The Perfect Mistress (45 page)

Determinedly, he hauled her up to something of a sitting position, only to have her sink again when he bent in the other direction to seize her knees.

"Dammit, Gabrielle—" When he turned back to her, with fire in his eyes, she raised her head so that her face was within inches of his.

"Hypocrite," she charged softly, causing him to freeze in place. "You cannot bear the thought of being forced to abide by other people's rules, and here you are… making up a whole book of rules for me."

"You're my wife—my countess. And as such—" Stung by her charge and dismayed by the unexpected desire tightening his throat, he jerked his gaze from hers. "You cannot go about behaving like this in public."

"We're not in public," she responded, quietly, firmly.

He was achingly aware of just how private they were at the moment.

"You cannot go about doing such things in public
or
private. I won't have it, do you hear. Married ladies bear themselves with propriety, dignity, and decorum at all times. They do not have themselves rolled up in rugs and delivered to men in hotel rooms in the middle of the night! Nor do they play beer hall tunes in public, or lick their wineglasses, or peel grapes with their teeth—" He halted, realizing that he had just revealed how closely he had watched her the previous evening.

"Well
this
married lady does," she said softly. Too softly. He couldn't help looking at her. Her liberally exposed skin seemed to glow in the darkness.

"And just who says what married ladies can and cannot do, anyway? Who says I can't peel a grape with my teeth… or take off my shoes under the table… or go without all-in-ones beneath my dresses." She narrowed her eyes and sat up to face him.

"I think it's about time I had a look at that rule book you're always quoting me. Where is it? You're always so quick with your blessed regulations, you must carry it with you at all times." She held out her hand, palm up. "Hand it over."

He looked at her as if she'd lost her mind and jerked his hands from her.

"Don't be absurd, Gabrielle."

Her smile should have warned him. "Is it in here?" She leaned toward him, and he abruptly sat back on his heels, watching in horror as she ran her hand down his chest and into the outer breast pocket of his coat. After a thorough exploration, she declared in sultry tones, "Not here. Then it must be inside."

Before he could prevent it, her fingers dispatched the single button of his coat, pulled the coat open, and quickly ran up and down the lining, riffling through his inside breast pockets.

"What the—" He grabbed her wrists and held them, arching back to escape her. "What in heaven has gotten into you, Gabrielle?"

"I want the rule book, Sandbourne." Her voice was low and compelling in a way that set his fingertips vibrating. "And I warn you… you won't leave this room until I have it."

He studied her face in the dim light, watching the play of light in her luminous eyes, smelling the sweet, complex scent of her perfume, feeling the impact of her nearness curling through his blood. His hands slowly relaxed but remained on her wrists and were carried along with them to his chest.

"Perhaps it's in one of these—" She dragged her hands down the front of his shirt and vest, splaying her fingers, tracing the contours of his ribs ever so slowly. When her fingers reached the edges of his vest pockets, she slid them inside and felt his stomach tighten as she stroked his waist, searching for that hypothetical book.

"
Ummm
." She was leaning against him now, making him feel her warmth, making him deal with her desire for him. "Clever man," she whispered.

"You've hidden it well. Are you going to surrender it, or do I have to continue searching?"

By all means, continue searching
, his body groaned.

"What do you want with my rule book?" he managed, through the haze of arousal rising in him.

"I'm going to burn it." She withdrew from his pockets and ran her hands down the sides of his waist to his hips, exploring. His breath caught as her fingers caressed their way down his loins to rest intimately on his thighs. "I don't want any more rules between us… except the ones we make together."

No more rules.

A moment later, his tie hung limp, his collar was undone, and his shirt was half open. She raked her breasts against his bared chest, wanting more, inviting the pressure of his body against hers.

"Do you want me, Pierce?"

That invitation to pleasure was irresistible.

"Gabrielle… yes…" He claimed her lips and, with the force of his kiss, gradually pressed her back onto the rug.

