Sweet as the Devil (22 page)

He collapsed afterward, drained, utterly sapped, conscious thought in abeyance.

Panting to catch her breath, Sofia reveled in the feel of his weight pressing her into the mattress, the vibrations of his heart hammering against her breast; paradise was no longer a land of mystery.

Rarely neglectful of courtesy in the boudoir, a moment later, Jamie raised his face from the mattress near her shoulder, levered his body up a fraction so he wasn’t crushing her, and meeting Sofia’s warm gaze, ruefully said, “Now it’s my turn to apologize. I hope you’re not hurt.”

“What do
you
think?” A grin in every syllable.

I think you’re the hottest little puss on God’s green earth.
“Good,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to make you angry.”

“Considering the night’s young.”

He smiled. “Yes. And I’m sorry I’ve ruined your shirt.” He’d had the presence of mind the first time to push up her shirt before coming on her stomach. Not so, this time.

They were both sticky.

She shrugged. “I don’t care about my shirt. However”—she shut her eyes briefly before opening them again—“the thing is”—she stopped again, then blew out a breath, clearly reluctant to voice her thoughts—“oh hell, here goes.”

He repressed his smile; she was a wild, fey spirit. He expected no less.

“Anyway, I have the strangest feeling, about you, us—no, mostly about me . . . that I’m somehow losing myself, my independence, my will.” The fear had come over her suddenly, like a dangerous undertow in an otherwise calm sea, that the outrageous happiness she was feeling was in violation of all her rules against entanglement. Amorous play was a game after all—or had been. Now, damn it, some unwanted magic was in play. “Sex is never like this for me,” she grumbled, her face pinked with emotion. “Men ask and I decide if I want them or not. But I never do for long, and now”—her nostrils flared—“I don’t like feeling so out of control, so dependent on”—she pointed at his penis resting against her thigh—“that.”

“Don’t worry. There’s nothing wrong with feeling good.” His mind was moving quite coldly and calmly now. He could manage this. “It’s not a personal crisis. It’s one night or—”

“Don’t forget about tomorrow. You promised you’d ride with me, damn it. Blackwood?” Her brief moment of uncertainty was effaced.

“I heard,” he said. He was trained to deal with crises—or noncrises, as it were in this case. “I’ll ride with you. I said I would and I will,” he added in a reasonable voice. “And you needn’t be concerned about losing your independence. This is simply about pleasure—yours and mine. We’ll stop to visit your mother, we’ll stop overnight once or twice more, you can give me all the orders you want.” He smiled. “And I won’t complain. We’ll find you some clothes tomorrow, too. I’ll take you shopping.” It never failed, promising to take a woman shopping.

She grimaced. “You’re way too smooth.”

“No. This feels different to me, too.”

She snorted. “See? You’ll say anything.”

He shook his head rather than explain that he’d never felt this way before. But mostly he didn’t want to lie because he knew he wouldn’t feel this way next week or next month. He’d fucked a lot of women; he understood time limits. But he spoke with genuine affection when he said, “I’m more than willing to be accommodating when it comes to your pleasure, until such a time as you make that decision you always make with men.” He smiled. “Although I’m willing to bet I can keep you interested longer than most.”

She reached up to touch the fine straight bridge of his nose. “Arrogant man. Although I’m not about to take issue with you,” she said with a sudden smile. “I’d rather think about what we should do next?”

Crisis averted.
“I’d suggest we start by taking off your wet shirt.”

And after quickly wiping himself off, he did just that with fastidiousness and dispatch.

There was nothing clumsy about him, Sofia pleasantly thought, as he eased her back on the pillows after disposing of her shirt. She was reminded of that first fateful morning at Countess Minton’s when Jamie had navigated the perilous currents between Bella and Lily Chester with ease. He knew how to handle women.

“I’ll be right back. Don’t move.” Jamie slid from the bed with her shirt and riding pants in hand.

“What if I did?” she said to his back.

He shot a grin over his shoulder. “You couldn’t go far.” He stopped in the doorway to the bathroom, turned, and held up her clothes.

A small unsettled feeling gripped her. “Am I your prisoner?”

“Of course,” he said. “You have been from the first.”

