The Pleasure of Your Kiss (36 page)

Which, it seemed, was exactly what she was going to have.

Still studying the sky, Ash said, “Max and I haven’t always seen eye to eye, but he’ll make you a good husband. Steady and true.”

“I know,” she said, unable to deny his words, no matter how deeply they cut.

“You won’t have to hurl things at his head just to get his attention or worry about him running off to the far ends of the world to chase some ridiculous dream.”

“Was that why you left me?” She strove to keep her voice light to disguise the hurt that still lingered in her heart. “To see places like this? Wondrous places you might have missed if we had settled down to live in that garret together?”

“I’ve seen creatures in the Indian rain forest so wondrous and rare they haven’t had names since the Garden of Eden. I’ve ridden an elephant across the African veldt with nothing but grass as far as the eye could see. I’ve watched the sun rise and set over the ancient pyramids of Giza. I’ve traveled the world over and seen sights so incredible most men would never even dare to dream of them.” He turned to look at her, his eyes smoldering like smoky topazes in the starlight. “But I’ve never seen anything that could compare to you.”

Clarinda rose to face him, his robe slipping from her shoulders. In that moment, there was no ghost of the past or specter of the future. No questions and no regrets. There was only this night, this place—an oasis paradise in the shifting sands of time.

“Is it true what the scandal sheets say about you, Captain Burke? That when you rescued the Hindustani princess, you turned down a fortune in gold and precious gems?”

“I did.” His gaze dropped to her lips. “And all for the pleasure of a kiss.”

“Then who am I to deny you such a reward?” Clarinda said softly. After a heartbeat of hesitation, Ash framed her face in the warmth of his hands and brought his mouth down on hers. The second their lips touched, she knew neither of them would ever be content with a mere kiss.

Yet still he strove to be a man of his word, not stealing kisses he hadn’t earned but lavishing her lips with one long kiss that went on and on. Each feathery brush of his mouth over hers poured water on the parched desert her heart had become without him and sent lush tendrils of desire coiling through her. The tip of his tongue flirted with the seam of her lips, teasing her, toying with her, making it impossible to resist or protest when he parted those lips and took her with his tongue in exactly the same way he had once taken her with his body.

As her tongue responded to that unspoken challenge by exploring his mouth with equal abandon, he wrapped his arms around her, fitting her to his body as if she had always belonged there.

She was grateful for that support because her knees threatened to fail her the minute he bent his head and touched his warm, moist lips to her throat, seeking the pulse that had begun to beat madly just beneath the silken skein of her skin. It was beating for him and him alone, responding to every velvety caress of his lips like a primitive drumbeat. She was forced to cling to him even more tightly as his lips formed a seal over that tender spot, gently sucking even as his teeth came together to give her a sharp little nip, branding her as his own in the most primal way imaginable.

She turned her head, helplessly seeking any taste of him she could find. Her lips hungrily traced the strong curve of his jaw, exulting in the scrape of his razor stubble beneath their softness. But that enticing sample of him only made her crave more. She tore open the front of his shirt with both hands, not caring that it was the only one he had. Her lips flowered against that spectacular meshing of muscle and sinew, her tongue flicking through the crisp curls of his chest hair to savor the salt and spice of the skin beneath.

Cupping her bottom in his hands, he lifted her, molding her to him so tightly she could feel the full measure of his desire for her pressed against the softness of her belly. She gasped, having allowed herself to forget both its power and its magnitude.

His warm chuckle filled her ear. “You needn’t pretend to be impressed, darling. Weren’t you the one who told Poppy I was spreading tall tales about my exploits to compensate for my own short—”

This time it was his lips she silenced with her two fingers before whispering, “I lied.”

He watched, his golden eyes wary, yet glowing with desire as her other hand began a sinuous slide down the front of his shirt to the muscled planes of his abdomen. Her fingertips glided even lower, finally brushing the broad tip of him through the straining buckskin of his trousers.

He threw back his head with a ragged groan. “I’m not sure what sort of elixir you’ve been drinking now,” he gritted out from between his clenched teeth, “but I hope you brought a whole barrel of it.”

