“Thing is, you’ve just got no damned idea, have you, when you start playing games with a man, how dangerous they can get.”
She only wished.
“I told you no touching, I told you—”
“Never said anything about looking though, did you?”
Hadn’t she? How in God’s name had she managed to overlook something so vital? She must have swallowed a mouthful of pillow while she tried covering herself.
“And like I told you earlier, looking’s not touching.”
“I did. It comes under being fully clothed. And I have every knowledge.” She panted, squirming for a hold on the damask bedspread. “How do you think Thomas fell? Now, get off me!”
She tried to kick free but he slipped am arm around her waist. Instead, she smothered a shriek as he flipped her over onto her back.
“I’m not talking the game. I’m talking the man. Anyway, I know how Thomas fell. You pushed him.”
Another secret she’d given away. “Because he was being demanding, just like this. Now.” She stuck a foot in his chest.
Not that having a foot stuck in his chest made a great deal of difference to a man like Flint Blackmoore.
“What?” He took hold of her ankle and moved it behind him. “Did you have a contract with him too? Is that what happens when you break it? You push a man down the stairs? I better be careful then. Seems I’m bedding the black widow spider.”
“You are not bedding anything, just so you know.” It would be a very great mistake to rise to this, especially with her defenses scattered sufficiently as to be flattened. “I did not have a contract with Thomas, but I swear I will push you off this bed if you don’t proceed as agreed.”
“Push me?” He tossed his hair back from his face and she saw just how alight with reckless intent it was. Amusement too. She didn’t know which was more dangerous, because she knew them both of old.
“I will scream.”
“What’s that?” He took hold of her wrists even as she tried pushing him away. “A new clause?”
“All right. All right.” She turned her head to the side. It wouldn’t do to let him know how badly he shook her cool. Had she not suffered assaults from Thomas—though not in the same way—she might have shrieked. “You don’t like the other position, we can…we can do it this way if you prefer. But I’m not quite ready. I still have a preparation to make.”
“Either’s fine. You should know that.” He leaned over her, so close the ends of his hair brushed her cheek. And his scent. Warm, clean skin surrounded her. “And the way you were posing earlier, don’t tell me you don’t know that. Don’t tell me you never made that preparation either.” His voice slid over her like warm honey. “Hmmm, Jasmine. Very pretty.”
She gulped. Was he breathing her? Something she didn’t know she could quite smother oozed along her veins. A desperate yearning to feel his lips, which hovered so close, on her skin. Mouth, neck, breast.
“You must adhere to the rules.” She tried. But it was impossible. “These do not include—”
“I am.”
Lower. Stomach. Thighs. Sex.
“No, you’re not.”
“I think if you had that bit of paper still you’d see. There was nothing about smelling you.”
Smelling her? Dear God. Why not? Why hadn’t she put that in?
“James.” She hated that her voice trembled. And that his mouth hovered so close to her skin, it sent delicious shivers up her spine. Physically she felt overpowered. The room wavered and spun. “I drew that contract up for a reason.”
He lifted his head and looked at her with his lazy gaze. “I know you did. And I know why too. You don’t want to enjoy this, because it’s business and it might remind you of old times. But, sweetheart…”
He bent his head and she tried to jerk away, in awful anticipation of what he might do. Where were the rules governing this encounter? She melted with desire. All she could feel was the heat from his body. How was that when she couldn’t let herself? When he behaved in this animalistic fashion, trying to take what she didn’t want to give.
“That is not so. I did it to protect you.”
“Me?”
“And myself from getting—from viewing this as anything more than business.”
“That’s just what I said. I’m glad we’re finally in agreement here.”
“Sex…sex in these circumstances was always going to be very difficult. Very difficult. Are you listening to me?”
“Oh, sex was going to be damned nigh impossible.” He leaned in close to her ear, letting the words excite. “Which is why I’ve not been able to stop thinking about how different it could be if you were just to want me a little.”
“Could, but can’t is the word I think we will use here. Now I must insist—I must insist that you honor your end of it.”
“Hmmm. What do you think I’m doing?”
She stifled a gasp as his lips brushed her forehead. A light, sensual caress that raised prickles of desire on her skin.
“I said no kissing.”
“That’s right. If I remember, you said it was a sign of affection. Have you thought that just maybe I love your forehead.”
“You don’t.”
“Your cheeks too. As for your neck, your neck, I could send valentines to.”
He couldn’t. He wouldn’t. But the trail of fire blazed by his lips, all the way down her neck, left her swallowing a groan. His fragrant, soapy smell and the brush of his hair against her skin made her gulp. If he could do this with a kiss, a look… As if she were the only one in the world and he would die to have her.
If? There was no if. What they’d had this far was nothing. A travesty. A joke. She knew what he could and would do to her. She could not let him.
“Stop it. Thomas is dead. That is another reason I made that contract, so you would behave with decorum and kindness toward his memory. And pity the fact I had to leave his bed for yours, when he was not yet cold.”
“He looked pretty cold to me. Anyway, the things you said, you hadn’t been having any for a while.”
“A new widow.”
“See, I assume by kissing what you really mean is on the lips.”
