Rogue Countess (29 page)

He dipped his head to claim a short but drugging kiss. He drew her tongue into his mouth in a swift sucking motion and then released her nearly as quickly as he had claimed her.

A whimper sounded at the back of her throat.

A faint smile curved his beautiful mouth. And then his gaze lowered and his hand traveled down the length of her neck. His fingertips rested for just a moment over the frantic pulse at the base of her throat. Then he began to release the tie that cinched the neckline of her nightgown. She shifted uneasily beneath him, excited and impatient. His hands stilled and he looked back up to her face. Anna committed to memory the vision of his face right then as he looked upon her with admiration and desire, and she hoped desperately, with a little affection as well.

“No more hiding?” he asked in a low velvety whisper that barely broke the sweet and heavy silence surrounding them.

He was right. The desire that swirled between them overwhelmed everything else. The shadows of the past fell away and there was no room between them for distrust or fear. Her body warmed with rising passion and her breath was shallow with the feverish expansion of need within her. She hid nothing from him then. She opened her soul and her heart to his gaze, surrendering to him completely.

“No more hiding,” she confirmed with a catch on her voice.

“Please trust me, Anna,” he murmured as he dropped a light kiss on her lips.

She closed her eyes tightly and tears pricked behind the lids. She took a deep breath, needing to ask the same of him. But Jude parted the edges of her gown and bared her breasts and the words dissolved into an airy gasp. He lowered his head and claimed one proud peak with his mouth in a suckling drawing caress. The heat of his mouth and the swirling attention of his tongue over her sensitive flesh had her arching helplessly off the bed. The muscles of her thighs clenched as silken moisture flooded her secret flesh. She wrapped her hands around the curving muscles of his shoulders, pressed her fingernails into his skin.

Yet he took his time with her. Despite her impassioned response, he kissed her slowly, dragging his mouth over the soft skin of her breasts, laving her nipples with his skilled, attentive tongue. She arched against him and he murmured soothing words across her body.

Her legs grew restless, shifting against the mattress. He reached down and wrapped his warm hand around the firm curve of her calf. Her nightgown had worked up over her knee and he drew his hand in a luxurious slide along the length of her leg. He pressed his fingers into her strong, narrow calf muscle then caressed the sensitive skin at the back of her knee with teasing strokes of his fingertips. When he slid his hand under the weight of her thigh, she bent her knee and brought her foot up against the mattress, opening herself to him. He explored higher. His fingers danced with skillful attention over her skin, gently kneading and caressing the muscles.

As he paid wicked homage to the tender flesh of her breasts with the decadent attention of his mouth and lips and tongue, he didn’t stop the slow easing movement of his hand along the length of her thigh.

It was velvet and silk. Heavenly torment and sweet aching fire.

Anna’s hands smoothed up and down the defined muscles of Jude’s upper arms, loving the strength in him, loving the control he maintained, loving the careful and deliberate attention he paid to her body. She was sinking deeply into a sensual haze, and she needed more. Her back bowed off the bed and her knee bent higher as she pressed her foot firmly into the mattress, trying to bring her body into closer contact with him.

His mouth lifted from her breasts to claim her mouth in a penetrating, breath-stealing kiss. He slid his hand at her thigh up to cup the firm curve of her buttock and he leaned into her, giving her some of his weight. It was exactly what she wanted, what she needed. She wrapped her arms around the width of his strong back and held onto him in a fierce and desperate embrace as she returned his kiss with passionate response.

The heavy pattern of his rapid heartbeat reverberated through her chest. He drew his breath in swift gasps as his mouth moved with searing possession over hers.

Then, in another quick and fluid move, he wrapped his arms around her back, pulled her roughly against him and rolled over onto his back, bringing her with him. She was surprised to find herself suddenly straddling his reclining form with her knees bent up along his sides. The neckline of her nightgown had fallen off her shoulder, completely baring one full breast. The covers had shifted between them and the hem of her nightgown bunched and twisted around her hips.

She gasped and shivered when the throbbing folds of her sensitive sex came to rest hotly against his bared loins.

Jude gripped her hips in his hands and pulled her body along his in a delicate rocking motion. Her heavy-lidded eyes flew to his face and she reached out to press her palms against the muscle banding his chest. She splayed her fingers wide over his ribcage as he slid her along the solid silken length of his arousal again. The moisture from her body eased the friction as the hard ridge of his erection teased her aching flesh. His gaze followed her intently as the slick and intimate glide between their bodies drew her into a deeper realm of pleasure. Consuming heat spread out from her sex to her limbs and across her chest. An uncontrollable shudder passed through her body and she dropped her chin. Her braid had loosened and a curtain of black hair fell down around her face.

“Anna,” Jude uttered hoarsely, “Look at me.”

She did, lifting her head and shaking the hair back from her face. The sight of him beneath her nearly stopped her breath. She had never seen his eyes so deeply, stunningly blue. She had not thought to ever know what it felt like to be watched as he watched her then. His full attention was focused upon her face, her body, her every tiny movement. His hands flexed at her hips, his eyes fell to her parted lips. With a groan, he reached up to grasp her face between his hands. He pulled her down to him at the same time that he curved his upper body and lifted himself from the bed.

They met in the middle in a searing, consuming, mind-melding kiss. He demanded all of her in that kiss. He drew upon her soul and pulled at her heart and the fire of his desire surrounded her and mixed with her own until she wondered if they might burst into flames. When he pulled his mouth from hers, Anna opened her eyes and drew in a ragged breath.

“You are so beautiful. I can’t wait.” Jude’s voice was a rough growl in his throat. “Are you ready?”

