Katherine O’Neal (44 page)

Not only did she have to get her own mind off
her panic. She had to distract him from playing pirate of the skies
as well.

What you need is something so compelling that
it obliterates all thought.

There was only one thing that compelling in
all the world. He’d already made it clear that she’d meet with no
resistance.

She forced her eyes open and looked up at
him. He was leaning more precariously than before, with only one
foot on the basket, one hand on the ropes. “Come down here.”

“I like it up here.”

“You can’t kiss me from up there.”

He arched a brow. “Can’t I?”

Swinging himself expertly around, he leaned
into the ropes and gave her a quick kiss. Then he was back dangling
from the side.

His motions had caused the basket to bounce
wildly. This wasn’t working as she’d planned.

Oh, God, please help me get this lunatic down
off those ropes!

She’d used passion as a weapon before. What
was one more time?

“Does this excite you?” she asked, trying to
keep her voice from trembling.

“Madly.”

“Have you ever”—she gulped down the knot in
her throat—“made love in the skies?”

Now he looked at her. “Is that an
invitation?”

“Come on down here and find out.”

He leaped down to the floorboards, causing
the balloon to sink. Clutching the ropes behind her, she willed
herself with titanic effort not to scream at him for his folly.

He clasped her waist and pulled her to him so
that her hands were forced to leave the ropes and clutch his jacket
instead. In his eyes was a look of wonder.

“It’s more than I ever dreamed of,” he told
her passionately. “I knew you were afraid. But I thought if I could
just get you up here—if you could just see what I see, as I see
it—that you, too, would feel the excitement—the very wonder of it
all. That you could share the thrill of being high above the
ground. The freedom. The exhilaration. The blood boiling in your
veins. You really feel it?”

“Kiss me and find out.”

He bent his head and took possession of her
mouth. Never had his kiss been so wild, so trenchant, so...
appreciative
. And never had she felt more wretched in her
life.

Because the truth was, she’d never felt less
sensual. Try as she might, she couldn’t forget her fear. She felt
as dry as a month-old bone. She knew if he came inside her now, it
would be like penetrating sandpaper. She was ashamed of herself for
trying to con him. Their attraction was so great, it had never
occurred to her she’d have to fake her ecstasy, as she’d done with
other men.

If only he hadn’t forced her into this
fearsome contraption
...

“You’re wonderful,” he murmured into her
hair.

Feeling guilty, she was nonetheless
determined that he wouldn’t guess. She slipped her hands inside his
jacket, easing it down over his arms. “You’re not attached to this,
are you?” she asked with a convincing grin.

Then she tossed it overboard.

“That’s my only jacket.”

She unbuttoned his shirt and ran her tongue
along his chest. “Now you know how it feels.”

She undressed him swiftly, avoiding looking
out. The side of the basket rose above her waist, so by careful
positioning, she could pretend she wasn’t surrounded by nothing on
all sides.

He stood with his hands above his head,
holding on to the ropes. Naked and chiseled, dark and sinewy, he
was a sight that by rights should make any woman weep. Saranda made
a valiant effort. She made a great show of kissing him—his
shoulders, the heavy coils of his muscular arms, the thick black
hair that swirled about his chest. She sucked on his nipples and
felt him go rigid beneath her hand. She followed the path of hair
down his belly, gliding her tongue along the V that pointed, like
an arrow, to the pulsing, tempered invitation of his sex.

Sinking to her knees, where her sight was
blocked on all sides, she took him in her hands and brought him to
her tongue. She teased him with it for a time before swooping down
to take him inside.

He rewarded her with a satisfied growl.

“This is unbelievable,” he told her,
thrusting into her mouth. “You’re more than a bloody princess—” She
sucked harder, and he lost his train of thought. With an effort, he
added harshly, “You’re a dispenser of fantasies. A woman to make a
man’s every dream come true.”

No,
she thought miserably.
I’m just
a shuckster who’s too bloody good at her job.

“You like it when I take you in my
mouth?”

“Oh, Christ, yes.”

