by Mary Balogh
She sucked inward on his tongue, pulsed her teeth against it, pressed herself to him, rubbed her breasts against him, twisted her hips, wrapped her free arm about him, pushing it beneath his coat, dragging at his shirt so that she could touch the bare skin of his back. And when he rolled her over onto her back, her other arm joined the first in its task.
He had pulled her belt free and flung it from them, and her dress came up with one jerk of his hand to her breasts and above. Other garments came down over her legs and feet and were flung to join the belt. She felt cool night air against bare skin for a moment before the weight of his body became her blanket.
His hands were between his body and hers, on her breasts, moving hard over them, squeezing them, his thumbs rubbing roughly over nipples that were hard and tender. His mouth was at her throat and moving below her bunched dress to her breasts, his tongue taking the place of his thumb at one nipple, his lips surrounding it. He sucked inward as he worked his knees between her legs and pushed them wide, lifting himself to a kneeling position.
The only thing to do with her legs was lift them and twine them about his. The fabric of his trousers was rough against the soft skin of her inner thighs. His mouth on her breast was driving her to madness. But her hands were up inside his shirt and moving from his back to his sides to his chest, as her palms pushed over warm ribs and chest muscles and her fingers sought his own nipples.
She could hear the rasping of both their breathing as he lifted his head again, twined his hands painfully in her hair, and brought his mouth to hers again. He lowered his weight once more and she could feel between her legs the hardness and hugeness of his arousal through his trousers. Her whimper of fright and desire took her completely by surprise.
His hands moved from her hair down her sides and beneath her buttocks to lift her against him. He ground himself against her. And she drew up her knees and hugged his waist with them. The aches, the blood pumping through her, were equal parts terror and desire, she knew, pushing her hands up between them to undo the buttons of his coat and wrestle it open. But she would not give in to the terror. She was going to be taken. Nothing could stop that now. But he would not take her, for all that. He would never be able to boast of that. She would give herself, and then she would be as much the victor as he.
But he went still suddenly, and as suddenly rolled off her to lie on his back, one arm thrown over his eyes. He was panting. “No!” he said. “No, I will not give you the satisfaction of ravishing you, Joana. That is what you want, is it not? The joy of knowing yourself irresistible even to a man who despises you?”
She lay for a moment bewildered, stunned, humiliated, naked from the breasts downward, before surging over onto her side and raising herself on one elbow.
“Bastard!” she hissed at him. “Impotent bastard. Eunuch.”
“Bitch in heat!” he said without removing his arm. “You want it, Joana? You are going to have to take it.”
She stared down at him, her eyes blazing, her breathing labored, taking in the implications of what he had said.
“Oh!” she said then, coming up onto her knees, leaning over him, her hair falling forward over her shoulders to touch his shoulder and his chest. “And you think I will not, Robert? You think I am too timid, too ladylike? You think you can play with me like this and leave me bruised and humiliated and . . . and . . .”
“Unsatisfied?” he said.
“You bastard!” she said. “I hate you.”
“Then the feeling is mutual,” he said.
Her hands opened the one remaining button of his coat and pushed it wide. She undid the buttons of his shirt and opened it wide too after fumbling to remove his stock and throw it up behind his head. And she leaned over to feather her mouth over his chest and down to his waist. She feathered kisses back up again until she found his nipple, and she licked at it and drew it into her mouth.
He was lying quite still, his hands spread flat on the stone floor on either side of him. But she could hear his heart thumping erratically. And she hated him with a passion that pounded in her ears. Her hands went to the waist of his trousers, unwrapped the red sash that denoted him an officer, worked at the buttons.
He did not move until she pulled at his trousers. Then he raised his hips while she drew them downward to his knees—she did not feel equal to tackling the removal of his boots. He still desired her, she saw with satisfaction. And she ran her hand over him lightly and quickly, gasping, and sure that she would never be able to expel the air from her lungs again.
Her eyes had grown quite accustomed to the darkness. He was looking up at her, she saw when she straddled his body and set her hands on his shoulders beneath his open shirt.
“You did not think I would dare, did you?” she whispered to him, lowering her head so that her hair formed a curtain about their faces. “I will dare anything, Robert. Even this. You do not have the courage to ravish me? Very well, then, I shall ravish you.”
And she brought her mouth down to his, at the same moment lowering her body and impaling herself on him.
She could do no more. She was in shock. She was deeply, deeply occupied and waiting for a pain that did not come.
When she came somewhat to herself, he had one hand spread against the back of her head and the other down behind her waist. And his mouth was soft and warm against hers and his tongue licking at her lips and sliding up behind.
She had not panicked, she thought in some surprise. But she did not know what to do next.
She lifted her head. “It’s your turn,” she said. “Unless you are afraid, of course. Or do not know what to do.”
She could see his grin in the darkness. His hands moved down to grasp her hips, to raise her a little, and then he began to move in her, his thrusts swift and deep so that she raised herself up on her knees again in panic, her fingertips at his waist, her head thrown back. Every muscle in her body was tightening. Even her own body was beyond her control, she thought with one of the few rational thoughts left to her.
