Dark Obsession (11 page)

His hand rose to trace the curve of her cheek. ‘‘Shall we carry on where we left off?’’

He felt a quiver beneath his fingers just before she broke away, showing him a smooth, bare shoulder.

‘‘Carry on? You make it sound tawdry.’’

Teasing again. The aloofness emanating from the elegant line of her neck, the arch of her back, had him pining for her again. Painfully. Ah, the woman truly was an artist, an expert at the arts of seduction.

He slid a hand beneath her hair onto her warm nape and drew her toward him. ‘‘Don’t turn away from me, and yes, we’ll be tawdry if it pleases us to be so.’’

The look she cast him scorched. Ah, this woman played a far different game than any he was accustomed to, but he was more than willing to follow her lead.

He didn’t remove his hand from her nape, but eased as close as he dared. ‘‘I meant no offense. I merely thought we were enjoying ourselves rather much. If I am mistaken, tell me and I’ll bid you good night.’’

A little ridge formed above her nose. Her lips parted, the bottom a pouty morsel he wished more than anything to suck between his own. He resisted the temptation, but brushed his nose against a silky lock of hair. ‘‘I’d prefer to stay if you’ll permit me.’’

He waited, and was rewarded when she ever so slowly listed toward him, arching her neck and turning her face until her lips hovered an inch or two from his. He chanced a sweeping caress along her bare arm, ending at the satin curve of her shoulder. There his fingers lingered in a seductive dance against her skin.

‘‘Stay,’’ she whispered, and closed the space between their lips.

His hand slid into her hair, sifting the heavy gloss through his fingers as their limbs entwined, their mouths merged. She wilted against him. His blood caught fire. As he’d done earlier, he scooped her into his arms and brought her back to the bed.

Once there he distracted her with kisses while he set about undoing the buttons down the front of her nightgown. He went slowly, careful not to raise her ire, as he seemed more than adept at doing.

‘‘My neckcloth . . . untie it.’’ He remembered to add a ‘‘please,’’ and she tugged at the knot, making surprisingly short work of it. Soon his collar sprang open. She raised a poignantly uncertain gaze. He grinned, warming once more to the charade, thoroughly enjoying it now. He nodded and whispered, ‘‘The buttons too.’’

Meanwhile her neckline dropped a fraction more with each button he released, exposing the valley between her breasts. When she didn’t flinch or send him a severe look, he dipped his head and nuzzled. ‘‘Tell me what you like, Honora,’’ he murmured against her.

‘‘I’d . . . like you to call me Nora.’’

He nodded, rubbing his nose up and down her supple flesh. ‘‘You may call me Gray if you wish. All my very closest friends do.’’

‘‘Gray,’’ she obeyed breathlessly.

‘‘There, that brings my list of closest friends to two. You and Chad.’’

She gave a dubious chuckle, as if disbelieving his little confession. He let it drop and whispered, ‘‘Tell me what you want, Nora. Tell me what you wish me to do and I’ll do it.’’

He risked allowing his tongue to graze the cleft of her bosom. She shuddered, her breasts quivering against his face, cutting off breath for one delicious instant.

Desire thundered inside him. He released another two buttons. Her nightgown slithered over her shoulders, as exquisite as fine bisque. He kissed his way from one to the other.

‘‘Do you like this, Nora?’’

The word
yes
rode a tremulous breath.

‘‘I’d like it if you touched me too.’’

Her hands found their way beneath his shirt and inch by inch she raised the hem. He helped her bare his stomach and chest, grasping her hands and raising them until together they stripped the garment over his head.

With a trembling sigh she grazed the muscles of his torso, making them quiver. Her eyes were wide, darkly dilated. He tossed the shirt away, then peeled the remaining scrap of nightgown from her breasts and pressed her to his naked chest.

‘‘By Christ . . .’’ His oath tore from deep inside. He gripped her waist, fingers of both hands splayed across her hips, and rocked her against his arousal. Only this demure game they were playing prevented him from tossing her down and plunging into her.

He set his open mouth to her neck, sucking gently but deeply, sure to leave a mark. Against the thrashing pulse in her throat he murmured, ‘‘Command me, my darling.’’

Her words were garbled, thick with passion. Her lips, hot and swollen, worked silently, and then he quite distinctly heard, ‘‘. . . the first time.’’