As Clarinda traced every hard, throbbing inch of what he had in store for her and watched his high cheekbones grow taut and flushed with hunger, she felt drunk all right. Drunk with need. Drunk with power. Drunk with desire.

Ash took his revenge by cupping the plump weight of one breast in his palm through her robe, squeezing softly even as his thumb flicked back and forth over the turgid bud of her nipple, sending tongues of flame racing through her blood that threatened to consume her where she stood.

Then his hands were at her shoulders, gently easing her robe from them so that it rippled to the sand behind her. Beneath it she wore only the diaphanous layers of silk she had been expected to wear to Farouk’s bed.

“By God, woman,” he growled as he cupped the back of her head in his hand and gently lowered her into the soft linen folds of the robe, “the things I would do if I could ever get you into a proper bed.”

As his mouth descended upon hers once more, Clarinda could think of no bed more fitting for the two of them than a shifting bed of sand next to a gently bubbling pool with a glittering canopy of stars above it.

Still ravishing her mouth with deep, drugging kisses, Ash covered her with his weight, pressing one knee to the aching mound between her thighs with deliberate care. She tangled her hands in the coarse silk of his hair and reared off the robe to ride that knee, seeking any relief at all from the delicious ache that was beginning to spread out in waves from that gentle but relentless pressure.

When he rolled off her after a few minutes of that exquisite torture, she moaned in protest at his heartless cruelty. She opened her eyes to scowl at him only to find him lying on his side next to her, his head propped on one hand.

“Do you realize I’ve never seen you completely naked? Well, at least only in my dreams.”

Clarinda frowned, thinking back to that morning in the meadow. They had both been so young, so fevered, so desperate to carry out what they had begun before they lost their nerve. She remembered Ash’s hands impatiently tugging up her nightdress, her own trembling fingers awkwardly struggling with the unfamiliar fastenings of his trousers until he had captured both of her hands in one of his and finished the task for her. She was so lost in that memory it took a moment for the second part of Ash’s statement to sink in.

When it did, her nose crinkled in a delighted smile. “Did you really dream about me?”

“Every night,” he confessed solemnly. “Without fail.”

“Was I naked in most of them?”

He nodded. “Except for the ones where you were wearing nothing but lace garters, silk stockings, and high-heeled, red velvet slippers with jeweled buckles. Those were some of my favorites.”

“I dreamed about you, too,” she admitted, lowering her eyes.

“I trust I wasn’t wearing garters, stockings, and high-heeled slippers?”

“Of course not. Although occasionally you were wearing shackles. And sometimes a noose.”

“Vengeful little minx.” The look in his narrowed eyes sent a fresh thrill down her spine. “Don’t you think it’s time we made those dreams come true?”

She slowly nodded, giving him her leave to gently strip her of the layers of silk until she lay naked before him in the starlight, utterly exposed, utterly vulnerable.

Clarinda had to resist the urge to cover herself with her hands like the shyest of virgins as his heavy-lidded gaze drifted down her, lingering at the pink-tipped fullness of her breasts, the gentle curve of her waist, the silvery blond nest of curls between her pale thighs, before finally returning to her face.

“Sweet Christ, Clarinda,” he whispered hoarsely. “You almost make me wish I were a sultan. That I could carry you away and keep you locked in my harem away from the eyes of other men. I wouldn’t be as generous as Farouk. I’d chain you to my couch and keep you just like this so I could come to you at any time, day or night, and pleasure you until you abandoned all thoughts of escape and begged me to never let you go.”

Clarinda drew in a shuddering breath, stirred more deeply than she would ever have admitted by the power of that dark fantasy.

His gaze drifted downward again. “Is it true that the women of the harem taught you exactly where to touch to give yourself the most pleasure?”

“They did,” she cautiously admitted.

“Where?”

Clarinda gave him a chiding look, embarrassed that he could still make her blush after everything she had been through, everything they had done. “You know perfectly well where.”

His lips curved in a slow, wicked smile. “Show me.”

