She bit her lips and pinched her cheeks, adding extra color to the sensual flush that highlighted her face. Looking into the mirror, remembering, she cupped a breast in each hand and brushed the crests with her fingertips until they’d hardened with arousal. She took a damp cloth, wet it, and spread it on her chest. When she peeled it off, the dusky tips of her nipples were clearly visible beneath the fine white gown.
She lifted the candle, and went to the door.
Justin stood beside his turned-down bed, staring at the sheets and wondering what the hell he was doing here, alone, when Christiana was next door, waiting, expecting him to seek her out. He’d been saying as much all night, in the language of his body, the stroke of his fingers on his wineglass a metaphor for the way he’d touch her later, the sip of wine a prelude to when he would drink from her body. Speaking with his eyes, he’d caught her gaze across the table, had flirted with her over dinner and in his library. He had let her see just how much he wanted her.
But when she’d excused herself to retire early, he had remembered how she spent the afternoon and wondered if she weren’t truly tired. He felt his day’s work, too, but he refused to let it impede his performance should he do as his libido demanded and take her to bed. Even now he was hard, just thinking about her and the supreme pleasure he found in her body. But his joy went beyond the mere physical. No woman had ever stirred such need, such warmth, such passion in him. No woman had filled the void inside—an emptiness he’d denied to the point that he scarce remembered it was there, until thoughts of losing Christiana forced him to acknowledge it. This proud, passionate young woman had managed to do what none other had before: capture his heart without so much as a warning shot.
Yesterday morning, he had envisioned breaking down the walls between them by sharing Ian O’Malley’s rescue plans. As it was, the fury of the storm had done that—at least, to a point. But if she was tired, he could wait, he told himself, even as he imagined Christiana soft and muzzy with sleep, her back pressed against his chest, her hips tucked into his lap while his fingers threaded through the black silk of her hair, holding her as chastely as he could, denying the urges of his aroused body and making no demands, content to hold her in his arms, sheltered and safe.
He’d done it before. He could do it again.
The hell with sleeping alone.
Justin pivoted and took two steps toward the door, only to be brought up short when the latch clicked and the door opened. A single beeswax candle burning in a silver holder came into view, then a lace-adorned sleeve, a shoulder, a wide-eyed waif with raven hair.
“Christiana.”
She paused but a heartbeat then stepped into his chamber, closing the door behind her, sequestering them together in his masculine domain. She smiled, a tremulous lift of her lips that he answered in kind, curving his mouth in a sensual smile that, combined with his nudity and his rampant manhood, brought her to an unconscious halt, poised like a vibrant statue, a nymph bathed in moonbeams and candlelight.
He closed the distance between them in long, slow strides. Taking the taper, his gaze never leaving hers, he wrapped his fingers around her small hand and led her to his bed. He set the silver holder on the nearby table, then lifted her fingers, rubbing his lips across her knuckles, his eyes locked on hers. She inhaled a tremulous breath, as if sensing that his passion, his possession might prove to be as fiercely elemental as last night’s storm.
Justin straightened, smiling with a unique tenderness that not so long ago would have seemed foreign to him. He considered himself a fair man, and patient beyond most men’s capabilities, but none of his dealings with women had inspired a gentleness that went beyond simple kindness, tempering his passions so that his sexual partners, always of the fairer sex, were left gratified, not bruised by his greater size and strength.
But he felt far more for Christiana, who possessed qualities that uniquely complemented his own. She was brave, daring, willing to risk everything for those she loved, yet her softer side, her femininity, called to some primeval instinct in him to protect her, even if it was from himself.
“I thought you went to bed,” he murmured, cupping her face and stroking the softness of her cheek with his thumb.
“I did,” she said, almost shyly, her wide eyed gaze luminous in the precious light.
The part of him that had taken hope was dashed with disappointment, yet his ardor did not flag. If he took her back to bed, must he be content to just hold her? Could he trust himself to lie beside her and ask nothing more? Would fate be so cruel as to condemn him, like a eunuch in a harem, to be surrounded by her feminine essence yet unable to sample it?
