A Kiss of Lies (17 page)

Christian took her mouth and kissed her thoroughly, slanting his mouth over hers, thrusting his tongue in deep to meet hers, while leaving her in no doubt that he wanted her, scars and all. For the first time in her life, she felt desire sweep through her. The aching need for something she could not recognize rose to consume her. She broke away from the kiss and said in wonder, “Oh, Christian, I never knew it could be like this.”

He knelt above her and whispered, “There is so much more to pleasure. I’ll teach you everything.”

Sarah lifted herself up off the bed and kissed his lips in answer.

Christian gently pushed her back down. Resting on his arms above her, he took a few moments to drink in her beauty. She shivered under his gaze. Her honest and open vulnerability kindled a tender ache in his chest, while the rest of his body thrummed with desire.

He would not disappoint her.

Christian wanted her fully and utterly aroused. He kissed the smooth milky skin of her throat and ran his tongue along the delicate arch of her collarbone until his mouth found her sweet, ripe breasts. He teased her nipple, lapping as would a cat with cream, until she arched her back, keening. When his lips finally closed over her nipple, tugging and suckling it fully in his mouth, she gave a cry of surrender.

He moved further down the bed, kissing her stomach, his fingers trailing over her soft skin until he was positioned between her thighs.

He felt tension invade her limbs.

He crooned softly, “Relax, Sarah. I promise I won’t hurt you.” He looked up from
between her thighs and saw a stab of fear in her eyes. “You’ll enjoy what I do next. But if you don’t, tell me and I’ll stop.” He reached and took her hand.

She curled her small fingers around his and, not even hesitating, simply nodded.

Sarah’s tension mounted when he didn’t immediately touch her. She could feel him sitting between her opened thighs, and she knew what he was looking at.

He was looking intimately at her. Peter liked to look in the same way as well. She swallowed back the bitter memories. He was not Peter.

“Perfect. You’re so very lovely.”

But her nerves came screaming back to life when his fingers finally stroked a path up her inner thigh. At first it was a light, teasing touch, sending wicked heat racing across her skin. But soon both his hands trailed up and down her splayed thighs, making her muscles clench. He kept touching her lightly until she felt her body respond further to his petting. Her limbs weakened and she felt herself sink deeper into the mattress.

“I love the way your body responds to mine.” The masculine sensuality of his voice diminished her embarrassment.

With one final stroke, his fingers reached the tangled nest of fair curls between her thighs, and she lifted her head in apprehension.

He admonished her. “Close your eyes, sweetheart,” he commanded. “Just relax and feel and accept the pleasure in my touch.”

One hand knowingly spread her thighs wider, while he ran one fingertip through the wet heat of her swollen inner lips, pressing against her cleft. Sarah gasped into the silent room but continued to allow his playful touch to roam over her feminine softness. Already her body recognized her need better than she herself did.

She could feel his fingers and hear the sound as he glided over flesh already swollen and slick with moisture. Her hips desperately wanted to move as he stroked, firmer and faster. Her body became tight once more, but not from nervous tension.

“Are you ready for more? Do you want more?” His voice was husky and deep.

“Yes. Oh yes.”

She felt him part her feminine folds, and then a finger probed the entrance to her body. He bent and kissed her thigh, sending delicious shivers up her spine. “You’re so wet for me,” he whispered against her skin.

Then she could feel him inside her. His finger gently entering her wet heat made her breath flee her chest altogether. His finger was set to tease, first withdrawing a fraction before returning, and then he seemed to press even deeper. At his gentle but firm ministrations, the rush of sensations sent spasms shivering over her body, and a low moan escaped from her lips.

At her encouragement, one finger became two. “Can you feel your body’s response to me? You like it, don’t you? I knew you would,” Christian stated with satisfaction. “Relax, enjoy, and let it happen.”

Let what happen—an orgasm? She’d never had one in her life. The rollicking sensations he was igniting in her blood thrilled her.

His thumb found the small nub of her sex and he rolled it back and forth, using the moisture from her arousal to glide purposefully over the intimate heart of her.

Her body was swamped with feelings. Sarah arched and gave a harsh cry.

