All Through the Night (22 page)

She tried to find the will to move but couldn’t.

“Pretty Anne,” he murmured.

He withdrew his hand from her breast. She made a sound of protest. She heard a sleek suckling sound and then his hand was back, tanned and strong against her white skin, and he was stroking the areola of her exposed breast, anointing it with the moisture from his mouth.

The firelight glistened on the dampened tip. His breath grew deeper, harsher. Idly he rolled her nipple between thumb and forefinger. “A pretty thief and liar.”

“I’m not,” she whispered hoarsely, arching into his touch, her bottom lifting from the chair to afford him better access.

Uncomplicated pleasure? There was nothing uncomplicated about this.

“A thief? Or pretty? I disagree.” He nuzzled beneath her ear, his tongue drawing a slow moist line down her throat. Her head rolled to the side.

“I’m not a liar,” she whispered.

He ignored her. “I have my own theory, you know. Would you like to hear it?”

God, how could he sound so unaffected, so casual? Her body ached with tension, quivered like a bow strung too tautly.

“Would you?” he asked.

He sucked gently on her earlobe. His fingers between her legs worked as delicately and thoroughly as a watchmaker’s. She closed her eyes and heard herself moan.

“May I take that as a yes?”

Her heart trip-hammered in her chest. Waves of pleasure rolled through her like distant thunder, centering at the point between her legs that he teased.

“You do it because you enjoy it.” His voice was as smoky and seductive as vice, so low it seemed an extension of her own thoughts. “All of London spread beneath you. No skirts binding you. No restraints. Nothing to tie you to the past or the future.”

Warlock. Sorcerer.
His words echoed in her mind with an opiate’s allure while he played with her body, searing her with need. She turned her face and his silky, fine hair rubbed against her cheek. “Jack—”

Abruptly he slipped a finger deep inside her, stretching the tight closing. She bucked against the sudden invasion. He looped his arm around her waist, imprisoning her against the chair as his finger toyed with the opening to her body. Slowly, purposefully he eased another finger in. Surely she would die. She gulped. “Please—Jack—”

“Quiet.” A fine note of tension had crept into his voice, a razor’s edge of steel. “You steal because it excites you. Don’t you?”

His fingers within her flexed. The heel of his hand rubbed hard against the mound. “Don’t you?”

“Yes.” The admission came on a sigh.

He stopped. She would go mad. “Please.” He withdrew his hand. She sobbed, wrenching her head around.

For the first time since he’d begun his tormenting seduction, she saw his eyes. A few inches away from her, they blazed, afire with pain and desire, stark and brutalized with need.

“Wrong,” he said savagely. “You did it so you would be caught. Because you wanted to be punished.”

She stared at him, stricken by the anguish in his voice.

“Tell me, Anne, did you imagine I would be punishment enough?”

She shook her head so violently her hair flailed his face and spilled over his hands and arms. He caught her by the shoulders, stilling her.

“Well, madam,” he said grimly, “let’s find out.”

“You were never my punishment,” she said in that naked voice, and he wanted to believe her.
Too bad.
What he wanted made not the least bit of difference.

“No?” he said carelessly, as if her words couldn’t matter to him, didn’t mean pain or pleasure. “Well then, perhaps you’re mine.”

She just stared up at him, damn her pretty eyes. She looked so uncomprehending, so lost. Her hair fell in a dark cloud about her shoulders; her one breast swelled sweetly above the tight edge of her neckline; her long legs had fallen apart in sumptuous relaxation.

He could feel his careful, monumental detachment crumbling as he stared into her blue-black eyes. He resented the fact that though she looked like a lovely, sated demirep she still inspired such tenderness in him. Touching her was like touching a raw, exposed nerve. Yet—God help him—he couldn’t leave her alone. Just as he couldn’t let anything happen to her, had to keep her safe from Jamison.

But who is going to keep her safe from you?
He ground the thought down. She didn’t need saving from this. She wanted this. She sought sexual pleasure like an addict seeks its opiate. She melted into each stroke, arched into each caress, quivered for the release he withheld.

He strove to regain some control. The control she’d stolen from him in that upstairs room, tied to that damn chair, sobbing with desire for her.

“Isn’t this what you want?” he asked. He rounded to the front and loomed above her. She gazed up at him helplessly.

He wanted her frightened.

He wanted to make love to her.

She angled her head up. Her hands still clenched on the arms of that damn chair, just as he’d told her. Damnation, it was like looking at a child’s flip-book: the thief merged into Anne, Anne became the thief, both mingled together until he could not say what was real and what was a construction.

“What?” She sounded disoriented. Her pupils were dilated. She looked heartbreakingly vulnerable.

“Moments existing alone,” he replied tonelessly, “unconnected with one another. No guilt. No consequences. Just sex.”

