«What?»
He laughed deep in his throat as he looked at her dazed, sultry eyes and flushed lips. «You taste of brandy,» he said.
«So do you.»
«I taste of you. Lick my lips, Jessi. Let me feel that soft little tongue in my mouth again.»
Surprise shivered through her. «I didn’t realize…»
Wolfe made a questioning sound that was also a purr of anticipation.
«The kiss,» she whispered. «I didn’t know how intimate it had become until I heard your words.Itasted you.»
«The brandy was all you.»
«The rest of it wasn’t. You’re so warm and almost salty and almost sweet.» Jessica shivered. «Like wine, your taste keeps changing. And like wine, you make me dizzy.»
«Jessi,» Wolfe said thickly, «you’re going to burn me alive.»
When Wolfe’s arms tightened, lifting Jessica to his mouth, she went eagerly. He teased her by holding back, kissing her chastely until her arms locked around his neck in an attempt to hold him close for the kind of deep kiss he had taught her to enjoy.
But Wolfe was much too strong to be held. The tiny maddening kisses continued.
«Wolfe?»
He made a purring, questioning sound that ruffled her nerves, but there was nothing lazy about his eyes watching her. They smoldered behind his thick lashes.
«Kiss me the way it was before,» Jessica whispered. «Kiss me so that I can taste you on my tongue.»
Wolfe groaned and took her mouth in a seamless, hot kiss that was more arousing and yet more satisfying than any he had ever known with a woman. His hands kneaded from her scalp to her nape to her hips, shaping her to his body. The silk of her nightgown was more of an enticement than a barrier to his fingers, for the cloth was so sheer that the heat and textures of her body weren’t concealed. She was as sleek and supple as a cat beneath the silk, and like a cat she arched in response to the stroking of his hands over her back. When he finally ended the kiss, she was shivering against him as though cold; yet her skin was hot, flushed with passion.
Slowly Wolfe’s intent, dark glance went from Jessica’s mouth to the pulse beating quickly in her neck and then to her breasts. Her nightgown was a translucent veil too sheer to conceal her body. Her nipples were deep pink, tempting him.
«Remember the bud and the sunlight?» Wolfe asked in a husky voice. «Remember how I warned you that passion is an intimate thing?»
«I find I like that. With you.»
«Good, because it begins to get intimate now.»
«Begins?» Jessica’s eyeswidened. «Begins?»
«Sweet little redheaded parrot,» he murmured. «Yes, it begins. Soon. It will feel good, Jessi. Even better than when I stroked your tongue with mine.»
Wolfe’s hand went from her neck to the fine-grained skin just below her collarbone. Her breath broke as she suddenly became aware of the sensuous weight of her own breasts. He kissed her lips slowly, deeply, until she gave her mouth to him and demanded his own in return. Only then did his hand shift, covering and cupping and caressing her breasts in the same slow rhythms of his tongue sliding over hers.
«You feel like a captive bird in my hand,» Wolfe said. «Your heart is beating so violently. Do I frighten you?»
Jessica tried to speak, but all that came from her lips was a stifled sound. Nerve endings she had never known she had were responding to the slow movement of Wolfe’s fingers. A net of fire licked from her breasts to her knees, making it impossible to breathe.
«Help me, Jessi. Let me hear your words. Let me hear your breath breaking if I please you.»
Wolfe’s fingertips closed over the velvet peak of Jessica’s breast. He plucked delicately, listened to the husky breaking of her breath over his name, and felt her nipple harden in a rush that left it pressing against the sheer white silk of her gown.
«I think,» he said thickly, «the bud isn’t frightened of the sun.»
His fingertips moved again and again. He heard the tiny cry from the back of Jessica’s throat. When he finally looked away from the hungry pink bud, she was watching him with wide eyes.
«You’re trembling,» Wolfe said.
«I can’t help it. When you look at me like that it’s all I can do to breathe.»
«How am I looking at you?»
«As though you want to…»
Jessica’s voice dried up. The heat of her blush radiated beneath his hand.
«As though I want to…?» he asked huskily.
«Kiss me,» she whispered. «There.»
