He did not want to think of the possible future waiting for him back at the estate.
Her lips, red and pouty, lowered to his, and he watched, suspended in longing, as they came slowly to his. “Won’t you kiss me?”
His thoughts were a blur, his actions sluggish. She did not wait for him; instead, she kissed him, inserting her warm tongue between his lips. It was slow, lazy, drugging as she increased the intimacy of their joined mouths. Small fingers wrapped around his wrists, holding his hands to her hair as she slid atop him.
His breath caught and the familiar urge to stiffen and withdraw nearly consumed him, but she refused to release him, and he tried, so hard, to allow himself to submit, but he couldn’t allow the intimacy. But he wanted to please her, to be the kind of man she deserved, the kind of lover she needed.
Rolling over, he captured her, bringing her body beneath his. Perhaps like this…
“No, Matthew,” she murmured, shattering the heart that had begun to beat too fast.
No? Was she saying she did not want this, his sex thrusting into her? How could she deny it when he could feel the sticky wetness of her cunt coating his thigh?
“You want me, Jane,” he growled as he rubbed his knee against her swollen folds. “I can feel how much.”
She struggled beneath him, but he refused to lift away from her. He ached to sink himself in her core, to feel her heat wash over him. He wanted to rid himself of the memories that had started to creep in, like the suffocating vines of ivy against bricks.
“I’m good at this, Jane, you’ll like it.”
All you’re good for is fucking. It’s the only thing you do well…
The poisonous voice of his past returned, haunting him. Yes, he knew how to fuck, but he didn’t know how to love, to pleasure without intent. To give, expecting nothing in return.
Swooping in, he tried to capture her mouth, but she turned her head and his mouth landed in her hair. His heart sped up, not from the chase, but from fear. Why was she turning from him?
Beneath him, she bucked, forcing him off, but he refused, and captured her chin in his hand, forcing her to look into his eyes, to find the man that lurked deep within him. Could she find him? Did she see him there, struggling to be free of the past?
“I can make you want this!”
She fought beneath him and he reached for her wrists, pinning them above her head. “I can feel how wet your cunt is. It’s dripping, my thigh is wet, yet you pretend indifference.”
“Matthew—
“You want me! Say the words, Jane. Tell me you want my cock deep within. Tell me you ache for it. Admit the power I have over you.”
He shoved against her. “Don’t pretend you’re not weeping for it,” he rasped against her ear. “Me inside, fucking you.”
She refused to look at him, and he forced her to feel him, so hard and heavy pushing against her. “I could make you beg for it. Even now your little quim begs for my cock, and don’t you dare deny it.”
She went utterly still beneath him. Her beautiful eyes dulled and her voice was soft and quiet—painfully quiet. “I cannot deny what we both know so well. You are right, you can make me want you. You have that power, Matthew, to control me, my body and mind. You’ve taken my free will, I can’t refuse you. Is that what you want? Does knowing you have that kind of power make you feel happy? Manly?”
He growled, hating her words and the pain they caused him. He shoved his engorged cock against her, parting her slick folds through her chemise with the tip, making her feel him. “I could force you. I could make you forget that you said no.”
“Yes. You could. Forced seduction they call it.” When she looked at him, her gaze was full of sadness. “I am so hungry for the feel of you that I may even like it.”
Horror gripped him, and Matthew pulled away. He could not force Jane. He knew what it was to be forced, coerced, lured into something he didn’t want but could not resist. He did not want that for Jane. Did not want to be the same sort of monster that had corrupted him.
Pulling away, he was shocked when she lunged up and lay on him. He couldn’t breathe. He was smothered by her body, by the curtain of long hair that cocooned him.
“Jane,” he gasped, struggling for air and words. But she surprised him with her strength, with the speed of her nubile fingers. Before he knew it, his wrists were in her hands. Knuckles scraped the headboard, and he felt something smooth and cool slide around his skin.
