“Calm, bella.” He stood before her, blocking any escape.
“I won’t be calm,” she snapped, trying ineffectually to stop him spreading the mane of hair over her shoulders. It crinkled after its confinement and caught the firelight, shining gold and brown and red, the rich colors of autumn.
“Sir? Merrick?” he chided gently, reluctantly raising his attention from her cleavage and reaching for her hand. He felt the soft quiver of uncertainty undercutting her outrage. “You know my name.”
Her voice resonated with wariness.
“What are you up to?”
He urged her to stand. As expected, she pulled back against the chair. “Preparing to kiss you goodnight, bella.”
She cast him a look of smoldering dislike, which did nothing to hide the hunger darkening her eyes to starlit black. “Please leave this room.”
“Harsh, Miss Forsythe, harsh. Exiling me to a cold and lonely chamber on a night that would freeze the balls off a marble statue.”
She blushed at his profanity. “Mrs. Bevan will lay you a fire.”
“Cruel as well as harsh. I’d lack the soul of charity to disturb her slumbers.”
“You haven’t got a soul.”
He bit back the admission that if he had a soul, it had migrated into Sidonie’s keeping. Tomorrow surely, with Lucifer’s blessing, he’d return to his cynical, selfish, solitary self. He gave her hand a more determined tug and she rose, trembling. “Such pretty lips to say such nasty things.”
Before she mustered a reply, he kissed her.
She stood stiffly in his arms, beautiful, slender, discouraging. Except in the last days he’d learned to read her responses. She’d tasted delight and the experience left her dangerously open to his caresses.
“Give yourself up, Sidonie,” he crooned against her lips.
Still she stood silent and cold under his kisses. He stroked her hair, neck, shoulders, arms, deliberately avoiding her breasts. At last a soft whimper escaped. She shuddered deeply as the stiffness leached from her body. He’d prepared for more of a fight, but her arms circled his neck and she sagged against him with a sigh.
Triumph surged. Without giving her chance to protest, he swung her up and carried her the few steps to the bed. Carefully he laid her on the silk covers and came down over her, his legs bracketing hers.
Sidonie plucked discontentedly at his robe and he slid it off as he kept kissing her. Lips, cheeks, nose, breasts, neck. She made a sensual sound deep in her throat as her hands encountered bare skin. She stroked his back, up and down, up and down. The ache to bury himself between her thighs drove him to madness. Impatiently he reared up and wrenched at her dress. With shocking ease, the gown tore to the waist. The half corset and transparent chemise did little to hide her.
He nipped at her lips to keep her distracted. And because he couldn’t get enough of her taste. Urgency whipped him onward. He didn’t pause to savor, to enjoy. Although pleasure flooded him at every brush of her skin, every broken moan of surrender.
Jonas trailed kisses down her throat while his fingers drifted lower. Still he paused before touching her breast. Every second of this encounter was weighted with importance. He couldn’t describe the feeling even if he wanted to. She curved her hands around his buttocks, digging her fingers into the thin trousers. He shut his eyes, prayed for control, prayed for skill to give her pleasure, prayed he’d survive the next hour.
When at last his palm covered her breast, she whimpered against his lips. Gently he rolled her nipple. She bucked and the pressure against his cock blinded him with scarlet need. She moaned his name, the sound lovelier than music.
He took her other nipple between his lips. Immediately his senses drowned in Sidonie’s sweetness. She sobbed and arched. His hand meandered down to the soft curls covering her sex. Victory thundered in his heart. Vision faded to fiery darkness. Then fiery darkness exploded into light as he slipped his fingers between her legs. He groaned appreciation into the warm skin of her shoulder.
Carefully he slid one finger inside her. She was slick and hot, but not yet ready, in spite of the ragged saw of her breath and the way her arms tightened around him as he invaded her body. He slid in a second finger, moving in and out. He kissed her again, tasting desperation, and brushed his thumb against her center.
She jerked and cried out. Holy Hades, she was sensitive. She approached her peak and he’d hardly started. He kissed her harder while his thumb circled and tormented. She tensed and heat welled over his fingers. For what seemed an eternity, she convulsed against his hand.
He’d never forget watching Sidonie cross the threshold of pleasure for the first time. Except for two flags of color along her cheekbones, she was pale. Her lips were red and full. Her voluptuous breasts trembled, the nipples beaded. When he was old and sad, he’d smile to remember that once he’d held Sidonie Forsythe and shown her the path to bliss.
He wanted to quote poetry to her. He wanted to tell her what this moment meant. He wanted…
But he was merely human and what emerged sounded like a rake’s meaningless flattery, although he meant every word from the bottom of his worthless heart. “You’re so beautiful.”
His words shattered the spell of intimacy. Horror banished delight from her expression and her body straightened into rigidity. “Let me go,” she said in a raw voice, pushing uselessly against his bare shoulders.
“Sidonie??”
She was past heeding him. Her efforts to shove him away became more frantic. “Let me go. Now.”