Seven Nights in a Rogue's Bed (7 page)

By the time he raised his head, she trembled with fear, resentment, and unwilling sensual reaction. She sucked in her first breath in what felt like an hour and opened dazed eyes. He was so close, she had to lean back before his features came into focus. He watched her with an alertness that contradicted the kiss’s leisurely sweetness.

“You shouldn’t have done that.” She wished she sounded appalled rather than beguiled.

The breeze played with her untidy hair, wafted strands across her eyes. Beneath her, Kismet was still. Merrick’s bay nosed desultorily at some seaweed. A few feet away, waves crashed upon the beach. When Merrick kissed her, all she’d heard was her heart’s wild dance. She’d been deaf to everything else. Including dictates of self-preservation.

With one gloved finger, he traced an invisible line down her cheek. Last night he’d touched her naked breast like this. The memory spurred the outrage she should have summoned when he started kissing her.

“Don’t.” She jerked away. Kismet shifted restlessly at her rider’s abrupt movement.

“You’ve never been kissed before, have you?” Merrick didn’t sound his usual mocking self. He sounded shaken. The silvery eyes were soft as autumn mist and his mouth was soft, too, full and so tempting it made her ache.

She blinked, horrified to realize she stared at him like a child entranced by Christmas candles. “What… what did you say?”

He regarded her almost tenderly. A warning clanged in her mind’s distant reaches. Beware. Beware.

“You’ve never been kissed before.”

She frowned, trying to make sense of the words. “Of course I have.”

A skeptical lift of one black eyebrow. “Thousands of times, I’ll warrant.”

She flushed and her hands fisted on the reins as she fought the desire to slap him. “Well, once. You kissed me last night.” Her voice developed an edge. “Or don’t you remember?”

His hand slid under her chin and tilted her face. He
inspected her like a bizarre new species under a naturalist’s magnifying glass. “Of course I remember,
bella
. The memory haunts me. It’s just that you’re more… untouched than I’d realized.”

Annoyance coiled in her belly that he dared to mock her inexperience. She tugged her chin free. “I don’t make a habit of associating with unprincipled rakes. Why are you making so much of this? You know I’m a virgin.”

“Oh, yes.” Something flared in his deep-set silver eyes before he lowered his eyelids and studied her mouth. “But you’re even more… virgin than I’d guessed.”

“You can’t be more virgin than a virgin,” she snapped.

He leaned forward with unmistakable intention. She’d had enough of lying kisses and sarcastic teasing. She twisted to avoid him. Kismet snorted and sidled uneasily.

“Whoa there!” Merrick grabbed Kismet’s bridle and the horse immediately settled. “Get down, Sidonie.”

The brusque tone lifted every hackle that hadn’t risen when he’d derided her awkwardness. “Just because I let you kiss me doesn’t mean I’m about to lie down for you.”

He was still laughing at her. “Even I’m not so presumptuous,
bella
. But you’re overdue for a lesson in kissing and I can’t do the task justice when we’re in danger of tumbling on our arses.”

If her face got any hotter, it would burst into flame. “I have no wish to suffer further tawdry pawing.”

“Interest in physical pleasure is perfectly natural. Nothing to be ashamed of.” He dismounted and tied the bay’s reins on its neck so they didn’t dangle. “There’s no need to apologize.”

Oh, she really wanted to slap him. Her hand curled in its glove. “I’m not apologizing.”

He ignored her. “You must be burning with curiosity.”

“I’m burning with the desire to box your ears.”

He slapped the bay’s rump so the horse trotted out of the way with a snort, then strode across to where Sidonie sat fuming on Kismet. “Repressed passion turns violent if unaddressed.”

“Only if one is mentally deranged.”

“I look forward to deranging you,
tesoro
. Now don’t gallop away.” He caught the bridle. His instincts were acute indeed. She’d been about to canter off. “Wouldn’t you rather discover what you’ve been missing?”

“You just showed me what I’ve been missing. Such a lot of fuss about nothing.”

“You weren’t complaining a few minutes ago.”