Ah yes, he understood. ‘‘You wish it to be as your first time.’’

She went still in his arms and stared back at him, her eyes fever bright. Her cheeks were burnished, her breasts flushed and ruby-tipped with passion.

He smiled. ‘‘And so it shall be, my lady.’’

Slowly, meticulously, he lowered her to the bed. He eased the nightgown over her hips until it slid down her legs and floated to join his shirt on the floor.

‘‘Ah, Nora, such legs.’’ His pulse gave a lurch. As petite as she was, those legs seemed endless in proportion. Smooth and long, pleasingly round in the knee, enticingly plump at the thighs. Her skin glowed coppery in the lamplight. He raised his gaze. . . .

And swallowed a gasp of admiration. He could have lost himself in the silhouette of her hip, the contour of her stomach, the dusky silk at the junction of her legs. He ran a fingertip through the curling hairs, then drew it back. His desire for her throbbed, but it was too soon to venture there.

Her eyes became huge and filled with questions, with the uncertainty she mimicked so well. That look bore the power to undo a man—if only it had been real.

She wished to pretend, and he was more than happy to accommodate those wishes. Sliding his feet to the floor, he stood above her and ran his hands the length of those generous legs. With the utmost care he stroked her ankles, circled her calves, caressed behind her knees. He raised her foot and set his lips to the delicate instep, smiling when he felt a ticklish current run through her.

Alternately he used his fingertips and his open palms, his lips, his tongue, drawing inward as he reached the tops of her thighs.

She uttered a cry. He gripped her hips and raised them from the bed, pressing kisses to her belly. His lips strayed lower, to the tender skin in the bend of her thigh. He used his tongue and even his teeth for a sensual nip. She rocked beneath him, sighed, grabbed handfuls of the counterpane.

‘‘Tell me all you wish me to do, Nora.’’

Her hands glided to her breasts, her fingers closing over her nipples.

‘‘Ah, you want to feel my hands there, is that it?’’ A ‘‘yes’’ made itself heard between panting breaths. Her small breasts filled his hands, burned beneath his palms. Her eyes were closed, her lips parted and gleaming. She arched into him, splintering his control.

‘‘Sweet Nora, you are far too tempting. . . .’’ He spoke until his mouth reached her breast. Then his tongue grew too busy for words, learning the shape and taste of her nipple, molding it into a tight little peak. His teeth closed around it. She cried out.

Her head came off the mattress and she gaped at him. He expected sharp words, a shove. Waited for her to crawl out from under him. His lust both raged and cringed as he anticipated the rebuke. Could he head it off?

‘‘By God, Nora, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—’’

‘‘Hurt me?’’ She shook her head wildly. ‘‘You didn’t. That was . . . astounding. Gracious, I . . .’’ Her head fell back. Her eyes drifted shut. ‘‘Can you do it again?’’

‘‘I’ll try my best.’’

He had her moaning within seconds, had himself breathless with urgency. But he neglected nothing, not a part of her, until her hands tore at his trouser buttons and her legs wrapped around him, drawing him close and making her desires clear.

‘‘Finish it,’’ she breathed against him. ‘‘Teach me all of it.’’

Her fingers tightened, digging into his buttocks with an insistence that spurred him. But once again he fought the urge to hasten inside her.

Instead he grasped her knees and eased her legs from around his waist. Backing the necessary few inches away, he held her thighs apart while he kissed his way between them. With his tongue he prepared her, adding his own moisture to the already damp folds. He searched out the hidden globe of flesh and with his lips adored it, revered it, pleasured it until Nora thrashed and clenched her fists against the mattress.

Her apparent readiness and his own voracious need sent him sprawling over her.

‘‘No more pretending.’’ Pressing the head of his arousal against her, he braced his arms on the bed and pushed.

Instead of the effortless sweep he expected, he encountered the very last thing he’d imagined or wished—a barrier. Even before his mind processed its meaning, he felt the sudden break, then a heated rush of fluid and Nora’s stifled cry against his shoulder.

He went utterly still, his heart clenched around an awful certainty.

She is a virgin. Was
a virgin.

God help him.

Her hands clutched at his arms and a mewling sound, part anguished, part imploring, vibrated through him. Her legs once more encircled his waist, holding him, impelling him.

