It was bold indeed. Sinful definitely. But she wanted to see him naked. She was tired of being a quiet, bookish miss. She wanted to know the passion she’d only read about. She wanted to touch Jesse, to make love with him in every sense. She wanted him to take her.
He kissed a trail of fire up her neck to her mouth, lingering before trying to dissuade her once more. “One day you will find a man deserving of you. But I’m not that man.”
“That is for me to decide,” she told him, taking his lips for another kiss.
He groaned against her mouth, plunging his tongue inside to claim. His hands were all over her, caressing, demanding. Her senses careened out of control, runaway-carriage style. Nothing in her life could have prepared her for the onslaught of passion roiling through her. And she wanted more.
Jesse tore his lips from hers. “I cannot ruin you.”
“I dislike that word immensely,” she groused. “Ruin. I’m not a piece of fruit, by God.” Blast society’s honor. How was it proper that a man should be allowed, like her brother, to do as he pleased when a woman must not follow her heart? The unfairness of the situation hit her.
“You’re an innocent. I won’t spoil that.”
His tone was suddenly quite determined. Bella decided some persuasion was in order. She started on the remaining buttons of her bodice. “I want to know you, Jesse.”
His expression darkened and she swore she detected blatant hunger shining in his eyes. “You don’t have an inkling as to what you’re saying,” he still denied.
“Nonsense. I’m fully possessed of my faculties.” She finished with her bodice and pulled her arms from the sleeves. Bella had always been a no-nonsense sort. And if the dowager had taught her anything, it was to always be in firm possession of the reins. “Help me to pull this over my head, if you please.”
Chapter Four
Bella was taking off her dress. In his chamber. Oh hell. How was he ever going to keep from doing to her what he so desperately wanted? All he could think of was sinking his cock deep inside her sweet, wet warmth until he forgot everything and everyone but the feeling of her tight little sheath sending him into heaven. But he couldn’t do that, for God’s sake. She was a virgin, a lady, the sister of his best friend. Untouchable.
Damn it.
His emotions were up and down like a whore’s drawers on a miner’s payday. He wanted to take what she offered and yet he didn’t think she knew the ramifications of what she offered. He could marry her, yes, but he wasn’t convinced Thornton would ever allow it. He wasn’t Bella’s social equal. That he’d amassed a real estate fortune mattered naught to these blue bloods in the end, Jesse had no doubt. They married for dynastic reasons. Not for love. Not for want. Not for any reason other than a title and a fortune.
He had a fortune but he’d never have a title. He had to stop her.
“Sweetheart, you can’t do this.” He tried to halt her in the process of shucking off her dress.
“Of course I can. You’re the least cooperative despoiler of innocents I’ve ever met,” Bella complained.
He would have laughed had his nerves not been so tautly drawn. “I can’t take you. You must return to your chamber.”
Bella disappeared inside the voluminous folds of her dress. When she emerged, she tossed the dress to the floor behind her. She didn’t wear a corset, only a thin chemise. He could see her pink nipples prodding the fine linen. He was already painfully hard.
“I believe we’re beyond the point of polite society.” With this pronouncement, she pulled her chemise up over her head as well. It landed with a barely audible swish of expensive fabric upon her already discarded gown.
She was naked and glorious.
He couldn’t take his gaze from the sweet, lush curves of her body. She was every inch woman. Lust arrowed directly to his loins. He’d never wanted another woman more than he wanted Lady Bella de Vere in that moment, of that much he was certain. Her breasts were high, round and full, topped with pale-pink nipples that begged to be kissed and sucked. Her waist was narrow but luscious, her hips sweetly curved. Her limbs were as delicately formed as the rest of her.
“Bella,” he managed to choke past the desire that threatened to render him incoherent. “Please, you must leave.”
“I won’t,” she said simply.
She was like a siren now, clearly reveling in a power she’d never before realized. He was helpless. In the space of a mere few hours, he’d gone from the hells of war to the hells of unquenched desire. He didn’t know what to do.
