“I suppose that’s all right, then.”
“Will you thank me with a kiss?”
“Should I? After all, they’re only small diamonds.” She couldn’t resist running her hand down his unscarred cheek. Beneath her palm, his skin was firm and smooth. He must have shaved before dinner. She drew him down to her. Above her in the mirror, the man sank toward the sitting woman. Under the white lawn shirt, his back moved subtly as he kissed her.
“You’re not getting into the spirit,” he complained against her lips.
She shifted. “It’s the mirror.”
“I’ll make it right.” He leaned down to open the nightstand and drew something out, then kissed her tenderly.
Too quickly the kiss ended. She grumbled incoherently and followed him, holding his shoulder and pressing her mouth to his. His tongue flickered out to meet hers. Triumph flooded her. But he withdrew after a mortifyingly brief taste. “Shut your eyes.”
“Merrick…” She reached a point where his teasing grated rather than amused. He watched with the half-smile that had her heart performing acrobatics.
“Shut your eyes. Please, Sidonie.”
The “please” was meant to disarm. Confound him, it disarmed. She bent forward from the headboard and shut her eyes. It was a relief not seeing a hundred Sidonies.
“And my name is Jonas,” he said softly. “Surely after last night, you can bring yourself to use my Christian name.”
She knew she was ridiculous. Calling him Merrick helped maintain the illusion that she wasn’t tumbling headlong into enchantment.
Merrick teased and taunted, and schemed to dishonor Roberta. Merrick was sarcastic and powerful. Merrick, no matter how appealing, she could resist.
Jonas…
Jonas was someone else entirely. Jonas hid a breathtaking generosity of spirit from all the world except her. Jonas had struggled to the point of pain last night to save her hurt. Jonas was so lonely and damaged, she’d sell her soul to heal him. Jonas called to her heart as nobody had before.
Jonas threatened her in ways that became clearer with each minute. And in ways that would leave her ruined indeed, well beyond the physical, when she returned to Barstowe Hall.
“Jonas.” She wanted to sound short and snappy. Instead his name emerged as a sigh of concession.
“That’s better.”
She didn’t need to open her eyes to confirm that his expression reeked satisfaction. “Can I look now?”
“Not yet.”
Her hands clenched in the sheets. Denying sight sharpened her remaining senses but she couldn’t help feeling defenseless. She smelled lemon soap overlying his individual scent. The bed was soft beneath her. Her hair lay heavy around her shoulders, sliding against her skin as she moved.
The mattress shifted as Jonas stood. She heard his boots brushing across the carpet. Every hair on her body lifted as he stopped beside her. He didn’t touch her but she was so aware of him, he might as well. On a whisper of material, something smooth and cool covered her eyes.
“What are you doing?” she asked sharply, starting as his hands moved deftly behind her head. She opened her eyes to darkness. She lifted one hand to rip off the blindfold.
Jonas caught her. “No mirrors.”
“They’re still there.” She gave a halfhearted tug. Uncertainty lent her tone a raw edge. “I don’t like these games.”
“Ten minutes, tesoro. That’s all I ask. After that, if you don’t like it, we’ll play something else.”
She exhaled with annoyance. “You think just because you ask nicely, you’ll get your way.”
“Manners maketh the man, amore mio.”
“Do you always blindfold your lovers?”
“Often.” She could tell he meant always. She shivered, not sure whether she was appalled or curious. She suddenly remembered how he’d snuffed the candles last night before tumbling her.
“You’re a manipulative devil, Merrick.” Her tone was edged.
“Jonas.”
She sighed. “Merrick for the next ten minutes.”
Her answer was grudging permission to continue. He released her and she heard him shift again. Dear God, she was painfully conscious of him when she could see him. Plotting his movements through sound alone threatened sanity. Thought dissolved when he dropped a kiss on her lips. Her hands curled in her skirts as she fought the urge to grab him by the ears and make him kiss her properly.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
“Ten minutes.” She had a sinking feeling each minute would last an hour.
“I’m counting, tesoro.”
Trying to track him, she turned her head. She jerked when he caught her hand and kissed the pulse at her wrist. Without benefit of sight, her skin felt unnaturally sensitive.
