The Pleasures of Sin (15 page)

Feeling awkward at the sudden change in tension in the chamber, she held up
l’occhio del diavolo
.

He caught her arm in a motion so swift that she gasped. Clearly, the mistrust between them ran high.

“I–I was going to ask you about that shave,” she stuttered, ashamed that she had not even considered the dagger.

His intense eyes burned into her and she felt he could see right through the flimsy fabric covering her body.

She held her breath until he nodded stoically and ran his finger down her jawline.

“Take off your sheet first.”

A punishment for lifting the blade too suddenly?

Shivering, she untucked the sheet and let it fall. “I meant you no harm,” she murmured. “This is what I would have done if I had.” Whirling, she slid her fingers in the tip of her
l’occhio del diavolo
, cocked her arm back and threw the blade in a flash. It landed with a solid thud into the bedpost.

His eyes widened.

Satisfaction flowed through her at this small victory. “If I had intended to harm you, I would have done so when I was across the room from you.”

He lifted a brow. “You are full of surprises, my captive wife.”

Brenna took in a deep steadying breath as she turned to gather the supplies needed to shave her husband. Emotions churned inside her. She was accustomed to moving about her chamber nude, but his gaze on her body as she moved around made her skin tingle and burn.

Brenna retrieved
l’occhio del diavolo
, gathered rags and heated water in a pot that hung over the fire for such use. He watched her the whole while, barely shifting on the stool.

When the supplies were ready, she moved in front of him. Candle glow flickered over his beautiful muscled form, dancing along the sculpted planes of his torso. Dipping the rag into the water, she wet his face then lathered his beard with soap. His whiskers pricked her palms. So different from her own skin. So masculine. So very interesting.

With careful precision, she ran the blade across his cheek, then dunked it into the water. “How did you know I would not strike you with the knife?”

The area around his eyes crinkled. “I did not. But you seem intelligent enough to reason out that attempting murder again is not the wisest course.”

He tilted his head as she ran the blade down his neck. “Mayhap I just wanted to get closer to you,” she reasoned.

“Brenna, love, you are no murderess, and I could strike you dead with one blow even with the dagger sticking from my throat.”

She shuddered at his words, all the more frightening because of the ring of truth in them. Glancing down at his large hands, she rinsed the blade in the bowl. The power radiating from him both fascinated and repelled her. Like a moth whose wings were singed by a candle.

She finished her ministrations carefully, then ran her fingers along his cheek to inspect her work. The whiskers were as close cut as they had been that day in the wedding chapel, and she felt oddly proud when he nodded approval.

Slowly, he reached for her, and when she did not resist, he pulled her into his lap. The shock of skin on skin snaked through her. He traced his fingers down her neck and between her breasts then rubbed gentle circles around her bellybutton.

Heat flooded her woman’s core. She wished she could pretend he did not affect her so, but she could not.

Instinctively, she closed her eyes and allowed his hands to roam freely over her skin.

He
was
her husband. Surely that lessened her guilt that enjoying his touch was betrayal. She should be angry with him—too angry to receive pleasure.

Warmth spread across her as his hands moved. Enthralling. Spellbinding. As if they were floating, alone in the world. Her body felt relaxed from his massage, and stimulated from this new touch.

“My pretty lady,” he murmered into her ear, his breath sending spirals of heat across her skin.

Pretty?

She sucked in a breath, wondering if he called all his lovers by such name.

“Come, let me see you.” Leaning her back across his arm, he slowly ran his finger from her neck to her navel and then lower.

She wished she had the strength of character to resist.

But the v betwixt her thighs tingled.

Almost of their own accord, her hips raised, meeting his touch. She wanted…wanted him to touch her there, between the curls of her nether lips.

All at once, he stood and set her down on the desktop so that she was facing him. He knelt, pushing her knees outward so that his face was at the level of her privates.

Heat crept up her face, and she knew her face flamed as red as her hair. Many times, she’d gazed at herself in the looking glass, painted her sex, and sold off the miniatures. She knew what he saw: she had red curls between her legs that crept out a little further on one side than the other. The inner lips were pink and swirled a little like the crinkly edge of a rose. Nestled betwixt the folds was a nub of sensitive skin—her woman’s pearl.

