A Dangerous Beauty (13 page)

He rained kisses along her temple, forehead, eyes and the tip of her nose before drifting back to her long neck. Her modest mourning gown could not hide the faint evidence of the baron’s desecration. He brushed his cheek and lips over the fading red marks before he reached the bow hidden under the gathered front edges of her bodice. He closed his eyes and took the ribbon between his teeth and pulled.

Her breath caught as her breasts were exposed. His eyes opened to find perfection. Perfectly rounded breasts with tiny nipples, the color of pink coral, resting high. He roughly exhaled a hair’s breadth above
one and the tip grew taut and even smaller, anticipating his lips.

God have mercy on him, how was he to go slowly when every nerve in his body screamed to take her?

And suddenly he felt her hands weaving through his hair and he bent to worship her breast with his mouth, offering it all the tenderness and wickedness he knew how to give.

“Dear Lord,” she moaned, shock lacing the sound.

He built up slowly, first licking then tugging her gently until he heard her breathing grow erratic. Luc took it as permission to nip and suckle her tightly ruched bud so deeply she cried out.

He stopped immediately and glanced at her, desire raging in every pore of his body. Her eyes were dilated with passion and so he flicked his tongue along the other nipple, teasing it gently before drawing it as intensely as he dared into the depths of his mouth.

The air seemed to rush from her body in the reverse manner that his blood seemed to rush to his groin.

“Rosamunde,” he said quietly, “it’s warm in here. Perhaps you would like to remove your gown?”

“I’m fine, really, fine,” she said, her voice wobbling a bit.

“Would you mind removing your gown…?” He left the question hanging in the air.

“Why?”

He felt like cursing. Had she never even been undressed with her husband? “Because I would like you to.”

He was sure she was going to refuse, but at the last
moment she rose up and turned, offering a small row of black buttons to undo. “I’ll need your help.”

He made sure not to touch her skin while making short work of it, wishing he could tear this damn mourning gown into bits and toss it into the sea, it was so hideous in its representation.

Her back to him, she drew the gown over her head and waited for him to loosen her stays. He was certain she would be too timid to remove her chemise, but it seemed he was mistaken when she slipped the garment off after he had untied her corset.

He exhaled raggedly.

She was a siren. He marveled at the supple arch of her beautiful back, her tiny waist, tapering to a heart-shaped derrière.

His hands itched to touch, but instead he kissed the length of her spine, and sneaked his head around the curve of her hip to the soft, secret skin of her taut stomach. He rose up to feather kisses on her ribs and breasts back to her ear.

“Rosamunde,” he murmured softly, “if you would like to continue, perhaps we should move to the bed.”

She shivered and he looked into her eyes.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes, just nervous, and achy in a strange sort of way.”

A flush of heat pounded his loins. “I know precisely what you mean.” His hands were gripped tightly behind his back.

She looked at him shyly, took the few steps to the low bunk, and lay down, her hands rigid at her sides.
Against the white sheets she looked like a bride awaiting torture, er, her duty.

“You’re beautiful, Rosamunde.”

She looked at him with disbelief. “There’s no need to flatter me.”

For long moments he stared at her. His arousal was painful in its intensity. “I never flatter. You should know that by now.”

He joined her and patiently regained the ground he had lost, tasting, laving, urging her to relax to his mouth. Her nipples were constricted to pebbles and she was breathing unevenly, but she made not a sound and her hands gripped the sheets. He had to take a chance.

“Rosamunde, would you like to open yourself to me?”

Her eyes flew open, and she immediately complied by spreading her tightly clenched limbs open. If only he could use his hands to show her, but he dared not.

He moved lower between her legs, all the while watching her. She raised her face, distress and mortification etched on every feature.

“You’re not going to…” she said.

“Actually, yes. It’s what I promised.”

“But, you can’t really want—”

“Yes, I do. Very much.”

Desire and shyness warred in her expression, and he prayed the devil was on his side. He leaned down and took a long loving taste of her.

