundness of her belly. “Just let me love you. As I was meant to.” The hand slid lower, to caress the juncture of her thighs through the fabric of her nightgown.
Cam felt utterly depraved, aroused beyond anything he had ever felt before as he watched helpless need play out in her expression, in her breathing, and ultimately, in her trembling. She was blushing hotly, refusing to hold his gaze as he touched her, and Cam found himself obsessed by her thoughts. He was so close. So close to having her.
Would Helene stop him? Could he stop? He thought not, on both counts. Cam felt like a man possessed. In the grate, coals sheared off onto the hearth and the fire licked higher. She moaned and urged her flesh against his hand.
They had been too long apart. The night moved too quickly. His pulse raced. His rod throbbed. Light and shadow flickered over them. And still Cam kept touching her, smoothing his hands over her body, suckling her. Worshiping her with his lust. Trying to keep his heart intact. Trying to hold back some small part of himself, while taking what he so desperately needed.
But it would not work. On her next breath, Cam knew it. He dipped his head to nip at her throat again, enthralled at her response to his touch. Like an eager mare, her flesh shivered time and again, as his teeth bit into her skin, then moved from neck to breast to belly and back.
And suddenly, he forced himself to stop. Cam sat back on his heels, the wool of his trousers pulled tight over the muscles of his thighs and the thick ridge of his erection. Beneath him, Helene’s breath came quick and shallow. With her nightgown open and her hair in disarray, she panted for him wantonly. It was a gratifying vision of feminine arousal.
It pleased him. Oh, yes. Forcing his respiration to steady, he let his gaze rake over her and saw her face suffuse with color again. With ineffective modesty, she absently tugged at her gown, lowering her lashes into black, feathery fans across her cheeks. The damp linen clung to her crested breasts, a seductive vision indeed.
“Good God, you really are lovely, Helene,” he said. “Such exquisite beauty. Such wild, irrepressible desire.”
Her eyes flew open, then flared with anger. He could almost hear something inside her snap. “Is that what you think of me, Cam?” she whispered. The sharp pain in her voice knifed at him. “After all, I am just like my mother—? Can you not take pleasure from a woman while knowing that she cares for you? That she desires only you?”
To silence the words that he could not bear to believe, Cam pinned her arms high against the headboard and took her mouth again, more roughly this time. Holding her with one powerful arm, he jerked upward on the hem of her gown. He forced his fingers into the damp heat between her thighs, only to find that it was himself, and not Helene, whom he shocked.
Already, she dripped with need. The sweet, agonizing scent of her desire filled his nostrils, almost driving him beyond restraint. He wanted to surrender his own control, and pound his flesh into hers. To simply give himself over to Helene. But he could not.
Slowly, slowly he eased two fingers inside. She was tight, so very tight, as she rode down on his hand. The pressure of her sheath drew him in. A sensual metaphor, perhaps, for the whole of his relationship with Helene.
He kissed her, and against his mouth, she whimpered once more. Cam pulled his hand and mouth away, bringing his dew-slick fingers to his lips. His eyes held hers knowingly. Helene made a fleeting, uncertain gesture with her hand, then jerked her gaze from his. Cam caught her hand, drawing it to his erection, already thick and throbbing. “Just take me, Helene,” he whispered. “No more talking.”
This time, it was Helene who stared unflinchingly into his eyes. “Do you wish me to act the wanton for you, Cam? Do you want to simply rut with me—slaking our need without intimacy or honesty?”
When he made her no answer, Helene jerked violently against him, freeing her hands once more. “Is that all you want? All you can accept?” she demanded, her dark eyes damp and glittering.
Her pain and outrage was his undoing. “I do not know,” he confessed into the darkness. “I know only that I need you, Helene. And to have you, I think I would pay you, marry you, or sell my soul to the devil himself.”
“Deal with the devil on his terms, Cam,” she responded. “Here are mine. You may keep your money, your soul, and your wedding ring!” Grasping the hem of her nightgown, Helene jerked it up until it slid over her thighs, her belly, her breasts, then higher still. Until she knelt naked before him. Until Cam could not breathe. Or think.
She came at him, tearing at the close of his trousers, clawing at him, dragging away fabric, and pushing down the linen of his drawers until his cock sprang free to jut up between them. Helene fell against him then, her tongue sliding down the curve of his jaw, leaving a trail of fire, raking lightly at the same harsh stubble that had rasped her tender breasts.
“You fear the truth, I think,” she whispered against his heated flesh. “But if I am wicked, Cam, at least I am honest. Yes, I want you. Yes, I will whore for you. I even have some idea how it’s done, you’ll recall.”
So saying, Helene closed one hand around his shaft and went fully down onto her knees.