Even as the magnitude of how thoroughly he’d wronged her howled through him, he thrust forward. Because she wanted him to. Because he needed to. Through the resistance, past the tightness of untouched muscle and farther, he buried his length, his mind, his being into soul-damning bliss.

She uttered a faint ‘‘yes’ and he thrust again, losing himself to the tempo, to the savage song echoed from his lips to hers. The mingling notes built, became louder, insistent, sweeping him over a devastating brink.

Nora felt a splintering ... a shattering ... a burst of fiiery color. Flaming scarlet, sizzling amber, blistering ocher ...

A chasm yawned and gaped, and the receding pain was replaced by a lustrous shaft of spiraling ecstasy; by a knowledge both heady and frightening. Her world shifted, careened and broke apart while the girl she’d been flickered away, cast to oblivion by Grayson’s thrusts.

She gripped him with arms and legs, as inside her a woman emerged, one with desires and demands she’d never imagined. She opened her eyes and looked up at him. He was . . .

Beautiful. Intense. Gleaming with energy, trembling with controlled power and restrained fury. The very sight squeezed droplets from her eyes. Despite all her misgivings, she wanted this man. Wished to possess him as he possessed her, teach him as he taught her. Minutes ago she could not have conceived of the lesson. Now her body knew just what to do.

No longer the passive recipient of his lovemaking, she moved beneath him, arching, contracting her muscles to meet his thrusts and return them in kind. He held her hips in his large hands, guided her, breathed into her, became part of her.

Every thought, every feeling, every sensation became a twisting sphere of fire that quite suddenly fractured, consumed her whole, reshaped her and left her his.

His.
For better or worse. From now until death. She listened for hypocrisy, and for the first time heard none.

Afterward they lay entwined in silence, until Grayson adjusted his arms around her. He cupped his hand round the back of her head as if she were a child or a fragile thing of great worth, and gently pressed her cheek to the hollow of his shoulder. Feeling his lips traveling through her hair, hearing the rumbling sigh deep in his chest, she knew contentment such as she’d never dreamed.

‘‘Nora . . .’’ The solemn timbre of his murmur stole a portion of her joy. ‘‘Nora, forgive me. I am so—’’

She whisked her hand to his mouth. ‘‘If you say you’re sorry, I shall leave this instant and never come back.’’

She didn’t mean it. She simply could not bear either of them regretting what they’d done.

He kissed her palm before grasping it and holding it against his chest. ‘‘I should have known. I should have believed you.’’

‘‘Yes, decidedly so. It was rather foolish of you, wasn’t it, to listen to rumors when the truth was right before you.’’ His body tightened beneath her. She turned her face to his chest and kissed a taut pectoral muscle. ‘‘But I didn’t believe in you either.’’

‘‘And now?’’

‘‘I do.’’

Again that somber sound, billowing from a cavernous place inside him—a gathering of breath, a desultory rumble.

‘‘Do stop that. You’re being like Mama.’’

He stiffened. ‘‘Just how the devil am I—’’

‘‘By being melodramatic. That’s Mama’s field of expertise.’’ She hugged him, grinning, liking the way his chest hairs tickled her cheek. ‘‘I thought it was all rather nice. Not nearly as bad as I’d feared.’’

‘‘I believe I’ve just been deeply insulted.’’

‘‘What I mean is, I didn’t think you liked me at all, so I was afraid that . . . what we’ve done . . . might not turn out to be particularly pleasurable. For either of us.’’

He rolled with her until they lay side by side, then propped his chin on his hand and gazed down at her. His other hand smoothed up and down her arm, from wrist to shoulder and back. ‘‘What made you think I didn’t like you?’’

‘‘Oh, everything you’ve said and done since we met.’’

He sighed, nodding. For a moment his hand stopped traveling her arm, then took up its journey again. ‘‘I acted the buffoon precisely because I was growing to like you. . . . But didn’t wish to.’’

‘‘Ah. You mean you were afraid to.’’

He didn’t answer. She could all but hear the ruminations of his brain as he worked that one over. She supposed he didn’t much like the notion. Yawning, she hid a smile behind her hand.

‘‘Let’s go to sleep,’’ he finally said, sounding just the faintest bit tetchy. And that made her smile too.