The Truth About Love (41 page)

He studied her. After a moment he said, “I wasn’t sure you’d come.”

She arched a brow. “Did you think I’d be satisfied with one night?”

His shoulders lifted slightly, but she saw the ends of his lips curve as he bent his head. “It’s an unwise man who claims to read a female mind.”

His lips brushed, then covered hers, and she decided his caution was just as well—her mind held precious few thoughts, and even those were spinning away. She sighed into the kiss, then went to sink against him, but he held her back, keeping a space of inches between them.

She didn’t know why, but followed his lead as he deepened the kiss, parted her lips and claimed her mouth—intently, completely. No quarter, but also no hurry. He took everything he could from the kiss, and left her gasping.

Reeling.

“I think,” he murmured, his eyes dark beneath the screen of his lashes, “that before we go any further we should agree on some rules.”

She blinked. “Rules?”

“Hmm. Such as…you remember I warned you that if you came to me I would expect to possess you—all of you—utterly?”

She was hardly likely to forget. “Yes.”

He drank her answer from her lips in a long, lingering sip.

“There’s a corollary to that rule.” He drew back enough to catch her eyes again. Slowly let his hands slide up until they cupped her breasts. His fingers found the tight peaks and played—delicately, too knowingly.

She could barely breathe. “What?”

“Having agreed to be mine utterly, you can’t rescind that state—you can’t not be mine until I release you, until I let you go.”

He never would. Gerrard waited, watched her fight to hold on to sufficient wit to consider his decree…Releasing her breasts, he loosened her sash, parted her robe and slid his hands beneath. Around, past her waist to slide down, over her hips to possessively caress the lush curves of her bottom.

Her gaze grew more distant, her senses following his wandering hands.

“Do you agree?” he prompted.

She refocused on his face, studied his eyes. “Do I have any choice?”

He eased her closer, moving deliberately into her. “No.”

Hands rising to his shoulders, she tipped back her head to keep her eyes on his. “Then why ask?”

“Because I wanted you to know the answer. To understand how things are…will be.”

“I see.” Jacqueline held his gaze as he drew her against him, quelled a reactive shiver at the strength in his hands, wondered what it was she saw burning behind the rich brown of his eyes. “And now I know…what next?”

“Now you know…” He bent his head. “We go on.”

On. That was precisely where she wanted to go; Jacqueline returned his kiss with fervor, eager to learn what path he’d chosen, what sensual avenue he’d set his mind upon.

He shifted, angling his head; the kiss turned heated, demanding. His arms closed around her, locking her to him, then his hands spread, molding her to him, leaving her in no doubt whatever of his rapacious need.

To her surprise, he drew back from the kiss, unhurriedly, as if he knew she was his and intended taking all the time he wished to savor her. Eventually he raised his head; she lifted her lids and looked up at him. He studied her face, searching, she didn’t know for what.

His hand tightened about her bottom, lifting her to him, blatantly shifting her hips against the ridge of his erection.

“The lamps—do you mind if I light them?”

His tone and the predatory look in his eyes suggested the question had sprung from ingrained manners; it was no true request.

“If you wish” was on the tip of her tongue; she caught it back, asked instead, “Why?”

His roving gaze returned to her eyes. “Because I want to see you.” Smoothly, gracefully, he released her, and clasped her hand. “To view you as I make love to you.”

Her senses leapt; she felt giddy. The heat in his eyes beckoned, caressed—promised all manner of illicit delights.

Eyes locked on hers, he raised her hand, brushed his lips across her fingers, then unfurled them and pressed a burningly hot kiss to her palm.

She swallowed, nodded. “Very well.”

Her voice wasn’t entirely steady. He turned her; she dragged in a breath as he led her across the room to where a pair of bronze lamps stood on either end of a narrow side table. On the wall behind the table hung a rectangular mirror, wide and high within an ornate gilt frame.

He halted before the table. Releasing her, he lit one lamp; she tracked him in the mirror as he crossed behind her to light the other. The flames flared, then steadied; he glanced at her, clearly gauging the golden light bathing her. To her surprise, he turned the lamp lower, checking the level of light, then crossed to adjust the other.

When he turned, she swung to face him. He took her hand; she expected him to lead her to the bed—instead, he moved her back, turning her, positioning her before the center of the table, facing the mirror midway between the lamps. He moved to stand behind her; over her head, he looked into the mirror—at her, her body—then lifted his gaze to her eyes. And smiled.

Not his charming social smile but that slight curving of the corners of his lips that was far more sincere—and infinitely more predatory.

“Perfect.” Reaching for her shoulders, he drew her robe down and away. He tossed it aside, over an armchair, but his eyes never left her; as he stepped closer, his gaze lowered from her face. In the mirror she followed his gaze, and saw what he did, the tight peaks of her full breasts standing proud through the fine lawn of her nightgown.

The gown was virginal white, thin and soft, now gilded by the warm glow from the lamps. She’d fastened the long placket to just above her breasts. His gaze drifted lower, over the indentation of her waist and the flare of her hips, and lower, over her stomach to the faint shadow that was the curls at the apex of her thighs. His gaze lingered, then swept slowly on and down, then unhurriedly returned to her face.

The lengthy perusal had heated her; as he studied her eyes she wondered if it showed. She was tensing to turn and face him when he shifted, and lifted her hair. She’d brushed it out; a thick rippling river, she’d left it running down her back. He speared his fingers through it, then raised his hands and lifted the spread veil forward, over her shoulders.

His face a mask, hard, unreadable, he laid the long tresses down. Shaking his fingers free, he studied the result, then artfully shifted this strand, then that, until he was satisfied.

Until her bright brown hair lay partially over her breasts, an inadequate but distracting screen, burnished by the lamplight.