She knew that dialogue, like nothing else,
was the aphrodisiac of his heart. A master of language himself, he
reveled in the use of imaginative descriptions and hot, raunchy
words. Just a whisper could arouse him to a blood-pumping frenzy.
She knew, too, that she couldn’t excite him—or any man—the way he
could excite himself, using his own fantasies as a means. All she
had to do was ask him a question or suggest an image, and he’d take
it from there.

“I love the way you feel on my tongue. I love
the taste of you. The hot, manly smell. You’re so hard, it makes me
tremble. Like a sword of tempered steel. Tell me how much you like
it, darling. Tell me what you want me to do.”

He told her with words that were as poetic as
they were explicit. Guiding her head as he spoke, he showed her
what he wanted, his words lewd and lusty and spoken with a husky
growl. They sizzled in the open air. She’d never known a man more
appreciative of her wanton caresses, more willing to heap praise on
the unholy impulses she inspired.

He propped a muscular leg up on the side of
the basket, affording her easier access. Dropping lower, at his
command, she reached under him and took him, one, then another,
into her mouth—sucking, teasing, nibbling ever so softly as his
breath rumbled through the deep chasm of his chest.

“Yes, darling, yes. Sweet Lord, you’re
unbelievable!”

She didn’t doubt it. Channeling her fear—and
her guilt at deceiving him—into her efforts, she focused all her
energies on her task. She moved relentlessly, here and there,
varying her touch, the flick of her tongue, the soft, moist succor
of her lips—driving him wild with the lust licking through his
veins and the heady anticipation of where her willing mouth might
wander next.

When he moved to lift her, so she could share
his pleasure, she declined. Looking up, running her tongue along
the swollen tip, she asked coyly, “Didn’t you say something once
about wanting to come in my mouth?”

His eyes glazed over as he told her what he
wanted in more specific terms.

Deftly, she rendered him incapable of speech.
It didn’t take long. Cupping his testicles with one hand, stroking
his shaft with the other, she sucked hard, exciting the sensitive
head with her tongue, then took him deep once again. She welded her
mouth to him as he discharged with a roar. Yet he’d thrust so hard
that, toward the end, he slipped from her mouth and spurted at her
face. Lapping at him, she rubbed him along her cheeks, coaxing the
last of his shudders as she put her mouth to him once again and
sucked him dry.

That should calm him, she thought, sitting
back on her heels.

He shook his head like a lion shaking himself
free of a downpour of water. “Oh, God! Woman, what you do to
me.”

He caught her beneath her arms and lifted
her, kissing her long and hard, looking at her tenderly all the
while.

“You’ve made me so happy,” he said. “Now it’s
my turn to do the same for you.”

She shook her head. “For today let your
happiness be mine. It’s enough that I could—”

His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Since when
have you become Saint Saranda, dispensing unselfish offerings?”

“Can’t I desire to make you happy without
being interrogated like some—”

He shoved her back against the side of the
basket. “Mace, don’t—” she cried, flinging out her arms.

While she was busy straining to hold on, he
flung her skirt up, yanked her drawers aside, and thrust his hand
up between her legs. As before, she was as dry as dust.

“
You little bitch,”
he rasped, his
eyes glittering in anger.

“Mace, for God’s sake—”

She could feel the balloon swaying. Looking
over her shoulder, she saw the countryside looming closer. If he
didn’t stop shoving her, she’d go over the side.

“So it excites you, does it? Flying like the
eagles? Soaring above an unsuspecting world?”

“I never said it excited me. In fact, I said,
if you’ll recall, that if you brought me up here, I’d die!”

She bent her cheek to her shoulder and wiped
the stickiness on her dress. The motion infuriated him, and he
tightened his grip.

“Flam
me
, will you?”

“You deserve it! I
told
you I didn’t
want to come up here. I told you I was scared. But did you care?
No! You go leaping from rope to rope like some ruddy pirate,
regardless of my feelings.”

The anger drained from him, replaced by a
cold, resolute pause. He looked thoughtful, then a prankish gleam
glowed in his eyes.

“You’re altogether right,” he said. “I
haven’t
considered your feelings.”