She bit her lip then jumped when he pressed a finger into the cushiony flesh. His touch felt like a kiss. She felt the air shift, then his mouth covered hers. He sucked her poor gnawed lip into his mouth. Her heart set out on a frenetic gallop. Before she could deepen the kiss, he withdrew. Frustration coiled in her belly. Clumsily she reached to catch him but he avoided her.
Confounded blindfold.
She supposed she could take it off. She wasn’t a prisoner. Something made her leave it in place. But, oh, how it smarted, waiting for those glancing caresses from every direction.
“You’re playing with me.” She hated how breathless she sounded. She fumbled after him and caught his arm to keep him still.
“Oh, yes.”
This time she had warning. His breath was warm on her neck, raising a legion of goose bumps. His mouth traced a tendon until she trembled.
“Have we had ten minutes?” she asked in a ragged tone.
“Not yet,” he said casually, nibbling a hot line along her jaw. “You’re the most delicious dish in creation, dolcissima.”
He kissed the corners of her lips and she whimpered. He smiled against her cheek. For all that she missed her vision, there was something breathtakingly seductive about feeling his expressions rather than seeing them. What he did to her felt forbidden, like a wicked sensual adventure.
Her fingers dug into the muscles of his arm. “At this rate, I’ll be ninety before you do anything about it.”
He shook off her hold. “Patience.”
She felt the mattress dip as he kneeled behind her. It shouldn’t make any difference where he was. She couldn’t see him anyway. But having him at her back put her on edge.
All capacity for speech fled when he tugged on her gown. As the dress sagged open, she felt the drift of air on her bare back. The sharp nip of his teeth on her earlobe set off another cannonade of response. A pulse began to pound, heavy and hard, between her legs. She gulped in a mouthful of air. She kept forgetting to breathe.
“You make me wanton.” Resentment pricked under growing arousal.
“A wonderful wanton.” Silk glided over her skin when he lowered the gown from her shoulders.
“That’s a devilish provocative corset,” he said after a pause that made her skin tingle.
Her cheeks heated. She wore the most revealing of her new underclothes. A shift so fine, it was almost nothing. A corset lifting her breasts high for a man’s hands. For Jonas’s hands, she’d thought with a surreptitious thrill when Mrs. Bevan had laced her. Roses and lilies snaked across the corset, stirring brazen thoughts of limbs twined in lovemaking.
“It’s sinful,” she whispered, fighting the urge to cover her bosom with her hands.
“Exactly, bella.” She heard his amusement. The blindfold made her hearing so acute, she was alert to every shade of emotion in his voice. That beautiful baritone wrapped around her like a thick blanket on a wintry night.
Suddenly she needed her eyes. To check whether he was predatory or triumphant. Or perhaps worse, whether he regarded her like the one perfect rose in his garden. When she fought so hard to resist his power over emotions as well as senses, that was the most terrifying option of all. She rose onto her kn
ees. Her hands shook as she lifted them to the blindfold.
“No, Sidonie.” He caught her hands.
“Take the blindfold off, Merrick,” she demanded.
That low laugh stroked her nerve endings like thick velvet. Good God, his voice had her panting. How helpless would she be when he touched her in earnest?
“Not yet.” He brought her hands higher and glanced a kiss across each set of knuckles. A caress fleeting as a puff of summer wind. Her belly tightened with arousal. She inhaled, striving for clarity. If she insisted, he’d remove the blindfold. But he’d asked her to trust him. Even while she hated how the request twisted her into knots, she couldn’t deny him.
Poor Sidonie. Soon she’d be unable to deny him anything.
He still held her hands. Stupid girl, she drew strength from that clasp. She stiffened her backbone, feeling her breasts rise against the shift.
“Sidonie?” he asked softly, letting her hands fall into her lap where they opened and closed nervously in the crumpled skirt.
If he pushed or insisted or bullied, she’d withstand him. But he made her name an invitation to discover marvelous secrets.
After a pause, she reluctantly nodded. “Very well.”
