Masque of Betrayal (17 page)

The problem still existed, however, that if Alexander’s intuition proved accurate and George Holt were, in fact, Jack Laffey, Holt could be using Jacqueline to obtain information for his columns. If that were true, was Jacqui a willing or an unknowing accomplice?

Dane knew he was too deeply involved with Jacqueline to objectively answer that question. At the same time, he was far from oblivious to the skittishness of her behavior tonight, not to mention the odd fact that she’d been going out alone at eight o’clock in the evening and was strangely unwilling to tell him her destination. Why?

Dane wasn’t certain of the answer, but he
was
certain that he was going to have to keep a watchful eye on his beautiful hellion.

The clock chimed and Dane contemplated going to bed. He dreaded the prospect. All bed seemed to represent these days was endless, sleepless nights.

He wandered over to the sitting-room window, tightening the belt of his black silk robe. There was something exciting and forbidden about a thunderstorm, something that exhilarated Dane, fired his blood. A clap of thunder reverberated through the skies, and the very earth seemed to tremble with its wrath. Lightning followed in its wake, illuminating the saturated ground and drenched grass and …

Dane stiffened, peering into the darkness. He’d seen a movement, fleeting but definite nonetheless. He waited. There it was again. Who the hell was about on a night like tonight?

He was on his way to find out when the knock sounded. He yanked open the front door and found himself staring into Jacqui’s huge midnight eyes, her small frame shivering with cold.

Wrapping her arms about herself, she inclined her head slightly and gazed up at him with her customary directness. “You wanted me to come to you,” she managed through chattering teeth. “Well, I am here.”

For one dazed moment, Dane simply gaped at her in astonishment. Then he reached out and drew her into the house.

“You’re drenched,” he said softly, rubbing her wet arms with his warm hands. “And freezing.” He shook his head. “What am I going to do with you? Come. I don’t want you to become ill.”

He took her into the sitting room, where he left her in front of the fire while he went in search of towels. When he returned, she was huddled on the rug, letting the blazing flames warm her, and looking about with open curiosity.

“Your home suits you,” she said, taking in the elegant Chippendale furniture and walnut-carved easy chairs. “It’s sophisticated and charming … and powerful.”

Dane enfolded her in the towels and drew her against him. “Thank you,
chaton.
” He kissed her hair. “My wet little kitten … whatever possessed you to come out in this storm?”

Their eyes met.

“I ache,” Jacqui admitted with breathless candor, taking the irrevocable step and never looking back. “Make love to me.”

Silence reigned … taut, charged.

“Jacqueline …” Dane enveloped her in his arms, absorbing her cold, wet body with his warmth. He knew he should ask if she was certain, but the question lodged in his throat, refused to be spoken. Instead, he searched her expressive face, saw the undisguised longing written there, and, with the knowledge of how utterly right this was, he gave them what they both so desperately craved. Tenderly, totally, he took her mouth under his, telling her without words that the gnawing hunger that consumed them would, at last, be satisfied.

Jacqui pressed closer still, clutching the soft silken folds of Dane’s robe, closing her mind to everything but the magnificent man who was already making love to her with the lusty strokes of his tongue, the restless movements of his hands as they roamed her body. She met his tongue with her own, feeding their passion, wanton and unafraid.

Small puddles of water pooled onto the floor beneath them and were absorbed into the plush woven carpet, but neither Jacqui nor Dane noticed. With a swift, purposeful motion, he lifted her and placed her on her back, tugging her wet clothes off even as he continued to kiss her with bone-melting thoroughness. Jacqui gave herself to the magic, wanting it as much as Dane did, trusting him to give her body the blissful relief it sought.

The fanning heat of the fire spread through Jacqui’s limbs as Dane peeled her soaked chemise away and tossed it aside. Her pulse racing, she watched him kneel beside her, gaze at her nakedness with a scorching intensity that singed her blood and drove all traces of the remaining chill into burning oblivion.

