Iris Johansen (11 page)

For some reason her docility seemed to be goading him to even greater anger. “Yes, anything,” she said simply, and he muttered a violent obscenity that caused her eyes to widen in surprise.

He was suddenly on his feet, his hands at his belt. “Well, damn it, you’re going to be called upon to demonstrate that willingness tonight,” he said tersely, swiftly stripping off the rest of his clothes. “I’ve been lying in that bed for a week, as sleepless and aching as a schoolboy who’s just discovered sex. I’ve had time to weave quite a few fantasies around you, Janna, and before you leave here you’re going to satisfy every one.”

He moved away to toss the rest of his clothes on top of his jacket and sweater on the chair, and Janna’s eyes followed him with irresistible fascination. There was nothing graceful or sculptured about Santine’s naked body, yet it was beautiful all the same. Everything about it was massive and powerful, from the sturdy column of his thighs and tight buttocks to the hard, flat stomach. He was all sleek, virile power, and strength. Then, as he turned and strode back to her, there was a tense readiness about that strength that made Janna catch her breath.

Santine’s eyes followed her gaze down his body, and he smiled mockingly. “As you see, our foreplay may not be as long as I’d like,” he said softly. “But there’s time for a few of those fantasies to be realized before I lose total control.” Still without touching
her, he lay down across the end of the king-sized bed, raising himself on one elbow and gazing at her with the same arrogant indulgence she’d noticed earlier. “Undress for me, Janna. Very slowly.”

“I’m afraid you’ll be very disappointed in my performance,” she said with a coolness that she was far from feeling. “I’ve never done a striptease before.” Her hands were on the velvet sash at her waist, and she made a conscious effort to still their trembling as she untied it and dropped it on the cream carpet at her feet.

“I won’t be disappointed,” he said thickly, his dark eyes fixed compulsively on the graceful fingers that were now unfastening the tiny pearl buttons of her tailored white silk blouse. “My fantasy wasn’t of some cheap sideshow, Janna.” She had finished unbuttoning the front of the blouse, and she lifted one arm to unbutton the cuff. “God, I love to watch you move. It gives me an almost sensual pleasure to see you gesture with those lovely hands or merely walk across the room.” There was a fitful gleam in the depths of Santine’s eyes, and he spoke almost to himself. “I’ll be giving instructions to Dawson or talking on the phone and you’d get up and stroll across the library to get a book from a shelf or stand in front of the window looking out at the courtyard. I have to force myself not to stare at you like a love-sick adolescent.”

Janna silently slipped off the blouse and dropped it on the floor beside the sash. She unbuttoned the emerald velvet evening skirt and let it slide in a pool of jewel-bright color about her ankles before stepping out of it. Suddenly she was no longer nervous. Santine’s words oddly had robbed the situation of any hint of tawdriness. She felt only a curious remoteness that was almost dreamlike as she deftly undressed as casually as if there were no Rafe Santine watching her with burning intentness. As she undid the front closing of her bra and shrugged out of
it, she heard his sharply indrawn breath, but she tranquilly ignored it as she slipped out of her medium-heeled sandals. As usual, she hadn’t worn stockings, and white satin bikini panties were the only stitch left on her body. Then they were also gone, and she raised her head to gaze at the man before her with serene pride. Nudity had never been shameful or dirty to her, and she took pleasure in the firm, graceful strength of her body. Nor was the intensity of Santine’s regard shameful or degrading. There was only hot, eager desire and an element of almost pained pleasure in his expression as his gaze ran over her with lingering thoroughness. “Beautiful,” he rasped hoarsely. “Slim and graceful and proud. I knew you’d look like this.”

His dark gaze was on the fullness of her breasts, and Janna could feel them swell and tauten beneath his eyes as if his lips were once more caressing them as they had in the gazebo. She felt a slow liquid languor in the pit of her stomach, and suddenly she was finding it hard to get her breath. “What now?” she asked faintly, trying to hide the effect he was having on her.

“Walk across the room and then come here to me,” he said thickly as he slowly sat up and swung his feet to the floor. “I want to watch the lovely music you make and know that soon you’ll be moving under me with that same wild beauty.”