“Listen to me,” he tried again. “You are lovely. I want nothing more than to take you to bed right now.”
“Then take me,” she challenged.
“And what then, Bella? I could get you with child.” He was trying desperately to dissuade her. Because Lord knew he was old enough, wise enough, to know better. He’d been through more than enough. Her innocent young mind could never comprehend the horrors he’d seen, the depths to which seemingly good people could sink.
“I’ve never been afraid of taking chances.” Her hands lingered at his waist, on the fastening of his trousers.
She wasn’t wily enough to touch his arousal directly, and thank God she didn’t because he’d be utterly lost if she did. He took her hands in his. “Taking chances can result in great penury at times,” he cautioned her, knowing all too well the truth of the words he spoke.
“I love you, Jesse Whitney,” she shocked the hell out of him by revealing. “I don’t know what more I can tell you. What more could you need to know, really?”
Love.
He hadn’t thought of love ever since he’d believed he’d last had it more than fifteen years ago. But the love he’d believed in had been false, and he was scared as hell to ever trust such a fleeting emotion again. The damage Lavinia’s duplicity had wrought upon him had been true indeed. Lavinia had claimed love. She had left him for the first man who darkened her door thereafter, leaving him with a bullet wound to his back.
He didn’t believe Bella. He couldn’t believe her. Love was a child’s fancy, nothing more. There he was, in the seductive low light of his personal chamber with an unbearably beautiful woman before him in a state of acute undress, and all he could do was stare.
“What more could you need to know from me, Jesse?” Bella asked again. “I love you.”
“Are you old enough to understand what love is, darling?” He plainly didn’t think she was. Hell, he didn’t know what he believed at this point save that he couldn’t ruin the delectable woman before him. Not without conscience.
No, not at all, damn it.
“How dare you suggest I’m too young to know my feelings?” Bella was truly insulted, it was apparent.
To him, she seemed a woman completely in control of her thoughts and wishes, and yet he had to wonder. She was so much younger than he. She was so much an innocent. He didn’t want to take advantage of her, to unjustly influence her into something she would later regret. Because if there was anything he knew about all too well, it was the agony that regret could cause in life.
“How do you know you love me?” He was desperate to distract her, to dissuade her in any way he could conceive. He couldn’t help but ask the foremost question plaguing his thoughts.
“I cannot explain it other than to say that if I were to wake up tomorrow morning and never see you again, I would be unbearably heartbroken.” She threw up her hands in exasperation. “Must I prove myself to you before you ‘ruin me’, as you have so aptly phrased it?”
Hell. After what they’d shared the last few days, his world too would be a darker and lonelier place without her. He wanted her desperately, more than he’d even imagined possible. His cock was hard. His body was ready. But the thing that confounded him the most was his rotten old heart. His heart wanted her, cared for her as much as he could manage. She was too good and pure for him. He couldn’t even begin to know how to love her.
But perhaps that was the problem. Of their ow
n volition, his hands went to the fastenings of his trousers. He truly needed release, and he’d satisfied his sense of honor that what he wanted was exactly the same as what the lovely Lady Bella wanted. He knew without asking that she was an innocent. He hadn’t wanted to rush into taking her, hadn’t wanted to pressure her into lovemaking she didn’t want. But it didn’t matter now. She had made it apparent just how she felt about him, just how much she wanted. He was tempted as Adam, and yet his conscience reminded him of who she was yet again. Thornton’s sister. Damn it all.
Jesse stared at her, lost. “No you needn’t prove yourself. For the love of God, Bella, put your dress back on.”
Disappointment warred with hurt. Bella’s heart had never beat at such a mad pace. She wanted him. He wanted her. His kiss said as much. She was nude before a man when she’d never even so much as glanced at her own naked body in a mirror. And he was rejecting her.
Perhaps he did not find her adequately formed. Was she not attractive enough? Were her feet too large? Her breasts too small? Why did he insist upon holding onto his blasted notion of honor? It was all making her quite dizzy.