Sinking over her was like plunging into a bath of warm oil. Sensation engulfed him, soft and unguent, conforming and clinging to every part of him, saturating his parched senses. She was soft beneath him as he stretched out over her body, her curves yielding to the hard planes of his tautly flexed frame. Bracing on his elbows, he raked her mouth with his, relishing the velvety resistance that set his lips tingling, savoring the salty sweetness of her mouth. He stroked her skin, adoring the shadings of texture and the subtle variations of warmth across her face and breasts. He inhaled the rose scent of her skin, the faint musk of the cleft between her breasts, and the hint of cloves that clung to her garments. Every perception was familiar, but contained unexplored elements that beckoned to his hands, his mouth, and his eyes.

Suddenly he couldn't get enough of her. His hands flew over her face, her shoulders, and her breasts, seeking her inside those exotic trappings.

Through the haze in his senses, he felt her tug at his vest and heard her throaty command: "Take it off."

In an instant, he was pushing up and sitting back on his knees, fumbling with his buttons, ripping off his vest. "All of it," she urged. "Take it off. Then mine too."

Mesmerized by the husky command in her voice, he jerked off his tie and collar and soon pulled his shirt from his trousers and shrugged it from his shoulders. For a moment, he stared at her as she lay between his knees…

wrapped in diaphanous silk, her lips reddened from his kisses, her breasts straining against that jeweled bodice. She awaited his desires like an exotic houri, smoldering with passion that could be released only by his touch.

But something wasn't quite right. He sank his hands into her dark tresses and pulled that tangled cap away, baring her own tightly wrapped hair. Her fingers flew to search out the hairpins and send them flying. Soon her own hair was spilling out over the carpet in a luxurious golden torrent. He braced above her to comb his fingers through it, spreading it around her like rays of sunlight.

For a long moment, he absorbed the sight of her, radiant with desire.

Then, getting to his feet, he scooped her up and carried her into the bedchamber. He let her slide slowly down his body so that she stood on her feet beside the bed. Then he sat down and drew her between his knees, running his hands over her provocatively displayed breasts and around her tightly bound waist and hips.

"Where on earth," he whispered as he laid soft tonguing kisses along the sensitive skin bulging above the rim of her vest, "did you get such clothes?"

"From… a friend," she murmured huskily, running her fingers through his hair and reeling him tighter against her. "You know who I am tonight, don't you?"

"Who?" He pulled the golden cord that laced her vest together, groaning with approval at the way it loosened at the top, relaxing its hold on her breasts.

"Cleopatra, Queen of the Nile." She halted for a moment, closing her eyes as he nuzzled aside the fabric and found her. "And you're Julius Caesar."

"Caesar and Cleopatra," he murmured, teasing her intimately with his tongue, making her stiffen and gasp softly as he nipped and kissed her.

"Where ever did you get such a harebrained idea as rolling up in a rug like Cleopatra?" he said, sliding his hands down her buttocks, pressing her tight against his swollen loins.

"Well, I…
ohhh
, do that again…
that… there. Ummm
." She undulated against him and stiffened with pleasure as his mouth tugged at her. When that breathtaking surge of heat cleared, she tried frantically to scrape together enough words for an explanation. Just now, he probably didn't need to hear that her sensual gambit was a ploy developed by her advisory committee. "From… a dream."

"A dream?" He found the hooks at the side of her harem pants and began to unfasten them. "You dreamed about me?"

"I have lots of dreams about you."

"Wicked dreams, I hope." He slid his hand inside the open placket.

"Delicious dreams." She gasped as he lay back on the bed abruptly, carrying her with him. She floundered as he swung his legs onto the bed and drew her over and astride him. Righting herself, she propped herself up on her arms, shocked by her position… which approximated the meeting of their bodies in passion.

"Tell me about these dreams of yours, sweetheart." He loosened the top of her vest and tucked it out of the way so that it framed a tantalizing display of creamy mounds and taut velvety nipples. "What did I do to you in your dreams, Cleopatra?"

