The Bride In Blue

by Miranda Lee

  'Not if I can help it,' Jonathon snarled, grabbing her arm and wrenching her out of Harvey's embrace. She sighed with relief at being free of that disgusting hand, almost happy to find herself in Jonathon's comparatively safe arms, even if his grip was bruisingly hard.

  'Get lost, Harvey,' he ground out.

  Harvey laughed. 'You never did know how to share, Jonathon.'

  'This isn't a matter of sharing. It's a matter of pro­tecting. Leave… Sophia… alone.' Each word came out with a razor's edge and she shivered.

  'Why should I?' Harvey tossed back. 'Godfrey wasn't my brother. I made no deathbed promise. Besides, Sophia's not a child. She's a fully grown woman. Or hadn't you noticed?'

  'Yes,' Jonathon bit out. 'I've noticed. But in ex­perience she's still little more than a child.'

  Sophia opened her mouth to protest, then closed it again. Jonathon was right… in a way. She hadn't much experience with life, and men. If she had, she'd have known what to do a moment ago, when Harvey had started mauling her.

  'Experience has to start somewhere, friend,' Harvey went on wryly. 'Besides, you're talking as though Sophia's a shy, retiring, wide-eyed virgin. She's hardly that. Don't be such a spoilsport, man. If you don't want the girl, there are a lot of other men who will. But I don't want to argue with you about this tonight. It's New Year's Eve. I have another couple of parties I promised to drop in on, so this might be an appro­priate moment for me to take my leave. As for you, lovely Sophia… I'll be in contact. Soon.'

  He was gone before Jonathon could say another word, which was perhaps why he rounded on Sophia, angrily pulling her back in the shadows against the wall.

  'I suppose I shouldn't blame you,' he said frustratedly. 'But damn it all, can't you recognise an in­veterate womaniser when you see one? Harvey's thirty-five years old. He's never been married and he never will be. He's loved and left more women than I can count. He is not the sort of man for you!'

  Sophia remained silent, confused by Jonathon's tirade.

  Was he jealous? Or merely annoyed?

  'I want you to stay by my side for the rest of the night,' he ordered brusquely. 'You obviously can't be let loose in this company, certainly not with all these randy young men pouring beer and spirits down their throats as if there's no tomorrow. And certainly not while you're wearing that dress!'

  'What's wrong with this dress?' she stupidly asked.

  'Nothing… if it was on Wilma.'

  Sophia blushed.

  'My God, you're a real babe-in-the woods, aren't you? A man like Harvey could eat you up and spit you out for breakfast.'

  'No, he couldn't!'

  'Oh, yes, he could. I saw what he was doing, groping you under your dress. And I saw you weren't exactly liking it. But you didn't say a word. You let him go on groping. If you go out with him, he might try to do a damned sight more than grope. What would you do then, Sophia? Would you just lie there, speechless with fright, when his hand finds a damned sight more intimate target than your back, when he pulls down your pants and… ?'

  'Stop it,' she gasped, her face burning. 'Stop it! You… you've got your message across. I'm a fool,' she cried. 'A silly little fool.'

  His face softened at her distress, his eyes almost apologetic. 'No, not a silly little fool. A sweet, trusting soul who needs a crash course in life if she's to survive in this world. You lived a fantasy life with Godfrey, Sophia. It wasn't real. My brother always ran away from life, and, for a while, so did you. Maybe I'm to blame for trying to protect you further. Maybe it's time you joined the real world… saw what real men are like!'

  'What… what do you mean?' she croaked out, her throat drying as his hard blue eyes came to rest on her tremulous mouth.

  'You know damned well what I mean.'

  Sophia's eyes rounded with a burst of fear, but he wasn't looking at her eyes. He kept looking at her mouth as he slowly drew her against him, one hand sliding up the back of her neck into her hair, the other assuming the same position that Harvey's had, set­tling into the small of her back and holding her firmly captive.

  Jonathon's hand, however, did not inspire revul­sion. A soft moan escaped her lips as it moved ca­ressingly against her bare skin, her immediate goose-bumps carrying a far different meaning this time.