Chapter Seventeen
Jonas released his breath and strove against identifying his reaction as knee-trembling relief. How he wished he could paint Sidonie now, kneeling in front of him, her lavish body draped in a whisper of silk. He wanted to keep her like this forever so he could relive this moment on cold, lonely nights.
What artist could recreate Sidonie’s sensuous beauty? No mere dauber could capture the feminine musk on the air. Or depict the soft, uneven pattern of her breathing. Her skin was flushed. A pulse fluttered in the hollow of her throat. Her lips were full and dark, although he’d hardly kissed her.
Over and over in the mirrors, she emerged from the loosened gown like a water lily from a lake. He loomed over her like a nightmare. Usually he derived twisted satisfaction from the contrast between a beautiful woman in his bed and his physical hideousness. He brushed aside one of the pink ribbons supporting the chemise. She jumped with nerves.
“Don’t be afraid, Sidonie,” he crooned, shaping his hand to her shoulder. She felt so fragile, yet she was stronger than the thick stone walls surrounding them.
“I’m not afraid.” Clearly a lie. He knew she was unsure, even afraid. The blindfold must strike her as strange and wicked. Her courage scoured his heart. She’d face down Satan himself with that arrogantly tilted chin.
“You’ve done this before, you know,” he said with a hint of teasing laughter.
“I could see you then,” she responded tartly.
Brava, bella. Don’t stop fighting. “Without sight, other senses take over.”
“You make me shy,” she said so quietly, he bent nearer to hear. He caught the haunting fragrance that was Sidonie’s alone. Shutting his eyes, he drew that essence into his lungs.
The need to be inside her crashed like rolling thunder. Still, he kept his touch light as he traced a path down one white breast to the lacy edge of her shift. If he kept her in his bed the next three days, if he drank her kisses until he was intoxicated, if he explored every mystery of her exquisite body, surely he’d be sated. Except he already knew his appetite would merely feed on its desire. He’d never have enough of her.
Gently he lowered the silk to reveal one hard pink nipple. Startled, she jerked back on her knees. When he cupped her breast, her breath escaped in a whimper. With unsteady fingers, he unlaced her corset and drew it away. Dear God, she was lovely. He could worship her body for a lifetime and still feel he hadn’t done her justice.
Careful not to dislodge the blindfold, he drew the red dress, then the shift, over her head. He extended her long legs, tugging her slippers off and rolling stockings over elegant ankles and feet. He dropped the scraps of silk to the floor and trailed his hands slowly up satiny skin, pausing just below her sex. “It’s a sin against nature to cover a woman so glorious. I decree you stay naked.”
Her laugh was husky as she leaned back on her hands for balance. “I’d shock Mrs. Bevan.”
Jonas’s hands ran along her thighs, feeling her muscles lengthen. Her position made her lush breasts jut. When he drew her nipple into his mouth, she trembled. She trembled more powerfully when he shifted his attentions to her other breast.
Her fingers wove through his hair, holding him nearer. “I’m guessing you’re still dressed,” she said drily.
He lifted his head. “How do you know?”
“Merrick, your tone is too superior for it to be otherwise.”
Seconds ago, she had him wanting to fall to his knees in veneration. Now she made him want to laugh. What a bewitching mixture she was. “Jonas.”
“Blasted, importuning, lecherous, deceiving snake Jonas,” she said with saccharine sweetness.
He tumbled her onto her back in a tangle of slender limbs and floating hair. “You say the nicest things.”
Her hands clenched in his shirt when he came down over her. “I knew you hadn’t undressed.”
“In good time, la mia vita.” He braced himself on his arms to stare at her. Stretched out under him, she looked like a sulky goddess. “What’s your hurry?”
“Dawn rushes upon us.”
“Dawn doesn’t mean an end to pleasure,” he said silkily.
His sulky goddess blushed so furiously that the color seeped below the blindfold. What a darling she was. More luscious than Mrs. Bevan’s baklava. A hint of the exotic. Spice and honey that lingered on the tongue and made a man crave more. Made a man want to gorge.