She made a strangled cry of pleasure and Luc won
dered how he was going to hold off. He was aching to sink himself inside her, and yet he hadn’t even progressed to removing a stitch of his clothes. But that had been part of his makeshift plan. He knew that the sight of him would probably make her flee.

He used his lips and then his tongue and finally the edges of his teeth to arouse her until she was unconsciously signaling her readiness with small, uncontrolled movements of her hips. And still his hands clenched the bed covering. Her eyes were squeezed closed and she was making small sounds that were testing his endurance.

“Rosamunde, keep your eyes shut and listen to me now. If you ever trusted me, let me touch you with my hands. I promise not to hurt you, and I’ll stop at any time.”

She leaned on one elbow and reached for his hand. “I’m sorry I was such a fool.”

He placed his hand in her delicate one, and she kissed it.

“Your
hands are beautiful,” she whispered.

He kissed her briefly, then urged her back and entered her as gently as he dared with one finger. She was almost as tight as an untried girl, and his body flexed in response.

A rush of dampness drenched his finger and she moaned, “Oh, I’m so sorry.”

“No, no. It’s just your body preparing itself.” He gently spread her knees. “But I must open you wider. Don’t be embarrassed, Rosamunde. You are exquisite to me. There now, just a little more.”

He hadn’t thought she’d have the courage, but she did, and it tested his control. He was determined to bring her to the pinnacle of ecstasy, but not beyond. For he knew that to breach her final fear she would have to be fully inflamed with desire. And she would then ask him to take her, for it would be the only way to ease her pain of passion. And so he teased her with his lips and his tongue and his fingers, stretching her, preparing her to take as much of him as she would be able to bear.

It almost broke him to feel how small she was, barely able to take two of his fingers after many, many long minutes.

And finally he heard the words he had been waiting to hear, “Luc, I can’t bear it any more. Please…”

He quickly unbuttoned the flap of his trousers and wished he could undress further. He paused. “Rosamunde, close your eyes again,” he ordered. He stripped off everything, knowing the feel of his skin on hers would heighten her pleasure and his.

Her eyes flew open when he covered her moments later. Her expression was filled with apprehension. His feet were braced flat against the cabin wall for leverage.

He looked down and saw his hair splashed into hers, the black locks melding together, hers soft and fine, his course and thick.

“Are you sure?” He knew his voice was hoarse, and if he hadn’t distrusted God so much, he would have prayed at that moment.

“Yes,” she whispered.

He never knew one word could be quite so wonderful.

He gently placed the large, blunt end of himself against her slickness, gently sliding along her folds several long strokes before coming to rest at her juncture. He pushed hard enough to finally wedge just the tip inside her. She was impossibly tense and unyielding.

Her eyes spoke volumes as she looked down to see what he was doing. It was obvious she was trying to mask her fear—and doing a poor job of it. He clenched his jaw and forced himself to speak words that promised a cold bath in short order.

“Are you all right?” he ground out.

Her breath, pent up in anxiety, shuddered from her in one long sigh. “I feel…well, I feel very full. But this is so different from before.”

He felt himself throb with each of her words, and swallowed back a reflexive urge to flex his hips. He pursed his lips. “Shall I go on?”

He would have to swim all the way back to Penzance if she said no, to cool his aching groin.

“Yes, Luc, please. I want this. Even…” her voice broke off. “Even if it hurts. I don’t care. At least I will know that I asked. This one time.”

The depth of her emotion shook him. He stared hard at her.

“The tightness, perhaps, is just your fear.” He touched her beautiful breasts and glided his dark skin over the creamy valley of her warm flesh. He gently pinched the rosy nipple and felt her body
give to allow the swelled tip of him to enter a little more.

She was so warm, and so plush, so impossibly taut, but he dared not force any more of himself within her. It was too much. He dared not hurt her, not when she had been so courageous and had opened herself to him.

The effort to hold back made his arms shake. He ran his hands down the slender sides of her body and slipped them beneath her bottom, gliding his last finger along the sensitive folds where he could almost feel himself in her.

“Rosamunde, look at me,” he commanded. “You must do as I say now.”