Cam gasped, lashing out blindly behind him to seize the bedpost as she took him into her mouth, awkwardly at first. And then slowly, she became greedy, drawing his manhood deeper into her warmth. Down, down into a decadence beyond anything he had ever known. Long, curling black tresses fanned sensually across her back, brushing over the cleft between her buttocks and tickling at the pink heels of her feet.
“Ah, Helene—!” He gasped her name softly, straining not to cry out in the darkness as her hand slid between his legs to fondle
him completely. Helene touched him tentatively, then more expertly, caressing the root of his shaft with her fingers, and then her mouth, pleasuring him until he thought he would die. When his hips jerked uncontrollably against her, Helene roughly shoved him down into the soft tangle of sheets at the foot of her bed, but still she did not stop, driving him rapidly over the edge of a bright, white light that sped toward him even as he rushed into it.
He wanted, he wanted ... ah, ah, how he wanted... His hands clutched at the linen of her bed sheets, fisting and clawing and grasping, as his head strained back against the mattress, and oh, dear God, he was so close ... so close ... so close to losing himself. Spilling himself into her warmth. Losing his mind. Losing ... control.
Suddenly, Helene felt Cam buck beneath her. Roughly, inexplicably, she found herself tumbled onto her back, pinned against the mattress by the brute strength of his arms and the searing heat of his eyes.
“Oh, no, Helene,” he whispered seductively, a mocking smile curving his lips. “Not so fast.”
There would be, she suddenly understood, no delaying the inevitable. Yet she struggled in his grasp, and with a soft groan, he nudged at her thighs with his knee. “Open for me, sweeting.”
Dumbly, Helene shook her head and raked her eyes down Cam’s length. She had never been so utterly terrified, nor so desperately enthralled. But perversely, she was terrified of herself; enthralled by him. By his stark, naked, unbridled beauty. Any trace of his usual restraint and refined civility had been long since burnt away.
Cam’s trousers rode off his hips now, his manhood rose between them, still pulsing and slick from her mouth. The dim firelight shone over work-honed shoulders as big as her thighs. The raw power of his nudity was nearly overwhelming. Again, she shook her head.
“This has gone too far, Helene,” he softly insisted, reaching out to fondle her. “You cannot give me just a taste. Let me inside, my sweet. You’ll find I’m not wholly without skill.”
In the dim light, she trembled, knowing she could not long resist him. Cam was determined to shut out her love, along with the depth of his own emotions. But she wanted him anyway.
And apparently, and she was willing to give herself to him on his limited terms. As she let his weight bear down on her, the silken hardness of his shaft brushed between her thighs, searing her flesh.
Ah, yes! She did want him. She prayed he did not know how much.
Boldly, she stared him up and down in the firelight. He was magnificent, this man she burned for! Hard and taut, with every inch of him layered in muscle and corded with tendons. His masculine beauty, the sheer glory of his body, was her undoing.
“Open your legs, Helene,” he softly commanded. “And then tell me that you want—desperately want—me inside.”
The wicked words skimmed over her like warm silk, arousing her in a way she did not understand. Helene exhaled deeply, focusing on the rapid rise and fall of Cam’s heaving chest. Unlike the boy she had loved, he was lightly matted with soft, dark hair. It ran over his rigid nipples and beyond the flat of his belly, then trickled further, to form the coarse thatch that surrounded his sex, now heavy and jutting.
She was driven by a hunger to touch it again, to feel its throbbing weight and velvet surface. Almost involuntarily, she jerked one hand free of his grasp and reached out for him.
“Oh, no,” growled Cam, swiftly recapturing her fingers. “Naughty puss! I can see I must have my way with you.”
His hands left hers, and to her utter shame, Cam skimmed one hand lightly down her belly to the juncture of her thighs. With his thumb, he spread open the folds of her skin, and lowered his mouth to kiss her there. His tongue slid into her warmth, drowning her in sin and sensation.
A hot yearning coursed through her, pooled in her belly, then tugged at her center. It was too much, too much... Helene tried to push him away.
“No,” he ordered, then his teeth nipped at the tender skin of her inner thigh. “I want you to burn for me now—as I have burned for you all these godforsaken years, Helene. I want you to ache and writhe and drown in it.”
And beneath the sensual onslaught, Helene felt herself slip deeper into the abyss. Firmly, his fingertips slid inside, touching her with a jolt of pleasure as he urged her apart to taste her more intimately. Helene cried out in shock, then strained hard against him as Cam’s tongue touched her very core.
She shook, then thrashed, as Cam continued touching her. Any shred of control she might have possessed was gone. This went far, far beyond their adolescent desires. Oh, Cam was treacherous. And he would have his way, because she would concede it. Willingly.
Helene no longer thought to guard herself against him, to be insulted or hurt. She stared down at herself. Cam had one hand on her knee, urging her legs wider, the other hand stroking her breast as his tongue slid sinuously into her most secret recesses, robbing her of all modesty, all restraint, and any pride she might ever have possessed. She wanted the edge just ahead; that sharp, shimmering blade of sensation that tantalized somewhere just beyond her reach.