When he returned from the bathroom, he carried towels, one of them wet. “Should I or would you like to?” He offered her a wet and dry towel.

She scowled at him. “I don’t wish to be your prisoner.”

“I’ll be very kind. You won’t notice.” Ignoring her scowl, he started wiping away the residue of their lovemaking from her stomach.

“Don’t talk to me like I’m a child.”

“Then stop acting like one.” He shoved her legs apart and shot her a look from under his lashes as he began wiping away the stickiness.

“Does the Countess Minton like you to do this?” Sulky and fretful, she swept her hand downward to indicate his swabbing.

“I wouldn’t know.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means it’s none of your business.”

She slapped his head—hard, and he jerked upright, frowning.

“Do I have to tie you up to do this?” he muttered.

“Does the countess like to be tied up?” She was greeneyed with jealousy when she had no right, when she should be worrying about the duration of her imprisonment.

“I couldn’t say. Do you?”

“It depends,” she replied, oversweet and provocative.

He didn’t like her answer. There was no godly reason why her answer should matter one way or another, but it did. “What does it depend on?” he asked in a tone of voice that would have put anyone who knew him on guard.

“On the mood I’m in, I suppose,” she flippantly declared.

“Do you like whips, too?”

This time she recognized the extent of her danger in his low, carefully controlled tone. “What are you going to do?” she quickly inquired, conscious once again of his size and power, of the temper in his eyes. And if it had been possible to take a step back, she would have.

The fear in her voice stopped him, although it took another second before he was able to speak composedly with the graphic image of other men making love to her roiling in his brain. “I apologize. I didn’t mean to frighten you.” He bent his head to kiss her but stopped midway when she shivered. “Here, you finish,” he said, tossing her the towel. “I’ll sit over there”—he pointed—“so you needn’t be alarmed. I’m sorry, I’ve been in the wrong job too long.”

There was something in his voice, an underlying weariness that touched her, that instantly eclipsed her resentment and fear. She watched him walk away, drop into a chair halfway across the room, slide down on his spine, and shut his eyes. He looked afflicted, if a body that strong could display suffering. But he did at least appear to be bearing a heavy cross.

A moment later when she slid off the bed, he opened his eyes.

“You look unhappy,” she said, moving toward him.

“I’m just tired. I haven’t slept much lately.”

“Would you prefer sleeping now?” Coming to rest before his bare outstretched feet, she met his gaze. “I know how to be obliging, although I haven’t acquitted myself well with you. I’m sorry for that.”

“You needn’t apologize.” But he spoke the words automatically, as if his mind was elsewhere.

“Would you like to sleep? I won’t bother you if you do.” She wanted his attention, though. She wanted him to say no; she selfishly wanted him to fix his priorities on her.

He looked up at her, his green eyes somber as if pondering his answer, as if wanting to respond honestly.

“I’d understand whatever your answer,” she said.

His gaze traveled up her body, slowly, leisurely, stopping for a moment on her breasts. Her breathing was disordered, agitated, and her breasts were quivering slightly. He could have driven a bargain with her when she was in that state. He could have asked for anything. But he wasn’t that sort of man—or at least not with her, or at least not tonight.

Hauling himself upright in the chair, he put aside his fatigue and held out his hand. “Come here, brat. You can try to be obliging, and I’ll try not to frighten you.”

She promptly launched herself at him with unbridled delight, and his reflexes supple, he caught her in midair, set her on his lap, and held her close. Tomorrow he’d worry about the pointlessness of all this.

Snuggling against his warmth and power, his strong, muscular neck, Sofia exhaled a blissful sigh. “I adore feeling this way,” she murmured. “Head-over-heels joyful. You’ve bewitched me.” Lifting her head slightly, she met his amused gaze. “Don’t laugh. I’m serious. You don’t know how I normally deal with men.”

He grinned. “I can guess. You tell them jump and they jump.”

“And you refuse to,” she said with a playful pout.

He dipped his head and touched her forehead with his lips. “You’re just not used to taking orders. You’ll get used to it,” he roguishly said.

“What if I don’t?” She wasn’t entirely teasing.

“You forget that I’m large and you’re small,” he said, smiling. “And,” he added, a jaded note suddenly evident in his voice, “I’ve been giving orders for a very long time.”

