“Perhaps to torment Englishmen?” She turned to face him.
“You’re wearing nothing for the rest of the week.”
She gave a throaty giggle that made his gut clench with desire. “You’ll shock the servants.”
“The servants can go to Hades.” He tugged the delicate shift over her head. With a satisfied gesture, he tossed it to the side, not caring where it landed.
Charis’s color mounted, and she raised shaking hands to cover her bosom. He bit back a groan and drew her close for a long, openmouthed kiss. She kissed him back with gratifying enthusiasm, her brief shyness fading.
Again, he reminded himself to be careful, considerate, controlled.
Difficult to remember restraint when her hands ran up and down his back in a wild dance of desire. Or when her mouth clung to his as if she’d die if he stopped kissing her.
Slowly, he slid his hands up to cup her breasts. Her white flesh was exquisite, the nipples firm and dark. He couldn’t resist sucking one sweet point into his mouth. She cried out and arched closer.
He licked and suckled, following the broken pattern of her breath to test her arousal. When she moaned and trembled in his arms as though tossed in a storm, only then did he turn his attention to her other nipple.
His patience with her clothing had vanished long ago. With one ruthless movement, he ripped her drawers away. Now nothing separated him from her body. She gasped with shock and tugged at his hair. The fleeting pain only built his arousal.
He continued feasting on her breasts while one hand fell to the curls at the base of her belly. For a moment of delicate suspense, his fingers tangled in the damp softness.
He drew on her puckered nipple and slid his hand between her legs. She moaned, and a shudder ran through her. Her hand curled against the bare skin of his back. Parting her, he explored her folds. He took his time, savoring the delight.
She thrust her hips forward. He twisted his fingers, seeking. He stroked sleek petals.
And found his goal.
Very carefully, he touched her, teasing without initiating climax. Even so, her body tightened in immediate, uncontrollable response. Her soft, guttural cry alerted him to how close she was.
He raised his head from her breasts. More than he wanted to live another day, he wanted to watch her face during her first orgasm. To his shame, she hadn’t come close to her peak when he’d taken her before.
By God, she’d come tonight. Over and over. Until neither of them saw straight.
Her head tilted back, her breasts jutted forward, her eyes flickered closed, her lips parted on a raw moan as he touched her again, with greater purpose. He increased the pressure. She shivered, and he felt a sharp sting as her nails dug into his back.
She stiffened on a cry, and he felt her cross the barrier. Sensual pleasure roared through his veins as he watched her find bliss. Her trembling thighs clamped around his hand, her body quivered as though she had a fever. Hot female moisture drenched his fingers. Her heady scent was rich in his nostrils.
She’d never looked more beautiful. He’d remember this sight till the day he died. He’d remember it with gratitude and love.
After a long, shuddering moment, Charis opened misty eyes and stared at him in bewildered astonishment. “Gideon?” Her voice was hoarse and low.
Reluctantly he withdrew his hand. “Are you all right?”
“I…I think so.” She sounded more surprised than ecstatic. “What was that?”
He laughed softly. “A taste of what’s to come, my darling.”
Before she could question him further, he snatched her up for another kiss. After what she’d just experienced, her response was deliriously uninhibited. For the first time, her tongue invaded his mouth. The kiss became aggressive. She strained against him. Her nipples pressed into his chest, her arms encircled his neck, her hips thrust into his with an evocative rhythm.
Need surged like a tidal wave. But unlike this morning, it was need tempered by care. He intended to find joy tonight, but more than that, he intended Charis to find joy.
He swung her into his arms and carried her toward the bedroom. In graceful surrender, she rested her head in the crook of his shoulder.
“It’s time, my wife.”
He staked a claim he knew he had no right to make. But neither God nor the devil would stop him now. The world had stolen so much from him. It wouldn’t steal this.
He kicked open the door. It crashed against the wall. Overwhelmingly conscious of her naked body and the moist brush of her breath against his skin, he strode across to the bed.