She obediently turned and strode to the far end of the room; whirling, she moved much more slowly back to where he sat on the bed. Her heart was beating so hard now that she was sure he would be able to hear it when she stopped a few feet from him. She was suddenly unbearably shy.

“No, closer,” he said huskily. Parting his legs he reached out his hand to clasp her wrist and draw her gently forward between them. His massive body was taut as a bowstring and she could see a bead of moisture on his forehead as he slowly lowered his
head to rest it lightly against the soft cushion of her breasts. His hands slid with utmost care around her waist, as though he were afraid she would break if he exerted the slightest pressure. “Oh, Lord, I ache for you,” he murmured, closing his eyes and brushing his dark head back and forth against her naked breasts in a nestling movement that was ambivalently passionate and boyish. “Help me, Janna. I need you so much, I’m hurting.”

The plea served to move her as a harsher demand would not have, and Janna experienced an almost maternal tenderness as her arms slipped around his sturdy bronze neck and her hands tangled in the heavy crispness of his hair. She held him to her breasts and rocked him there, cradling his head against her softness, while her hands in his hair stroked and gentled him as if he were a child in pain. “I will, Rafe,” she crooned softly. “I will.” Her lips brushed tenderly against his moist forehead. “Tell me what you want me to do.”

His arms tightened around her waist with a spasmodic force that took her breath away. “Little earth mother,” he choked hoarsely. “My lovely little earth mother.” She could feel him shudder against her and she felt a fierce primitive thrill at the thought that need for her could make this strong, dominant man tremble. Then they were both falling on the bed, Rafe’s arms effortlessly cushioning her fall. With one swift movement he twisted her over so that she was lying on her back on the ebony velvet coverlet and he was bending over her, his eyes shining with fierce possession.

One finger reached out and gently touched the taut pinkness of her nipple. “God, what a gorgeous, dusky Indian maiden you are, Pocahontas,” he said softly. “Even your hair is almost tan.” His hand moved to the thick, lustrous braid lying on the curve of her breast.

His hands were working swiftly with the braid,
and it was only seconds before he was running his hands through the loosened tresses lying in a shining, rippling cloud on her shoulders. Then his face was buried in the silky mass while his hand closed possessively over her breast. “Mine,” he muttered huskily as his lips moved in swift hot kisses on the line of her throat. “Don’t ever wear your hair loose except when we’re like this, Janna. I need to know that something about you is mine alone.”

Then, before she could reply, his lips were parting hers and his tongue was claiming her own in a joust that robbed her of breath and sent a hot tingling through her loins. She made a sound that was half gasp, half moan, and her arms slid around his shoulders and pulled him to her in a fierce possessiveness that she wasn’t even aware of in the heat of the moment. Rafe’s lips left hers and were covering her throat and shoulders with tiny gentle kisses, alternating with an occasional tugging bite at the silky skin that was startlingly arousing.

But then, everything that Rafe was doing to her was arousing, Janna thought hazily as the lips moved down to nibble at the burgeoning hardness of her nipple. He spent a long time there, and she was soon panting and moving restlessly beneath him in a torment of need.

He raised his head and gazed down at her with glazed, feverish eyes. “That’s right,” he said thickly. “Move for me. Move to the music I’ll play for you, Janna.”

Suddenly he was on his knees and gathering her in his arms, moving her farther up on the bed. Then his hands were parting her legs, his fingers lazily caressing the inside of her thighs while he stared down at her with an odd expression of torment on his face. “Are you ready for me, Janna?” he asked hoarsely. “God, I wanted to wait until I was sure it would be good for you, but I don’t think I can.” He moved between her thighs and parted her legs still
wider, his nails now teasing the soft, sensitive flesh with an abrasive rubbing motion. “I usually don’t give a damn, but I wanted it to be so special for you this time.”

Janna looked up at him dazedly, feeling more weak and vulnerable than she had ever before in her life. Every muscle and nerve in her body seemed to be aching, pulsating, with a need that only the man above her could satisfy. Only he could end this hot liquid ache that was tormenting her. “Rafe,” she gasped, and it was all there in her voice. “Please.”

A flash of exultant triumph illuminated his rough features, and he surged forward. “I’ll take longer next time,” he promised huskily. “I can’t wait another second for you, Janna. I want you too much.”