Binds…
His mind fractured and he was no longer in his cottage with Jane, but in a darkened room in the ducal estate, half waiting, half fearing the sound of the bedroom door creaking open in the night.
Blinded by the impending onslaught, he struggled against her, aware of her still, and not wanting to hurt her as he had the last time when she’d awakened him and he had flung her from his bed. He didn’t want to hurt Jane, yet he could not allow himself to be subjected like this. To submit.
“Release me,” he growled, struggling harder against the pulling ties that shackled his wrists.
“I want to discover you, Matthew. To touch you as I did that night in the hospital. I need to feel you beneath my fingertips. And what is more, you need this, to be touched. To know what it is like to be with someone, not simply in a body.”
“Damn you, Jane, there is nothing I need from you.”
Even as his body cried out for Jane’s hands on him, his mind warred with it. He could not lie here, helpless, his hands shackled. He could not be at another mercy’s. Not again. Never again.
Bucking, he looked up and saw the crimson ribbon she had worn around her throat tied against his wrists. Panic at seeing himself bound flooded him and he twisted, feeling the slippery glide of the satin loosen.
“Matty…” Her angel’s voice cut through the haze of rage that clouded his thoughts, his vision. “Let me. Trust me.”
His vision blackened, snuffed out by another sash of satin.
“Jane, no,” he groaned, half begging her. He could not do this.
“Shh,” she whispered. The soothing touch of her fingertip against his lips made him jump, which only put his body into contact with hers. His flesh burned where their skin touched. He reminded himself to breathe, to slow the racing thoughts that were thundering through his brain. This was Jane, he reminded himself.
He tried to focus on how she would look, her breasts full and pale. Nipples, a deep coral, marred with red circles from his sucking mouth, the red patch of hair that enticed him, damp with her excitement.
Hands reached for him, and he arched, fighting the sensation of his body being touched. “Don’t,” he cried, despising himself for his inability to hide this part of himself from Jane.
She said nothing as she continued to glide her soft, gentle fingers along his shoulders and chest. Matthew felt his breathing grow too shallow and fast, felt his stomach tighten and his muscles quiver just as they once had with his lover, who had taught him to crave perversity. Who had made him commit a most unforgivable sin.
He had to put a stop to it, these memories, these feelings, Jane smothering him. There was only one way he could.
“The feel of your body disgusts me, Jane. Get off.”
A beat of silence. A heavy pause in which his heart took one last beat and stopped. He could feel the pain his words caused her, and he forced himself to steel his spine, to forget her pain and think only of his own.
“What part of me disgusts you? My body, or the effect it has on you?”
“Sod you,” he snapped, tugging at his binds so fiercely he made the headboard rattle. He gasped as she found his cock. He was huge, thick, straining to be touched and taken into her hot mouth. His body wanted it, his traitorous dick was weeping for it, but his mind could not allow it.
“I said get the fuck off me,” he snarled.
“Not till you tell me why.”
“Because I hate you!” he roared.
The rushing of his blood in his ears died, followed by the sou
nd of him tearing out Jane’s gentle soul with his poisonous tongue. Oh, Christ, he didn’t want to hurt her, to lie to her, but he couldn’t do this. It was the only way to make her stop…hurt her…break her…
“Who hurt you?” she murmured as her fingertips glided against his lips. So soft, like the fluttering of butterfly wings.
It broke him. Those three words seemed to rend the crack in his heart wide-open, until he was bleeding out into his body. “Jane, don’t,” he begged, “please. Let it go. Let me go.”
Her touch persisted, only this time he felt her breath, humid and warm, against his mouth. “You ache to be touched, Matthew. Every human does. It is what differentiates us from all the other mammals of the world, the need to touch and be touched.”
“Jane, you mustn’t.”
“I must,” she returned, and then she kissed him, her lips soft, pliant, nondemanding. She traced the edge of his nose, the shell of his ear, the contour of his mouth, which continued to protest in shallow rasps that were part terror and part heart-wrenching longing.
