Dangerous to Love (39 page)

“Naturally,” she taunted, and bobbed him an insulting curtsy.

He threw back his head and laughed. Eyes narrowing, he came after her. “Only a real man would ever be able to take you on. You may count yourself fortunate that you fell in my way. Who else would be willing to put up with your temper tantrums?”

Arms akimbo, she stamped her little foot. “For your information, Julian Raynor, allow me to point out that Mr. Hadley and I have never exchanged
one .  .  . cross
.  .  .
word.”
She shrilled this last at him.

“No! Really? Poor Victoria! What a bore for you.”

This was so close to the truth that she was stung into justifying herself. “I like men who are civilized. I like men who are nice.”

“Then you’ve got your work cut out for you, for I refuse to run tame at a woman’s skirts. No. Don’t misunderstand me. I aim to be a faithful husband. But I’ll allow no woman to mold me to her whim, not even you. Admit
it, Victoria. Only a man like me would ever do for a woman like you.”

Her brows were drawn; her eyes were smoldering. “To hear you speak, anyone would think I was a virago.”

When he began to stalk her, she kept pace with him, carefully preserving the width of the sofa between them.

“Virago!” he tossed out.

“Gamester!” she flung back.

He halted and braced his weight with both hands on the sofa back. “There’s a sparkle in your eyes. Your lips are turning up. Your color is high. You are enjoying this as much as I am. Admit it, Serena.”

“If you think that, then you have mistaken my character, Julian Raynor. I hate quarreling with people.”

“Quarreling? Who said anything about quarreling? We are like thunder and lightning. For us, it could never be any other way. But when the storm has spent itself, we’ll find our calm. Until the next time, of course.”

Before he had finished speaking, he was vaulting the sofa. She let out a shriek that was not quite a cry of terror, not quite a laugh. Launching herself at the door, she twisted the brass knob. His hands lashed out and slammed against the door, preventing her from opening it. Wrenching her by the shoulders, he spun her to face him. Her head arched back. Hearts pounding in tempo, breath mingling, they fought the battle with their eyes.

His fingers speared through her hair, and he jerked her head up. Her hands splayed across his shoulders, digging in to him as she steadied herself. He brushed his lips across hers then nipped at them with enough force to make her cry out. Not to be outdone, she retaliated in like manner.

Drawing away, he searched her expression.
“This
is what I have missed!” he said fiercely. “This is what I have wanted from you! My God, Serena, there’s none can compare
with you,” and he swooped down, crushing her mouth beneath his, claiming her completely.

Her nails dug into his shoulders, and a low moan caught in her throat. She had never felt more alive in her life. Her blood was singing; she felt as though she were floating on air. Her heart was beating so hard that breathing was becoming difficult. She was free and wanton, and she reveled in it.

Her arms wrapped around him and she kissed him with all the passion that had been locked inside her since he had gone away. It was almost too much. Tears slid from beneath her lashes. Her knees buckled and she would have slipped to the floor if he had not caught her. Lifting her effortlessly, he carried her to the sofa and set her down.

With one arm bent above her head, she watched him strip out of his clothes. When he was down to his satin breeches, he bent to her. He dealt with her petticoats first, deftly collapsing the hoops and sliding her undergarments away with a practiced skill that told her far more than she wanted to know. So he knew his way around women’s clothing. What difference did it make?

There was no game now, only a curious earnestness about them, the dark man with the burningly intent look, and the fair, blue-eyed girl. They looked at each other as though they were strangers, yet not strangers, but actors in some drama that had yet to be performed. Everything was new to them and unrehearsed. Everything was as familiar as the sun rising with each new dawn.

She had forgotten that beneath the rich fabrics he generally wore, he was uncompromisingly male, arrogantly so. His shoulders were broad and well muscled; dark hair was crisp upon his chest. He was sleek and hard, and as powerless to resist as a ravenous, prowling jungle cat.

The picture that formed in her mind sent shivers dancing
along her skin. His eyes flared at the betraying tremor.

He buried his face against her hair. “No,” he said. “Don’t look like that. I may have the brute strength, but your power over me has no limits. Don’t you know that yet?”

