Stronger than Yearning

by Penny Jordan

  ‘James…’ Her voice sounded only a degree steadier than it had done before, but at least now he was stopping what he was doing and standing back so that she could pull herself up into a sitting position and look at him.

  ‘I can manage by myself now,’ she told him bravely. ‘Please go…’ The fine silk slithered off her shoulder and she made a desperate attempt to catch it and cover herself up.

  ‘There is such a thing as taking modesty to a ridiculous length,’ James told her in a light drawl. ‘I’m hardly likely to start foaming at the mouth with passion just because I’ve caught a glimpse of your naked shoulder.’

  The mockery in his voice made her colour up. ‘It isn’t that…’

  ‘Then what is it?’ He reached out easily and tugged the neckline of her top up to cover her bare skin. His fingers just brushed the bones in her shoulder barely touching them, but Jenna quivered uncontrollably.

  He sat down on the bed, and took both her hands in his. ‘What is it you’re so afraid of, Jenna?’ he asked quietly. ‘Surely not me?’

  ‘No…but…’

  ‘No buts,’ he told her softly. ‘I don’t know what it is about the sexual act that makes you so full of fear, but I do know that it’s time you let those fears go. What sort of example are you going to set Lucy and Sarah if you cringe away like a whipped puppy every time I come within a yard of you? Surely you want them both to grow up into normal healthy young women fully able to appreciate and enjoy their very natural sexuality?’

  ‘Yes…’ Of course she did. ‘But…’ How could she explain to James that it wasn’t as simple as that? That she seemed unable to let the past and her fears go. She couldn’t tell him the truth and even if she could she didn’t really believe that telling him, or anyone else, would free her from her own fear.

  ‘I don’t think talking about it will achieve anything, James,’ she said tiredly at length.

  To her astonishment he agreed with her. ‘Neither do I…at least not at this stage.’

  She was genuinely puzzled. ‘Then what are you suggesting?’ she asked him.

  ‘This.’ His mouth touched hers, lightly but so deliberately caressing that Jenna knew instantly what he meant. She drew away, her eyes darkened by fear and anger.

  ‘But you promised me! You gave me your word that——’

  ‘That I would not force anything sexual on you that you did not want…and I mean to keep that promise. But Jenna,’ he told her softly, ‘I’m not convinced yet that you do not want my love-making…’

  Jenna was astounded. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. He had trapped her, cheated her…‘If you do this to me now, it will be rape,’ she told him fiercely.

  ‘Rape is an act of aggression and violence. I promise there will be nothing of either of those emotions in my love-making.’

  ‘But why? Why? You don’t want me…You…’

  He bent towards her, curving his palm round her throat, his thumb stroking the smooth firmness of her chin as he tilted her face upwards.

  ‘Of course I do,’ he told her softly. ‘I wanted you the moment I set eyes on you…’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  JENNA knew that she cried out, she could hear the echo of that tormented sound dying away in the close confines of the bedroom as she struggled desperately away from James. He let her get as far as the edge of the bed, before hauling her back with humiliating ease.

  Furious with him, too angry to be frightened, Jenna pounded his chest with her fists. Unbelievably she could feel the vibrations of his silent laughter shaking his chest. He grasped her wrists in one hand, holding her slightly away from him, his other hand tangling in her hair, forcing her back so that he could look into her eyes.

  ‘When you’re angry they burn like green fire,’ he murmured softly. ‘I wonder what it will take to make them glow with the heat of desire.’

  ‘You can wonder as much as you like,’ Jenna grated back, ‘but you’ll never know.’

  ‘I think I will. I think that beneath this fear you’ve walled yourself up behind, there’s an extremely sensuous, warm woman.’

  Rage curled her fingers into talons but James was imprisoning her wrists too tightly for her to break free. Even so, he was not hurting her. His thumb brushed her wrist bone in light circular caresses almost as though he were stroking a cat, she thought fancifully. Hurriedly she clamped down on any thought that did not help to focus and strengthen her anger. Already she was becoming aware of ambivalent feelings about what was happening. She didn’t want James to touch her, to make love to her, and yet his admission that he desired her was something she found disturbingly flattering, for a woman who claimed she was totally indifferent to male desire.