They both knew she was helpless to resist such a blatant challenge. Slanting him a provocative glance, she slid her hand down over her belly to the pale curls between her legs. As her longest finger disappeared into them, Ash’s smile faded, making his face look as hard and dangerous as some desert marauder’s.

His hand shot out to capture her wrist in a velvety vise, much as it had done that night in the harem. “There’s no need for a lady to see to her own pleasure when there’s a gentleman eager to set his hand to the task.”

“You, sir,” she murmured, pressing her lips to the irresistible swath of skin just below his ear, “are no gentleman.”

His devil-may-care dimple reappeared. “And I’ll make you glad of it before this night is done. See if I don’t.”

As if to prove his boast, he threaded his own fingers through the gossamer silk of those curls, an indulgence he had denied himself while she was under the influence of the elixir. He brushed one fingertip over the rigid little bud he found nestled beneath them, setting off a shuddering tremor of delight.

Having already learned the dark and wondrous power of his hands, Clarinda was shocked to realize her pleasure was not dulled but intensified now that she was in her right mind. Of course, if Ash kept touching her that way, she wouldn’t be in her right mind for long. He was going to drive her mad with longing.

Each deft stroke of his fingertip only deepened her torment, stripping her of her pride and bringing her one step closer to abandoning reason and pleading with him just as she had in the harem to take her. This time she couldn’t even blame her wanton behavior on some ancient potion. She was intoxicated by his touch, her senses staggered by the pleasure his skillful hands were delivering to her throbbing flesh.

Her thighs fell apart as his finger glided downward to part the silky petals below that bud. She could feel herself beginning to swell and open like one of the exotic blooms from Farouk’s garden, her body offering an invitation Ash was helpless to resist. She gasped as his finger slid right into her, gently pressing against the resistance it met there.

It had been so long. Too long …

When a second finger joined the first, Clarinda could only pant and squirm in helpless delight, and when a third joined those two, she had to sink her teeth into Ash’s broad shoulder to muffle a moan of raw need. He took advantage of the slick nectar his touch had coaxed from her yearning body to work his fingers even deeper inside her, filling her, spreading her, preparing her for some wonder that was yet to come. As his fingers ravished her with breathtaking thoroughness, the callused pad of his thumb began to circle the bud at the crux of her curls once more, leaving her helpless to do anything but lie there writhing and twitching beneath his hand, a slave to the mastery of his touch.

She was so lost in her bliss that Ash kissed a tingling path all the way down to the quivering plane of her belly before she even realized it.

“What are you doing?” she demanded breathlessly as his tongue had its way with the shallow little dimple of her navel.

He lifted his head, eyeing her with deliberate intent. “I realize you’ve been enjoying the tutelage of Farouk’s women, but I like to think I’ve also learned a thing or two since the last time we were together this way.” His rakish grin sent a delicious shiver down her spine. “Or three.”

After the things Clarinda had learned in the harem, she would have sworn nothing could surprise her, but as Ash wrapped his big, warm hands around her thighs, ensuring that she couldn’t bring them together even if she wanted to, she found herself trembling all over with a giddy mixture of shock and anticipation. He was going to do to her what the man in the harem fresco had been doing to the sloe-eyed beauty. He was going to put his mouth on her.

There.

Before she had time to fully grasp what was about to happen, Ash used his clever tongue to lick into the very heart of her. She gasped and arched off the robe, nearly undone by the illicit pleasure of it all. She had spent the last nine years building a wall around her heart to protect it from him but she had no defenses against the tender lash of his tongue against the very heart of her womanhood.

The desert and the stars vanished in a blinding flash. Clarinda’s entire world narrowed to Ash’s mouth and the pleasure it was giving her. She understood then the mindless wonder she had glimpsed on the face of the woman in the mural. She knew why the woman’s mouth had been slack, her eyes glazed, her thighs splayed wide to welcome whatever pleasure her lover chose to give her, no matter how scandalous or forbidden.

Then all rational thought deserted her as Ash flicked his tongue over that swollen nubbin of flesh at the exact same moment he dipped his fingers into her, setting off a quaking explosion of ecstasy that rocked her to her core. Clarinda cried out his name, feeling as if everything between her legs were melting with pleasure.