“Anything.”

“Relax and open yourself further to me.”

Her legs opened fully wide like a butterfly’s wings on a spring morning, and he tilted her hips to receive him more deeply. The movement caused her to accept a few more inches of his length, and her eyes widened.

He began long, shallow strokes, encouraging her to take a little more of him.

“If you like,” he said between gritted teeth, “put your arms around me.”

She said quietly, “I didn’t know if I should.” And he felt her delicate arms tentatively surround him as he kept working her passage.

Dear God, this was sweet agony. He lowered one forearm beside her head; the other hand he used to tease the tip of her breast to new levels of desire.

Her breath was coming in short gasps, and when he
looked at her face, tipped back into the pillow, he saw before him a woman in the throes of full-blown passion. Her cheeks had bloomed with pink color, and her dark lashes were splayed against her cheeks.

His hand drifted to the jointure of her body and he found the small swollen bud. She moaned in response, slightly arching toward his hand.

Desire took on a fine, sharp edge. He longed to thrust himself all the way inside of her, but did not. Instead he constrained himself to small, slow movements.

Rosamunde’s eyes opened. “I can’t. Oh, I can’t stand this.”

He abruptly stopped. “Am I hurting you?” He was surprised to find his voice sounded calm to his own ears when his own need had built to an agonizing crescendo.

“No. It’s just that I feel…It’s all so wonderful, and agonizing at the same time.”

“The feeling is entirely mutual.” He attempted to smile.

“It’s just that…”

“Yes?” he encouraged her.

“Oh, this is extremely embarrassing.”

He was ready to explode. His body was revolting against this exquisite agony of a pause with every muscle.

“I’d hoped you would’ve forgotten to be embarrassed.” He leisurely leaned down and took her tiny rosy nipple between his lips and suckled her, and then bit gently.

She bucked against him. “Well, I’m not embarrassed about what we’re doing. It’s just that…”

“Yes?” he growled.

“I want you closer
.”

He nearly lost all control. “Rosamunde, you don’t know what you ask.” He dared not scare her when she had come so far.

“Well, I guess I can wait.”

God was punishing him. Surely, he would be allowed at least one rung higher from the fires of hell for his self-restraint. He laughed at the irony.

He rested his forehead against hers and suddenly felt himself sink a little further inside of her.

“I think I understand how it works now,” she whispered in his ear.

He began a slow push and pull with her, never daring to strain deeper than the clenched walls within her, always pleasuring her mouth, her breasts, her cheeks and neck with his lips and fingers. He felt so snug, cradled between her limbs.

But she kept twisting up to meet him, until finally he could take it no more. With a curse he snatched a pillow. “Clasp me with your legs.”

She obeyed instantly and he placed the large cushion beneath her. His desire, which had been on the pinnacle for so long, rose another notch, and for long minutes he thrust into her, using his arms to draw her body tightly against his own, his teeth to nip her.

“Oh please.” A moan rippled through her. “Don’t stop.”

Her eyes were dark cobalt, so infused with passion
were they. Passion he knew she had never given any other man.

“Luc, you’re driving me to madness.”

“I was striving for pleasure,” he said hoarsely. He slowed his movements, trying to grasp a measure of control.

“Well, it’s a lovely sort of madness.”

He lowered his mouth to her breast again, this time suckling her more deeply than before.

“Make that a horribly lovely sort of insanity,” she gasped.

He released her breast. “Shhhh, less talking and more insanity.”

He was losing his grip, forgetting to hold back, forgetting to be gentle. Forgetting everything—his past, his present, his future. There was only this woman in front of him.

Loving him.

Dear God,
she loved him
.

It was the only reason she would ever allow any man to do this to her again. She was the bravest female he had ever known. And while the thought of her love should scare his body down into the deepest circle of Satan’s lair, it did not.

He looked at her as his thickness stroked long and deep within her, a mere whisper from being fully sheathed, and he knew as starkly clear as a crisp autumn morning that she had weaved herself closer to his soul than anything or anyone else in all of Christendom and beyond.