“Breathtaking …” he said in a ragged whisper, barely able to speak past the tightness in his chest. She exceeded his every dream, put to shame his most erotic fantasy. He wanted to drink her in all at once, to forever etch upon his memory the sight of her flawless nudity as it was diffused by firelight, the elegant curves softly aglow, the sleek hollows concealed by shadows. Reverently, Dane’s eyes caressed her, beginning with her heavy, mahogany tresses, over the flawless perfection of her face, down the slender column of her neck to the rounded fullness of her breasts. Her nipples responded as if they’d been touched, hardening and throbbing beneath his consuming stare. Dane drew a deep, ragged breath, trying valiantly to control the passion that threatened to beat its way outside his body. But control it he would. He’d waited an eternity for this, and now that it was finally here, he wanted it to last forever.

Slowly, his hot gaze traveled lower; lingering on Jacqui’s small waist, the gentle curve of her hips, the long, tapered legs and silky thighs, and, at last, the soft, dark nest that was the haven of all he sought.

Jacqui lay absolutely still, as Dane’s openly carnal scrutiny swept through her like a narcotic. She wanted nothing more than to pull him down to her, to beg him to fill the void he’d created inside her. She shifted restlessly, feeling no modesty or shame in her nakedness, but totally urgent in her need.

Dane heard her silent plea.

“I know, darling,” he murmured in a raw voice, reaching down to lightly caress her breasts. “I feel it, too.” He defined her softness with his fingertips, letting his hands learn the beauty that his eyes had only just uncovered: the silken weight of her breasts, her warm, smooth abdomen, the quivering wonder of her inner thighs. He watched her lips part, the rapid rise and fall of her labored breaths, the glazed, unfocused look in her dark blue eyes as she writhed beneath his touch, and he felt that he would surely go up in smoke. “Soon,” he promised in a dark whisper, gliding his palm down to graze the tight curls between her legs. His hand shook, tightened possessively. “Very soon,
mon chaton
.”

“No,” she countered, unable to wait another second, “now.” She raised up and tugged insistently at his sleeves, greedy and impatient. Dane chuckled at her undisguised eagerness; but his laughter died in his throat as her small hand found its way into the opening of his robe, made its first contact with the hard wall of his bare chest. He sucked in his breath as, slowly, with wonder and curiosity, Jacqui discovered his body, gliding her fingers through the soft, dark chest hair, finding the steely muscles that defined his massive frame. Her other hand joined the search, and she eased more of the material away from his broad shoulders so that she could see as well as feel the powerful man that was shuddering beneath her fingertips.

Dane closed his eyes, the erotic feel of her hands lighting a brushfire to his blood, driving him so dangerously close to the ragged edge of control that each tentative caress threatened to push him over the brink. His body was painfully rigid, a heartbeat from eruption, and he knew in mere seconds it would be too late.

Tearing himself from her touch, he shrugged out of his robe in one fierce movement and dragged Jacqui off the carpet and into his arms. Swiftly, deliberately, he melded her nakedness to his, groaning harshly at the most excruciatingly euphoric contact he had ever known.

Jacqui whimpered his name, her senses flooded with the drowning pleasure of her totally unclothed body crushed to his. It felt wonderful … unbearable … and she needed more. Now.

Guided by instinct, she rubbed her breasts sensuously against Dane’s chest, hearing his agonized gasp. Vitally aware of his huge, pulsing erection throbbing against her soft belly, Jacqui boldly pressed herself closer still, amazed by the heat, the enormous size and power of his arousal … and by her body’s own immediate response. The ache that was building inside her grew until it became unendurable in its intensity, and a rush of wetness flowed through her, pooling heavily between her legs. Helplessly, she arched her lower body to Dane’s, silently begging him to alleviate the torment.

Dane went wild.

He barely heard Jacqui’s joyful cry of surprise as he pushed her backward onto the carpet, covering her with himself. He had wanted to wait, to take his time arousing her, to fully possess her only when she was openly pleading with him to do so. He had promised to love her slowly, to make it last forever. But she had made that impossible, pushing him beyond his limits with her innocent sensuality and the seductive motions of her lush, tantalizing body. At this point, he was so desperate for completion that he had to get inside her now, or spill himself waiting.

He pressed her thighs apart with his knee, feeling her open herself still farther to accommodate his weight. With his last shred of sanity, he slid his hand between them to find and caress the warm delicate flesh he’d claimed Saturday as his own, the satiny wetness that told him she was more than ready for their union.

With elation and triumph, he caught her face in his hands, feeling the heat of her flushed cheeks, her erratic pants, seeing his own urgent need reflected in her eyes.

