Jessica’s eyelids flinched at the brush of the cloth on her cheek.
“Sore?” Wolfe whispered.
She shook her head wearily.
“Are you certain? Those welts look tender. How did you get them?”
“I don’t remember,” she said tonelessly.
Wolfe’s fingertips caressed Jessica’s cheek with great tenderness. Her breath hesitated, then frayed. When he eased the fur coverlet down to her waist, she made a tiny sound.
“Don’t worry, elf. I’m not going to demand any sensual games from you. You’re too tired…and I came too close to seeing you die to trust my own control tonight.”
Jessica’s eyes widened, seeking Wolfe’s for the first time. He didn’t notice. He was looking at the picture she made with the silver fur wrapped around her hips and her hair a mahogany glory spilling over the creamy curves of her breasts.
Slowly, Wolfe rearranged Jessica’s hair until it fell down her back. Even before the washcloth touched her breasts, the nipples gathered into tight velvet crowns, contrasting starkly with the pale satin of her skin.
“You’re more beautiful than fire itself,” Wolfe said huskily. “I’ll remember you like this until I die.”
And I’ll want you until I die.
Yet Wolfe said nothing of that, for the knowledge had just come to him in another stroke of black lightning, another raw wound burning in the depths of his soul.
Breath trembled out of Jessica when she saw the harsh lines of Wolfe’s face. She wanted to ask what was wrong, but didn’t trust herself to open her mouth without crying out her need and her love for the man who didn’t love her. So she stood silently, unable to speak for the sadness locked within her throat.
The fur wrap slid from Jessica’s hips into Wolfe’s hands and from there to the floor. He ignored the luminous beauty of the coverlet, for the curves of Jessica’s legs and the dark mahogany cloud concealing her feminine core were far more compelling to him than the rare arctic fur.
Slowly, Wolfe raised the washcloth and resumed bathing Jessica in a hushed silence. The first warm touch of water made her breath unravel in a soundless rush. When Wolfe asked wordlessly for more freedom of her body, she shifted, allowing him the intimacy. For long minutes, there was only the liquid dance of water, the whispering of flame, and the glide of cloth over skin. Finally, reluctantly, Wolfe rinsed away the last bit of soap, leaving behind the mingled fragrance of rose and warm woman.
“All done,” he said huskily.
He stood up in a rush and closed his eyes, unable to look at Jessica any longer without touching her in a way that had nothing to do with unspoken apologies and everything to do with the hunger whose fiery claws had long since raked him into readiness for the coupling that must never occur.
Jessica saw Wolfe’s need and felt her own, both physical hunger and something far more complex. Without a word she began unbuttoning Wolfe’s shirt.
His eyes snapped open.
“What are you doing?” he asked roughly.
“Undressing you.”
“I can see that.”
“Then you’ll be able to see me bathing you as gently as you bathed me.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“You’re too tired.”
Jessica’s elegant fingers didn’t so much as pause in their work. “I’m no more tired than you.”
“Jessi…”
Her eyes met his. For a moment he didn’t know if he could bear what he saw in their clear, light blue depths.
“You have done as Lady Victoria asked,” Jessica said quietly. “You have taught me not to fear your touch. Now you are exiling me from your life. Will you deny me this night, too?”
Wolfe knew he should do just that, but he couldn’t force the words past his lips. Jessica finally had accepted the end that he had always known must come: She would fight the annulment no longer.
He hadn’t expected victory to be so painful.
You are exiling me from your life.
Silently, Wolfe removed his boots and socks, then closed his eyes and stood motionless while Jessica undressed him. With a distant sense of surprise, he realized that he had never given himself to a woman in this way, trusting her enough to surrender sensual control to her hands.
The feel of Jessica removing his shirt was exquisite. The tug and release of his belt, followed by the slow, inevitable slide of his remaining clothes down his body was extraordinary, like being naked for the first time. With a feeling of unreality, he stepped out of his clothes and brushed them aside with his foot.