He knelt down before her. Heated by the fire, the perfume of her arousal filled his nostrils. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, opening his lips just a little to taste her spice.

Dear God, he must have her. He would do whatever was necessary to seduce her. He would offer her respite from whatever demons plagued her, promise her pleasure without accountability. Pretend he raped her if that’s what she needed to enjoy this.

“Freedom is an illusion, Anne,” he said. “You can truly separate yourself from your actions only if someone else accepts liability for them.”

He’d begun stroking the side of her face and throat with his knuckles, unable to keep from touching her. She shivered uncontrollably.

At least her body possessed a certain honesty. Even the most consummate actress couldn’t feign responses like these. It was the only advantage he had in a wholly mismatched encounter.

“I’ll accept the liability,” he said, slowly rolling her skirts up her lax legs. “I’ll take the blame. But that means that I take control.”

He dipped his head down and pressed little kisses along the inner curve of one breast while his hand slipped up along her thighs. Smooth, firm muscle lay beneath the silky skin.
The legs of an athlete. No, a thief.

He roved higher and, finding her heated core, began lightly fingering her. Her breath hitched ... as did her hips. He withdrew his hand. His fingertips gleamed.

Holding her gaze, he slowly lifted his fingers to his mouth. Languidly, deliberately, he lapped the moisture from his fingertips. Her eyes widened in shock. He sucked the tips of his fingers, letting her see how much he enjoyed her taste.

There.
He saw the suggestion blossom in her thoughts, disturbing her, shaming her, and exciting her. She wanted him to taste her, deeply and completely.

He would happily oblige. But not yet. Not until he had her complete submission.

His gaze feasted on her face. She squeezed her eyes shut, all her concentration centering on hoarding the sexual sensations. He eased two fingers into her. Her face lifted and her lips parted as if in supplication.

Others accounted him a powerful man, yet he’d never felt it so. He’d never felt strong until now, when he had the ability to bring Anne to climax. He stretched his fingers a bit within the sleek, heated channel. Her breath hitched again.

“Think of it,” he whispered against her velvety throat. “Perfect freedom. Unaccountable. Exempt from whatever happens. An innocent bystander. My victim.”

He scraped his nail against the sleek nub. She moaned. Her eyelids trembled.

He withdrew his hand. Her eyes flew open and she stared at him in pained accusation. She reached out, grasped the edge of his shirt in her fists, and ripped it open. Lust jolted through him.

“Keep your hands on the arms of the chair,” he said, struggling for a dispassionate tone. “You can’t be victim and villain, Anne. Only one role per person.”

He wouldn’t be able to continue if she touched him, wouldn’t be able to wrest from her some small portion of what she’d taken from him. And that was important.

He clung to the concept, unsure now why, only knowing he wouldn’t give this to her too, when he’d given her so much. He had to keep some small part of himself inviolable.

Hesitantly she complied. “But—”

He leaned over her and stopped her words with a deep, rough kiss. He lined the seam of her lips with his tongue.

“Open your mouth,” he muttered. She complied like the good girl-child she looked, and his tongue swirled deep within, feeding on the sweet taste of her.

She gave to him willingly, too willingly, arching up trustingly. He pushed the self-loathing away, clinging instead to the sensation of her mouth pressing against his in a long, passionate kiss.

Finally he broke contact. She looked as dazed as he felt. He wanted one more thing from her. He tipped her chin up with his index finger and bent down, flicking his tongue along her throat and collarbone, tasting her fresh, slightly soapy, slightly salty flavor along with that of his own damnation.

“Say ‘Please, Jack,’ ” he whispered.

“Jack.” There would be triumph in his gaze. She didn’t know why, she was beyond thinking, but she’d expected triumph. He wanted to hurt her, that much was clear. But there was no triumph. There only was pain. He flinched at the sound of her entreaty.

“Please.” She bowed her head, feeling stupid and frantic and desolate, struggling to give him whatever he wanted so he would end this torture ... for both of them.

He lowered his head to her bare breast and tongued her areola with deep lush strokes, finally taking the nipple into his mouth and suckling until she was lost in the rhythm. His head shimmered like molten gold against her white skin. Even the cool silky texture of his hair chafed her over sensitized skin.

“Please.” Her body felt as if she were staked in the center of a delicious conflagration, conscious thought burned to an ash, her very will swirling away in a maelstrom of want. “Jack?”

“I’m here.” His hands and mouth flowed over her, touching areas she didn’t have names for, moving with shattering intimacy and devastating knowledge. And when he took them away she thought she would dissolve, sucked down into an endless vacuum of need.

“Don’t stop!”

“I’m not going to stop,” he reassured her. He sounded almost gentle. Ever since he’d begun this, though his touch had been excruciatingly gentle, his tone had not.