“You sound as though you’re tired of it. Are you?” She paused a moment. “I expect taking care of my father can be trying.”

“Yes,” he said realistically. “And you’re like him in more ways than you’d care to acknowledge,” he gently added.

“I am
not
!” she bristled.

“Tell me about your mother.” He didn’t want to fight again. At least not tonight. “Will she be surprised to see us?”

She had to admire how deftly he changed the subject. “Mama and Ben always have a great many guests.” She, too, was more than willing to shift the topic to one less fraught with contention. “We’ll be welcomed along with all the rest.”

“They won’t think it strange when we suddenly arrive?”

She shook her head. “The farmhouse in the summer is a favorite destination for all their friends. Artists come and go, some are invited, some aren’t, but no one seems to care. The house is big, and everyone’s familiar with unusual living arrangements since finances are uncertain in the art world. My parents are well-off, though. Mama sells anything she paints, and Ben was a successful artist before he met Mother.”

“So you’ve not lived a life of deprivation.”

“I suppose in Ernst’s terms we have. But not compared to others.”

“Have you always wanted to be a painter?”

“Not seriously at first. I began as a model—yes, yes, I know,” she said with a grin. “How could I do something so scandalous? But it wasn’t scandalous to me or my family. I knew lots of men and women who posed for paintings or for drawing classes. It was perfectly normal.”

“Do you still pose?” A gently put query.

“Heaven’s no. Not since my work began to sell. I only modeled because I didn’t want to be dependent on my parents. I wanted to succeed on my own; it was my rebellious phase, you see.”

He understood perfectly, but he knew better than to say so.

“You’re very polite.” His reticence was commendable. She knew how the conventional world viewed women who posed nude and rebellious women in general.

A faint smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “I’m trying. You feel good—warm and soft—a notable object of joy, I might add. Like you, I don’t normally feel this way or give voice to such outré emotions. So I have no intention of taking issue with anything you do in your life—including this.”

She grinned. “I may harangue you with impunity then?”

“Preferably not. But if you must, I’ve probably heard worse.”

“I hope you’re not referring to the women in your life,” she said with a petulant sniff.

“Of course not,” he lied, but he liked her jealousy. It made his own rash impulses less bizarre.

“Good,” she pithily said. Then she giggled. “This is totally outrageous, isn’t it?”

“Totally.” He didn’t have to ask her what she meant.

She slipped her hand between them and gently touched the crest of his erection that lay hard against his flat belly. “Were you going to ask, or would you have let this go to waste?”

“I probably wouldn’t have asked, since every other man you know does, but,” he said with a lift of his brows, “it wouldn’t have gone to waste either.”

“Because you’re large and I’m small.”

“Yes, but I would have been polite.”

“How polite?”

“Polite enough that you asked me.”

A small silence ensued.

Then he turned her slightly and kissed her gently, a gallant’s kiss, a poet’s kiss, eloquent, lyrical, sweet as sugared violets. And she waited, breath held, when he lifted his mouth and met her wide blue gaze. “Is that polite enough?” he softly queried.

A smile lit her eyes.
“Too
polite.”

He laughed. “More boldness is in order then.”

His lips touched hers again, less gently this time, but still marked by neither impatience nor urgency—as if he were inured to sexual fervor, immune to the heat coursing through her body, indifferent to the increasingly slippery sensation of her sex rubbing against his thigh.

As if he could wait indefinitely.

His kisses probed, tantalized, skillfully asserted his physical dominance with a shameless assurance that whetted her appetite for more than kisses, and soon she was trembling like some blushing tyro at her master’s knee. Although perhaps she
was
a tyro, those familiar with Jamie might conclude.

Unaware of his sexual history, however, and indifferent to it in any case with vaulting desire at fever pitch, she leaned into him and opened her mouth to him, wanting him to know he could have anything he wanted, even her heart, although she suspected she must be insane for even thinking so. But insatiable need was coloring her every thought, corrupting reason, giving new meaning to the word
desperation
. Abruptly pulling back, she looked up, revealing the heat in her eyes, the unwise affection that he wouldn’t care to see, and whispered, “I’m asking now.”