  ‘I think we can quite happily do without these.’

  ‘These’ were her skirt and top, and Jenna fought furiously against his skilled removal of both garments until she realised that all she was doing was exhausting herself. Fear was creeping through her alongside anger now, but it was a muted fear, a tiny thread of sensation rather than a full torrent. It must be the wine, numbing her, subduing her ability to function properly.

  She ought to cry out, to scream, Jenna thought stupidly. That would stop him, but almost as though he read her thoughts James covered her mouth with his own, smothering any sound she might have made.

  There was no way she could respond to him and no way she wanted to but the slow movement of his mouth against her own was dangerously seductive. Against her will she felt her lips soften slightly as though they were aware of some ancient magic she did not recognise that urged them to cling softly to James’s. Angered by what she considered their betrayal she tensed her body, forcing her lips to reject the subtle seduction of James’s kiss.

  ‘It won’t work, Jenna,’ he whispered softly against her mouth. ‘Sooner or later, I’m going to break down all those barriers.’

  ‘Never!’

  He laughed with lazy amusement but there was nothing lazy or amused about the look in his eyes. They were glittering brilliantly with something that Jenna dimly recognised as intense male desire.

  She wanted to cry out against the unfairness of what was happening. To remind him of his promise to her, but pride would not let her. Instead, she strained mutely against the iron band of his fingers gripping her wrists, tugging away from him.

  James was watching her, scrutinising every inch of her body, now so inadequately concealed in the delicate silk undies he had bought for her. He took his time, his total concentration on her body something she could almost feel, like searing heat against her skin. The very thought of the physical desire which motivated his scrutiny made her shudder on a thrust of real fear, strong enough to pierce the alcohol-induced clouds that had so far anaesthetised her.

  James bent his head and she shuddered again, turning her face away. She felt his laughter brush her skin as his lips touched and then caressed the sensitive curve between her throat and shoulder. His lips moved upward, moistly caressing her skin, lingering over each tiny caress until the tension within her was so great that she felt she might break apart under it.

  His teeth tugged gently on her ear lobe, his tongue-tip delicately exploring the crevice of her ear.

  Jenna gave a short, agonised, ‘Don’t!’ so filled with loathing and despair that she half expected him to mock her for it. Instead, she felt him withdraw slightly, and then he cupped her face, turning her head so that he could look at her.

  ‘What is it that frightens you so much?’

  ‘I can’t tell you…’ How could she explain to him her deep-rooted fear of any kind of involvement or commitment with a member of his sex? It wasn’t something she could analyse fully even to herself. She only knew that where he was concerned her fear was intensified by some deep inner knowledge that he made her feel acutely vulnerable…that she mustn’t let him get close to her either physically or mentally.

  ‘Jenna, I promise I’m not going to hurt you.’

  His words were enough to unleash a
n avalanche of intense dread. Her deepest and most agonising fears were those connected with Rachel and the pain she had suffered; the hurt that had been inflicted on her and James’s words were enough to destroy her rigid self control, her body shivering in a mixture of primitive fear and protective anger as his mouth once more touched hers.

  Helpless tears of rage and fear trickled from her eyes as she lay tense and unmoving still imprisoned by James’s grip on her wrists. She had refused to close her eyes when he kissed her or to move so much as a muscle in any way, and now she was forced to have her vision filled with the sight of his skin, brown and smooth, his eyelashes dark fans across his cheeks, flickering slightly as his mouth moved more possessively over her own. He murmured a small sound of satisfaction as his probing tongue finally defeated the barrier of her primly closed lips to stroke tormentingly against their inner sensitivity.

  Unable to stem her tears she tried to pull away, but his hand on her nape stopped her. The crystal drops ran down on to his skin. He opened his eyes and Jenna saw that the pupils were hugely dilated, the outer rings a dense sapphire-blue. They seemed to blaze into her with a heat that made her flinch.