Christian murmured in approval. “Touch yourself. Your breasts are tingling, your nipples are hard. Feel them. Take pleasure in your body’s arousal.”

She refused to feel scandalized by his words. She gave herself over to him and his sensual skills. She tentatively reached up and ran her fingers lightly over her breasts. The peaks throbbed, her nipples were taut, but it was the ache low in her body that gave her an exquisite agony.

Her breaths were coming in little panting gasps and Christian rose on one arm over her and took her nipple in his hot, wet mouth. Her hips lifted completely off the bed, so high she felt his rampant erection.

She got an urgent need to feel him too. She reached between them and wrapped her fingers tentatively around his rigid length. He was like velvet granite in her hands, smooth yet scalding hot. She moved her hand further down and cupped him. His sacs were taut and hard, fit to burst. She molded and lightly squeezed them, as he’d done to her breasts. Then she let her fingers play, running up the length of his shaft to tease the slick slit at the top. He groaned against her breast.

Lifting his head, he looked deep into her eyes. “Grip me tighter. Move your hand on me in time to my fingers within your body.”

At her first glide up and down his hardened length, he took her mouth in a drugging kiss. His tongue slid deep into her mouth, mimicking the urgent thrusts he was making with his
fingers. She tightened her hold on him and moved her hand in a rapidly increasing rhythm.

Soon he was moving his hips in time to her sliding hands, and she matched him, moving her hips just as frantically. She could feel something happening within her body, primal and addictive, calling out to every fiber of her being.

Her whole body was a mass of shudders. Her mouth broke away from his, desperate for air. She felt hot, weak, and yet all powerful at the same time. “Oh, God …!”

“Don’t fight it, let it come,” Christian encouraged her, his voice hoarse and almost desperate against her mouth.

She could feel his fingers probing more insistently, felt his arousal seeping onto the hand with which she pleasured him, and when his thumb once more caressed her slick, hardened nub, flames fanned over her body. She was straining for something, “Please … Christian …,” she heard herself scream.

Finally something scorching and frenzied broke over her, and she shook and shuddered as hot bursts of indescribable pleasure jerked her body taut. A firestorm of sensations saw her flying above herself, her back arched, her body pushing against Christian’s hand, caught in the bursting inferno of shattering release.

Through a vibrant haze of color, she heard Christian give a deep, gravelly groan before his mouth once again took hers in a searing kiss. Then his hips flexed and his hot seed jerked from his body onto her still convulsing stomach.

He collapsed beside her, his ragged breaths matching her own.

Her mind was blank. She couldn’t process the feelings rioting within her chest. Never had she imagined how exquisite intimacy with a man could be. Pippa had tried to tell her, to describe the exhilarating joy and sense of satiation she would feel with the right man.

She turned her head to look at Christian. He was watching her with a look of satisfied triumph. He reached for her hand and squeezed it. “Are you all right?”

She blinked and tried to hold back the welling tears. She had never felt so good. She could barely get out the words. “It was lovely. I really wasn’t sure I’d enjoy it, but …”

He raised her hand and placed a loving kiss on her palm. Then he rose and, grabbing a cloth, walked to her basin and wetted it before returning and gently cleaning his seed off her body. Then he lay next to her, pulling her tight into his arms, spooning her in front of him and stroking his very talented fingers over her curves.

“Was it what you had imagined?”

She shook her head. “No. It was more. It was as if my body wanted to escape my skin. I was flying.…”

He smiled tenderly. “Does that mean you’re not opposed to more? Lovemaking can be even hotter, even more explosive.”

Her mouth curved in a rueful smile. “I don’t see how, but I trust you to introduce me to more.”

At her words, Christian groaned and nipped her shoulder. “I’d like nothing better than to stay here all night and show you how much better passion can get, but I don’t want to overwhelm you on the first night.” He pulled away and pressed a kiss to her back. “It’s not every day a woman experiences her first orgasm.”

Sarah felt fractured, exposed, but still safe. In a small voice she asked, “How did you know?”

He rolled back against her and held her tight. “I saw it in the wonder and surprise and delight written on your face. You don’t hide your emotions. For a man making love to a woman, that sight is irresistible. A woman can easily tell when a man is aroused, but women have been known to fake their excitement.” He rose to peer over her shoulder at her face. “Never hide your passion from me. It arouses me completely.”