And then even the semblance of control left her, and her head jerked forward until her chin rested against her chest, and all the air whooshed out of her lungs in a long and audible sigh. He continued to move in her while she felt herself begin to shudder, the shock waves spreading upward and outward from the point of his deepest penetration.
There was a blank of time somewhere after that—whether seconds or minutes long, she did not know. But the next time awareness reached her mind, she was lying full-length on top of him, her legs spread on either side of his, her hands and one cheek against his bare chest. Both his arms and one of their blankets were about her. Their bodies were still joined.
“I will be too heavy for you,” she said, and was surprised by the sleepiness of her own voice.
“Don’t talk nonsense, Joana,” he said. “Go to sleep. This is as good a way as any of holding you prisoner.”
“Guards are not supposed to have sexual relations with their prisoners,” she said, moving her cheek until it was quite comfortable. She could hear his heart beating steadily against her ear.
“Neither are prisoners with their guards,” he said.
“But prisoners will do anything to be free,” she said.
“You are not going to be free.” One of his hands caressed the back of her head. “Nothing has changed. Nothing at all. We have, after all, always admitted to a physical attraction to each other. We have merely acted on that attraction—to our mutual satisfaction, it seems. Whoever calls you a lady, Joana, has obviously never had you between the sheets. But I did not know there was such a man left.”
“Go to the devil,” she said.
“Go to sleep.”
* * *
He knew with that extra sense that had developed during the past ten years that dawn was not far off. They should be up soon and on their way. If Colonel Leroux and his men intended to
bring their horses on the pursuit—even assuming he and Joana had been seen against the skyline the day before—they would have to make a wide detour. And then they would have to do some careful tracking. It was unlikely that they would be a threat that day. But even so . . .
He stared out at the night sky, one hand propped beneath his head, the other playing absently with Joana’s hair. He must have slept quite soundly for several hours. And so must she. She had not moved since she had told him to go to the devil. And she was still deeply asleep.
Her legs were going to be stiff, he thought, feeling them against the outside of his. But at least he had been able to give her a softer bed than the stone floor of the cave. He smiled grimly into the darkness. And was it important that she be shielded? He thought of the underground cell in which he had recently spent five days, courtesy of the Marquesa das Minas, and of the daily exercise several French soldiers had taken there at his expense. Making love to her the night before had not been a painless experience.
Making love to her! He closed his eyes again. His one hand still fondled her hair. And he thought of Jeanne Morisette, that beautiful eager young girl who had sworn that she would always love him, who had sworn that she would marry him one day. And of the gentle young dreamer who had lain beside her there at the lake at Haddington, swearing to ride off with her on a white charger on her eighteenth birthday to the land of happily-ever-after, only half in jest.
And he thought of the same young girl laughing at him and calling him bastard and scorning him because he had dared to lift his eyes to the daughter of a count and weave dreams about her.
And he thought of the Marquesa das Minas as he had first seen her in a ballroom in Lisbon and of his first impression of her as lovely and expensive and far beyond his touch. And of the warm, disheveled woman who lay on him now, no longer smelling of expensive perfumes, but only of woman.
All woman and no lady at all. He thought of the way she had undressed him and caressed him the night before after fighting him like a wild thing when he had had the initiative. And of the way she had mounted him while he had lain passive, terrified that because she was his prisoner any violation of her person would be rape.
No lady at all. All bold and voracious woman.
And such thoughts were not to be indulged in. Already he was aware again of every soft, shapely inch of her against him. He was still inside her. If he was not careful, he would be growing again. Once was enough. They had both made their points. But when all was said and done, they were enemies. Bitter, implacable enemies. Once her French lover caught up to them—if he did—she would be doing all in her power to have her jailer killed or returned to that cell in Salamanca. And in the meanwhile he would be doing all in his power to deliver her to Lord Wellington and certain incarceration for what remained of the war against France.
Joana would hate imprisonment. She would rage against it, like a bird in a cage. He would not think of it.
“Hey,” he said, “time to wake up.”
She stirred. “Nonsense,” she said sleepily. “It is not even daylight yet. You are comfortable, Robert.” She sighed.
Damn the woman. She always said the wrong thing. And did she think she could lie abed until noon?
She wriggled against him and sighed again. He gritted his teeth and willed his body to calmness.
“Will you give me my gun and knife back today?” she asked. “If I promise faithfully not to use them on you, Robert? I shall use them against the French. I do not wish to go back with them anyway, you know. I want to stay with you.”
“I see,” he said. “Instant love from one bedding, Joana? I was that good? And now you intend to follow me about, the meek and faithful little woman, for the rest of my life?”
She snorted. “You can forget that pleasant masculine dream,” she said. “I will never be meek, Robert. But I will kill Frenchmen with you. May I have my gun?”
