Swept Away By a Kiss (12 page)

But the person she wanted to give her that relief did not need her. As her father had, this man found his comfort elsewhere, from a source with which she could never compete. She could try to seduce him, pretend she did it to secure his help, and she could feel her heart bleed like Ezekiel’s body. But she would still remain alone.

“What can a coward possibly know of noble things?” she pressed on, the words stumbling off her tongue. “You insist that you do not believe in fate, but you behave as though everything is predestined, as though what happened here today had to happen.”

“Fate has not determined this, Valerie. God has it in his plan.” His voice sounded peculiarly tight. Her gaze sharpened. His strong jaw was locked. She was affecting him, after all. She could move him with her words if not her actions. The knowledge bit at her with sick triumph.

“Your God, it appears, expects meekness, doesn’t he? You bent your head to pray when a man was being murdered in front of you. Dignity?” Her voice crept higher, matching the mounting fire in his eyes. “I don’t think you know anything about dignity, or about any other subtle feeling. You don’t want anybody except a God who does not listen or care when his creatures suffer. Because of him you scorn human touch—”

“What I deny myself, I deny for others.” His golden eyes shone suddenly vivid with compassion, and something that looked like pain. Longing quivered through her and her anger faltered. As though he sensed her uncertainty, Etienne’s gaze flickered bright.

Infuriated by her weakness, Valerie lashed out again, infusing her words with all the contempt she felt for everything she had been and still was, despite her confidence that she could change.

“Look at you, Father,” she spat out, “so proud of your funeral black, like some awful raven of death hoping to scavenge another’s kill. You asked me what kind of man you would be to leave me to Bebain’s cruelty? This kind of man, Etienne.” Her voice caught. “The man you already are, who holds himself aloof so he does not have to suffer with all the rest of us pathetic mortals.”

He moved toward her swiftly. She backed away, her hands flying up in defense.

He grabbed them and pinned them to her sides, the vision of his muscle-corded arms and the scar running the length of his torso coming to her as he flattened her against him.

She came alive. Everywhere they met heat assailed her, heady and delicious, sinking through flesh and bone. But she didn’t want this now. She hated that her body reacted as though made for his touch. The disconnect of heart and flesh was too much to bear.

She swung her gaze up, and the air drained from her lungs. Etienne’s eyes blazed with heat. His fingers twisted in her hair, pulling her head back until he looked down at her.

“Call me Steven.” His voice was like gravel, completely unfamiliar.

Valerie’s eyes widened.

“What—Why?”

“Say it. I want to hear you say it.”

Valerie tried to shake her head, but his grip tightened, snapping at her hair. His gaze seared her. He was angry, as she had thought this man could never be, like a lion surprised from sleep. Suddenly, terrifyingly awakened.

“Steven,” she whispered, not understanding, yet somehow knowing it was not a taunt, that it meant something to him.

His gaze scraped across her face, her eyes and lips, cheeks and brow, her mouth. His head bent closer and she struggled for breath. With a strangled oath, his mouth came down upon hers.

Chapter 12

H
is kiss was nothing like the fantasy of melting communion Valerie had so naïvely, hopefully conjured in her imagination. It was an assault, driving her flesh into her teeth, brutal and unforgiving. His mouth opened, forcing her lips apart as he pulled her arms around to clamp her palms against his back.

But Valerie needed no restraint. Curling her fingertips eagerly into the solid plane of his back, she opened her lips wide, finally taking what she had wanted for days.

He drew away and his gaze caught hers, glittering with need and question. She swallowed, every feeling overflowing into her eyes.

He lowered his mouth and possessed hers anew. But he kissed her differently now, the change echoing her own lightning shift from pain to desire. Hurtful in fury before, his kiss hungered, stroking her lips and tongue with eager, gentle caresses, as though he sought in her what he most needed to exist. She wanted to give it to him, to give him everything.

As though in a dream created from her own yearning, his hand slid up from her waist and covered her breast. A sigh broke from her throat, foreign and primitive sounding. She pushed into his touch, her body sizzling to life, nipples tightening.

He slipped his hand beneath her loose bodice, and aching relief washed over her.

No man had ever touched her. All the stolen kisses, secret rendezvous, and forbidden meetings over the years with inappropriate men—all to anger her father—had only amounted to innocent fumblings. Etienne was the first man to put his hands upon her so intimately. She had waited for him.

His caressed her breast’s sensitive peak, hardening it, then circling, teasing before he flattened his palm over it. Heat twined between Valerie’s legs. He stroked her again and again until she moaned aloud, dissolving into his touch. Wanting more. How could he do this to her? How could she allow him to?

She tore her mouth from beneath his. His molten gaze careened into her senses, hot with need so intense her knees buckled.

“Why are you a priest?” she whispered. “How?”

Emotion crossed his face like a riptide, swift and sharp. He took her mouth again.

His tongue slipped along the inside edges of her lips, and his fingers came together tighter around her nipple. She gasped and he stroked, caressing the underside of her breast, then its taut tip, devouring her mouth as though he could not get close enough. She reveled in him, aching to feel him everywhere. She parted her knees and clamped her thighs around his, sliding her throbbing need against his hard muscle.

His hands swept down her sides and around, cupping her bottom, then spreading her thighs wide and shifting her body to fit his. Her eyes shot open as he pushed hard into her, honeyed heat flooding her, deep and so good. He was fully aroused against her need. His hand tangled in her hair again, his mouth hovering over hers. She tilted her chin up and touched his lips, feathering kisses across his jaw.