He raised his head. For all there was no question of her believing it, for all she’d seen it before, she tingled beneath his regard. She had to fight to turn her head away.
“But the thing is, you didn’t specify. So I’m guessing that means everywhere else is good.”
“Good?”
“All right then.” He sounded so pleased with himself she wished she’d kept her mouth shut. “Remember you’re the one who said so.”
“James…”
She moaned in protest as his mouth found her shoulder. This was what he was born to do. Unfortunately. Reduce even the most stalwart, the most protesting, the most indifferent woman to rubble. But this mood wouldn’t just be his mood for now—it would be his mood from now on if she did not reinforce the boundaries. And that would be impossible to fight. Because the truth of the matter, when it came to being indifferent, she was lying to think she was.
“I meant no kissing. No kissing, period.” She reached up and batted his hand away as the pad of his thumb brushed her lower lip. “Rule four. And no touching either.”
“Rule four? I must touch you as little as humanly possible. Well, I am. For me, anyway. This is sex. I don’t know where you get this notion you can touch as little as humanly possible when part of me is inside part of you. Unless, of course, you’re a virgin, which we both know you’re not, seeing as that was something you gave to me. You remember?”
She would rather not, especially with the way he smiled down at her. But she did. “Not exactly. I don’t remember horrible things as a rule.”
He nuzzled her neck. “That’s funny, it was so horrible you wanted me to do it again.”
“I was making sure.”
“And again.”
Her throat dried. Yes. The memories existed beneath the f
rost. But why did he, out of everything and all the women he had ever known, remember that? Why had he smiled at her, as if the remembrance was fond?
“Had I known you were doing all of it to get revenge for Celia I’d have walked the plank.” She hauled in a determined breath. “Because let’s face it, it would have spoilt everything if you couldn’t make me your slave. So, when you’re done touching me and you’re done kissing me, you might just like to do it.”
“Making you hungry, am I?”
“For my lunch, yes. Do you know what time it is? Nearly afternoon. And Susan’s making roast lamb. It’s her specialty.”
He raised his head and narrowed his eyes. She wished she could say it was in that hot, glazed way she remembered. Because that she would have been comfortable with. But something undercut it. The tiniest trace of longing. It was ridiculous. He’d had her several times. But perhaps, the thought flickered, not entirely to his satisfaction.
“Then how about you adhere to that other rule?”
“Which one?”
“The three-minute rule.”
“Now you’re making this up. There is no three-minute rule.” She was not having this.
“Yes, there is. It comes under the heading of no talking.”
Three minutes? Of this? She would never last three minutes.
“James.”
He tilted his chin and she turned her head away.
“Very well.”
There were ways for a woman to feign boredom. She could stare at the ceiling. Or immerse her nose in the tooled jacket of that book there. She could recount the list of things she’d pawned from the villa.
But somehow, she did not feel able to do any of it.
So long as she did not moan. So long as she lay like a doll. No matter what he did. So long as, if there was pleasure, she didn’t sink into it.
“Three minutes. Very well. Believe me, I’m going to count every second.”
Flint’s throat dried. Him too. Three minutes—she’d be moaning in ecstasy.
Three minutes. It was tight but he could do this. He hadn’t walked in the opposite direction from the door not to, especially after the words about not bothering to send the money to Frau Berthe had sunk into his teeth.
He edged his hand down her slender body. The sensation of the soft linen against his palm sent a bolt of heat through him. For all he didn’t touch her skin, he could imagine the lissome, living silk of it. Soft, like she’d just bathed in warm, scented water. Supple, like it existed solely for his touch.
Imagine easing the linen off. Imagine pressing his mouth to her skin. Her body. Imagine burying his face in that sweet-scented hair tumbled all over the pillow in smoky colored waves. He inhaled a deep lungful. Jasmine. He’d been trying since this morning to work out that scent.
“Is this what you want? Me to moan? Because I’ll do it. Otherwise you just lost yourself ten seconds.”
He swallowed. The way she spoke was unexpected. But ten seconds was nothing. Out of three minutes, it still left—nothing he was going to waste time counting.
He could do this. Best part of three minutes. What was the problem? His body was rock hard, breathing its desire as it leaned over hers. Every pore. Every muscle. Every inch of skin trembled, sweated with intoxicating longing for her. For her body, and all the sweet things it could give him. And he could give her.
She stiffened. “I’ll writhe too.”
“What I want here is for you to shut up. You open your god-damned mouth again…”
She sighed. She sighed in a long, low, imitation of ecstasy. “And you’ll what?” She turned her head to look right into his eyes.
He didn’t know if he’d ever seen such a look on the face of any woman. A sound like that either, like a pained walrus. He grabbed the sides of her face and bent his head abruptly.
She might have her lips clamped tighter than a clamshell, top on bottom. But he was a plunderer. He wanted her. All of her. He couldn’t stop kissing her, even if he wanted to. Anyway, her lips weren’t exactly shut, seeing as she’d parted them to moan. Soon she’d be opening them some more. Moan for real. Why not?