«Yes. Hold onto me, Jessi. It begins now.»
Frozen between disbelief and anticipation, Jessica felt Wolfe’s body shift along hers, felt his mouth against the pulse beating frantically in her neck, felt his breath flow warmly over her skin, felt him smooth first one cheek and then the other over her breasts. Distantly she realized that his hands were moving down her body as well. The tiny little fastenings at the front of her gown were dissolving like snow beneath flame. The feel of silk falling away from her breasts made her shiver as her nipples drew into peaks.
Then she realized he meant to undress her completely.
«Wolfe —» her voice broke.
«This is part of intimacy. I won’t hurt you, Jessi. Will you let me undress you?»
Her breath came out in a ragged rush. «Yes.»
There was a shimmering silence broken only by the secret sounds of Jessica’s gown being eased from her body by Wolfe’s hands. She trembled visibly, but made no effort to cover herself when the cool air of the room washed over her naked breasts.
«You’re perfectly formed,» Wolfe said in a hushed voice. Upon the heels of that discovery came another. «And I have dreamed of seeing you like this since your fifteenth summer.»
The intensity of Wolfe’s voice and his indigo eyes devouring her made Jessica feel both nervous and beautiful. It was a moment before the meaning of his words sank in.
«When I was fifteen?» she asked in a low voice.
«Lady Victoria was right. I wanted you so much I didn’t let myself think of you as a woman. But I couldn’t control my dreams.» Wolfe’s voice deepened. «In my dreams I came to you, undressed you, tasted you. My dreams drove me from England.»
«Not the duchess and the scandal?»
Without answering, Wolfe ran his fingertips from the pulse beating in Jessica’s throat to the lush mahogany cloud at the apex of her thighs and back up again. The sound of his name shivering from her lips made him smile despite the need raking him with claws of fire.
Once Wolfe would have been afraid to continue touching Jessica, afraid to trust his own control. Once, but no longer. He had only to think of what her childhood had been like and ice condensed within him, taking the pain of unrelieved hunger from his body, giving him the strength to enjoy her without claiming her.
Yet the hunger remained, growing with each breath.
«The duchess was a convenience,» Wolfe said simply, tracing a line of fire down Jessica’s body again. «I thought if I took a lover, my dreams would be my own.»
«Were they?»
The words were breathless, squeezed past the tension in Jessica’s throat. She wanted to cover herself and hide…and she wanted to stretch like a cat beneath Wolfe’s hand. The conflicting impulses rippled through her, tightening her nerves until she shivered.
«My dreams haven’t been my own since we took shelter from a rainstorm beneath an oak. You were drenched. Your dress clung to your breasts and your nipples stood hard against the cloth.»
Wolfe’s dark head bent until he could kiss the wild pulse in Jessica’s throat.
«I wondered if your nipples would tighten like that for me,» he whispered.
The tiny sound Jessica made licked over Wolfe’s senses. He set his teeth delicately where her neck curved into her shoulder.
«You haunted me,» Wolfe said. «I told myself it was my age, the cold rutting with aristocratic women, my unruly body. I told myself everything but the truth. I wante
d you until I couldn’t look at you without being aroused.»
His mouth glided lower, exploring the warm valley between Jessica’s breasts. Her heartbeat shook her, but it was Wolfe’s words as much as the warmth of his breath on her bare skin that made her tremble. The tip of his tongue drew a line of molten heat over her.
«You taste like a rose,» he whispered.
Wolfe turned his head from side to side, savoring Jessica’s warmth and her scent, enjoying her with a frank sensuality that made breath fill her throat until she ached. With a shivering sound she moved beneath him, turning slowly against his caressing mouth without understanding why.
«You’re burning me,» he whispered.
«’Tisyou who burn me. Your mouth is fire.»
Hunger ran through Wolfe, tightening his body until he let out his pent-up breath in a long, soundless sigh.
«You’ve burned me for so many years,» he said. «I was trying to find an excuse for leaving England when the duchess threw her very public tantrum over my absence from her bed. Finally Lord Robert agreed that he could live without the company of his bastard for a time.»