He laid his precious burden upon the sheets. He waited for her to cover her breasts or her sex, but she lay motionless, open to his gaze.
Perfect.
Time halted while he drank in her beauty. She still wore stockings and slippers, tied with ribbons around her neat ankles.
“Why are you smiling?”
He hadn’t realized he was. “There’s no end to an Englishwoman’s armor. I’d forgotten your blasted shoes.”
To his surprise and delight, she raised one leg and pointed her toes in his direction. He caught a tantalizing glimpse of the dark mysteries between her thighs. The sight made his cock swell and strain with agonizing need. He locked his teeth and fought back the rip of desire. He was going to do this right. And that meant maintaining at least a shred of control.
“Why don’t you take them off?” she asked in a sultry voice he’d never heard from her before.
He wasn’t giving her everything her own way. He let his smile broaden, become knowing. “Later.”
His hands dropped to his waistband, and he roughly tugged his trousers open. Her eyes rounded. She licked her lips. His arousal built another notch, bathing his body in sweat. His heart raced with excitement.
Swiftly, he tugged off the rest of his clothes. He hadn’t undressed in front of a woman since well before Rangapindhi. He’d imagined if he ever did, it would be an occasion of embarrassment and concealment.
But the light in Charis’s brilliant eyes as she watched him looked like admiration.
How could that be? He was hardly a young girl’s dream, with his scars and grotesque hands. But the familiar self-loathing couldn’t sink its teeth into him when the woman he loved gazed at him as though he made the sun rise in the sky.
She slid up against the pillows, and her lush lips curved into a breathtaking smile of welcome. Her eyes were clear and burning with light.
She extended one hand toward him. “Come to bed, Gideon.”
Twenty
Gideon’s guarded expression as he stared at her outstretched hand harrowed Charis’s heart.
He’d been so hurt. Even now, when it couldn’t be clearer how she loved and wanted him, he didn’t trust his welcome.
The candlelight softened his terrible scarring. Instead, it emphasized the lean, muscled strength, the grace, the height. For all their vile tortures, the Nawab and his thugs couldn’t destroy his essential beauty. Her gaze fell to his powerful thighs and the hard, seeking flesh rising between them. His virility filled her with shivery excitement.
“Come to me, my darling,” she said on a breath.
His hesitation splintered. He surged onto the bed, bracing himself over her. She strained up and pressed her mouth to his. He groaned and kissed her back, soon taking charge.
His kisses were still so new, so startling in their delight. Perhaps one day, she’d become inured to the magic of his mouth on hers. In about a thousand years. Perhaps.
The rapacious hunger of his lips sent desire rippling through her. Heat trawled along her veins, arrowed between her legs, made her move restlessly against the sheets. Tentatively, she ran her hands down his back. For all the burning need that now scorched the air, he’d withdrawn too often for her to trust no barrier remained.
“Yes, touch me,” he groaned against her lips, and kissed her again. “Touch me, Charis.”
The yearning in his voice convinced her that at last
she could discover his body as she longed to do. As he rained ravenous, ravishing kisses across her face and neck and shoulders, she tightened her hands. She felt the shifting of muscle, the ridges of scarring under her palms. Poignant reminder of how near she’d come to never knowing him, loving him.
Her hands drifted lower, trailed across his firm buttocks. His breath caught on a strangled gasp, and his hips jerked forward, pushing hot hardness into her belly.
Automatically, Charis curved closer. After this morning, she should be used to what happened to her husband’s body when he wanted her. But the heat and weight of that part of him pulsing against her made her toes curl with excitement.
“Oh,” she gasped, her fingers digging into his buttocks.
“Yes,” he hissed, and bit down on her neck.
She gave a delighted shudder, and her nipples tightened with a longing that was like pain. When he’d taken her breast into his mouth, she’d nearly shattered with rapture. She trembled for him to do that again.