Lurching to his knees, he reefed the shirt over his head, tossing it disregarded into the corner. Once more he lowered himself over her. Her soft sigh of pleasure at the brush of his naked chest against her breasts resonated through his bones. He drew away until mere inches separated them. Her strong, graceful hands were frantic as they explored his chest and grazed his hard belly. Her quick, glancing touches made more than his belly hard. His cock ached so painfully, his whole body throbbed. She skimmed a nipple and he stifled an agonized groan.
He battled for restraint. He hadn’t lingered over her last night. Tonight he meant to make up for that. Very gently he parted her legs. Candlelight flickered on glistening pink folds. He caught her heady scent.
She tried to cover herself. Her voice shook with nervousness. “You’re looking at me, aren’t you?”
“You’re beautiful.”
When she started to draw her legs together, he placed one hand on her thigh. He exerted no pressure, but his heart somersaulted when she immediately lay still. Her hand dropped away from her sex.
Inhaling a breath redolent of aroused woman, he knew himself in Elysium. He kissed her with unfettered need. She opened immediately. He sucked her tongue into his mouth, feasting on her. Trailing kisses down her slender body, he became so lost in delight, he almost abandoned his goal. She moved restlessly and her legs spread wider. She couldn’t know his intention but her body instinctively prepared itself.
Sidonie’s every muscle tightened as Jonas’s mouth settled against her most private place. “Wh… what are you doing?”
She tried to scramble up the bed. When he raised his head, she inhaled with shaky relief. She tried to close her legs, but he lay between them.
“Be adventurous, bella.” She heard his smile.
She fumbled at his shoulders, but he was immovable as a mountain. “You can’t possibly want to put your mouth… there.”
He laughed softly. “Tesoro, you taste sweeter than wine.”
Embarrassment threatened to incinerate her. She could remove the blindfold, but, curse him, she didn’t want to see his face. Jonas had looked at parts of her she’d never expected anyone to see, parts she couldn’t even name.
“I don’t—” Words wedged in her throat. She dug her hand into his thick hair, holding him still between her thighs. “Please, Jonas. Don’t make me do this.”
/> The silence lengthened. The sea’s distant thunder played counterpoint to her wayward heartbeat. A night bird called forlornly outside, lost on the ocean.
“The last thing I want is to frighten you.” His voice was as serious as she’d ever heard it. He shifted up, his body sliding along hers. He placed a nipping kiss on each breast.
Her tension eased as she realized he wouldn’t force this disturbing intimacy. Kissing her between the legs seemed outlandish to the point of perversity. “Th-thank you,” she murmured and ran her hand through his hair in gratitude.
Groaning appreciation, he rubbed against her, pressing her into the mattress. Last night, she’d been too overwhelmed to explore his body. Curiosity swelled, sharp, hungry. She possessed senses other than sight. Hearing. Smell. Taste. Touch.
Her hands slid up his chest to his shoulders. Measured by touch, he seemed larger, more formidable. Daringly she reached down to stroke him there, where he was a man. He tensed and she wondered whether he liked what she did. Then he pushed himself into her hand with an urgency that fueled arousal. She squirmed against the sheets to relieve the swelling heat between her thighs.
“Hell, Sidonie,” he groaned, and she heard his tormented pleasure.
She did nothing more than cup him, unsure what was permissible, what gave delight. He felt vibrantly alive. And impressively big. Difficult to believe he’d pushed that rigid weight inside her last night.
In her ear, his breath was an unsteady rattle. Astonishing that she’d so swiftly brought this worldly man to the brink. She bit her lip, summoned courage, and curled her fingers. He shuddered and lowered his head to her shoulder to mutter profanities that sounded like prayers. The sensuous softness of his hair brushing her cheek contrasted pleasurably with the virile power in her grasp.
Discovering his body through touch alone was fascinating. He’d explored her with the attention a mapmaker devoted to an unknown coastline. Whereas he remained terra incognita.
Not after tonight.
Feeling like the bravest woman in Creation, she fumbled with his breeches.
“Bella…”
“Roll onto your back.” Much as she resented its presence, the blindfold lent courage she doubted she’d muster under his knowing silver gaze.
Seven Nights in a Rogue's Bed Page 17