  'I shouldn't be doing this,' he muttered against her lips, groaning a type of despair, she thought, as the last millimetre between them was crossed.

  And then she didn't think anything. There was nothing but his mouth, hard on hers, his hands tight­ening on her flesh.

  When his mouth lifted momentarily on a raw moan, she gasped for air, only to instantly have his lips back covering hers and his tongue, hot and wet, surging deep inside. Wild swirls filled her head, the blood pounding in her temples. She pressed her hips against his, whimpering a need she had never felt before.

  His mouth was wrenched from hers so abruptly, that for a few confusing seconds, she stared up at him, her lips still apart, red and swollen. He groaned, then gathered her back against him, this time burying his face in her hair.

  'Tell me you want me,' he said hoarsely.

  'I want you,' she whispered, her voice shaking, her thoughts a blur, but her body very very sure.

  'You won't change your mind if I let you go?'

  'No.'

  'I want you to go to your room and wait for me. Don't come down again.'

  'All right,' she agreed dazedly.

  'I'll come to you as soon as everyone's gone.'

  She nodded dumb acquiescence to his will. At that moment she would have done anything, anything he wanted.

  'Kiss me, before you go,' he urged hoarsely.

  She did so, blindly, hungrily, inviting his tongue to drown in her mouth again, demonstrating without words that desire had her securely in its tenacious grip.

  'It's not midnight yet,' said a dry voice, blasting through Sophia's mindless passion.

  Jonathon grudgingly eased his mouth from hers and turned round, holding her firmly against his side with a possessive arm around her waist.

  Wilma stood a short distance away, where the shadows in their corner were dispelled by the lights from the house. She was surveying them both with a knowing satisfaction on her sharp, plain features.

  'I had to get in early,' Jonathon drawled, showing a shocked Sophia how experienced he was at reducing women to mush whilst retaining superb control himself. His cool voice belied the thickened tones he'd just whispered in her ear. She almost wondered if she'd imagined them.

  'Sophia's come down with a headache,' he went on blithely, 'and she's decided to go off to bed.' He bent to give her a chaste kiss on the cheek. 'Goodnight, love. I'll pop in and see how you are later.'

  Sophia found herself saying an amazingly calm goodnight to an astonished Wilma and drifting off back into the house, as though hypnotised. When she reached her bedroom, she turned and locked the door, not to keep Jonathon out, but to keep everyone else out, everyone who might ask her awkward questions and who might see what was in her face.

  Jonathon had warned her that he was way out of her league. He was. But it was too late now. Too late. He'd set her on a path she'd never travelled along before, a dangerous but insidiously attractive path, far more powerful than conscience, or loyalty, or even love; a primitive path, promising pleasures that needed nothing of the soul but everything of the senses. She'd recognised once before that going to bed with Jonathon wouldn't be anything like she'd experienced with Godfrey. It would not be making love. It would be having sex, nothing more, nothing less.

  She'd always believed that type of thing was not for her, that it would hold no appeal.

  She'd been wrong.

  Once her door was securely locked she took off everything, including the earrings, and showered very slowly, aware of the water beating against her skin as she'd never been before, aware of her body as she'd never been before. She closed her eyes and lifted her face into the spray, opening her mouth and letting the water fill it, remembering how it
had felt to have Jonathon's tongue filling it. She shuddered, but stayed with that thought and reached for the soap, moving it in ever widening circles over her stomach and ribs.

  She moaned softly when the soap found her breasts, her insides tightening whenever the slippery surface grazed over the nipples. When she could bear the sen­sations no longer she dropped the soap and arched her body into the hot wet spray.

  After the shower she stood naked in front of the vanity and took all the pins out of her hair, brushing it down with long, languorous strokes, wincing whenever the sharp bristles came into contact with her breasts. She toyed briefly with the idea of staying naked for him, but in the end slipped on one of the nighties which had lain unworn till this moment in her bottom drawer.