He still smiled. Blast him, he wasn’t taking her seriously. Perhaps because,
blast her
, for one forbidden moment she’d been idiotic enough to kiss him back. “You caught me by surprise.”

“Then this time consider yourself forewarned.” He released Kismet and grabbed Sidonie’s waist. She wasn’t a small woman. Compared to Roberta, she was a lumbering draft horse. But Merrick easily lifted her to the ground.

“The horses will bolt,” she said shakily, unaccountably wobbly on her feet with him so near. Her heart dived and swooped in her chest in a most disconcerting fashion. She was unbearably conscious of those hard, strong hands constraining her.

“If they do, they’ll just go back to the stables and we’ll have a walk back.” As if to prove her fears groundless, Kismet sidled a few yards then stopped beside the bay.

“I’ll run away,” Sidonie said without shifting.

“I’ll chase you.”

“Why bother?”

He took her trembling hands and stupid, weak female she was, she didn’t draw away. Danger clanged around her like a huge bell but she remained glued to the spot.

“Because you’re quite beautiful,
dolcissima
,” he said gently. “Don’t you know that?”

Last night he’d told her she was beautiful. Before he’d stalked out in a huff. He sounded as sincere as he had then. Just as it had then, her heart slammed to a stop. “That’s a rake’s trick, to tell a girl she’s beautiful.”

“Is it working?” he said amiably, stripping off her gloves.

“No.” She wished to heaven she meant it.

“Pity.” He dropped her gloves to the ground and stripped off his own. “Damn it, you’re always inconveniently overdressed.”

Not always.

The thought hovered between them as if spoken aloud. She was free to run, he no longer held her. Go, go, she told her feet, but they stubbornly refused to budge. “I don’t find it inconvenient at all.”

“Another regrettable sign of innocence. One day you’ll be grateful I showed you the ropes.”

Her lips flattened in disapproval. “This is a public service?”

She wished she didn’t like his laugh. Every time she heard that deep, musical rumble, another brick crumbled from her defenses. “A chap has a duty to his fellow man.”

“They’ll probably give you a medal,” she said faintly as his hands framed her face. Sucking in a shaky breath,
she exhorted herself to be strong. She strove to stiffen a backbone that showed a lamentable tendency to curve in his direction.

His palms were warm against her cheeks. “A knighthood at the very least.”

“For services to womankind.” She tried to sound sarcastic but the words emerged on a burst of breathless excitement.

A light flared in his gray eyes. “Oh, I intend to service you,
bella
.” Before she mustered another unconvincing protest, he lowered his lips to hers.

Heat. Softness. Trembling uncertainty. A hidden longing to respond. Jonas tasted all of that when he dipped his lips to Sidonie’s. He couldn’t say why he was so deeply moved to be the first man to kiss her. His cock swelled to attention. Her merest presence aroused him. It had from the first. Whatever power she possessed, he was helpless against it.

Experimentally, he nibbled, licked at the seam. She was bewitching. Even now when she conceded little more than she had when he’d kissed her last night. She quivered under his hands. He still wasn’t sure whether she was excited or frightened. He’d read both curiosity and dread in her pansy eyes. Her thick tortoiseshell hair tickled his fingers. After her wild ride, she looked enchantingly disheveled. It made him contemplate other wild rides he’d like to take with her.

Raising his head, he stared at her. Her eyes were shut and her lashes fluttered against flushed cheeks. His nostrils flared as he drew in the evocative scents of the sea and Sidonie.

“Open your mouth,
tesoro
.” He angled her face higher. “Open your mouth for me.”

At his raw demand, her eyes flared wide. For a drunken moment, he drowned in glorious brown, rich, autumnal, sensual.

“O-open…?”

He took advantage and claimed her, sliding his tongue into the interior. She made a sound of surprise and tried to back off. “No.”

“
Bella,
don’t be afraid.”

She stopped edging away but her lips closed against him again. He returned to demanding nothing more than her stillness. She stood unresponsive, although her choppy breathing indicated she was far from unmoved. She resisted to the point where he thought he’d run mad with wanting her.