“Be easy,” she purred as her hands left his face and traveled over his shoulders and down his arms. She was quiet in her exploration, and it unnerved him. He was used to common talk when his lover would force him to endure touch. Those times had been base and animalistic, not reverent and quiet like it now was with Jane.
He tried to focus on her hands, Jane’s hands. In his mind he knew who they belonged to, but every once in a while, the voice of his lover would cut in, and he would feel the sting of pain on his skin.
“So big and strong, like an ox. So proud, yet here you are, crying, broken.”
He shuddered, his entire body growing taut. He felt his stomach churn as Jane’s hands traced the muscles of his torso, snaking slowly, but intently, down.
“Look at the size of you. And you say you want to stop this? What a liar you are. You can’t stop this, your cock wants it, your body wants it, and your mind is too weak to fight them.
Gasping, he curled his fingers into his palms and tried not to struggle, but Jane sensed the turmoil in him and crawled up higher, until her body was flush atop his, and he felt every inch of her, every curve and indentation, even the beating of her heart against his breastbone. When she kissed his tattoo, he actually heard the small exhalation of air whimper past his lips. When he felt Jane’s hand slide between their bodies and reach for his cock, he gritted his teeth, trying to focus on the pleasure, not the past.
“Jane, talk to me,” he cried as she stroked him. “I need to hear your voice.” To keep the other one at bay, he silently added.
“I am here, Matthew.” He felt the sensual drag of her hair sliding down his chest and belly. “I’m with you, touching you, discovering you. You’re beautiful,” she murmured, her voice full of awe. “I want to touch you forever and marvel at how perfect you are.”
An unchecked tear seeped from his eye. Mercifully the blindfold caught it, preventing him the shame of having Jane know he was weeping.
“I want to taste you,” she said, circling his nipple with her tongue. The hot lash made his cock jump in her palm, and he allowed himself the sinful pleasure of imagining her mouth answering the beckoning call. He wished he could allow it, but he hadn’t been able to bear it, his cock in another mouth. His lover had ruined that for him. He had tried it, over the years, drinking absinthe so he would not hear the voice, or see the face that haunted his dreams. But not even the absinthe allowed him that pleasure. He could never retain an erection whenever he allowed such intimacy.
He would be damned to hell if he grew flaccid now with Jane.
Her soft palm continued to stroke him, her clever thumb swirling around the swollen head, spreading the evidence of his desire along the cap and down to the ridged neck of his shaft. Incredibly he heard her lips part, felt her thumb leave him, then the unmistakable sound of her lips sucking.
“I want to take you deep in my mouth,” she said between kisses that moved along his ridged abdomen. “I want to feel your strength, taste you…”
“I…I can’t,” he murmured, his voice cracking. “I can’t abide that act, Jane.”
He felt her move on the bed. “Why?”
“Because,” he whispered, thankful he was blindfolded, “I was forced to watch it being done to me, and it was…wrong. When I looked down, between my legs, the person…my…tutor…it was wrong.”
She stilled. “What if you saw me?”
He thrashed his head. “No, Jane.”
“I want to take you in me.”
“Jane, no!” he cried as she slid all the way down his body and fitted her curves between his thighs. His shaft was in her hand, and it was moving downward, to a mouth he knew would be open, hot and wanting. He whimpered, and she stopped, and instead of a warm wet mouth, he felt something else trickling along his shaft. Jane’s tears.
“Matthew,” she murmured, her voice breaking. “How can I save you?”
“Release me, Jane.”
She reached above his head and untied him. She pulled the blindfold off, and he looked at her with what he knew was more than need.
He said nothing, but lowered his mouth onto hers. He swept his tongue inside and for the first time, allowed himself to stop thinking—to only feel.