“Am I all a woman is supposed to be?” she asked, feeling very hesitant.
“Of course you are. You’re perfect, sweetheart.” His gaze once more lowered to her breasts, lingering there like a touch.
“Then why? Why won’t you take me?” Frustration heated to a boil within her.
“Because I’ve lived with enough regrets in my life and I won’t be yours.”
“I could never regret loving you,” she murmured with complete honesty.
He stared at her, clearly at odds with himself. Bella decided right then that the time for vocal persuasion was at an end. She closed the distance between them, linked her arms around his neck, and kissed him. He rewarded her boldness by kissing her back, crushing her against his powerful frame. She was unprepared for the first intimate feeling of her bare nipples brushing his manly chest. It was sinful, decadent, everything wonderful.
He groaned, fusing their mouths with a hunger that branded. Desire flowed through her like warm honey, making her breasts tingle, her stomach flutter. The apex of her thighs bloomed with heat and wetness. When he reached between them to caress her there, she moaned, arching into him, desperate for more of the intoxicating feeling.
Jesse slowly moved them across the room. Bella followed him step for step, never allowing the kiss to break. She knew their destination was the large bed she’d seen upon her initial entrance. She didn’t know what to expect next, only that she desired very much for it to happen. Whatever the mysterious it was.
Bella sincerely hoped she was about to be edified.
He lifted her onto the mattress, depositing her with tender care. When she lay sprawled on the bed, mouth swollen with his kisses, he broke away from her. “I meant what I said about not ruining you,” he told her, his voice as breathless as she felt.
Confusion warred with the sensual curtain that had descended over her senses. “What do you mean?”
“There are ways we can pleasure each other that don’t require me to take your innocence,” he explained, his fingers at work on the fastening of his trousers.
She lost her breath entirely when he whipped the last of his clothing away to reveal his large manhood jutting proudly at attention. She’d never seen the like. She was instantly fascinated. She wanted to touch him.
“Absolutely gorgeous,” he murmured as his gaze roamed over her. His drawl had never been more pronounced.
She was pleased that he liked what he saw after all. Bella felt simultaneously powerful and alive. She took in his beautifully sculpted body as well, finding him to be absolute masculine perfection. Far better than any crusty old Greek marble, anyway. He was tall, muscled, golden.
“You are unbearably lovely, Bella,” he whispered, joining her on the bed. He crouched over her, skimming his fingers up her thigh. Lowering his head, he dropped a kiss on the inside of her knee.
“You’re unbearably handsome,” she returned, watching his thick blond mane getting nearer to her most secret spot.
Oh dear heavens, what was he doing to her? She reached down to caress his broad shoulders, to toy with his soft hair. He glanced up at her, his gaze molten. “Will you open for me, darling?”
As he asked her, he softly guided her legs apart so that she was revealed to him in every way. “Beautiful,” he said, his voice like velvet. “You’re pink and lovely, just as I imagined you’d be.”
He had thought of her before, then, and not as the brother he’d been claiming to be to her. Thank the blessed angels. Cool air sluiced over her heated flesh, making her ache. Surprisingly, she experienced no shame in showing him herself. Rather, she luxuriated in the freedom, in the intensity of his expression as he looked upon her. She shivered, aroused to be on display to him, to watch his eyes worship her.
And then he buried his face between her legs. The act was so utterly foreign and yet so unspeakably delicious, Bella didn’t know whether she should faint or die of mortification. He pressed kisses against her starving flesh, his tongue working upon her until her legs quivered from the wondrousness of it all.
She grabbed at his hair, arching into his wicked mouth. She couldn’t look away from the sight of his beautiful golden head bowed, caught in the pulsing vee of her legs. She was going to lose her mind soon, her entire body poised on the brink of something indefinable, something she desired so desperately she throbbed with the need. He looked up at her then, meeting her gaze.
“Dear heavens,” she whispered, wondering if perhaps she had somehow died and was experiencing the marvels of heaven. Jesse Whitney, the man she’d longed after in secret for the last four years, was kissing her in the naughtiest and yet perhaps best way possible.