Then his warm hardness was within her and even the initial invasion was an assuagement of the frustrated need, but it wasn’t enough. Not enough. Her hands clutched fiercely at Rafe’s shoulders and tried to pull him closer to her. But for some maddening reason he was resisting her. “Easy,” he said softly. “Relax, Janna. You’re so tight, and I don’t want to hurt you, baby. Don’t tense up on me.”

There wasn’t anything tense about her, she thought wildly, her head twisting back and forth on the black velvet coverlet. She was all hot molten emptiness waiting to be filled, and it wasn’t enough. She was unaware that her nails were digging into his shoulders, but he was still stubbornly withholding what she needed. Then, with an instinct as primitive as time itself, her hips surged forcefully upward to take what he would not give her. There was an instant of tearing pain that she scarcely noticed as she felt herself surrounding the full virile force of him with an explosion of almost savage pleasure, and the moan she gave at that moment was more of a guttural purr of satisfaction than of discomfort.

“My God!” Rafe breathed, freezing into statuelike stillness above her. Then, incredibly, he made an
involuntary movement of withdrawal. But she wasn’t about to give up what she’d won, and her legs instinctively curled around his hips, holding him to her. Nothing more was required, she discovered to her infinite satisfaction. Rafe muttered a low, broken imprecation that was almost a groan of pain and suddenly he was thrusting powerfully forward in a rhythm that took her breath away, stroking her with flaming need and fulfilling that need at one and the same time.

She wasn’t conscious of how long the spiral of desire and fulfillment continued. She knew only it was essential that it did continue. That she move and thrust at Rafe’s whispered urgings, that her hands and lips caress in a passionate exchange of favors, which also had an odd rhythm of their own, that she reach the final peak of white-hot pleasure just beyond her reach. Then she did reach it, with an electric forcefulness that left her devastated and trembling with shock. Then she heard Rafe’s groan above her, his arms tightening about her, sealing their bodies together as if he were reluctant, even in satisfaction, to release the source of his pleasure.

His breath was coming in little jerks, his heart beating as wildly as her own. “Janna,” he breathed huskily, his words stirring the soft tendrils of hair at her temple. “Oh, God, Janna.”

She couldn’t even get that much out. She felt as if she’d been whirling in the center of a hurricane. Every muscle felt weak and fluid, and she couldn’t seem to stop trembling.

Without releasing her, Rafe rolled over so that they were facing each other. He reached over, plucking a fold of the coverlet, which pulled sideways, enveloping them both in its velvet prison. Then his hands once again slid beneath the cover to cup her buttocks and press their still-bound bodies into even greater intimacy.

“I don’t want to let you go,” he murmured, a trace
of wonder in his voice. “I’d like to wear you like a medallion and take you everywhere with me.”

“That might be a trifle inconvenient,” she said shakily, wishing she could regain a semblance of her usual serene composure.

One of Rafe’s hands began a journey of exploration over her hip to the softness of her belly and then up to cup the fullness of her breast in his palm. There was a casual possessiveness in the action, as if he were merely reconnoitering territory that he’d already claimed, and suddenly Janna experienced a suffocating thrill of panic. She had the odd sensation that she was bound to him in more than body, that she was being absorbed into him, attached by cords stronger than steel, her spirit imprisoned as surely as if he had slammed the door of the cage behind her.

“Let me go,” she whispered, trying to wriggle away from him.

His arms tightened around her, and his hand started a lazy kneading motion at her breast. “Presently,” he murmured, nibbling at the lobe of her ear. “Perhaps in a week or two I might have had enough of you to let you out of bed long enough to eat a meal or go for a short stroll. But don’t count on it.” His tongue darted into her ear. “Definitely don’t count on it.”

She put her hand on his chest and pushed. “I want to go to my own room now.” There must have been a thread of the panic she was feeling in her voice, for the lazy tenderness slowly faded from Rafe’s face, and it hardened into its usual mocking cynicism. His arms tightened around her for a brief instant, and then he was pushing her away. He sat up and leaned indolently against the black velvet headboard.

“And what if I don’t want you to go?” he asked harshly, watching her broodingly as she tossed the velvet coverlet aside and scooted to the opposite side
of the bed. “What if I consider that I haven’t had my fill of you tonight? Will you stay with me?”