But the paintings were so much less personal than another person—a magnificent conqueror, looking at her down there. And she was never this wet or slick when she painted.

“Spread your legs, love.” He threaded his fingers through the red-gold curls and she shivered, barely resisting the urge to lean back on the desk. Moisture beaded on the pink flesh.

And she felt hot. Hot all over. As if a furnace burned inside her.

Spreading apart her nether lips, he licked one side of her slit and then the other. She moaned. Zwounds! No wonder the maids spoke of copulation as such pleasure. Surrendering to the sensations, she closed her eyes, leaned back and spread her thighs apart.

His hand touched her elbow and she opened her eyes slightly. She gasped as she realized he was holding
l’occhio del diavolo
.

“Shh, Brenna. I will not harm you. I want you to see how beautiful you are.” His voice was low and bewitching. He smiled wickedly, his eyes glowing. With one hand he lathered soap into her nether curls.

She frowned, trying to fathom what he was about. Or if she should resist or submit.

Then, stretching the skin slightly, he took the knife and shaved off a swath of her pubic hair.

She gave a little shriek and slammed her legs together, capturing his hand between her thighs. The desk creaked beneath her. “What the bloody hell are you doing?”

He grinned. A pirate’s grin, full of mayhem and mischief. “I told you I wanted new memories with this knife.”

Her eyebrows knit together, and for an instant she wondered if she should up and run from the room. “But you can’t shave me!”

“Why not? You shaved me.”

“That’s different!”

His fingers twitched, touching that pearl of skin above her womanly opening.

She gasped. Then shivered.

His smile widened, showing off his two overlapping teeth to devastating effect. “Open for me, my lady. I swear by all that is holy, no harm will come to you. You have naught to fear.”

Naught save her own response to him.

“What does a blackheart like you know about swearing by all that is holy?” she countered.

Leaning down, he kissed her thighs, right where they came together, and eased his tongue betwixt them. “I know a bit about worshiping at this altar.”

A mewl of desire escaped her throat before she could catch it. It felt so…heady, like when painting and the brushstrokes were sure.

She opened her legs, allowing him access.

The knife rasped against her skin. He scraped off another swatch of hair, this one a thumb’s width longer than the first one, then ran his finger over his handiwork. Her skin tingled. The bare area felt so alive and sensitive, she feared his touch might send her bursting into pieces.

’Twas intoxicating.

Slowly, carefully, he shaved more of her nether hair off, stretching the skin this way and that as he worked with delicate precision. She didn’t dare move and somewhere inside her, the flickering of fear lit into an inferno of desire. The blade was cool and sharp as it scratched against her sensitive sex, but his strokes were masterful and steady. No nicks marred her skin.

He gazed at her, with the passion of an artist, at work, transfixed on making the canvas to his liking. His hair was still wet from his bath and his wide shoulders held her thighs apart as he knelt between her legs.

Droplets ran from her woman’s slit, joining the wayward splotches of paint on the desk’s surface. Her pearl tingled. He didn’t touch her on that sensitive nub, so she lifted her hips in invitation. But he paid no attention, only continued his work of making her sex free of anything that would stand between it and his gaze.

Swallowing, she gazed down at the smooth, pinkened skin. Ne’er in her life had she felt so exposed.

And yet, so safe. ’Twas obvious he knew what he was doing and an arrow of jealousy sliced into her that any other woman would have enjoyed such close attention.

He ran his fingers across her shaven sex when he was finished; she flinched, her skin overly sensitive.

He gazed at her as though she was Venus, the goddess of love, not Brenna, the scarred daughter of a rebel.

Setting the blade aside, he washed off the soap and patted her dry.

She felt she would crumple to the floor with sensation.

Standing, he carried her to the bed. No longer fearing what would come between them, she wrapped her arms around his neck and surrendered to his touch. Any man that could hold a blade with such steady, slow precision could surely control his own manroot and not harm her.

“There may be some pain the first time, my lady,” he whispered as he laid her across the mattress. “But not much, and I will not move until you are ready.”

She already felt ready, but she did not say so.

His hand trailed from her neck to her stomach. Her heart fluttered, and she wanted…more. She wanted him to touch her sex on that newly exposed skin as he had done afore. She wanted to feel his large, callused hands slide between her woman’s fold and find that pearl of desire that tingled and burned and ached.