She didn’t like his expression. It was the
same look he’d given her that night he’d tied her up and forced her
to submit to his unusual form of therapy. He had the same
unassailable glitter in his eyes that told her she’d gone too
far.

“Take your clothes off,” he ordered.

She stuck her chin out. “Why should I?”

“Because I won’t be conned, darling.
Especially not by you.”

“It’s happened before.”

“It won’t bloody well happen again. Now, are
you going to take those clothes off, or must I rip them from you
myself?”

He made a grab for the neckline, but her
hands caught his and stalled them.

“I shall submit to your vile threats because
I have nothing else to wear. But I warn you, it will do you no
good. I couldn’t get excited now if you were Casanova himself.”

“We shall see about that.”

Naked and defiant, she stood before him. Her
eyes were closed, against the awareness of height, and to hide her
shame when she proved herself right. Mace might be the best lover
in all of Europe—couldn’t she attest to that?—but it would take
more than any man possessed to excite her under the
circumstances.

He rose to the challenge, but not in the way
she’d thought he might. She’d expected rough demands. Instead, what
she got was gentle hands at her shoulders. Lips at her eyelids,
flitting as sweetly as butterfly wings. He lifted her face and ran
his own lashes along her lids, her cheeks, her brow. It was a
strangely soothing, playful, tender assault.

His mouth lingered at her temple, breathing
in her scent, dallying to taste of her skin. In motions so slow
they took on heightened expectations, he brushed his lips past her
cheekbone, blazing a heated path to her ear. There, he idled,
kissing the earlobe, frolicking with the tip of his tongue. She’d
never realized how sensitive she was there. As he nibbled gently
with his teeth, his fingertips grazed her neck, her throat, the
slope of her shoulder, so lightly, so delicately, that her skin
prickled in his wake. The combination of his mouth at her ear and
his fingers on her skin caused in her body a rising craving for his
touch. If he’d manhandled her now, she’d have gone numb and pulled
away. But the delicious tenderness of his skillful technique caused
the tingling to spread and fill her with onrushing currents of
pleasure. Just as she might lean forward to hear someone
whispering, her skin, barely fondled, sought the delectation of his
touch.

No inch of offered flesh was neglected.
Tilting her head, he tickled the area under her cheekbone, in front
of her ear. He moved lower to nibble at the pulsating juncture of
her jawbone, neck, and ear. As he did so, she gasped and threw her
head back to allow him better access. Luscious sensations scrambled
through her belly and raced down her thighs. He ran his tongue
along the inner ear, his breath warm and seductive.

“You can’t escape me,” he said, very low, so
that even the breathy quality of the words caused her toes to
tingle. “Sooner or later, your surrender will be mine for the
taking.”

The way he spoke was casual, but the sexual
confidence behind them was a decided provocation. She shivered and
turned her mouth to his.

His lips were gentle, softly cushioning her
own. His tongue just touched the inside of her lips, penetrating no
farther, making her ask him to come in. He played with them
patiently, and gradually she began to relax in his arms, softening
her lips against his. His kiss deepened, sensitive, probing,
exploring leisurely, giving her time to adjust, to enjoy, to want
what he offered. Only when she began to press herself against him
did he proceed more boldly, slipping his tongue between her teeth
and withdrawing it, until she began to follow his lead. Roguishly,
he nipped at her lower lip, sucked it in his mouth, before finally
crushing her lips in a kiss that vanquished her hesitation and made
her dizzy once again.

Just as she was drowning in the sensation, he
moved his mouth to her other ear. A mewing sound registered her
protest, yet the rarefied torture evoked such exquisite longings
that she was hard-pressed to complain.

She thought he’d kiss her for eternity. Never
had a man used his mouth to excite her the way he was doing now.
She could feel her blood bubbling in her veins. He hadn’t so much
as touched her breast or stroked her thigh, yet he was awakening
longings of such intensity that would make a virgin in her parlor
spread her legs and whimper to be taken. Unconfined by convention,
he asserted his full manhood, shattering her defenses in the
process.