He hadn’t forgiven her for telling him about her dream lover. Jenna knew that. She wished now she hadn’t been so stupid as to come to bed. She would have been safer downstairs. Now…she gulped nervously.
There wasn’t any way she could avoid the grip he had on her waist. Instinctively she wanted to fight him, but just as instinctively she sensed that was exactly what he wanted her to do and that if she did he would take great pleasure in physically subduing her. As though he read her mind, he laughed savagely, and whispered tauntingly, ‘Yes, struggle if you want to, Jenna! I can’t tell you what it does to me to hear those delicious panting cries you make when you try to pretend that I don’t arouse you.’
He didn’t have to tell her, Jenna already knew, and she was instantly horrified by the way her body responded to the mental pictures he was drawing. She loved him and she hated herself for it. How could she love a man who treated her in this way? Who used her as a sexual
convenience, who derived pleasure from tantalising her?
She felt one of his hands move from her waist to the strap of her nightdress and forced herself to lie still as he slid it from her shoulder. The fragile fabric fell away to reveal the creamy curve of her breast. A feverish, nerve-racking tension possessed her. She wanted to lie still to remain outwardly, at least, completely unmoved by his sadistic torture, but as always her body betrayed her and as she felt him move she twisted desperately away, hating the soft laughter she could see lifting his chest.
‘Ah, that’s more like my firebrand of a wife.’
‘I don’t want you. Go away!’
Jenna was not really surprised when he laughed, but what did surprise her was the harshness of that sound, where she had expected to hear either amusement or contempt. He must know how pathetically defiant a lie it was but instead of deriding her he only said softly, ‘But you will, Jenna, I promise you that. You will want me…and when you do, then you can tell me to go away.’
He bent his head, his mouth caressing not, as she had expected, the tip of her exposed breast but the sensitive skin of her throat, her shoulders, the tender flesh on the inside of her arm, the valley between her breasts. Each delicately light movement of his mouth was a delicious form of torment which very quickly became less delicious and more of a refined form of torture. Her body throbbed and ached with the need that only he seemed to be able to conjure up in it.
When he stopped kissing her and raised his head to look into her eyes and demand, ‘Undress me, Jenna,’ her pride revolted and she turned her head away in mute denial of his command. Only she knew just how much she longed to reach out and embrace him, desperately trying to deny the fiery need swiftly consuming her. It was like trying to hold back the tide and even her teeth seemed to ache with the tension she was imposing upon her body.
James’s mouth was caressing her throat again now; the delicate skin beneath her ear, her cheek, the eyelids, and then when she thought she would die from the agony of his slow torment, his mouth brushed her own. Pleasure surged through her only to be arrested as the brief contact was broken almost before she had been able to enjoy it. Again and again his mouth tormented her in the same way, until she was frantic, mindless with a need that blotted out everything else.
This time when his mouth brushed hers, she clung fiercely to him winding her fingers into his hair, holding his mouth against her own, kissing him with an intensity she couldn’t begin to hide. Beneath his palm her heart thudded erratically, and she ached to be rid of the constraining layers of clothes.
This time the command he repeated against her mouth acted upon her as though it was something she had been programmed to obey. Like a sleepwalker she reached out to unfasten the buttons on his shirt, shuddering in mute pleasure as her fingertips touched his skin. A surge of heat flooded over her skin and she felt her tenuous self-control slip. Against the screaming command of her brain she pressed her lips to the male flesh exposed by her hands. Propping his head up on one hand James watched her, but Jenna was barely aware of his scrutiny. She reached the final button on his shirt and pushed the fabric off his shoulders an aching mixture of pleasure and pain swelling inside her body. She found the buckle of his belt and unfastened it, her fingers trembling slightly as she slid down his zip. His body hardened immediately beneath her hand, distracting her from her task, making her long to stop and caress him, her own flesh aching in acknowledgement of his desire.
He waited until she had removed the rest of his clothes and then reached for her, tumbling her on to the bed, impatiently pulling off her nightdress to expose her body to his ardent gaze. Jenna trembled beneath the look he gave her, her breathing shallow and rapid.
‘You want me.’ He murmured the words against her mouth, adding, ‘Tell me, Jenna…tell me you want me…’
She didn’t want to obey him. Her body quivered and tensed as she fought to keep the admission locked up inside her, but James was trailing his fingers down over her treacherous skin, stroking the full swollenness of her breasts, teasing their erect crests until she was dizzy, almost mindless with the white hot burning ocean of need pulsing madly inside her.
She reached blindly towards him, trapping his hand against her breast pressing her mouth eagerly to the brown flesh of his throat, revelling in the sensation of his muscles contracting beneath her touch, in the knowledge that the sound he smothered deep in his throat was an admission of a need nearly as great as her own. Her body seemed to melt against him, at once soothed and stimulated by the hot pressure of his flesh against hers; by the urgency of his muttered command that she tell him she wanted him.
Suddenly her frail self-control splintered completely; it no longer seemed important that he was once again intent on dominating her, on humiliating her, all that did matter was the glorious, mysterious height they could and would reach together.
‘I want you…I want you, James…’ She whispered the husky admission against his skin, teasing it with hot, brief kisses, letting her hand stoke downwards over the taut plane of his stomach, feeling his muscles clench beneath her stroking fingers. Her breasts were heavy, aching with desire.
‘Show me…show me how much you want me.’ James muttered the words into her throat, his mouth burning into her skin, his hand covering hers on its downward trail against his body and placing it against the pulsing heat of his manhood. She felt the shudder convulse his body as she caressed him; sweat springing up on his skin, his tortured groan of pleasure reverberating against her own throat as his mouth touched it.
She arched against him, shivering as her breasts brushed against his chest, sighing her pleasure when his hands closed round them and he slowly lowered himself so that his head rested against their fullness.
Her heart thudding with tormented anticipation Jenna closed her eyes and shivered in agonised delight as his mouth searched for and then found the aching crest of her breast. The deliberately erotic drag of his teeth against her too sensitive flesh made her cry out and arch pleadingly against him, driven to incite and then welcome the faintly savage movement of his mouth and hands against her skin.
This was complete ravishment, she thought hazily, complete abandonment to the lure and spell of the senses. This was heaven and it was also hell: this tight, coiling ache inside her that made her cry out in hungry relief as James’s hand slipped between her thighs, his fingers skilled and knowing as they stroked and caressed, making her writhe and twist in an agony of delight.
‘You want me?’
The persistent whisper seemed to fill her body, rendering her weightless and mindless, leaving her only with the savage gnawing hunger of her flesh.
Taking a shuddering breath she admitted hopelessly, ‘I want you, James…I want you so much…and now…’
The feel of him inside her made her groan in tormented pleasure her head falling back against the pillows as his hands slid beneath her hips lifting her, cradling her as her legs wrapped around him and she welcomed each pulsing thrust of his body within her own.
As always the climax was explosive and destructive, leaving her completely drained…too exhausted even to think of moving. And as always the physical satisfaction he had given her was tainted by the knowledge of how it had been gained. As always, she hated herself for wanting him to such an extent that in his arms she was prepared to barter everything just to gain it.
As he withdrew from her she curled up into a defensive ball, willing him to go to his own room, but instead of leaving, he leaned over her, grasping her face in his hand and demanded savagely, ‘Now tell me that you wanted Wilde, Jenna.’
All at once her control shattered. Tears spurted weakly from her eyes and she pulled away from him. ‘Why are you doing this to me?’ she demanded huskily. ‘Why?’