The first touch of the warm washcloth against Wolfe’s face made his eyelids flinch.
“Sore?” she asked softly, echoing Wolfe’s earlier question.
“You flinched the same way when I first touched you with the washcloth. Were you sore?”
“No. I wanted you so much that even the lightest touch was almost more than I could bear.”
“Yes,” Wolfe said simply, opening his eyes, hiding from Jessica no longer.
He felt her breath as a warm rush over his chest when she looked into his eyes.
“In this, at least, we are well matched,” Jessica whispered.
Wolfe didn’t answer. He couldn’t. The feel of warm water against the pulse on his neck had taken his breath. The sound of the cloth being rinsed was a quicksilver music in the silence. The fragrance of a rose’s softly opening petals filled his senses. The slight roughness of the washcloth brought his body to excrutiating fullness.
He closed his eyes once more, absorbing Jessica’s presence into his very pores while the cloth moved slowly over his arms and shoulders, washing away fatigue with slow sweeps of warmth, dissolving everything but the certainty of Jessica’s touch, her soft breathing, her scent wrapping him in a sensuality he had never known before. For an immeasurable time, he lived suspended between firelight and an elf whose touch created a new, magical world.
Water made gentle silver sounds as first the cloth and then his skin was rinsed. He sensed Jessica kneeling before him. When the cloth returned, it was to wash him without hesitation or inhibition. He couldn’t hide, for wherever she touched him, she would discover his passion.
But Wolfe no longer cared about hiding, for he knew Jessica burned for him in the same way. She was touching him as if he were a dream condensing out of firelight, cherishing him in a hushed silence that was itself another kind of caress.
The washcloth slipped from her fingers and fell forgotten onto the hearth. The feel of her hands on his thighs was both relief and another turn of passion’s rack. The glide of her palms over him was a pleasure so great it was pain. The gentle rush of her breath over his heavy arousal was Heaven and Hell in one.
Wolfe couldn’t prevent the low sound he made when Jessica’s hand cupped him. Nor could he prevent the single silver drop that condensed, speaking so deeply of the need within him.
When she kissed away the evidence of his need, she brought him to his knees.
“You’re burning me alive,” Wolfe said hoarsely.
“No more than you’re burning me,” she whispered, pulling Wolfe’s hands down her body. “Touch me. Know how much I want you.”
It was like sliding into fire. There was no withdrawal, no coy retreat, nothing but the sultry rose opening at his first touch, weeping for him and yielding to him at the same instant. She clung to him, watching him, seeing the shivering rush of her own passion in the expanding center of his eyes, feeling it in the silky heat gilding his hand.
Then Jessica could support her own weight no longer. With a husky moan she sank down onto the fur, drawing Wolfe with her, keeping his hand pressed deeply to her.
“You have taught me so much about a man’s body,” Jessica whispered. “I never would have guessed…”
Her voice frayed into another husky cry as Wolfe’s hand cupped her and stole into her in the same sweet motion. Unable to help her response, she moved her hips in slow counterpoint to his motions, deepening
his presence within her body.
Wolfe closed his eyes and tested the heart of the flower that had been given to him. He found only clinging ease and secret rain shielded by a maidenhood as fragile as flame. She wanted him as he had never been wanted by anyone, and she was telling him with each sultry drop, calling to him in a silence that was infused with hunger and the scent of roses.
“What would you never have guessed?” Wolfe asked when he could trust himself to speak.
“That you were made of honey and fire.”
“It’s you, not me. Honey and fire.”
Wolfe breathed Jessica’s name and withdrew from the satin sheath of her body, heard her cry out at the loss of him. For two seconds he endured it, for three seconds, then he could take no more of their shared pain. He slid within her again, and felt the sweet agony of her response all the way to his soul.
“Hold me,” Jessica whispered. “I need to feel you pressed against me. Please, Wolfe. I need you.”
“I shouldn’t.”
“Why?”
“You’re too dangerous when you burn. You make me forget…everything.”