“Vous êtes fatigué,” he murmured, dearly wishing it were not so.
Then she looked at him. Like a sea nymph, she beckoned him, tempting him beyond his ability to resist. In her eyes, he saw the night unfold.
“Oui, I am tired,” she whispered, “but not, I think, too tired for this….”
Christiana caught his hand and pressed a kiss into his callused palm. She kissed it again, felt the tremor that shook his frame when she took his finger into her mouth and caressed it with her lips and tongue. He made an inarticulate growl when she took it in deeper and held it captive while reaching down with her other hand to wrap her fingers around his erection. She suckled his finger, a low moan vibrating in her throat, while she stroked the heavy length of his shaft. He reminded himself that he must not lose control, He must be careful. When he thought of how delicately made she was, he was amazed that the two of them fit together.
Justin bent his head to press a kiss against her hair, her ear, tracing the delicate contours with his tongue, then thrusting inside to the rhythm that she established. Her mouth was hot, wet, unbelievably erotic as she possessed him in ways that she had never dared. He welcomed her sensual ministrations until he was forced to pull away.
Christiana filled herself with Vallé, his callused finger in her mouth, his tumescence filling her hands. She ringed the base of his phallus with a thumb and forefinger, pressing while she fondled his testicules with the other hand. Murmuring an apology, he stilled her hand at his groin and took his finger from her mouth to rub the dampness across the pert, hardened crests that strained against the sheer fabric of her gown. Bending down, he tasted her throat, scoring the tender flesh with his teeth and bathing the slim column of her neck with his tongue. He cupped the weight of her breast and lifted it. Lowering his head, he suckled it through the fabric.
Christiana moaned and arched against him, pleasuring herself on the hard, hair-dusted thigh that insinuated itself between her legs and pressed against her empty core. Seeking to appease her growing ache, she tilted her hips, creating friction, felt the soft folds of her body swell, becoming unbearably sensitive—as sensitive as the pulsing erection that throbbed beneath her hand. But when he pulled back, she pressed forward, wanting more, seeking sweet relief from the maelstrom that raged inside her. Only Vallé could stir her blood, and only he could guide her to the calm beyond the storm.
“Ma belle,” he whispered harshly. Lifting her chin, she met his eyes, darkened with arousal, lids heavy with passion, nostrils flaring with each savage breath. The woman in her sensed how tightly he held onto his control, and though she knew that she played with fire, she intended to learn the boundaries of both of their endurances.
Smiling, she reached on tiptoe to brush a kiss across his lips. Vallé had washed but had not shaved, and the abrasion of his beard was too much to resist. She stroked it with her fingers, with her tongue, tasted the pulse point in his neck. She nuzzled lower, teasing the whorls of hair, using hands and tongue and fingers to memorize the magnificent contours of his chest, the ridged muscles of his belly, the enticing sculpture of flesh below his trim waist, the lean hips, muscled thighs, carved calves, feet not of clay but of flesh and blood and bone. Man and myth, as beautiful as Adonis.
And Christiana, like Persephone, intended to keep him.
She knelt at his feet
and sat back on her heels, gathering her hem and lifting it around her thighs. From high above, like some ancient god of beauty and desire, Vallé watched her, his breathing labored, while masculine appreciation for her efforts to please him gleamed like blue fire in the depths of his eyes. When he would have drawn her up, she shook her head, smiling when he clenched his hand at his side to keep from reaching for her.
Christiana brought her gown to her hips, to her waist. Vallé watched her hotly, intently. Only the white knuckles that tapped his thighs and the part of him she hadn’t tasted betrayed how desperately he wanted her.
His manhood surged reflexively, reaching for her touch. She stood and slipped the gown over her head, freeing her arms and letting it pool at her feet. The changing light in Vallé’s eyes warned her of his intentions in time to step back, out of reach.
She was acutely aware that she dare not tease him too much, not when his passion ran so high. “A moment,” she whispered, a sexual promise in her voice.