She shook her head.

Holding her eyes in his fiercely possessive stare, he pulled her forward to sit on the edge of the sofa. He was on his knees, almost in an attitude of supplication.

“Let me show you what I mean,” he said. “Put your arms around my neck.”

When she obeyed him, he closed his eyes then opened them wide. With agonizing slowness, he began to unfasten the hooks that fastened the front closure of her bodice. The laces on her corset were similarly dealt with. When she was down to nothing but her thin lawn chemise, the tremors began anew, deep in her body.

His voice was thick and low. “This is what you wanted when you came here tonight. You wanted me to make love to you. Admit it, Serena.”

She was so tortured with wanting that nothing seemed to matter, especially not her pride. “Yes.”

“It’s been like this between us since the night we met. Look at me!” His hand lifted her chin, forcing her eyes to meet his. “Tell me! I want to hear you say it.”

She moistened her lips. “Yes. It’s always been like this.”

His chest rose and fell, and for a long moment, he was silent. Then he smiled. “So much wasted time; so many wasted recriminations! Well, no longer. You, my sweet, are going to make it all up to me.”

Impatient hands slipped the straps of her chemise over her shoulders, down to her waist. She saw the fierce heat
of passion burning in his eyes as he stared at her quivering flesh.

“I have dreamed of this,” he said, and gently touched a finger to one distended nipple.

Serena felt that touch all the way to her loins. Gasping, she squirmed involuntarily, clamping her legs together.

His hands drifted to her calves, then to her knees, and in one wrenching movement, her chemise went floating to the floor. In only her white silk stockings and garters, she felt utterly decadent.

“Open your legs for me,” he said, coaxing her, and applying very little pressure, he spread her legs and planted himself solidly between them.

Reaching for her, he brought her head down, kissing her relentlessly as though to quell any lingering resistance. When they broke apart, they were both trembling violently. Their breath rushed in and out of their lungs; their lips were wet and bruised from the kisses they had shared. When he sat back on his heels, she murmured a protest and reached for him.

Shifting to keep her at arm’s length, he removed first one silk stocking then the other. Every brush of his hands was sheer torture, every random kiss, and there were many of those as he swept her stockings away, drove her pulse frantic. In her nakedness, she felt vulnerable.

He watched her face as he cupped her breasts, massaging the nipples to hard erect points. Her eyes glazed over and she shook her head. This merely encouraged him to add to her torment. Bending his head, he gave suckle, using teeth and lips to drive her pleasure higher. When her breath came in short, hard gasps, he smiled and moved on, trailing one hand over the flat of her stomach, lingering at the soft: thatch between her thighs. He entered her gently, and found the hot slickness that was infinitely reassuring. She was wet and ready for him. Excitement
swept through him in a wild, uncontrollable flood.

It was too much; the pleasure was too fierce; she couldn’t bear it. When she tried to close her legs against him, he blocked her movement with his body. Though his words were soft and soothing, he increased her anguish, sliding his fingers in and out of her, flexing them, driving her to the edge of insanity.

She was writhing and twisting, half crazy with the torment of his touch. Suddenly launching herself at him, she tumbled him to the floor. On her knees, she reared over him. His look of shock gradually gave way to one of unmitigated delight.

For a moment, she hesitated.

“Oh no,” he said. “I won’t allow you to turn craven on me now. You wanted to exercise your power over me. Well, now’s your chance.”

He captured her hands and brought them to the closure of his breeches. She made no move to assist him, but that did not deter him. Cupping her hands with his, he showed her how easily buttons could be slipped from their buttonholes.

“It will get easier with practice,” he told her, and his eyes danced with wicked enjoyment. “And I aim to ensure that you get plenty of practice.” Deciding that it would take forever if he waited for Serena to undress him, he quickly peeled out of his garments till he was down to bare skin.

She didn’t move, didn’t even breathe, but knelt there like a lifeless statue, her eyes fastened on the huge, swollen sex that seemed to spring out at her from the thicket of dark hair at his groin.

He had gone too far to draw back now. “Never say you are conceding defeat, Victoria?” he said in a teasing, mocking whisper.