  ‘Jenna…’

  He murmured her name against her mouth so that her lips could feel the vibrations of the sound, and then he dropped back against the bed, so that he was lying full length on it. His hand on her nape forced her to bend towards him, although she managed to remain kneeling upright. Jenna felt as though her back would break under the strain he was imposing on her muscles, but she was not going to let him force her to lie down beside him. The very thought of his muscular, masculine body pressed close to her made her shake with…with fear and disgust. Fresh tears fell on to his skin. James opened his eyes and stared into hers. His tongue touched the crystal drops dampening her skin and Jenna shivered convulsively beneath the softly abrasive rasp of his tongue against her flesh.

  ‘The next time you cry in my arms, Jenna, it will be with pleasure and satisfaction,’ he murmured against her mouth.

  ‘It won’t!’ She fairly shrieked the denial at him. ‘And I won’t let you do this to me. Let me go! Let me go!’ Blind hysteria possessed her now; she didn’t know what she feared the most, James or herself. Just for a moment then with his mouth feathering her own she had felt the oddest reaction flare up inside herself; quite what it was she could not have said, she only knew it had made her heartbeat quicken and her resolve weaken. As she hurled her defiant rejection at him she knew it was going to take every ounce of will-power she possessed to reject him. She ought not to fight, an inner voice warned her. She should remain cold and unmoving. Fighting only led to…Unbidden memories of her dream lover flooded her mind. To banish them she closed her eyes. James’s mouth caressed hers with moist heat, and suddenly, terrifyingly, the face in the mental image changed and it was not James who was kissing her but her dream lover…and her mouth was softening…flowering beneath the coaxing pressure caressing it and it was too late to stop it.

  Confused mental images flashed behind Jenna’s closed eyelids. She saw the man from the portrait as he had appeared to her in her dream. She felt his hands on her skin, and was powerless to stop the sweetly savage flood of answering desire rising up inside her, even though she knew it was James who held her; James who caressed the trembling uncertainty of her lips until they clung moistly to his and parted at his command. James whose hands swept downwards over her body, skimming the soft outline of her breasts, expelling his breath with ragged unevenness into her mouth as he cupped his palms round their fullness. James…James…James…and no one else, but the images persisted, zigzagging through her brain until dream and reality became a tangled blur, and all she was really aware of was that the harshly fast breathing she could hear signalled a male desire that her body, with a primitive force she had not known it possessed, was already responding to.

  When she felt James’s fingers on the clasp of her bra, she recovered enough to cry numbly, ‘No!’

  For a moment his hands tensed on her skin and then he breathed hoarsely, ‘Yes,’ and he had released the catch before she could protest again.

  Her bra fell away, the straps entangling her arms as she lifted her hands to cover her breasts. James’s hands still rested on her back. He lay simply looking up at her, and although she wanted to look away Jenna found she could not. Totally unable to move she trembled violently as his hands slid round to cover her own, brown and masculine against the smaller, feminine ones.

  ‘Let go…’

  If anything his whispered command made her tense even more, and she had to fight down fresh tears of humiliation as James swiftly prised her hands free of her breasts and then tugged her arms down so that the upper half of her body was completely revealed to him.

  He took his time in studying her, the drift of his attention from her eyes down over her throat and shoulders, and finally to her breasts so slow and deliberate that it felt like a refined form of torture.

  When his fingers eventually freed her wrists, and stroked slowly upwards over her rib cage she tensed, closing her eyes against the unwanted sight of them caressing her breasts, but instead they gripped her upper arms, pulling her down over him. Jenna stiffened her spine against him, but it was useless, slowly he arched her body over his own.

  When she opened her eyes Jenna saw that he was looking at her mouth. Traitorously, the sensitive skin tingled slightly in anticipation of his kiss. Hating herself for what she was feeling Jenna averted her head and then tensed warily as she heard him chuckle.