Vallé stared at her, curiosity etching brackets around his mouth, until he saw what she intended. She climbed onto his bed and stretched out across it on her back, her feet not quite reaching the far side, with her head hanging over the edge. “Come,” she said, opening her arms in silent welcome. Vallé’s imagination meshed with her own, leading him to step between her hands, feet spread apart as she reached for him, guided him into her mouth, took him deep, and deeper yet, his length pushing into her throat while his knees pressed against the edge of the mattress.
His back bowed. His head came down. He groaned against her skin. Sucking air harshly between his teeth, he planted kisses on the tender, sensitive skin between her hipbones and plucked at her fleece of nether curls. But he held his hips still, overriding his body’s urgings to drive in deep. When she sensed that he’d held himself back far too long, when he seemed on the edge of losing control, she urged him onward, encouraging him with her hands and lips and tongue.
A moan vibrated in her throat, against him, around him, when he slid a finger into her. He inserted a second and stroked while his tongue teased the place where promised pleasure dwelt. He cherished that bud of delight, urging her petals to unfurl and bringing her to the verge of orgasm.
Too much. Christiana clutched his hips and tried, as if she could, to swallow him, wanting more, more, more as she writhed beneath him. Vallé obliged her unspoken plea, listening to the whispers of her body, gauging the nuances of each gasp and moan. He felt the growing tension in her body, the hunger of her mouth, the frantic fight for breath as she struggled to keep from drowning.
“Jouit,” he whispered harshly, and she did. Her climax washed over her in waves. She stiffened, taut as a bowstring when she arched off the bed, turning her head and crying out against his hip. She cried out again when he buried his head between her thighs and thrust his tongue inside her, until he’d wrung another shattering climax that left her limp, and a third that saw her lose consciousness.
Mon Dieu.
Justin planted his hands on the bed and straightened his elbows, emotions warring: masculine satisfaction that he had brought her such intense pleasure, and frustration that his own ache was far from appeased. But there was time, he reminded himself. All night, if need be. Or tomorrow, if she’d truly had too much.
He lifted Christiana’s shoulders and gathered her in his arms. Easing her onto the middle of the bed, he placed a pillow under her head. It rolled to the side, dark lashes feathering her cheeks, her green eyes closed, her mouth erotically reddened, with lips parted, as if she wanted him again that way. Just the thought made him ache with an intensity that bordered on pain.
Christiana’s eyelids fluttered open to reveal her brilliant green orbs, once glazed with passion, now dazed in its aftermath. “What did you do to me?” she whispered, knowing the seducer had become the seduced.
“Loved you,” he answered, smiling softly. Winnowing his fingers through his sea nymph’s hair, he lowered his head and brushed a kiss across her tender, swollen lips, inhaling the erotic blend of their essences, then tasting it with a sweep of his tongue. She moaned into his mouth. He deepened the kiss, stretching the length of his body alongside hers and sliding his bent leg across her thighs to anchor her to the bed.
Vallé held her, simply held her, though his body throbbed against hers, evidence that his own ache was far from appeased. He denied himself what he easily could have had, and the unselfish act struck a responsive chord, in Christiana’s breasts, in her belly, in her heart. Once she ceased resistance, it tugged her subconscious, playing out in her mind like the stories Vallé had spun in her youth. In a scene that was oddly familiar, she saw a Viking warrior and his prize, a dark-haired Irish lass whose captive passions would come to match his own.
‘Twas one of the many stories from her youth, but she treasured it because it was part of Vallé. Their blood flowed in his veins. His hair was a legacy of his Norse ancestor, who’d come to conquer Ireland and who’d had his heart captured instead.
Christiana felt a distinct sense of shared intimacy, and a curiously close identification with the couple, who believed that a love against all odds could conquer any obstacle. Their belief had ultimately proved correct, and it would again, Christiana promised herself fiercely, hugging her lover to her heart once more.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The first rays of the sun were breaking over the eastern hills when Justin awoke, one arm curled around Christiana’s waist, his other arm numb from a nighttime spent tucked beneath her head. She lay on her side, her back against his chest while his breath fanned the ebony crown of her hair.