As if she spoke her wish aloud, his lips closed over one aching crest. She tangled her hands in his thick black hair, cradling his head against her. As his teeth scraped the sensitive tip, blinding pleasure gripped her. A sharp cry escaped, and she bowed up closer to that sweet torment.
This morning’s passion had been unforgettable but over too soon. Tonight, Gideon was stubbornly determined to take his time. With a piquant shiver, Charis remembered him saying he wanted to show her everything.
Everything?
Recollections of that astounding earthquake he’d set off made her dizzy. The world had dissolved into molten ecstasy. She’d never imagined such sensations existed.
Could Gideon do that again? Her heart leaped with anticipation. Good Lord, was there more?
He moved to her other nipple, tonguing it, sucking, biting, so she shook with a tingling mix of pleasure and pain. She wanted him to worship her like this forever. She wanted him to fill her body with his.
“Gideon, don’t make me wait,” she begged, when desire threatened to incinerate her. She loved what he did, but the roaring need to have him inside her drove her insane. With every touch, frantic craving spiraled higher. She felt lost, empty, needy. “Please.”
He raised his head and stared at her, his black eyes glittering. He looked like a pirate. A pirate of pleasure.
“You’ll like what happens next.” The current of warm laughter in his voice made her blood thicken to honey. “I promise.”
His kisses this afternoon had hinted that the darkness that marked their lovemaking so far wasn’t the whole story. Now the tormented, angry man who had burned with shame when he revealed his scars turned into a dream lover. Ardent. Commanding. Mindful of her pleasure.
Her heart overflowed with agonizing love, but she smothered the fatal words. Even now, she knew he didn’t want declarations, commitments, vows.
“I like all of it,” she admitted, praying what they did banished his shadows, even if only for a fleeting moment. “But please hurry.”
He laughed softly and trailed a line of kisses between her breasts and across her rib cage. “Never.”
She made an impatient sound, a sound transformed into a moan when he nipped the soft skin of her stomach. Her whole body was alive with sensation.
He kissed where he’d bitten her, as if to soothe the sting. But she’d reached such a pitch of arousal that nothing short of possession would satisfy her clamoring need.
“Gideon!” Her protest at his teasing faded on a gasp as he parted her legs with his hands and placed his lips…there.
Horrified shock paralyzed her. Surely this wasn’t something a man did to a woman. Surely it couldn’t be…
Thought disintegrated to ash as his mouth moved. She felt moisture, heat, suction. The soft friction of his hair between her thighs. The scrape of stubble on tender skin.
His mouth was hot. So hot.
Dear God, was that his tongue? There? She should pull away, demand he stop. Her shaking hands formed talons in the sheets on either side of her. No virtuous woman would suffer such unnatural attentions without protest. Was this some obscure Indian perversion?
She must insist he stopped.
Not yet.
The sheer strangeness of what he did held her unmoving under his predations. And now her astonishment was tempered by curiosity, even a curl of something that might have been pleasure.
No! She couldn’t enjoy this bizarre act. It was too far outside anything she’d thought possible. Feverishly, she writhed under his mouth, trying to escape, but his hands on her hips were implacable.
“Gideon, stop,” she said in a choked voice, as a fugitive bolt of response sizzled through her.
With reluctance she could feel, he withdrew from the astoundingly sensitive place he’d found. He dropped a kiss on the quivering flesh of her thigh.
At last he heeded her. That couldn’t be disappointment spearing through her, could it? If it was, she was as depraved as he.
“Shh,” he whispered, without looking up. No, he was too busy looking at her…down there. The realization should disgust her, but instead a forbidden thrill scorched its way down her spine. “Trust me, Charis.”
He didn’t wait for her answer. She wasn’t even sure she could muster a reply. Instead, he lowered his head once more. His tongue flicked more purposefully.
Charis’s belly clenched with hot longing as he drew powerfully on that place. A warm melting sensation flooded her, and, to her embarrassment, she felt moisture well between her thighs. She tried to close her legs, but somehow that just trapped Gideon more tightly against her.
