Her hands curled around his and she arched. A vermillion wave of need overwhelmed him and he began to pound into her, going deep and hard. But even in his extremity, he still felt the link between their straining bodies, between their clinging hands.
She rushed toward her peak. He braced above her and accelerated the cadence. The searing friction drove him to the brink. He thought his jaw must crack with his efforts to rein himself in.
At last, at last, she released a hoarse cry and her hands clenched on his. Passion blazed through him like wildfire. He shuddered over her, pouring his life into her. When at last he slumped exhausted in her arms, he knew he’d never be the same again. Sidonie had carved her name on his soul.
Sidonie woke to darkness. Not the darkness of night, but of the blindfold. Jonas’s hands were running in long caresses down her naked body from breasts to hips.
/> Automatically she shifted to remove the cloth around her eyes, but he caught her hand. “No.”
“Jonas, I want to see you.” He’d made love to her three times last night and each time, she’d been blindfolded.
He kissed the hand he held. “It’s better this way.”
She fought the weakling urge to let him have his way as long as he kept touching her. “Better for me or for you?”
“For both of us.”
“Liar.” She wrenched away and this time managed to rip the blindfold off. As she’d thought, it was morning. Jonas had opened the curtains and sunlight poured into the room, turning the mirrors into dazzling reflections. Jonas lay beside her, his head propped on one bent arm, the blankets drawn up to his waist.
He turned away from her regard. “Don’t.”
“I know what you look like,” she said steadily, tugging the sheet over her breasts. Something about the brightness, the mirrors, and the blindfold made her self-conscious as she hadn’t been self-conscious during the tumultuous night.
His voice turned harsh in such contrast to the husky praise he’d heaped upon her last night. “And so do I.”
She frowned. “Do you think I’m going to start screaming because I’ve realized my lover is scarred?”
“I’d rather not remind you that you’re in bed with a monster.”
“I’m not in bed with a monster. I’m in bed with Jonas Merrick, the most breathtakingly exciting man I’ve ever known.” She drew a deep breath and prayed for patience. “Don’t you trust my desire, Jonas? After last night?”
“Don’t you trust me if you can’t see me?”
“Don’t you trust me if you can see me?”
The blindfold wasn’t just about trust, although she recognized that was a large part of it. It was also about the emotional distance that, in spite of the blazing physical satisfaction they’d shared, he still struggled to maintain. When she’d seduced him in the dressing room, he hadn’t had a chance to raise any barriers. For all the heady bliss she’d experienced last night, she’d known that he’d fought to establish a breath of space between them. An infinitesimal gap between the breathtaking lover who transported her to ecstasy and the real man. Even as his body pounded into hers, a hidden corner of his soul remained separate.
Was she greedy to want that hidden corner to become hers, too?
“Your scars don’t matter.”
Temper flared in his eyes, turned them molten silver. “Of course they fucking matter.”
“Oh, my dear…” she whispered. He was so hurt. She couldn’t bear it. “Forget what you look like. The total of what you are is so much greater than what you see reflected in all these mirrors.”
His voice was toneless and the stare he turned on her was stony. “The women I’ve bedded find my scars offer a piquant thrill. A titillating glimpse of gothic horrors.”
“You underestimate yourself.” She knew even as she spoke that his self-hatred was so deeply seated, he wouldn’t heed her. How she loathed those unknown women who had convinced him he was less than other men.
“When I was younger and not quite so arrogant, I may even have noted an element of compassion in a lover. Gruesome adventure for a bored widow or charity case? I find either option distasteful. The blindfold ensures equality. The mirrors remind me that only blindness can perpetuate that equality.”
Yet again, her heart broke for him. The world had bruised his noble spirit, until he started to beat his enemies at their own game. Knowing him as she did, she could imagine he delighted in turning women who had scorned him into slaves to pleasure. Was that what he felt when he took her? She couldn’t bear to countenance the idea. “You know I want you.”
“That’s no mystery. You’re an innocent who’s discovered bed sport. A man with my disadvantages quickly learns how to give a woman pleasure.”
His cruel response made her stomach churn with sick anger. Even after the night they’d just passed, he couldn’t bring himself to trust her. Every day she spent with him gave him greater capacity to hurt her. She’d always sworn she’d never put herself at a man’s mercy. It seemed by giving herself to Jonas, she’d opened herself up to a world of pain. She’d been right to be wary. But it was too late to protect herself. “Don’t insult both of us.”
He sighed and raised himself against the headboard. “Bella, let’s not fight. Having you in my arms is such a joy. Don’t spoil it.”