  ‘All right, Jenna…if that’s what you want.’ He sounded so good-humoured that she was immediately on the defensive.

  ‘Your skin is like alabaster…do you know that? But alabaster is cold, and you feel warm.’

  She gasped in shock as she felt his lips brush the valley between her breasts, and knew then why he had been amused by her. In her dream her lover had touched and kissed her intimately, but he had not been gentle like James; he had been fierce and demanding, compelling from her a response that…Aghast at the direction of her thoughts Jenna raised her hands to James’s chest to push him away. She could feel the even thud of his heart beneath his shirt, and for some reason it was oddly disturbing.

  ‘Mmm…’

  She winced beneath the appreciative sound of pleasure James made against her breast. Unexpectedly, his hands covered hers and he murmured against her skin. ‘I like your touching me, Jenna, but I’d like it much more if I wasn’t wearing this shirt. Help me take it off…’

  Help him! Jenna ground her teeth, and once again she was conscious of laughter rumbling in his chest. His mouth was still exploring her breast, a delicate, thorough exploration which was having the oddest effect on her body. Tiny flutters of sensation unfurled themselves within her. Shockingly and unexpectedly her nipples peaked and hardened, her humiliation intensified when James noted their arousal with a soft masculine murmur of appreciation.

  Like someone transfixed, Jenna was held in helpless thrall by the sensations his mouth against her sensitive skin was arousing inside her. It must be the drink, she thought wildly, when a shudder of pure primitive arousal convulsed her body, and then all thought was suspended as James’s lips and tongue caressed the tight buds of her nipples, coaxing them to swell and flower until Jenna was possessed by a sweet, mindless ache of need so powerfully intense that it obliterated every other thought from her mind.

  Willingly now she arched against James’s caressing mouth, her rigid throat muscles stifling the betraying sounds of pleasure his touch induced.

  When he released her to sit up and remove his clothes, she was too bewitched even to think of trying to escape. In the lamplight his skin glowed amber and gold, transporting her back once again to her dream.

  Mindlessly she reached out and touched him, knowing already how his skin would feel beneath her fingertips, knowing the male scent of him and the power that those silk-sheathed muscles held. She could feel the pounding of his heart, sense the primeval
force of his desire, and inexplicably, it thrilled and excited her. When his mouth moved hungrily on her own she responded to it, opening to the savage thrust of his tongue, welcoming the heat and weight of his body against hers as they fell across the bed.

  His hands touched, stroked and explored every satin inch of her, quickly followed by the moist heat of his mouth, the sensations it aroused inside her causing Jenna to abandon herself totally to the fierce tongues of pleasure licking heatedly at her skin.

  In her mind already she knew James’s touch and her body welcomed the familiarity of it. In her dreams James already was her lover and her body felt none of the fear that had always so tormented her mind. It responded to James’s touch as though it had been designed specifically to do so, inciting, encouraging him to the point where Jenna could hear the savage harshness of his breathing like a litany of desire against her skin.

  Her stomach quivered as he knelt over her and stroked it with his fingers moving slowly downwards to where her body pulsed with desire for him. Neither of them spoke, but Jenna watched him with eyes dark with passionate need as he sat back and slowly removed her silk pants, running his hands upwards over her ankles and calves, the backs of her knees and then her thighs, deliberately spreading her legs apart, without using any urgency or force.

  Desire quickened inside her, the same desire she had experienced in her dreams, hot and fierce, a ragingly urgent sensation that eclipsed any other she had ever known.

  James reached the top of her thighs and she started to shiver and tremble wildly. His fingers stroked intimately into her body, releasing inside her a sheeting wild torrent of sensation that made her catch her breath and cry out loud. She wanted to resist the intimacy of what he was doing to her, what he was making her feel, but already her body was writhing sinuously beneath his touch, welcoming it, demanding and getting more. Mounting waves of feeling built up inside her, each one moving her closer and closer to the brink of some sensation that lured and tantalised until she was driven crazy with the need to experience it.