And Cam could take her there. Helene had only to surrender to him, and ... and she felt the edge draw nearer. Yes. So sweet, so very close. Her hips bucked again. Something inside her began to give way.
And abruptly, Cam stopped. She bit back a cry of frustration. In the darkness, she heard the spark and hiss of the dying fire. “Tell me, Helene,” he rasped, his fingers digging into her thigh. “Tell me that you are mine!”
Helene felt herself shudder with an ache so deep she thought she would die. Against the pillow, she thrashed her head. “Please ...” she whispered. “Don’t stop. Finish it. Cam, please—!”
Roughly, he jerked her thighs wider still and slid up her length. “Mine, Helene,” he growled against her temple. “You belong to me! And by God, I mean to throttle the next man who so much as looks at you, do you hear me?”
She tried to nod, but failed.
Cam’s teeth raked across her throat and down to her breast. “Ah, Helene—!” he said, his voice dropping to an unsteady whisper. “My sweet Helene—what am I saying? I must be mad with jealousy. Insane with desire. I love you too much. Too much.”
Helene listened to the words, all too aware of the weight and heat of his shaft at her entrance. If she gave herself to him now, there would be no turning back from Cam.
But had there ever been?
No. Never.
And so she wrapped her arms about Cam’s waist, lifted her knees, and pulled him into her. Cam let his weight fall forward, bracing his hands near her shoulders. She felt him probe her, spread her, and then slowly begin to fill her. So very, very good. Better, even, than his mouth.
Eagerly, Helene tipped her hips up to take him, aching with a strange, soul-deep emptiness. Cam’s eyes dropped shut, and in the gloom she could barely see the long, dark lashes that fanned across his cheeks. A bitter smile of satisfaction curved at his mouth as he thrust fully into her, then pushed swiftly, deeply inside.
And suddenly froze.
Helene’s eyes opened wide at the burst of pain, more acute than she had imagined. She jerked against Cam, suppressing a cry. The fluid, sinuous heat was gone, and in its place was a sharp, brief agony.
16
In which Adversity discovers Virtue
Cam had never deflowered a virgin. Even his bride had never conceded him that one small honor. But when Helene jerked beneath him, and he felt his flesh tear through hers, he was horribly and unerringly certain that he had done precisely that.
And yet, it was incomprehensible. But in truth, the whole of his behavior, since setting foot inside Helene’s bedchamber, was incomprehensible. Time slowed. Then stopped. He froze in mid-stroke and stared down at her, the woman he thought he knew.
The color had drained from her face. Cam could hear the pounding of his heart, the roar of his own blood. The utter horror of his assumption, the awesome significance of what Helene had just surrendered—all of it momentarily dimmed in comparison
to her.
Helene blinked, then swallowed, breaking the spell. “Finish it, Cam,” she said again, her voice strangely calm.
Wracked with shame and lust, Cam dropped his forehead to lightly touch hers. “Finish it?” he whispered, breathing deeply, trying to force the lump from his chest. “Dear God, Helene. What have I started—?”
Beneath him, Helene shifted, rocking her hips upward, taking him incrementally deeper in a sweet intimation of her wishes. Despite the heated press of tears behind his eyes, Cam found that below the waist, his flesh was too weak to refuse her. His baser instincts still ruled. Buried deep inside Helene’s feminine warmth, his rod hardened unrepentantly.
“Mmmm ...” she breathed. As if she had willed it, Cam began to move inside her again, knowing that he had no right.
But pace for pace, Helene matched him, rising up to meet his thrusts as he glided over her. Bracing his weight on his hands, Cam lifted himself high, and gazed down at Helene as he filled her with long, gentle strokes. Her hands came up to caress his waist, then slid smoothly around to the small of his back. Lower still, she skimmed over the taut muscles of his buttocks, under the tangle of his breeches and drawers, urging him fully against her.
Her eyes fell shut as he stroked her. Her breath came short and fast. She parted her lips, and Cam could see the pink of her tongue—the same tongue which had so erotically tortured him—pressed high against her upper teeth.
“I love you, Hellie.” He breathed the old words into the darkness, feeling Helene quicken beneath him. Her legs came around his waist and her fingers pressed into the muscles of his thrusting hips. After that—and seemingly into infinity—there was nothing but the glide of flesh over flesh, raw gasps of pleasure, unrestrained groans. His or hers? Cam did not know.
The sounds of passion filled the night. He loved her. So much, he loved her. He always had, even when she drove him mad with frustration or wild with jealousy. Helene would be the death of him. He’d always known it, and yet he’d always loved her. He lowered his head, placed his lips to her ear, and told her so again.