A breath shivered through her and her eyes locked on his. Tossing her head, she boldly straddled him. When he made to cup her breasts, she shifted position, slapping his hands away.

“Yield,” she told him, “or face the consequences.”

His eyebrows climbed and his lips quirked. Then, reclining with unconcerned masculine grace, he folded his arms behind his neck and dared her to do her worst.

Now what was she supposed to do? With his example to guide her, she touched a finger to the little nipples that were half hidden in the whorls of crisp black chest hair. The teasing light went out of his eyes when she rubbed her knuckles over the hardened nubs, playing with them, plucking at them, making love to them the way he had made love to her.

With growing confidence, she moved on, trailing her hands along the flat of his stomach, slowly, slowly, building his anticipation with ruthless determination, until he was writhing and moaning with need. When she came to his swollen sex, she hesitated.

Julian pulled himself up in one smooth movement. “Courage, Victoria,” he gritted between clenched teeth, and taking her hand, he wrapped it around his hard length. When she squeezed involuntarily, he gasped, then groaned like an animal in pain. She squeezed again, deliberately, fascinated by the expressions that chased across his face. Something electrifying and entirely feminine swept through her. If she really wanted to, she could make this man her slave.

He raised his eyes to look at her. “It works both ways,” he said, as if reading her mind, and hooking one powerful arm around her waist, he held her while he explored her with his fingers, stretching her, then rotating his wet thumb against a pleasure point that had her bucking and heaving in an agony of suspense.

Abandoned, desperate, they rolled together on the floor. Wild, reckless, dangerous—she gloried in the feelings he aroused in her. When he thrust into her, she ground her hips against his groin, forcing him to make his penetration as deep as he could make it. Plunging wildly, they came together in a shattering, explosive climax that went on and on and on.

   He knew he was grinning like the proverbial cat that had swallowed the cream. There was something exhilarating in knowing that one’s lovemaking could make a woman oblivious of her surroundings. A wife had a right to expect that her husband would take her in bed, with all the restraint and delicacy of which he was capable. Yet, here they were, on the floor of his bookroom without a stitch of clothing between them, like two shameless pagans from the mists of time. And it was glorious.

She was curled on her side, away from him, and he could tell from the sound of her breathing that she was drifting into sleep. Something sweet and ineffably tender moved in him, and he reached for her, hooking one arm around her waist. Serena squirmed, not shaking him off, but trying to
get
close to him. Her bottom was wriggling against his groin. The result was inevitable.

He mustn’t. He shouldn’t. It would be uncouth and ungentlemanly to initiate her into too much too soon. Besides, knowing Serena, she wouldn’t take kindly to the notion that he was the teacher and she was the novice who had much to learn. Then she wriggled her bottom once too often and the struggle with his conscience was lost.

He nuzzled her neck. She sighed languorously. He cupped her breasts, bringing her spine hard against his chest. His fingers teased, arousing her. She squirmed and moaned as she slowly came to herself.

Shifting her body, lifting her, he entered her from behind.
Serena gasped and looked back over her shoulder. She saw the pulse of desire in his eyes and hectic color ran across her cheekbones. Her jaw gaped and her mouth worked.

“Julian! What .  .  . ?”

“I want you, I need you,” he crooned. “Let me love you, Serena. Yes, love, like this.”

He gentled her with soothing, persuasive words, and aroused her to fever pitch by sinking into her in smooth, rhythmic strokes. Resisting her when she begged to turn into him, locking her body to his, he quickened his pace. When her head arched back on his shoulder, and he felt the convulsions deep in her belly, he loosed his own control. Pounding into her, in hard violent thrusts, he exploded in a flood of passion.

They lay for long minutes, laboring to even their breath. Reaching for her, he rolled her on her back so that he could gauge her expression. Relief swamped him. She didn’t look angry or disgusted or even reproachful. Not only did she have the love-dazed look of a woman who had been well and truly pleasured, but she looked at him with something like awe.

He couldn’t resist that look. Bending to her, he covered her face with moist, tender kisses. “Did I shock you, love?”