He didn’t seem to mind her body’s uncontrollable reaction although he must taste her body’s juices against his seeking lips. Such intimacy was frightening, so much more alien than the times he’d thrust himself inside her. But she couldn’t summon the will to move away, to demand he leave her alone.
A satisfied growl emerged from deep in his throat as he licked her. It was the most salacious sound she’d ever heard. Her throat closed on another protest as heat coiled deep inside her.
After what happened earlier, she had some inkling where this led. But how could he do that to her using just his mouth? It seemed extraordinary, outlandish, impossible. Still, the tension built. Dear heaven, he must cease this indecency before she exploded into a million pieces. With shaking hands, she reached down to push him away. But somehow her fingers ended up tangling in his damp, disheveled hair.
His mouth played endlessly against her, setting off explosions of reaction. She closed her eyes and hoped she’d survive this sinful pleasure. Broken moans emerged from her lips. Sounds she didn’t recognize as hers.
As tension twisted tighter and tighter, she undulated toward his mouth. She no longer pretended she wanted him to stop. If he stopped, she’d die of frustration, sizzle away to nothing. A string of rhythmic sighs escaped her, and she gripped his head as if she’d fly into space if she released him.
At the point where she thought he’d either destroy her or fling her into a new heaven, he kissed her hard and long between her legs. White light erupted behind her eyes, and a jagged scream burst free.
The world retreated on a wave of hot delight. Her hands clenched hard in his hair, and she shivered wildly. It was devilish, wrong, profane, what he did. But she’d never felt pleasure like it.
Vaguely through her quivering daze, she felt him shift. Then the sweet benediction of his lips kissing her belly.
“You…” She paused and cleared her throat. After that life-altering experience, it was so difficult to speak. “You’re wicked.”
He laughed softly and rolled to the side, raising himself on one elbow so he could see her. “I’m sure you forgive me.”
He cast one devastating glance down her naked body, and his lips, glistening and reddened with what he’d just done, curved upward in a sensual smile. She felt every sinew tighten with a renewal of arousal. In spite of the ecstasy he’d just given her, she burned fo
r that most intimate of connections.
The ghost of his smile remained as he lifted a lock of her hair and toyed with it. Still trembling, she watched him. The sight of his broken hands made her ache with compassion. He deserved a lifetime of happiness for what he’d suffered.
She reached out to touch his face, needing to convey how she loved him. It still amazed her that she could make such gestures without him flinching away in horror. She trailed her fingers down his cheek, feeling the faint roughness of his beard.
Gideon stared at her with a savage concentration that stirred excitement low in her belly. Beneath his humor, his face was taut with barely-reined-in desire. A shy glance confirmed he was still hard and ready.
“I might forgive you,” she said huskily, brushing his ruffled hair back from his forehead. To think he’d believed he was denied human touch forever. After what she’d discovered tonight, that fate seemed cruel beyond imagination.
His eyes didn’t waver, and his voice became considering. “One day soon, I hope you’ll do the same for me.”
“What…” Shock made her lift her hand and sit up. Shock and wanton, uncontrollable curiosity.
Abruptly, the quiet moment of tenderness shattered.
“Next time,” he said, ruthlessly pushing her back onto the mattress.
His face was intent, flushed with hunger. Heat sparked along her veins, and she waited in an agony of suspense for what came next. Her heart galloped with anticipation. She couldn’t mistake how close to the edge he was. His desperation fed hers.
He reared over her, big, powerful, dominating. She raised her knees to frame his narrow hips. He kissed her with a fierceness that made her arch against him. His hardness pressed into her stomach. Soon, all that masculine power would be inside her.
She could hardly wait.
“Hold on to my shoulders,” he said in a thick voice.
Wordlessly, she obeyed. His muscles tensed. His shoulders were as unrelenting as stone, as sleek as satin under her clinging hands.
Captive of Sin Page 28