“Jacqui …” He settled his hips in the cradle of her thighs, the tip of his rigid shaft nudging the moist, heated entrance it sought. Even that teasing contact caused pleasure to course through them both in relentless waves, and Dane pressed his forehead to hers, desperately trying to bring himself under a control that had long since evaporated.

“Dane … don’t stop … not now. …” Jacqui lifted herself to take more of him, frantic now to feel him inside her, desperate in her drive for fulfillment.

Feeling her body’s natural resistance, Dane shook his head intently, bracing his hands on either side of her and locking his arms to hold himself away. “I won’t hurt you,” he bit out, sweat dotting his forehead. Gradually, he eased forward, an inch at a time, determined to merge his body with hers as slowly and painlessly as possible, refusing to give in to the clamoring wildness both their bodies demanded, no matter how great the urge was to do so.

He should have known Jacqui would have other ideas.

With a soft whimper of protest, she twined her arms around Dane’s neck, wrapped her legs about his waist, and arched up to meet him. Open and wet, she glided around him, stretching to take him deeper, and put an end to all his noble intentions.

A red haze exploded inside Dane’s head, and with a feral growl, he gave in to the inevitable, surrendering to the flaming inferno their joining was always destined to be, burying himself inside her in one savage thrust.

He went deadly still at her cry of pain, the feel of her delicate membrane tearing as he made her his.

“Jacqui … love …”

She clutched at his sweat-drenched back with possessive hands. “Please … don’t leave me … not yet.”

“Not ever,” he rasped. “Not … ever. …”

He began to move in deep, rhythmic thrusts, aware of nothing save the lush softness of her body beneath him, the tight clasp of her slick, hot passage all around him, caressing him, driving him out of his mind. The world spun away, and there was only Jacqueline and the exquisite reality that was theirs at last. Dane pushed deeper and deeper inside her, burying himself fully only to withdraw and press higher, farther into her honeyed wetness, intent on possessing her more totally than any woman had ever been possessed.

Jacqui was lost in pure, dazzling sensation. She cared nothing for the brief, sharp pain that had accompanied Dane’s entry. … In fact, she’d welcomed it as a gateway to the dizzying pleasure that was escalating within her. She clung to Dane, feeling the powerful muscles of his back contract with each plunging stroke. Instinctively, she began to undulate her hips to meet him, intensifying the already painful pleasure that coiled tighter and tighter, until she felt sure she would die.

Dane kissed her face, her mouth, her neck, her breasts, finally sliding his hands beneath her to lift her into his thrusts, to impale her with his fiery hardness. Again and again their bodies merged in a mating that was savage, plummeting, frenzied, urgent. Jacqui began to cry out beneath him and Dane drank in the sound as it mingled with the hoarse rasps that were torn from his chest. And then she arched, calling out his name in a shocked, wild little cry that he would remember for the rest of his life.

They both felt the hard, gripping spasms of her body as it contracted around his, and Dane held himself perfectly still, absorbing every glorious pulsation of her climax. Jacqui dug her nails into his back, letting the ecstasy wash over her in great, untamed waves of splendor, sobbing his name over and over as the rapture spun itself out.

Abruptly, Dane went taut above her, seized by helpless shudders that wracked his broad frame and distorted his handsome features into a mask of agonized pleasure.

“Jacqueline … my God, Jacqui …” The words were torn from his chest, followed by a wild, exultant shout that made the tempest of sensation wash through Jacqui anew. Still reeling with her own aftershocks, she felt Dane lunge forward, onto her and into her, heard his husky voice begging her to take him, to hold him … to love him. Tenderly, she wrapped her arms around his back, closing her eyes at the unexpected feelings that claimed her in that final moment of passion. She felt the burst of wet heat within her as Dane gave himself to her, poured himself endlessly inside her, and melded their bodies so close that they were one.

Long moments passed before the maelstrom of sensation had subsided and their breathing had returned to normal. Dane buried his face in the damp satin of Jacqui’s hair. “I knew it would be like this.” His voice was laced with wonder. “It never was before, but with us … I knew we would touch heaven … this time, every time.” He gave a deep, resigned sigh. “God help me, but I love you, Jacqueline. And I plan to have you … always.”