  It was cream, with a low-cut stretch-lace bodice which moulded her full breasts into a deep tantalising cleavage; the rest was satin, falling in slippery folds from its princess line to the floor. It felt cool against her heated skin, cool and decadent. She should have been disgusted with the image she was presenting. Instead, she felt so excited she could hardly stand it.

  When there was nothing more to be done—her make-up had been touched up and perfume applied everywhere—she lay down on top of the bed and waited till the last guest had gone and the house was quiet. At that point, she rose, shivering, the cool satin folds slapping against her naked thighs as she moved across the plush-piled carpet to unlock the door.

  It was at that point that she began to tremble quite violently. Knowing she could he in supposed patience on that bed no longer, she walked over to stare, wide-eyed, through the window down at the now deserted terrace. She wondered how long it would be before he would come, how much longer he would make her wait. She hoped not too long.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The sound of splashing snapped Sophia out of her blank staring. Her eyes, already wide and glittering, focused on a male figure cleaving his way through the moonlit pool.

  It was Jonathon, of course. There was no other male in the Parnell House.

  Sophia watched him swim up and down at a pun­ishing pace, his head rarely leaving the water. Then, when she'd begun to fear he might stay doing laps till he drowned, he swam over to the side and abruptly hauled himself out of the water, standing there, heaving, while the water dripped from his glistening body to form a pool around his feet.

  Sophia stared at him.

  This was the closest she had come to seeing Jonathon naked since entering Parnell Hall, only a brief pair of black swimming trunks between him and total nudity. The sight took her breath away. She'd always been in awe of his physical size and strength, even when dressed in one of his sleekly expensive business suits, but he seemed larger without his clothes on.

  She hadn't realised, either, how much body hair he had. Godfrey had had very little. There again, Godfrey had had very little hair even where he should have had some. He'd told her once he'd been going bald since he was twenty-three.

  Jonathon's head, however, was covered with luxuriant black waves, at that moment plastered thickly wet around his well-shaped skull. There was also a matting of damp black curls over most of his chest arrowing down to where it disappeared from sight underneath the black swimming trunks.

  Standing there as he was in the moonlight, with his shoulders squared and his fists curled, his chest still rising and falling with the physical effort of that savage swim, he presented an image rather similar, Sophia fancied, to that of a primitive man who'd just forded a flooded river. Soon, he would stride on home to his cave where his woman would be waiting with food cooking over an open fire.

  But this caveman wouldn't want to eat straight away. He'd been away, after all, for days, seeking out new hunting fields. What he suffered from was hunger of a different kind.

  Sophia could see him now, eyeing his scantily clad mate with hot eyes, then coming forward to grab a clump of her hair at the back of her head, bending her body back till he could suckle on one of her bare breasts like a starving infant before dragging her back on to their rough bed of furs at the back of their cave and vanquishing his hunger, not once, but several times.

  She was still enthralled in this fantasy when Jonathon's head suddenly snapped up to see her staring glazedly down at him through the window. Their eyes met and locked, Sophia unable to breathe while that intense gaze remained riveted to hers. And then he moved, striding purposefully towards the house, his eyes only leaving her when they had to. She spun round, her breath coming in swift shallow pants as she stared at the bedroom door.

  It was soon flung open, and he stood there, a huge dark silhouette against the light which was always left on in the hall. She licked dry lips, glad there was no other light on in the room. When he moved abruptly inside, shutting and locking the door behind him, she braced herself against the windowsill, her stomach churning wildly, her heart thudding almost painfully in her chest.

  He crossed the carpet with huge strides, looking larger and larger with each step till he towered over her. She lifted rounded eyes to his narrowed ones, her tongue suddenly thick in her mouth. A flood of nerves consumed her, bringing with it a trembling deep inside.

  But even as her apprehension built, so did her desire, her eyes clinging to his, her body uncon­sciously straining towards him.

  He ripped the nightie from her body, rent it in two from top to toe and threw it aside before sweeping her shaking body up into his arms and carrying her to the bed. He held her briefly against his damp body, hot eyes raking over her naked flesh before spreading her out on the quilt then swiftly stripping himself. Sophia was stunned by the speed with which he loomed over her, a dark silent force that breathed but did not speak.