“Yes, certainly,” he said, “and my rifle and sword too, Joana. When hell freezes over, that is.”
“I hope you are there when it happens, then,” she said. “So that you cannot claw your way upward to fresh air and freedom. I thought you would trust me after last night.”
“As I would a deadly snake,” he said.
“Would you believe me if I told you that you are the only lover I have ever had apart from my husband?” she asked.
“Not for a single moment,” he said.
“I did not think so,” she said. “And he was dreadful, Robert. He preferred young boys, you know. Is that not ironic and a little lowering? You were wonderful. Are we to be lovers during this journey of ours—until Marcel catches up to us and cuts you into a thousand pieces?”
You were wonderful. Are we to be lovers . . . ? The words of a practiced flirt and compulsive liar. But of course they were having their effect, as she must have known they would. Goddamn the woman. Goddamn her to hell and back.
“We mated last night,” he said. “We were not lovers, Joana, and never could be. We coupled.”
“Ah,” she said, and sighed and squirmed against his chest again. “Are we to be mates for a while, then? A couple? You are growing hard again, are you not?”
“Damn you, Joana,” he said. “Do you always blurt out whatever embarrassing observation leaps into your mind?”
She lifted her head and looked up into his face. And she smiled slowly in that way that could always raise his temperature a degree. “Are you embarrassed?” she asked. “I think it feels rather lovely. Are we to mate again?”
He lifted her off him and set her on the floor beside him. He could see her face clearly—another sign that dawn was approaching. “Is that what you want?” he asked her harshly. “To be used as my plaything until I can deliver you over to proper captivity? That is all you would be, and that is what I will do with you in the end, Joana, no matter how many times I may have taken my pleasure of you in the meanwhile.”
Her smile was dreamy. “And you shall be my plaything,” she said. “I shall draw pleasure from you, Robert, and give you infinite pleasure too—oh, yes, pleasure to infinity; it is a promise—until Marcel does with you whatever he has in store for you. Make lo . . . No, mate with me. Couple with me.”
“Joana.” He leaned over and kissed her fiercely on the mouth. She had an insatiable appetite, it seemed. He might have guessed it. But whereas she was normally surrounded by countless men only too willing and eager to satisfy it, now there was only he. And he, poor fool, was flattered by her need for him, excited by it.
He spread his hands beneath her buttocks when he came over on top of her, intent on cushioning her against the floor as he drove his desire into her. But she showed no signs of discomfort. She set her hands on his shoulders and closed her eyes, her lips parted, and lay uncharacteristically still.
“Oh,” she said as she was coming to her climax. And she bit on her lower lip and opened her eyes to look up into his while it happened. “Oh,” she said afterward when he finally lay still on her, and one of her hands played gently with his hair. “I had no idea it could be beautiful like this, Robert. I had no idea.”
It was unfair, he thought—but since when had he expected Joana to play fair? She spoke when he was at his most vulnerable, when he had just spilled his love—no, not his love, his seed—into her and was sated and tired again. She spoke at a time when he most wanted to believe her.
It was time to be up and on their way. Time for daylight. Time for sanity. Time to see her and know her for what she was again.
But God, she was a beautiful woman to love—to mate with, to couple with. He used a more obscene word in his mind to set in perspective what had happened between them twice in the night.
“Get up and dress,” he said, rolling off her and slapping her sharply on one bare buttock as he did so. “It is time we were on our way.”
She sat up. “You know, Robert,” she said, �
��one day I am going to do that to you. It is not very pleasant.”
“I am not your prisoner,” he said.
“Oh, I think you are.” She smiled up at him. “Though you will never admit it, I suppose.” She shrugged. “And that is what I like most about you.” She got to her feet, ignoring the hand he stretched down for her assistance, and brushed at her dress. “Ugh! Creases. The Marquesa das Minas would have a major fit of the vapors if she were expected to wear this.”
She looked up at him and laughed. “But then, the marquesa is a tiresome bore, is she not? Nothing to do all day but flirt and look helpless and invent errands for besotted gentlemen to run. I think I would go mad if there were not Joana Ribeiro to become occasionally.”
“Joana who?” he said.
“Joana Ribeiro,” she said. “My fantasy self, Robert. The self who mated with you a few minutes ago and last night. You do not believe the marquesa would ever have done that, do you? She is at home only in the world of flirtation. Besides, you are not a gentleman and she is a lady. And besides again, she would have demanded a feather bed. Joana Ribeiro is a wonderful fantasy.”
She could be so enchanting, he thought, watching her in the growing light as she fastened her belt about her waist and frowned down at the heavy creases of the dress she had worn up about her breasts all night. Her hair was in wild tangles about her head and shoulders. She was barefoot. He did not believe he had ever seen her look more beautiful.
Yes, so enchanting if one allowed oneself to forget. And it was so easy to forget with Joana, to live for the joy of the moment with her. So easy to forget, even though he still bore fresh on his body the bruises that proved just how cruel and ruthless she was in reality.