Before she could comment, he reached for her; sliding his hands about her waist, he closed the last inches between them. She felt his hard warmth at her back and relaxed, but his hold on her waist prevented her from sinking back against him.

Holding her before him, he bent his head; through the strands of her hair, with his lips he found and traced her lobe, then dipped to press a long kiss to the sensitive spot behind her jaw.

“Unbutton your nightgown.”

The words whispered past her ear, distilled seduction. She inwardly smiled; catching his eye as he glanced up, into the mirror, she willingly raised her fingers to the highest button, and slid it free.

His hands rode at her waist, hot and strong, fingers tensing as her hands descended. He watched, unblinking, as she slipped each button free.

“Open it. Wide.”

Gravelly, forceful, the quiet words sent a shiver spiraling down her spine. Her gaze locked on the vision in the mirror, she grasped the sides of the nightgown and slowly lifted them apart, drew them aside, revealing her breasts, full, firm, already tight.

The lamplight flowed over her, highlighting planes and curves, casting others in shadow. His gaze didn’t race, but perused her bared flesh in an intense yet leisurely appraisal; under that blatantly assessing, flagrantly male gaze, her nipples furled into painfully tight buds.

He straightened, lifting his head. Still close behind her, he raised his hands—caught her gaze as he closed the fingers of each about the rucked shoulders of her nightgown, and eased it off, and down.

Glancing down, he ran his hands down her arms, freeing them from the gown’s sleeves. “Put your hands on the edge of the table.”

He looked up, met her eyes as, wondering, she slowly obeyed, leaning forward to place her hands on the wooden tabletop, lightly gripping the edge.

“Don’t shift your hands until I give you leave.”

Give her leave
…She was suddenly very certain he was choosing his words deliberately; he was uttering them evenly, as orders, not mere directions. Instructions he expected her to obey…as if she were…his utterly.

His to do with as he pleased.

A shudder racked her, yet she felt no trepidation, not the lightest lick of fear. What she felt was excitement, the dark thrill of wanton desire.

And he was feeding that, scripting the moment—as he wished, perhaps, but why did he wish it? She glanced at his face, the planes austere in the lamplight, his expression stark, not so much impassive as set.

His gaze had left her face to wander down over her breasts, then lower. Her nightgown had gathered in loose folds about her hips. His hands returned, palms sliding bare across her naked skin, warm yet hard, long-fingered, strong as they lightly gripped her waist, then swept, slowly, down.

Over her hips, taking her nightgown with them until it slipped over her thighs and slid to the floor, a soft puddle at her feet.

Leaving her naked, bathed in lamplight.

Her breath caught, her lungs seized. Her nerves coiled tight, every thought, all reaction, frozen as she drank in the sight. Of herself, a golden nymph poised in the lamplight, a faerie being trapped in this world—unreal, ephemeral. Magical.

She recognized her face, her hair, her form. This was her, yet not; what was reflected in the mirror was a truth she’d never seen, a woman she’d never before known.

A siren unveiled.

She felt his gaze, hot as a flame, rove her skin, following her own as, stunned, she examined. Then he looked at her face, studied it; she realized and raised her gaze, met his dark eyes.

He raised his hands, again spanned her waist, then slowly slid them up, palms to her heating skin. Spreading his fingers over her midriff, he gripped and eased her back against him; bending his head, he set his lips to the tip of her shoulder, then traced lightly inward, nudging her head aside so he could lave the pulse thundering at the base of her throat. “Don’t speak, or move. Just look. Watch. And feel.”

She had no choice; fascination held her spellbound, trapped in the fantasy he’d created. A fantasy in which every inhibition had flown, and there was just her, him, and need.

His need to possess her utterly, hers to fulfill that need.

Desire.

It welled as his hands rose beneath the curtain of her hair and closed about her breasts. Her head fell back against his shoulder as his fingers flexed, kneaded; her breath shivered, then suspended on a gasp as he found her nipples, and squeezed. Played.

He knew how to make her frantic, how to call to her desire and send it rushing through her, sweeping all reservations away. It thrummed through her veins, heated her skin until her body glowed with its flame.

From beneath lids suddenly heavy, through the tracery of her lashes she watched as he aroused her, then, as if satisfied with some private assessment, he brushed aside the screening veil of her hair to fully expose her breasts, filling his hands.

Possessed. His to savor as he pleased.

He lifted his head, joined her in her rapt contemplation. His hands moved, pandering to her senses, to his desire. The lamplight touched his face, hard and unyielding; it washed over the flushed curves of her body, painting them soft, giving—vulnerable in their nakedness.

One tanned hand left her breast, splayed across her midriff, then moved down, stroking heavily as if savoring the texture of her skin, then angling over her taut stomach and tensing, pressing in.

Pressing her hips, her bottom, against his hard thighs, tilting them so his rigid erection rode against her, an insistent pressure in the small of her back.

Her senses swelled, her breaths were short, shallow; her head was whirling. The promise of pleasure was so potent she could taste it. Briefly she studied his face, wondered again why he wanted her like this. She could sense the control he was exerting, the grim determination that held him back from simply having her, that allowed him to take her along this road, into an illicit paradise.

It was a type of bondage, one with no physical chains, yet the chains were there—Gerrard knew it. He sensed her gaze on his face, sensed the question forming in her mind. He lowered his gaze, lowered his hand, felt her attention shift, leaving his face to lock on his questing fingers.

He speared them through the tawny curls, caught a few between his fingertips and rubbed, as if gauging their texture. Then he fluffed the curls, and noted she’d stopped breathing. He paused, fingertips poised over the shadowed hollow at the apex of her thighs, to knead her breast, to again squeeze her nipple, tight, then tighter, until her concentration fractured. Until she gasped. Writhed.