  She gasped when he pushed her legs apart and settled on his haunches between them, gasping again when, as though he had mind-read her earlier fantasy, he bent to scoop an arm around her waist and pull her into a sitting position, his free hand winding into her hair and pulling downwards, arching her back till one breast came into position for his searching mouth.

  He nuzzled it hungrily, rubbed his five o'clock shadow over it, licked it, nibbled at it, and then, when she thought she could bear no more, drew the entire aureole into his mouth. Shuddering with pleasure, Sophia closed her eyes and gave herself up totally to the experience.

  She didn't try to stop herself from moaning. There would be no stopping, she accepted blindly. There was no tomorrow. There was only here and now, with Jonathon's mouth on her breast. She didn't know what lay in store for her this night. She only knew that she wanted whatever he wanted. She was his, totally, utterly, to do with as he willed.

  He tormented her other breast before he lowered her back to the bed, before his mouth began a frantic, feverish journey down her body. He shocked her when he left nothing unkissed or unexplored. But the shock wasn't nearly as overwhelming as the sensations his lips and tongue evoked. She'd never dreamt her body housed such hidden delights.

  Not hidden to Jonathon, however. He showed his experience with women by knowing exactly what would bring her intolerably close to ecstasy, what would make her gasp and moan and writhe beneath him, what would make her beg him not to stop.

  'No, don't stop,' she cried a second time when he abandoned what he was doing.

  He didn't stop. He merely started replacing his mouth and hands with his body, making her gasp when she realised he was as large there as he was everywhere else. A sob caught in her throat, her eyes squeezing tightly shut against the pressure of his ti­tanic desire seeking entry into her almost virginal body.

  When he suddenly achieved the unachievable, slipping deeply inside, Sophia's eyes flung wide. All discomfort had ceased, the only sensation one of being thoroughly and very satisfyingly filled. What Jonathon was feeling, she couldn't tell. He didn't look at her from where he was still kneeling between her legs, his hands under her buttocks, his concentration seemingly on that area where their flesh became one. His face was in shadow, but his stillness suggested a silent savouring of their union.
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  His hands moved to grip her hips and lift them from the bed, pulling her forward across his thighs as he settled back on to his haunches. When his head tipped back on a low groan, a ray of moonlight slanted across his face, revealing tortured, twisted features. He looked as if he was in pain as he began to pump slowly into her, pulling her hard against him whenever he urged his own flesh fully into hers, then easing her away as he withdrew a few inches.

  Sophia wasn't in pain. She was deep in pleasure. It was like riding a storm-tossed sea, she imagined, being lifted up on to a crest of a wave, then plummeted down into a trough, only to be scooped up again, even higher than before. Higher she went, and higher, her soft moans of delight slowly turning to almost tor­mented groans. Her hips writhed under his increas­ingly ruthless grasp, her mouth gasping wide, her eyes screwing tightly shut as pleasure did indeed become a type of pain.

  Was this what he'd been feeling all along? Oh, surely not. He wouldn't have been able to stand it this long.

  'No, no,' she moaned before suddenly being gripped in sensations so sharp, so electric, so exciting that she cried out aloud. Her hands gripped clumps of the quilt at her sides, her flesh pulsating with seemingly endless waves of pleasure.

  Sophia dazedly understood that this was a climax, that it was the desired result in making love, the ulti­mate. She suspected now that she would never have experienced this with Godfrey. The one time she had gone to bed with him, she'd felt nothing at all like what she'd felt here tonight, Godfrey's kisses and touches not evoking even the first inkling of real arousal or desire.

  Jonathon, however, had driven her mind and body into a crazed frenzy from the first moment he'd kissed her tonight. Yet they weren't in love with each other. It hadn't been making love, what he'd done to her on this bed, what he was still doing to her…

  His name was torn from her lips, a lost, bewildered cry which called for him to explain how she could feel like this when there was no love involved, to comfort her in her confusion, to hold her till this cataclysmic experience released her from its tenacious grip.