She shifted her hips, trying to press his hand further down her body. He did not move his fingers, so she shifted.

He moved a dagger’s width down her body. But not nearly far enough.

She wiggled again, feeling more womanly moisture drip from inside her.

His fingers walked another inch down her stomach. Oh, bloody hell. Why would he not touch her as he had before!

“My lord, prithee,” she moaned.

Leaning down, he trailed kisses from her ear to her lips. His tongue swept inside her mouth, taking control of her senses. She arched her body upward and he slid his hand down between the folds of her slit. With a sigh, she sank into the mattress, savoring the feel of his fingers on her skin.

“You are so slick,” he whispered, shifting slightly so that he was atop her.

She felt his manhood at her entrance, parting the folds of her sex. Spreading her legs, she rocked her bottom toward him, reaching for him. He entered slowly, as careful as he had been with the knife.

When he was crested inside, he paused and kissed her forehead. “Are you well?”

She wanted to melt, to take all of him into herself. She had braced herself for pain, but there was none—just tightness, and the sensation of being full and open to him.

“’Tis wondrous,” she breathed. Her paintings lacked the element of passion found in the room between them. She would change the ones she did in the future.

Languidly, she gazed up at him. He rocked his hips and pushed his cock all the way inside piercing through the barrier of her virginity.

She yelped, but he caught the sound in his mouth with a kiss that dulled the pleasure/pain.

“Only pleasure now,” he promised, curling her hands into his and holding her arms above her head. He lingered, unmoving, letting her adjust to his body and she surrendered to the marvelous impression of simply being his.

She lifted her hips up to his, craving more. With the gentlest of strokes, he moved, sliding in and out in a slow, steady rhythm. She sighed. Her body tingled. The wondrous sensations built and built. She raised her legs, then lowered them, wanting to get the highest level of movement on that small nub betwixt her thighs.

A small part of her hated herself for enjoying this act between them, but she was too lost in her own feelings to care.

Tomorrow there would be time to fathom it all out.

She inhaled the warm scent of his skin and wiggled her hands against his palms. When he released them, she ran her hands along his back, enjoying the tight, thick muscles of his body.

Mine
.

All mine
.

Throwing her head back, she yielded to the friction between their bodies. She moved faster, bucking underneath him, moving towards the spiraling sensation.

Her body shuddered, as if an avalanche had occurred within it. “Bloody hell!” she gasped.

He laughed. Laughed! “Well, that’s a new one.”

Embarrassed at her outburst, she squeezed her eyes shut and tried to push him off. His chest was like a wall. Strong and unbending as it squeezed the air from her lungs.

“Get off me!” she cried, flailing her head to one side. How could he laugh at her when she’d just given him so much of herself? The bastard. The blackheart. The barbarian.

It would have been better if he had raped her than to have been so humiliated.

“Shh, shh,” he soothed, “peace, Brenna.”

She calmed, but the backs of her eyes stung with mortification. “I do not know how women are supposed to behave during copulation,” she said sulkily.

“You are wonderful, girl. I am very, very pleased with you. You can scream ‘bloody hell’ all you want and I’ll love every minute of it, alright?”

His words felt like cool water on her hot shame. She nodded sullenly.

“You were a virgin,” he said as if inexplicably pleased with himself. “And now you are mine.”

His lips captured hers, telling her without words that her outburst had been welcomed and his laugh been one of delight, not mocking. She sighed, feeling even more out of sorts than before. Her father had beaten her for using the word “bloody.”

James pushed himself more firmly into her. Stronger now. Pumping. And then, he too cried out his own pleasure and slumped against her.

She wrapped her arms around his body, enjoying the soft slide of perspiration against her skin. Out of sheer curiosity, she stuck her tongue out and licked his shoulder, just to see if he tasted as good as he felt. He shuddered at her gesture and a surge of feminine power snaked through her.

She closed her eyes, intoxicated by the scent of heated sex and the sweet, salty taste of male skin. In her most outrageous imaginations, she had never dreamed copulation would feel so astounding.

Or so wicked.

She relaxed against the pillows and stared up at the bed’s canopy, her fingers itching to hold a paintbrush. She could scarcely wait to capture it all on canvas.