Yet even as Wolfe was speaking, he was moving over Jessica, crushing her gently into the fur. The feel of her along his naked body went through him in a soundless explosion of heat. When she shifted to draw him even closer, he pinned her hips with his own.
“Lie still,” Wolfe breathed against Jessica’s mouth. “You’ll make me lose control. I don’t want that yet.”
“What do you want?”
“Your kiss.”
“It’s yours, Wolfe. Only yours.”
He took what she gave, giving himself in return. It was like no other kiss he had known. He felt her as though he was in her skin, burning, and she was in his, on fire. Slowly, his body moved against hers, pleasuring both of them in the same gliding motions. She answered instinctively, opening herself, seeking him blindly, needing him until she wept.
Yet no matter how she struggled, he withheld himself.
“Wolfe,” Jessica said, her voice strained. “Don’t you want me? You’ve taught me so much about your body and my own. Teach me about the shared body of love.”
“No, elf.”
“Is coupling that painful? Is that what you don’t want me to know? Is that what you’re sending me back to England to face alone, knowing that someday your elf will lie screaming and bleeding beneath a rutting man?”
Wolfe shuddered with a combination of rage at the thought of Jessica lying beneath another man and desire because she was lying beneath him now with her legs open and her hungry softness pressing against him, licking over him with honey and fire.
“Jessi, no,” he groaned. “It must not be.”
But whether he meant her coupling with another man in the future or having Wolfe buried within her now, even Wolfe couldn’t say.
“Then I’m right,” Jessica accused wildly. “I will be ripped apart. You have seduced me with everything but the truth!”
“Taking a man within your body won’t hurt you.”
“I don’t believe you,” she raged. “I have seen a man aroused. I have felt myself tight around no more than your finger. You are lying to me!”
Jessica’s body twisted beneath Wolfe, inciting him beyond bearing. Even as he told himself to roll aside, he caught her mouth beneath his and sank down over her body, absorbing her struggles with his much greater strength. His tongue thrust heavily into her mouth and filled it as he longed to fill her body. His hips moved, dragging his hardened flesh over the softness he had called from her.
Heat pulsed through Jessica and spilled over to Wolfe, increasing the stunning sensitivity of flesh sliding across flesh. He made a throttled sound as every muscle in his body clenched with passion and a need that was destroying him.
With a low moan, Jessica arched against him, for she needed the heaviness of his body more than she needed air.
“Hold still,” Wolfe said in a hoarse voice. “Don’t move unless I tell you. Do you hear me, Jessi? I’m going to show you how little you will have to fear from a man. But you must lie still.”
She shuddered and became motionless.
Wolfe took a breath and then another, trying to get a grip on the wild, seething violence of his need for her. It was impossible. Control kept sliding away by hot increments, leaving no reality but that of the girl who lay ready beneath him, watching him with eyes that were black with passion.
“Wrap your legs around my hips. Slowly, Jessi. Very slowly.”
Watching him, she shifted in slow motion until her legs circled his hips.
“Like this?” Jessi whispered.
Wolfe locked his jaw as he brushed against the sultry woman heat that lay open to him. A long shudder racked his restraint, threatening to tear it apart. He took several careful breaths.
“Yes, like that.” His voice was low, almost a groan. “Just like that. Don’t move, Jessi. Not one bit. I’m going to show you how easily you’ll accept a man.”
“Now?”
“Now. Just for a moment. Just a little bit. Just so you won’t be afraid. I won’t take your maidenhead, but you must lie very, very still.”
Jessica’s eyes widened as Wolfe’s fingers caressed her, parted her very gently, eased into her so slowly that she couldn’t believe it was happening at all.
And then she realized it wasn’t his fingers pressing into her.
“Dear God,” Jessica whispered.
“Yes. Dear God.”
Another shudder racked Wolfe as he eased a bit farther into the petal softness of Jessica’s body. He watched the center of her eyes expand into glittering blackness, tasted the unraveling of her breath against his lips, felt her hot, supple yielding to him, heard the small sound she made at the back of her throat as her nails scored sweetly on his arms.