She felt her face flood with heat. “When you touch me, I don’t think I could hide anything from you.” That thought doused her euphoria with ice. She had terrible secrets to hide. If he knew what she’d done—no, had been forced to do—would he still look at her with that soft light in his eyes?

He noted her mental withdrawal and misunderstood. “Don’t let your imagination frighten you. I’ll not hurt you even when I’m finally inside you.”

But he was right. The thought of him impaling her with his erection was scary. He was much larger than her husband. Her husband had hurt her.

“It won’t hurt, I promise,” he whispered in her ear as if he understood her fear. “If you are prepared properly, I will fit you easily. You felt how slick and wet I made you. There will be no pain.”

She turned to face him on the bed. She ran her hand over his burns. “Thank you.” She watched his irises darken, and her attention shifted to Christian’s loins. The thick, swollen length
of his erection rose quickly again under her gaze, almost to his abdomen.

“See how your body affects me. It doesn’t mean I’m going to pounce on you. You’re not ready. But soon you’ll be begging me to pleasure you all night.” With that he rose and pulled up his trousers.

“Thank you for having the patience to help me. Not many men would take the time.” She gulped. “Most would take by force.”

His hand halted on the buttons of his trousers. “If your husband wasn’t already dead, I’d kill him as painfully as I could. No woman should ever be taken by force.”

She didn’t have any answer for his fervent declaration. For most of her life she’d been forced to do what others wanted. The freedom she was finding in her new position as a widow was ironic, given that she was a fugitive.

Once he’d finished dressing, he bent and kissed her. When she slipped her tongue into his mouth, he groaned, and the kiss deepened until he pulled back and in a shaky voice said, “You’re testing me to my limits, madam.” He stroked his hand over her hair and whispered, “There will be more of this tomorrow night. The anticipation of what I intend to do to you will only add to your pleasure.”

“I’m already heady with expectation. Tomorrow evening seems a long way away.”

He laughed. It was a glorious sound. She wished he’d laugh more.

“Then I shall have to think of something to occupy you until then. Perhaps you would care for a trip into Kingston?”

She refused to let her horror crowd her face. “Perhaps … although the thought of going into town in this heat, when we have at hand a white sandy beach and clear blue water, is not appealing. I’m sure Lily will agree.” The last thing Sarah wanted to do was to go exploring. What if someone recognized her?

Christian frowned. “Quite right. Lily would hate it.” He sighed and moved to the door. “Sebastian and I have business in town, so perhaps I’ll simply await your company at dinner.”

“I shall look forward to it,” she cooed, her sultry voice unrecognizable to her ears. While married, she’d done all she could not to arouse her husband’s passions. With Christian, she couldn’t help herself. She wanted him inflamed.

He opened the door and had a quick look up and down the corridor. Just before he slipped out, he promised, “I’ll wager not as much as I. Goodnight, darling. Pleasant dreams.”

Sarah sagged flat on the bed and fell into her old habit of biting her lip when worried. All thoughts of pleasure had been vanquished. How could she get Christian to leave this island as soon as possible? She had managed to put off the inevitable for at least another day, but wanting to swim wasn’t going to work every time he asked her to go into Kingston.

Sleep evaded her as she lay pondering just how she would stay hidden while in Jamaica. If she were brave enough, there was one option open to her—to keep Christian otherwise occupied.

No. She wasn’t quite ready for that.

Perhaps she could offer to paint Christian’s portrait. What with Lily’s lessons, and painting, she wouldn’t have time to leave Roaring Pavilions.

It was late in the afternoon. Sarah had been alone on the beach for the last half hour. Lily had gone to have a nap; she’d been exhausted by the sun and sea. Sarah had teased Lily, saying that if she swum any more she’d turn into a mermaid.

Sarah cherished this time to herself. Her life had been a nightmare for so long that she couldn’t really absorb the dream it had now become. She smacked her palms against the fine sand. She had to rid herself of this smug satisfaction. She was still a fugitive, and as such, she would never escape the feeling of forever having to look over her shoulder and hide her true self.