Just resistance, resistance, resistance. Endless resistance.

Then in the space between one second and the next, endless resistance dissolved. Her hand curved around his shoulder. On a sigh, she leaned into him. Warmth powerful enough to melt the chill from his obsidian heart enveloped him. The hand on his shoulder flexed into a caress. Her lips parted and at last gave up the honey within. Luxuriously he savored her mouth. She was delicious. His tongue flickered over hers and he heard a smothered protest.

If he had an ounce of charity in his soul, he’d release her. But her flavor was as addictive as gin to a toper. He’d blithely imagined he’d keep his head during this impromptu lesson. Instead she made a mockery of arrogance. She who had never kissed a man.

On a long, languid exploration, he stroked her tongue.
This time, he felt faint movement in return. He released a low growl of approval and teased her again. When she tentatively brushed her tongue against his, the surge of arousal nearly blew his head off. He, the worldly libertine, brought to his knees by an innocent’s clumsy kiss. Except now she cooperated, she wasn’t clumsy. She was sweet and passionate and quick to follow his lead. When his tongue danced along her lips, she copied his action. When he sucked her tongue into his mouth, she gasped with surprise then tasted him so deeply and with such unalloyed pleasure, his heart crashed against his ribs.

Even in the throes of delight, he held to strategy. His hands ached to touch her body, trace every curve and hollow. But if he pushed too far, he’d lose any advantage he’d gained. Heat rose, threatened to incinerate him. Still some distant voice in his mind reminded him this was meant as a lesson only. His arms loosened, although he couldn’t summon the will to release her completely. Gradually he doused frantic passion until his mouth glanced across hers in an echo of his first kiss. Except now he knew her taste. He knew the tiny breathless sounds she made when surrendering to dark delight.

She’d be magnificent in his bed.

He chanced once last touch of his mouth to hers then drew away. She was flushed and her lips were red and moist. Her glowing beauty made his heart stumble. A man with one ounce of principle would send her on her way with Roberta’s vowels safely folded in her reticule. If she stayed, Jonas would tarnish her shining goodness. He’d drag this angel down to share his hell.

“Oh, my,” she whispered, staring up with eyes more gold than brown.

“Oh, my, indeed.” He smiled, he feared, with drunken joy rather than the cynical amusement with which he usually confronted the world.

“If I’d known a kiss was like that—”

He loved how she didn’t pretend she hadn’t enjoyed the kiss, purely for pride’s sake. The problem rapidly became finding something he didn’t like about her. “You’d have kissed every man in your vicinity?”

A shaking hand brushed her hair from her face. He saw she gradually returned to reality and discomfiting comprehension of how thoroughly she’d succumbed to his kiss. “Well, perhaps every man under forty.”

He was only human. “Shall we do it again?”

She cast him a disapproving look, marred by the tender fullness of her lips. “When you kiss me, I can’t think.”

“That’s good.”

“I need to think.”

He laughed softly. “Think inside. I don’t fancy a dousing. The weather’s closing in.”

“Oh,” she said on a gasp of surprise, glancing around. Another shock of arousal jolted him as he realized she’d been so focused on him that she hadn’t noticed the change from sunshine to approaching storm.

He easily caught the horses and tossed her up into the saddle. Loving the way the wind played merry hell with her chignon, he smiled at her as he mounted Casimir. “It’s a pleasure to see a pretty woman sitting well on a good horse.”

She blushed. How had such a gorgeous creature lived twenty-four years without becoming inured to compliments? She’d leave Castle Craven knowing how spectacular she was. He stifled a disagreeable pang at the prospect
of her departure and urged Casimir to a gallop. Behind him, he heard her shout encouragement to Kismet. Ahead of a rising wind, they pelted along the beach.

Jonas had started this battle confident of victory, but he had a sinking feeling he’d end up surrendering as much to Sidonie as she surrendered to him. Damn it, he wasn’t sure he could afford the sacrifice.