He lifted her skirts, bunching the crumpled red-violet silk around her waist, exposing her to his impartial gaze. He looked up.

No. Not impartial.
Something burned deep behind the glacial coolness, like the fluid heart of a volcano beneath a lake of ice.

“Why are you so damnably beautiful?”

He couldn’t tease her anymore, couldn’t torment her with promises.

He could.

He lowered his head between her thighs and harrowed her a thousand ways. Each flick of his tongue stoked the fire that threatened to consume her. Each brush of his lips turned pleasure into exquisite pain. Everything he did to her promised, none satisfied. Her breasts felt swollen, her nipples ached. Every inch of her flesh felt abraded and tender.

She bit her lip. She did not want to sob. If she had any pride, any decency, she’d get up. She’d leave. But her limbs were liquid and impotent; all her energy was concentrated on what he was doing to her with unimaginable skill.

That was what this was all about, wasn’t it? she thought. A demonstration of his power and her powerlessness.

“Give in to it, Anne.” Sorrow laced his seductive voice. Sorrow and regret. “You aren’t accountable.”

His tongue flickered over the threshold to her body, swept within the folds of her femininity, and touched the heart of the ache. A small strangled sound rose from somewhere. Her own throat, she realized dimly.

His breath was warm, a sigh that stimulated. “Just take the pleasure and leave the rest behind.”

But that wasn’t what she wanted. That had never been what she’d wanted, despite what he thought. She wanted him. She tried to find the breath to form words between her shallow pants.

“Please.” She reached down and grabbed fistfuls of his silken hair and forced his head up. He stared up at her with the face of a fallen angel.

“Be there with me, Jack,” she pleaded. “Don’t make me do this alone.”

He wouldn’t be able to do it.

One look into her stricken face and he felt himself breaking apart, his every intention destroyed and shredded in the face of her need. No matter what he knew, how many deceits and crimes he could prove in a thousand ways by a thousand witnesses, he loved her.

His heart had performed an act of sedition, a revolt against reason, a mutiny against a lifetime dedicated to his own survival. He was powerless. She’d only to offer the plea of obsidian eyes and he shattered before her.

“Please,” she whispered again.

He groaned and surged to his feet, scooping her up into his arms. Her body was as light and tempered as an epee. Yet strong as she was, he could kill her without any effort. Her fragility confounded him. Her strength abashed him.

He carried her the few feet to the desk and lowered her to its edge. She clasped the edges of his torn shirt and peeled it from his shoulders. She stroked his arms and his chest with a shaking hand, as if she were afraid he would stop her and she needed to collect as many sensations as quickly as possible.

She needn’t have worried, he thought, his mouth twisting. He wouldn’t stop her if a gun were held to his head.

He pushed her bodice down around her waist, a little too rough in the execution of the act, tearing the sleeves.
A little eager, Jack?
he taunted himself. He needed to go slowly, to be gentle. He had to make it good for her.

Lord, he should be used to restraint by now. He’d become a disciple to perpetual arousal, disciplined to months of unappeased longing. It didn’t seem to matter.

She touched him, her fingers fumbling inexpertly at his trousers—sweet agony-dealing incompetence—and closed about his erection with unskilled ardor. Her touch unleashed upon him a torrent of sensation.

“Jack,” she whispered, nearly undoing him. Her eyes were closed. The pale lids looked brushed with light, like a mist of pearls. “Jack?”

There was that lost sound again. He knew better than to believe in it. But there was nothing left for him to believe in and, God, at least he could choose his illusion.

“I’m here.”

He hooked her legs around his waist, planing his palm down the long, smooth line of her thigh and calf to the delicate arch of her foot. She wriggled, trying to get closer, desperate for the climax.

“Please, Jack.”

When had the words meant to punish her become a benediction?

He rucked up her skirts, cupped her firm, rounded bottom in his hands, and lifted her.

Her arms twined about his neck, pulling his head to meet hers. Her body shuddered, raked with need. He reached between them to give her the end she sought.

Her eyelids drifted open. Beautiful eyes. Tragic eyes. “No!” she whimpered. “Please, Jack.
With
me.”

His mouth came down on hers and he enveloped her in his arms, holding her body as close as he could— breast to breast, belly to belly, each inch of flesh struggling to absorb her.

“Jack?”

“I’m here.” There was nothing he would deny her.

And then he was inside her, drowning in her embrace.

He moved with violent elegance, a big man, a strong man. She clung to him, absorbing his thrusts, passion tumbling her like a pebble caught in the ocean’s undertow. Wave after shattering wave rolled through her body, each one pitching her higher than the last.

“Jack?” She sought him now, needed him now more than ever. She clung to the anchor of his big body. Pleasure seared her. Not yet there . . . not yet . . .

“Please, Jack!”

“
Anne
.” Her name on his lips finished her.