Anna nodded. She had been ready for him from the moment he had walked into the masquerade.

Jude released her and reached down between them to place himself against her swollen heated sex. Anna pressed her hands against his chest, lifting herself away from him in an attempt to ease the pressure of his entrance. She instinctively arched her back and caught her bottom lip between her teeth as the hot pulsing length of him deliberately stretched her, filled her. His expression was tense with concentration and will-power as he forced himself to proceed slowly.

She watched him carefully.

She was nearly mindless with the overwhelming feelings of love and desire flooding her consciousness, but she did not miss the moment she had been waiting for. The moment when Jude realized the barrier within her. As soon as she felt the burning pressure and saw the flicker of question cross his features and sensed the slight retreat of his body, Anna tightened her thighs around his hips. Before he could react, she took control and pressed herself down against him, taking him in that final length.

Her head fell back, and the slight pain of her rendered maidenhead receded quickly to the back of her mind as the pulsing heat of his body took up the empty space within her. Instinct and passion guided her as she lifted herself slowly along his length and then came back down again. Jude groaned and arched his head back, the muscles of his neck corded with fierce tension. Anna would have smiled then, if she had been capable of thinking past the building storm of pleasure within her body.

She continued to move over him. Claiming and retreating. Without thought or concern beyond the driving pleasure.

With a dangerous growl of passion, Jude reached up to pull her nightgown free from her body. With all of her finally bared to his gaze, he groaned again as if straining to hold back. He reached for her, his hands first encircling her small waist, then pressing up along her ribcage, then covering the soft mounds of her breasts, kneading them and delicately pinching the peaks.

Anna panted for breath as the storm rose to a feverish pitch. The maelstrom of fiery pleasure nearly blinded her as she strained for something just out of reach. Relief washed over her when Jude grasped her hips in his hands and guided her rhythm to one that immediately sparked a delicate eruption of new sensation within her. The flames grew brighter and stronger and Anna thought she might die with the rapid spreading of tension and fire through her body.

“Look at me, sweetheart. No hiding,” Jude commanded.

She hadn’t even realized that her eyes had been squeezed tightly shut. As soon as she met his gaze, a sudden explosion of pulsing pleasure overtook her and she arched helplessly as her entire body shuddered with the unbelievable release that flew through her on wings of bright sensation. A small part of her awareness reveled in watching Jude’s own release as he arched beneath her, his golden head thrown back, his hands gripping her hips tightly against his loins as he pumped his seed deep into her body.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Jude woke feeling fully rested. More than that, he realized as he floated up into consciousness. He felt…sated.

Gauzy memories of Anna’s enchantingly sexy body moving over his flashed through his mind. The distinctly mysterious taste of her skin was still on his tongue and the heat of her passion still saturated his flesh.

Then another memory pierced his awareness like a rapier. A delicate discovery that been nearly forgotten in the gripping climax that had followed. But Jude recalled it now with fine detail, and his pleasant awakening was suddenly flipped on its head. He sat up in the bed, already knowing that he was alone. She had left as efficiently and as silently as she had come to him. Barely a trace of her remained beyond what he had trapped in his memory.

Sweeping the covers aside, he moved to the edge of the bed to rise and did not miss the faint smear of blood staining the white sheets. Evidence that it had not been a lucid dream.

He clenched his jaw against the maddening confusion clouding his brain and quickly dressed.

A
virgin
. How was that possible?

In all the years he had been gone, how had she remained untouched? She was a beautiful woman with an innate sexual appeal that would have piqued the interest of innumerable men. Yet she’d remained a virgin. An innocent.

And she had intentionally perpetrated the deception. She never once tried to contradict the small comments he had made over the weeks about her being intimately involved with other men. Lord Riley in particular. The entire world took it for granted that she and the playboy were longtime lovers.

He glanced quickly to the clock and cursed the lateness of the hour.

Last night had tipped the scales. No more secrets, no more deceptions.

What manner of woman would pretend to be an adulteress even up to the last moment? The fire and passion she had unleashed in those darkened hours tormented his brain as he tried to fit it all in with the discovery that prior to his possession, her maidenhead had been intact. He was tired of feeling as if he traveled through the dark when it came to his own wife. He had stumbled far too many times and he was not going to take another step until he knew where he stood.

The stables were empty. The grooms were busy with other tasks, and he could tell by George’s vacant stall that Anna was still gone on her ride. Jude found a darkened corner to wait for her return. And as he waited, he couldn’t keep from reliving the details of those deeply pleasurable moments when she had been his completely. The experience had been unlike anything Jude had ever known. Every image, scent and sound was vibrant and alive in his memory. So much so that he managed to incite himself to a sharp peak of desire for her again.

He started pacing up and down the aisle of the stables, his imagination bringing up images of tying up his recalcitrant wife so she couldn’t slip away and forcing her to finally give him some truth. But then the image of having her at his mercy in such a way triggered a seductive turn in how the scene would play out, ending with her shivering and naked and begging for his touch. He fully intended to indulge in bringing that particular fantasy to fruition.

But first some questions needed answering.

Blast and damn. Where the hell was she? His limited store of patience depleted, Jude went in search of a servant. He found a stable hand he was familiar with and the man told him that after her ride, Lady Blackbourne had an appointment at Tattersalls. She could be gone for several hours.

Jude’s disappointment was flashing as he quickly recalled there might be another source available for the information he sought. He ordered a horse saddled and bridled.

He needed to pay someone a visit.

It was still early in the day when Jude arrived at Riley’s residence. The decrepit and obviously tired butler tried to advise Jude that Lord Riley was not home to callers.