Never had he encountered desire for a woman who didn’t want him. But then, never had he encountered a woman who didn’t want him. The sensation was new and not the least bit thrilling.
Because the desire, as he’d observed more than once, wasn’t for her body as such, for all that the feel of her lips was so much lusher than he remembered that he wanted to tell her to open them fully. He wanted—shock held him still. The tiniest parting of her lips, sweeter than ever he remembered, even that first time, froze his breath. Next, his heart.
Her lips parted further, enough to give his tongue access. Even in this charged state, Flint acknowledged the awful risk he took here. She might bite his tongue. But at this minute, how many into the three minutes he’d lost track of, it was a risk he was prepared to take.
He captured her indrawn breath in his mouth and slid in his tongue. Slowly. He might be desperate with longing, he might be drowning in the honey-nectar of her sweet, cool lips, but he still wanted to savor this moment. To make time stagger to a halt. So that the three minutes became an eternity. So that she forgot that she’d said three minutes.
The merest, faintest touch of her soft fingers, not even on him, but below his waist on the hem of his shirt, froze his lips and his gaze. But not his heart, which broke into a pounding race. At last. All he wanted. To feel like a man again. A proper man. Not some stud whose balls she broke three times a day for his seed. She was going to touch him.
“That’s one minute.” The words came from the very back of her throat.
What the hell did she sound like a speaking clock for?
“One minute and one second. Two seconds.” She spoke again. A little shuddery, a little uncertain, but even so.
How the hell was he meant to continue with her doing it at all, even if her fingers still clutched his shirt?
“Three seconds. Four seconds.”
He stilled his mouth. So help him God, if she had done this with Thomas, he could understand him striking her.
“I told you—”
“And I told you, this is a business arrangement. Five seconds.”
Christ give him the strength and forbearance to control his rocketing temper, when his balls felt like shot rock, and his heart hammered like a fist in his chest. Because to lose it, when his gut had told him to walk away instead of letting himself think he could make her want him—and five seconds, five seconds was still only five seconds less—was something he could not prevent.
“Then what the hell are you touching me for?”
“I—I—”
Oh, she needn’t gulp as if she didn’t know. As though it were a surprise to her.
“Trying to drag me out my shirt?”
“I’m not. I—I—”
“What’s this?” Reaching down between their bodies he clamped her hand. “Scotch mist?”
She widened her eyes in horror. “It—it’s—”
“Hell. Don’t tell me you don’t damn well know what you’re doing.” He thrust her hand away.
“I—”
“Your hand just somehow wound up there? Just plum damn well wandered of its own—”
Black, blinding frustration filled him, so why the hell did he want to say come here? Where did the rust of tenderness come from, engendered by the sight of her lying there, taut and trembling?
He set his teeth. He could—he could just take her, because if there was one thing he didn’t like, it was a woman who teased. That was the whole thing of this though, wasn’t it? He got to anyway. But it was how he got to that damn well counted.
Forgetting something important, wasn’t he? This wasn’t just about him. It was a business arrangement. Nothing more. His seed for his freedom. Maybe she did want him, underneath the stony front. He’d felt she had there. Was it fair to make her lose a control she strove to keep?
Three minutes would be a t
orture, if that was the case. Wouldn’t it?
He swallowed. He almost didn’t want to do this now. Him, just imagine that. But if he didn’t, he didn’t want to look stupid. Not when she lay there at his mercy.
Cursing beneath his breath, he undid the fastenings on his breeches. “Fine.” He tried not to look at her. “So how much time is left? Two minutes? One and a half?”
“Please, I didn’t—”
“Fury…”
“Two minutes.”
“Then let’s just get this over with quickly, shall we? Rather than lose this golden opportunity. I got to be getting home.”
Her throat fluttered into life. “Thank you.”
Grunting his response, he tugged himself free of his breeches.
“If you’re tired, from the walk, that is, you can always stay in the Blue Chamber. You know that.” Again her throat moved. “For tonight anyway.”
“I’m not tired from the walk. Let’s just get on with this.”
“I am sure Susan will give you something to eat, just the same, before you go on your way. I’m sure you must be hungry. And six miles a day is a lot.”
“Shh, will you? We agreed no talking. You ready?”
Her thigh was soft. But he refused to take advantage of it. Not even to play pretend she wanted him.
He’d betrayed enough of his need. It would be a mistake to let her know this was in danger of becoming more than a business arrangement.
* * *
The door had no sooner clicked shut than Fury flicked her eyes open. She rolled over onto her side, hugging her arms around her knees, as if for protection, although he was gone now. She had come within a hair’s breadth of making the mistake of her life there, hadn’t she? She had very nearly given him her mouth. Very nearly removed his shirt. Very nearly parted her legs in more than the necessary businesslike fashion. The tightrope had never seemed narrower. When he had finally entered her, she had very nearly given in and clasped her arms around him.
But she hadn’t. Although now, in a few hours, she had it all to face again.
She edged a breath. Flint broke through her barricades and he could have forced her pleasure. But he hadn’t. Indeed, he had become almost businesslike. Which, for Flint, was a first.
The Unraveling of Lady Fury Page 15