Wolfe’s dark cheek smoothed over the swell of Jessica’s breast. Her hands lifted, but not to push him away. His words disarmed her, seducing her even as his caresses set her afire. She threaded her fingers into the midnight thickness of Wolfe’s hair until she could feel the living warmth of his scalp. Sensing the response that went through him, she drew her nails lightly over his scalp once more.
«I wept when I heard you were leaving,» she whispered.
«Did you? I saw only your smile and heard only the sharp edge of your tongue over my taste in duchesses.»
«I was angry with you.»
«You were jealous of me, Jessi. The way a woman is jealous of her man. Lady Victoria saw that. Just as she saw what I concealed even from myself.»
«What was that?»
«I couldn’t hear your voice, I couldn’t smell a rose, I couldn’t pass a room where you had recently been without becoming aroused. I was being drawn upon a rack. There was no end to it, no relief in other women, nothing I could do but leave.»
Wolfe looked up at Jessica, making no effort to conceal the desire for her that had sunk so deeply into him through the years that he no more noticed it than he noticed the marrow of his bones.
«I didn’t know,» she whispered.
Trembling, Jessica met Wolfe’s eyes. The elemental need in him rushed through her body in a glittering tide.
«I kept my need from you even more carefully than I kept it from myself,» he said.
Slowly Wolfe turned his head away. His dark glance went back down her body. The contrast between pale, luminous skin and mahogany fire was new each time he saw it. So was the fullness of her breasts and hips, a lush feminine promise that was repeated in the graceful curves of her legs.
«You took the color from the sky when you left,» Jessica whispered. «Oh, Wolfe, I missed you until I thought I would die. I loved you so much. I’ve always loved you.»
His heartbeat hesitated, then resumed with a heavy pulse.
«Don’t love me, Jessi. It will only hurt us both. I should have kept my need from you even now. But I can’t. You are too beautiful and I have dreamed of you too long.»
Wolfe bent to her breasts. His tongue traced the circle where pale satin skin became a pink temptation that he was trying to resist for a few moments longer. The edge of his teeth lightly tested her, drawing a startled sound from Jessica. Her fingers tightened in his hair.
«Don’t be frightened,» Wolfe breathed against her skin. «I’m not a drunken lord who will maul you until you bleed. I’m atitleless bastard who has waited a lifetime to caress you.»
Before Jessica could speak, she saw Wolfe’s lips part, knew the unexpected fire of his tongue licking over her nipple, felt the intimate heat of his mouth as he drew her inside. Her back arched reflexively as a thrill of pleasure and surprise shot through her. She called his name and was answered by an increase in the shifting pressure of his mouth. Heedlessly her fingers clenched his hair as sweet sensation twisted through her once more.
Wolfe stabbed sensually with his tongue at the rigid peak he had summoned from Jessica’s breast. She moaned and arched against him. He sheathed the edges of his teeth in his lips and tested the hardness of her nipple. Fire splintered, drawing a ragged, passionate cry from her. Wolfe didn’t lift his head until her breathing was broken and she was twisting slowly beneath his mouth. Very slowly he released her captive breast and admired the high ruby crown his mouth had created.
«You draw even tighter for my mouth than you did for the rain.»
«What?» she asked, dazed.
«This.» Wolfe took one of Jessica’s hands and drew it lightly over her breast. «Feel your passion. Such a velvet hardness.»
Her eyes opened in shock.
Laughing softly, Wolfe kissed her palm, bit the flesh at the base of her hand, and felt her body jerk with pleasure. Her caught her nipples between his fingers and plucked until she forgot everything but the sensations radiating through her like sunlight through a garden.
When one of Wolfe’s hands slid down the length of her body, Jessica didn’t protest. The warmth of his hand stroking over her legs was simply part of the net of fire that was drawing more tightly around her with each tug of his mouth at her breasts. She didn’t notice that with each sweet pressure of his palm her legs shifted and then shifted again until nothing of her softness was shielded from him.
«Remember how sunlight touches the bud?» Wolfe asked.
His voice was deep, husky, as warm and heavy as his hand resting just above the tangle of mahogany curls.