"You unrolled me, then joined me on the rug," she whispered, feeling her body tightening intimately, rousing to the erotic potential of her own words.

"Then you made glorious, naked love to me."

"Tell me how," he murmured, nuzzling his way up her neck.

"Perhaps I should show you, instead." Some remnant of her lessons in seduction popped into her mind. "Long, languid kisses… your sleek tongue stroking mine… wet, hungry kisses…" She demonstrated, boldly exploring his mouth, dragging her teeth along his lips and laving them with her tongue. He groaned and cradled her head in his hands to do the same to her.

"And?" His eyes were like burning coals.

"You stripped my clothes from me, piece by piece." She directed his hand to her half-opened vest. "You peeled the fabric back… kissed me… caressed me…"

Her stream of thought was lost in a torrent of sensation as he pulled her vest from her and tantalized the sensitive tips of her breasts. She squirmed, closed her eyes, and leaned harder against his hands, entreating more, willing him not to stop. But a moment later, he pulled her down so that he could kiss her again and slid his hands breathtakingly down her sides to stroke her thighs through the silky fabric of her costume.

"Then what?" he demanded, between thick, ravishing kisses and masterful caresses. She could scarcely speak. Her whole body was one hot tremor of desire.

"Then you stripped off my bottoms and made me…"

"Made you what?" In a single powerful movement, he lifted her to her knees and began working the bottom half of her costume down her hips.

She sank to the side and in a heartbeat, her bottom half was bare. "What did I make you do?"

He slid over her, rolling her onto her back and dragging his chest across her tingling nipples. As he kissed her, she forgot everything except the heavenly feel of his body sliding onto hers, the rasp of his trousers against her bare legs, the way he filled her arms, her senses, her heart.

"I… forget."

"Then, perhaps I can refresh your memory," he
whispered against her lips. His body stiffened and withdrew for a moment, and when it came back, there was only skin against her skin. "I made you feel hot and feverish." He slid his knee between hers and soon was pressed intimately against her burning core. "And I made your thighs part." Then he flexed and slid his swollen shaft along the hot, sensitive groove of her sex. "And I made you squirm and shudder and sigh with pleasure."

His body arched again and again, and each motion did indeed cause her to shiver and gasp softly. Soon she was tilting her pelvis to meet his thrusts, pressing closer, directing that divine pressure with the subtle movements of her thighs and hips. Wrapping his ribs with her arms and his hips and buttocks with her legs, she strained against him, searching, seeking those sensations that fired her
senses so that the boundaries of her body melted into his.

Tighter, harder, faster… They moved together with
powerful strokes that sent quivers of response radiating through her.

Then her arousal exploded, bursting in her senses, shattering their limits, and for a time spreading her consciousness to the very edges of reality. She clung to him, letting wave after wave of sensation expand outward until it halted and began to contract, returning her to her scorched awareness. She lay sheltered by his body, smoldering with unmet hunger, her appetite only piqued by that taste of pleasure.

"Now," she said urgently, seeking his body with hers, coaxing his hips with her hands. He paused to stare down at her with hunger raging like a fire in his eyes.

"I think you remember this part."

He sank his arm beneath her shoulders, clasping her tightly against him, and began the slow, rhythmic joining of their bodies. Sensation surged with each thrust… hot and ravishing, stretching and filling her, changing her.

When he lay fully imbedded in her glowing heat, he slowed and shifted his weight to one elbow. With his tree hand, he traced her face, her breasts, her lips, her hair. She looked up at him, her eyes now silvery rings surrounding pools of black that bared the workings of her heart to him.

He felt the pull of her gaze and closed his eyes. But as he began to move within her, he felt her liquid heat lapping over him, absorbing him, dissolving his reserve. Even on the backs of his closed eyelids he could see her longing… her call that he meet her there, in that intimacy, in that ultimate giving. She seemed to move both beneath him and within him, like a tide, eroding the granite walls of his self-protection, melting his defenses…