“Valerie.” Her name sounded like a plea. “Sweet heaven.”

She must be imagining the longing in his voice, but she didn’t care if it was not real. He was holding her, kissing her, taking pleasure in her. It was all she had wanted since she first saw him.

“Touch me,” she whispered. “Touch me more.” She rocked against him, trying to tell him with her body what she could not say aloud. She wanted him completely, no matter how wrong it seemed for both of them. It could not truly be wrong. Nothing this perfect could be.

He pushed her to the wall. A soft moan escaped her lips, shivers racing from her belly to her breasts as he crushed her mouth beneath his and moved against her, massaging her fevered flesh with his hard length. His hands swept down her back, molding her to him, gripping her hips to hold her still as his tongue commanded hers and his body pleasured her with firm, agonizingly slow thrusts.

Frantic with the need building inside, she grabbed his face, her fingertips alive on his whisker-roughened jaw. He turned his mouth into her hand, and his lips upon her palm spread sweet, desperate fire through her. She whimpered, unable to stop the sound.

With a smooth movement he slipped her gown off her shoulder. His lips and teeth teased her naked flesh, curling sweet pleasure through her breasts and between her legs. She clung to his arms, wanting him so badly it hurt. Her body cried out for more, for pleasure, for his arms around her, holding her, driving her to madness. He pulled her gown to her waist.

For a moment, he didn’t move, his ravenous gaze heating her skin. Valerie felt no shame, only the need for him to touch her again. He curved his hand around her breast, the pad of his thumb covering and pressing into her nipple. Her eyes fluttered half closed.

“Beautiful Valerie,” he murmured, breathless from the feeling of her satiny skin, the taut peak of her breast beneath his palm, his own insanity.

He had pretended to be a priest for years, celibate by sheer force of will most of that time, and only very carefully satisfying his needs when he was sure he would not be discovered. Yet he could take this woman in a moment. He could bury himself inside her so hard and deep, neither of them would deny it ever again.

She was lovelier than he even imagined. He caressed her exquisite breasts, milky white, soft as velvet, and tipped with perfect beauty hardened by his touch. From the moment he had grabbed her she did not resist. She was living desire in his hands. Sweet, passionate, willing woman, begging him to give her more.

He wanted to give it to her, to touch her everywhere, to fill his senses with her, in the same way he wanted to defend himself, for her to understand everything. In the face of her anger he had stood mute, paralyzed by the fierce, alien need for someone to know him for who he truly was. For this woman to know. The deeper that need burned, the harder desire pounded through him. He hungered for her, a consuming want his grandfather had foretold years ago, a destiny he was not meant to refuse. A yearning to end the eternal exile from his own soul.

But he could not have that. He had a duty to fulfill. Why else would he deny himself the very thing he wanted? Why else would he lie to everyone around him if he did not do it for them? To protect them. To save them. To save her.

He bent and took her nipple into his mouth, taut and soft against his tongue and lips. She arched her back, groaning and moving into his caress. Urgency flooded his cock, and he stroked his tongue across her sensitive flesh. She gasped, thrusting her hips, spreading her legs more to feel him, to pleasure herself upon him.

Steven was a man of great control, but not by any means made of ice. He sucked on her, she ground against his thigh, and not a moment’s doubt crossed his mind whether he would touch her where she wanted it most.

He slipped his hand between their bodies and caressed her through her skirt, teasing the contours of her body, her unique, beautiful womanhood. She moaned, and satisfaction swelled in him.

It wasn’t enough. Her need throbbed through the gown’s worn fabric, hot and hungry from his touch. He had to feel how wet he made her, to know he could do this to her, as though she were made for his hands.

She was not made for him, of course. Only fools believed in prophecy. But he needed to touch her.

He took her mouth, long and deep, cupping her breast, light-headed with the desire raging through him, growing harder with each caress of her hands upon his body.

“Lift your skirts, Valerie,” he said just above her lips. Her breath fluttered unsteadily, but he knew she would do it. Her need called through her questing hands, her impatient mouth.

She tugged at the rough gown, pulling it up her legs. He slipped his hand beneath her knee and spread his fingers upon her silken skin, the caress of her soft, supple beauty shivering through him. She sighed and gripped his back, a sound of pure rapture as he moved his hand along her thigh, closer. He stroked across her sweet center and she shuddered into him. She was firm and liquid, ready for him.

Swallowing hard, Steven instantly realized his mistake. Now that he had felt her need in his hand, he must satisfy it. But he feared this woman would never truly be satisfied.

He kissed her again, her delicate tongue entwining with his as he spread her with his fingers and rubbed gently. She trembled, her breathing shortened, her soft moans growing tighter. He drank in the sugared flavor of her lips, their tender, willing eagerness, and he ached to make her moan louder, to make her cry out with pleasure as he took her fully.

He circled her entrance. She gasped and stilled. Then she pressed into his touch, inviting him inside.

He slid a finger into her. His cock ached to be where his hand was, encased in her. She was perfect, like no other woman. It didn’t matter what he tried to tell himself. She was made for him. For him alone.

“Valerie,” he groaned, his body rushing toward satisfaction as he caressed her pleasure, gave it to her. She clutched his shoulders, gasping, opening farther to him. He grasped at restraint. He told himself he did not do it for her. This was about satisfying his pride, about teaching her a lesson.

But it was all a lie. He should never have begun this, never put his hands upon her. He hadn’t anticipated her passion. He had been a fool not to, but he could not resist. And now
he must stop
.