Matthew took his time exploring her mouth, delighting in the weight of her resting atop him. He willed his blood to slow. Every liaison in his past had been nothing but the frantic mating of bodies. Clothes had been shed and torn. They had panted and lusted and satisfied their carnal desires—and then he had left, physically replete, emotionally empty. He didn’t want that with Jane—he wanted more. The slow seduction, the exploration of her body, the commitment of her beauty etched for eternity in his memory.
Her body grew restless against his, and he rolled atop her, taking her with him, holding her so that she was cradled in his arms. Their eyes met and he stared into her luminous gaze, losing himself.
Pressing her back, he studied her lying beneath him, waiting for him. White linen had never looked more erotic to him than it did now, shielding Jane’s curved form.
Delicate embroidered pansies dotted the neckline, and instead of buttons, the gown was held together by a long line of white, silk ribbons tied into perfect bows. He was going to untie them, one at time, slowly, assuredly.
His eyes met hers as his fingers reached the first bow, tugging at the end, unraveling it until it was only two strings crisscrossed against the other. Placing his finger beneath it, he parted the ties, hearing her inhale and hold her breath when the linen gaped teasingly open.
The second bow came undone and still she held his gaze, her breasts rising and falling, her breathing increasing every time he loosened a silk ribbon. The third bow slipped between his fingers and he could not resist glancing down between their bodies.
His bronzed hand rested partly inside her gown, the snowy linen contrasting with his skin. The chemise was undone to her midriff and it would not take much effort to slide the thin straps along her arms and part the material over her generous breasts to reveal her silken belly.
Without a word, he rose to his knees, straddling her legs before reaching for the straps of her gown and revealing her fully. A fine flush covered her skin, and he looked up to see her blushing.
“My God, how will I ever capture this beauty on canvas?”
Her eyes were misty when she looked into his and her lips trembled a fraction. “Truly?”
“I could not have conjured up such loveliness.” He ran a hand along her side, relishing the soft, curved feel of her. “I’ll make this beautiful for you, Jane. I swear, you will never regret this with me.”
And then, he lowered himself atop her so that her breasts scraped his chest and their eyes were locked together, and he sunk himself deeply inside her.
He did not ask if she could take all of him, for he knew she could. He was so deep inside her, he felt her pulsating around him. And when he began his dance of enter and withdraw, and he heard ea
ch gasp, each creak of the bed with his measured strokes, he knew that he had found the one person who matched the passion he had swimming in his veins. The one person who could accept him as he was—damaged, soiled goods.
He looked at Jane’s hair fanned out against the white pillow, down to her breasts, which swayed and brushed his chest, down to the red thatch that meshed with his black hair, to the sacred place where he joined inside her. The beauty of it hit him all at once, and he realized that he had never before thought of the act of intercourse as a magical dance. But as he watched himself enter her, watched as she took him—his length, his thickness—deep inside her, he knew he was watching something much more profound than two bodies seeking pleasure.
As if to confirm his thoughts, he looked up and saw their reflection in the cheval mirror that sat in the corner of the room. His body, so much harder and darker than hers, slid along her curves and he saw how her hips moved with his, saw how his hips undulated with each stroke of his cock deep inside her until they moved together as one.
He slid a bit to the right, still partially covering her with his body and she tried to follow him, but he stilled her and whispered against her ear, “Look and see us.”
Her head moved against the pillow and he saw her eyes go wide with wonder and desire as she studied their bodies sliding along one another in the reflection of the mirror. He slowed his rhythm till it resembled an unhurried rising and falling of hips and legs, breasts and breaths.
They watched their bodies moving slowly together and after a long while, Matthew lowered his face to hers and kissed her cheek. “I only see you now, Jane.”
Jane placed her hand palm up against Matthew’s and they stayed like that, palm to palm, for long seconds before he entwined his fingers through hers and brought their hands back behind her head as he thrust deeply into her.
He had never felt this—this oneness of mind, body and spirit. As they looked into each other’s eyes, as his hand gripped hers tightly and his body slid along hers, he knew that he would never, ever, feel this connection with anyone else.
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