He continued torturing her with his mouth, working the sensitized nub within her folds. The sweet tension within her built to a frantic crescendo. She was powerless, slave to the pleasure he bestowed upon her.
She threw her head back, her eyes closing as she gave in completely, going where he would take her. It was decadent, delicious. Ripples of pleasure spiraled from between her legs as he continued to lave her. She never wanted it to end, and then suddenly, a rush of pure bliss hit her, making her entire body shake.
He kissed a path up over her belly, his large hands caressing her curves. With a wicked grin, he met her gaze and sucked one of her nipples deep into his mouth. She arched into him, running her fingers through his thick, fair hair. He was such a beautiful man.
Jesse kissed his way to her neck, flicking his tongue out in hot darts against her skin. And then, his mouth was on hers. She could taste herself on his lips, and it both fascinated and shocked her. Their tongues tangled. His knowing fingers dipped to her mound, stroking the wanton bud he’d already pleasured. Bella held onto him tightly, reveling in the power of his body, the smooth planes of his back.
He increased the pressure on her sex, his pace clipping into a gallop. She writhed beneath him, overcome yet again. The delicious madness sent her into a sudden series of spasms. The wonderful sensation of release saturated her body. As the waves of pleasure slowly ebbed, he broke their kiss, breathing as heavily as she.
Jesse rolled away from her onto his back, staring at the ceiling. Bella watched him, uncertain of what to do next. She couldn’t help but to admire his naked form. The realization that she had been very intimate with him hit her, but she felt no guilt or shame, only delight and satisfaction. This was what she’d longed for without ever knowing.
This was everything.
His silence troubled her, however. She placed a tentative palm on his chest, feeling the rapid thrum of his heart. “Is something amiss?”
He sighed. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
Why did he insist upon clinging to some sort of misplaced chivalry? Frustration pricked her. She was weary of his insistence that he could never pursue her because he was friends with her brother. Never had another circumstance c
aused her more exasperation. “Can we not simply be a man and a woman?”
“There is no simplicity in lovemaking, Bella. Thornton would have my hide if he knew. Jesus, I wouldn’t blame him. I should tan my own hide.”
“I don’t wish to be your regret either.” An unaccountable wave of sadness replaced her pleasure.
He took her hand and raised it to his lips for a kiss that was as formal as it would have been had they been meeting in a ballroom. “I don’t regret you, merely the circumstances in which we find ourselves. You deserve far more than a tawdry moment of pleasure.”
She wanted to be free to love him, for him to be capable of freely loving her. But it sometimes seemed the obstacles between them were unsurpassable mountains. “Nor would I be a burden to your conscience. If you cannot see me as other than Thornton’s sister, I fear I have no hope.”
Jesse closed his eyes. “I cannot give you hope. You must go, Bella. I never should have touched you.”
After the fiery passion they’d just shared, his abrupt declaration was a bucket of slop water to the face. Each time she thought they’d grown closer, he shoved her away once more. Hurt, she rose from the bed to gather her hastily discarded garments. He could not give her hope. Did it mean he could never love her? That he would never wed her? That he no longer wanted her?
“Are you saying you will never court me, Jesse?” She didn’t want to ask because she was terrified of the answer, but she also couldn’t refrain from posing the one question that had been plaguing her.
He rose from the bed. “Yes,” he said plainly, whipping his trousers off the floor and up to cover his nudity. “I’m not the man for you, sweetheart. I’m sorry.”
So he had been willing to propose to avoid a scandal before merely because Lady Stokey had caught them together. But he would commit far more sinful acts with her now and send her on her way. How dare he? She didn’t want to hear apologies from him after the tenderness they’d just shared. She threw her dress over her head and struggled to pull the ample folds into their appropriate position. Giving up, she looked back to him, meeting his gaze. “I am sorry as well. Sorrier than you know.”
Heart’s Temptation Books 1–3 Page 35