“Am I hurting you?” he breathed.
The whimper that came from Jessica’s throat as her eyes closed wasn’t an answer, but the secret rain of her response was.
It took his breath away.
“Jessi, my sweet elf…”
Shaking, Wolfe threaded his fingers through her unbound hair until his hands were wholly tangled within the long strands. He wanted nothing more on earth than to flex his hips and bury himself in her sleek, yielding warmth.
What was making sweat break all over his body was the knowledge that Jessica wanted it as violently as he did.
“Look at me,” Wolfe said heavily. “I want to see you while we’re joined even in this small way. Christ knows it’s not enough, not nearly enough, but it’s all that can be. Look at me, Jessi. Let me see the passion in you.”
Slowly, Jessica’s eyes opened. She looked at the hard lines of Wolfe’s face, at his body drawn with restraint and glistening with sweat. His eyes were dilated with the same passion that was sending tongues of fire licking up from between her thighs.
Then he moved slightly, retreating and returning with exquisite care.
A burst of fire drenched Jessica in golden heat. Wolfe felt it, shared it, and moved again, caressing her with his whole body. She gasped and tightened her legs around his hips, instinctively trying to deepen the tantalizing union.
Wolfe’s fists clenched in Jessica’s long hair as he felt his self-control dissolving in the hot, secret rain of her body. He knew he should withdraw completely from her heat, but he couldn’t force himself to. She was everything he had ever wanted, and he had wanted her much too long.
Telling himself it would be the last time, he moved again, tormenting both of them with the incomplete union.
“Does this hurt you?” he asked through his teeth.
Jessica shook her head even as she wondered at the harshness in his voice. Heat shimmered through her, making her gasp.
Breath hissed out of Wolfe as he felt passion ripple through Jessica to his own flesh just within her. Sweat gathered and ran down his spine. He knew he must draw back before the sweet violence overcame what was left of his restraint.
“You have nothing to fear from a man inside your body,” Wolfe said through clenched teeth. His own need knotted and twisted within him, wrenching him until he wanted to cry out with anguish. “Do you hear me, elf? You have nothing to fear.”
Jessica’s breath unraveled. Her hips moved rhythmically as pleasure peaked and ebbed and peaked once more.
“Stop,” Wolfe said. Tremors jerked through him at each melting of her body around him. “Jessi—stop!”
“I’m sorry. I can’t. I—Wolfe.”
He saw her teeth sink into her lower lip as she fought the fulfillment that was taking her. He brushed his open mouth over hers as he moved very slowly within her.
“Never mind, elf,” he breathed into her mouth. “It’s all right. Don’t fight it. Let me feel your pleasure.”
Wolfe’s hand moved between their bodies, capturing the silky bud. He felt the splintering, shivering heat that washed through Jessica to him. The abandon of her response took him to the breaking edge of his control, and he hung there, shaking, while she clung hotly to him, silently begging for more of him with each sultry pulse of her pleasure.
“There’s such fire in you,” Wolfe whispered.
“You’re killing me, Jessi. You could take every bit of me without pain and you must know it as well as I.”
Heavy-lidded eyes opened and watched Wolfe as he teased the sensitive flower that had opened for him. Passion burned as deeply in her glance as it did in her body.
“All I know is that you are not the same as other men,” Jessica said.
“In this,” he moved his hips, “I am no different.”
“Dear God,” she whispered. “Again.”
“What?”
“Do that again. Please, Wolfe. Again.”
With a whispered curse that was also a prayer for strength, Wolfe moved within Jessica once more and at the same time caressed her with his fingers.
She made a low sound as a network of sensation raced through her, leaving ecstasy shimmering in its wake. She gave herself to the tender ravishment and to the man who had called passion from her depths. With each sensual peak shivering through her, she kissed him, whispering to him, telling him the only truth that mattered.
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