«Gently,» Jessica whispered. «Completely.»
«Everywhere.»
Understanding came. «Dear God, Wolfe. Even there?»
«Especially there. You’re going to come as sweetly unwrapped as a rosebud baring its petals to the sun for the first time.»
Motionless, Jessica stared at Wolfe’s dark, intensely masculine face.
«There’s no need to be frightened,» he said. «You want this. I can see it, even if you can’t. You’re already unfolding for me.»
She made a sound that could have been Wolfe’s name when she felt his hand ease lower.
«Don’t tighten your legs,» he said softly. «This is as close as I’ll ever come to taking you. I want to see it.»
Wolfe’s hand didn’t move as he lay motionless beside Jessica, waiting for her decision.
«Wolfe,» she whispered, but could say no more.
«Shy little rose.»
He kissed her shoulder, then drew his teeth over the place where nerves gathered. She made a soft sound of surprise and pleasure.
«I know you’re aching for the sun,» Wolfe said. «Let me give it to you.»
The delicacy of his teeth caressing her shoulder was both sensual reassurance and sensuous promise. Slowly Jessica let out her breath and relaxed the tension in her legs. She was rewarded by the slow stroking of Wolfe’s palm over her belly and hips and thighs. His mouth teased her breasts, sending pleasure licking through her once more, wrapping her in a net of loving fire.
When Wolfe’s nails scored lightly inside Jessica’s thighs, the fiery net tightened around her in a rush that made her moan. His hand flattened as his fingers spread wide, then curled around the curve of her inner thigh. He caressed her slowly with his palm, easing between her legs. This time she didn’t resist the inevitable parting of her thighs beneath his touch.
«Jessi,» Wolfe breathed, shaken by her unspoken trust.
His palm skimmed over the dark curls he longed to comb with his fingertips, seeking the scented softness he knew ached for his caresses. Gently he pressed his hand between her legs. His fingers cupped around her softest flesh as his palm rubbed languidly over the mahogany curls that no longer concealed Jessica’s sultry core.
When she felt his touch, her breath came in with a sound like silk tearing. With great care
he traced her layered softness, coaxing each petal into quivering life.
«Such a beautiful flower,» he said huskily. «Is there nectar within?»
Jessica didn’t know what Wolfe meant until she felt herself being softly parted. The gliding penetration of his finger should have shocked her, but shock had no chance against the bubble of sensation expanding through her, bursting softly, drenching her in pleasure.
«Wolfe.»
«I know,» he said hoarsely. «I can feel it, hotter than my dreams.»
His hand moved again, slowly, and her response spilled over, burning both of them with the softest kind of fire. She made a sound deep in her throat and lifted against his hand, needing to feel the sweet movement within her once more. He felt the frailty of her maidenhead, cursed, and began to withdraw from the satin sheath he wanted more than he wanted breath.
«Please,» Jessica whispered, trying to keep him within her body. «Touch me.»
«Not like that.»
«Does it…don’t you…do you…dislike it?»
Wolfe laughed deep in his throat and returned to probe lightly, hungry for the moist, clinging heat. The sound Jessica made told him that her eyes were open and what she was seeing both shocked and set fire to her.
«Yes, Jessi. Watch and think what it would be like to feel my kisses like a warm rain over every bit of you,» he shuddered and whispered, «and you a warm rain over me.»
Something both beautiful and faintly frightening swept through Jessica. She tried to quell the feeling, but might as well have tried to turn back the sun with a sigh.
«What is happening to me?» Jessica asked. «What are you — I can’t — Wolfe.»
Jessica moaned his name as her body convulsed softly around him, caressing him secretly, drawing him more deeply into her while passion’s sultry rain licked over his hand.
Need clenched savagely in Wolfe, making him groan as he withdrew from Jessica’s body. With leashed urgency he smoothed the heat of her response over her most sensitive skin. When he caressed the nub of passion he had called from her, she cried out with surprise and violent pleasure. His fingertips circled her aroused, sensitive flesh, tugging at her, holding her captive for the hungry testing of his thumb.
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