He inhaled deeply, filling his lungs with her woman’s scent, wondering if she would mind being awakened with a kiss, like Perrault’s La Belle au bois dormant. Raising himself on one elbow, he leaned over and brushed his lips upon her cheek. When she snuggled against his front, seeking closeness even in her sleep, he could not help but smile.
She had come to him a virgin, but last night—ah, last night, could he have imagined anything half so provocative as the way she had approached him, seduced him, pleasured him with her mouth, her hands, igniting a fire that had threatened to consume them both? He’d seen that her passion was quenched, at least. His had merely been banked, awaiting only the light of day and the fragrance of a woman, this woman, to flare brilliantly to life.
Justin smoothed the black silk tresses away from her face. Sometime during the night, her ribbon had come loose. He tossed it to the side and bent his head to nuzzle her cheek, tasting the finely sculpted curves and hollows from her temple to her neck until her eyelids fluttered open. He watched his sleeping beauty come awake, saw the exact moment she became aware of his need.
Her cheeks grew flushed with the knowledge of how easily she could arouse him. Just thinking of her was enough, but he must admit that reality—waking up with her soft, supple body wrapped in his arms—was much more stimulating.
The lucid light in her green eyes grew misted and languorous. She shifted, restless, and made a small sound, a telltale catch of her breath when he slid his hand down, fingers splayed, and pressed against her belly. Instinctively, she arched against him, with a low purr in her throat that encouraged his attentions.
Justin kissed her ear and threaded his fingers through the raven curls at the juncture of her slim thighs. He thrust his hips forward, a luscious slide of sensation, the stroke of his turgid sex against her moist, swollen feminine folds. She moaned, fully awake now and trembling with desire. She closed her thighs, holding his phallus tight between them. Reaching down, she fondled the velvety head, telling him by touch that she was as greedy for him as he was for her.
Justin pushed against her, relishing the sensations but eager for the greater pleasure that lay ahead. Sliding one hand behind her knee, he brought it to her chest, stroked her with himself, then breached her sweet, tight opening. He leaned over, captured her nipple between his teeth, and laved it with his tongue. He bit it softly and squeezed inside,
her velvety walls rippling along his length as her body adjusted to accommodate him.
Christiana caught her bottom lip with her teeth and inhaled sharply, reaching behind her to grasp Vallé’s hip and pull him hard against her, into her, an erotic impalement that begged repeating. She flexed her back to welcome the driving thrust that came, and the next, turning with him when he whispered hotly in her ear, urging her onto her stomach.
Christiana felt the old panic rise, but she was no longer helpless, pinned face-down on a dirt floor, crushed under the leech’s weight. She told herself this was Vallé, whom she’d loved since childhood. It was Vallé who wedged his hands beneath her hips, holding her while his breath rushed in her ear and he gave himself to her, deeply, fiercely. It was Vallé who went with her to the brink, changing his pace when he felt her start to peak, not letting her achieve it until long past the point when both of them were panting and drenched with sweat.
“Please…,” she begged him, turning her head only to feel the synchronous thrust of his tongue against her ear while he drove his body into hers. When he reached for her breast, she caught his fingers, brought them to her mouth, took one between her lips, and teased him with the memory of last night, when her boldness had been so wonderfully rewarded. No matter what the day would hold, no matter what the next few hours would bring, here in bed, there were no secrets between them. They came together without pretense, naked and unashamed, aware that, in surrendering to each other, they both won.
Mon Dieu. Justin sucked in a harsh breath when Christiana closed her lips over his finger. Gritting his teeth, he filled her to bursting while she twisted and tightened and writhed beneath him. He claimed her body with his own as he was not yet free to do with words. His kiss was a flame against her temple, his hands a brand upon her hip and mouth. Burying his face in the curve of her neck, he tasted the salt of desire on her skin.
Touch the Wind: Touch the Wind Book 1 Page 20