Her Defiant Heart (35 page)

His hands were in her hair; his fingers threaded painfully in the dark sable strands. He cupped the back of her head, keeping her immobile while his weight rested heavily across. His forearms pinned her and his uninjured leg was thrown across both of hers. His eyes held hers briefly and then dropped to her mouth. Her quick breathing, fluttering and shallow as it was, still had the effect of pressing her breasts to his chest. He knew the shape of her intimately.

The kiss he slanted across her mouth communicated urgency. His lips were hard and hurtful, grinding. His tongue speared her mouth. It was a tasting and an assault. If he heard her whimper, it had no effect on him. The pressure of his mouth bruised Jenny's lips while his tongue made them damp.

Christian's fingers unwound in her hair, and he wrested the blankets away from her. His breathing was ragged. Jenny immediately turned her face to one side and stared at the wall, ignoring his rasping command to look at him. She bit her bottom lip as she felt his hands slide to the collar of her dress. She thought he was going to rip her gown. He didn't. Christian reared back and threw up her skirt and petticoats.

With the heavy folds of her gown bunched around her waist, Jenny began kicking wildly. She felt his fingers slip under the drawstring waist of her cotton drawers. She sucked in her abdomen, trying to get away from his touch, and pushed at his wrists. When she couldn't move him, when her undergarments began to be pulled inexorably over her hips, Jenny loosened her grip on Christian's wrists and clawed at his face. She bloodied his cheek on her first swipe.

Christian touched his face with his fingertips, tracing the path she had scored in his cheek. Drawing his hand away, he stared at the blood for several seconds and then slowly raised his arm as though to strike her.

Jenny could not look away now. She stared at him, not defiantly, but pityingly, facing the potential blow squarely. It never came. Christian lowered his hand instead, caught Jenny by her hips, and twisted her so that she lay on her stomach. Her struggles were futile now. She could pound her fists against the feather tick, but not against him. He tore at her drawers, smacking at her hands as she tried to protect herself.

"I'm not going to beat you," he said, releasing her long enough to open the button fly on his trousers. "I have..." He paused, slipping his hands under her hips and jerking her toward him. "....something else in mind."

Jenny felt him taking position behind her, grinding his hips against the cleft of her bottom. The heat and rigid hardness of him were pressed to her skin. The throbbing outline of his cock was a violation. Jenny lunged for the iron rails at the head of the bed, trying to flatten herself. She missed, and her fingertips slid over the cold rails and clutched at the air. Christian's curse was expressive of his intent.

"Please," she said, twisting so hard that she thought her spine would snap. Her eyes were dry; what tears she had left were clogged in her throat. She stared at him, dark eyes darting, searching his face for some sign that he could be reached by something she might say or do. "I am sorry, Mr. Marshall. I am
sorry!"

It was not her apology that stopped him, or even the incongruity of being addressed by his surname. It was the bleak, ruined whisper that was Jenny's voice, the reminder of earlier tortures she had suffered, that made an impact on Christian.

He sucked in his breath on a harsh sob and pushed Jenny away, rolling sideways at the same time. He lay face down on the tick and buried his face in the crook of his arm.

Jenny scrambled to a sitting position, covering her naked thighs and legs with her skirt. Her torn drawers lay on the floor by the bed. She looked away from them quickly, then sat very still as Christian sat up, threw his legs over the opposite side of the bed, and righted his own clothes.

"Why aren't you running, Jenny Holland?" he asked, keeping his back to her. His thumb and forefinger were pressed to his eyelids. "Why aren't you running as fast and as far as you can?"

"Am I still in danger?" she asked quietly.

Christian shifted, half turning toward her. He lowered his hand. His face was drawn, haggard. Irritation lingered in the taut line of his mouth and in the cool color of his eyes. "Don't you understand?" he asked, his narrow glance darting over her. "Don't you have any idea? As long as you are under this roof you will be in danger from me. I want you all the time. I wake up hard thinking about you under me, your legs wrapped around me, your breasts taut and swollen from my hands, my mouth. I ache from wanting you." He took a sharp, uneven breath. "Do not mistake this for some passionate declaration of love. I could more easily despise you than love you for what you've done here. What I want from you is strictly carnal pleasure. Don't try to make it pretty in your own mind. I assure you, it's not pretty in mine."

Lightning quick, Christian reached across the bed and slipped his hand around the side of Jenny's neck. He exerted just enough pressure to force her back down to the mattress. He changed his position so that his head was directly above hers. Only his hand touched her, and it seemed to her that she remained unmoving through the strength of his will alone.

"You see how it is, Jenny?" he asked. "I still want you. And it is not going to stop until I have you, and probably not even then. I will want you again and again... and again. You are a
need
for me." He paused, waiting for a response from her. When it didn't come, he gave her a small shake. "Say something. Tell me you will stop pushing your way into my life, into my thoughts. Promise you will stop following me with those wounded eyes of yours."

"I—I'm not certain th-that I can," she said. "I—I've never known anyone like you before."

"You've never
known
anyone before me," he said. His thumb touched her swollen lips. He remembered how soft they had been under his. She was so fragile, so very delicate. Christian knew he was going to destroy her before he let her open him up to more pain. "Be my mistress."

"What?"

His thumb continued to trace the sensitive line of her lower lip. "Become my mistress. You will make yourself available to me whenever I choose, for whatever I choose. I will give you jewels, gowns, furs... anything you want in exchange for the right to have you in my bed, open to me... your hands, your mouth, there for me... for
me.
"

Jenny returned his stare unblinkingly. "I don't want any of those things you said," she whispered. She took a careful breath and released it slowly. "But there is something..."

Christian's smiled, satisfied. She had a price; she could be bought. "What is it?"

"My portrait," she said. "I want you to paint me.
That's
what you must do to have me as your mistress."

It was all he could do not to recoil. "No."

"Then, no."

"What?"

"Then my answer is no. I will leave in the morning." She sat up but did not remove herself from the bed. With deliberate and economic motions, Jenny began to unbutton the bodice of her gown. When it was loose enough, she pulled on the hem of her dress and eased it over her head. The strap of her chemise fell over her shoulder when she dropped her gown on the floor. She unlaced her corset and took it off. When she leaned forward to drop it over the side of the bed, heavy ribbons of hair fell over shoulder and brushed the neckline of her chemise. The room was cold, and when she looked down at herself, she saw her nipples were pressing their rigid outline against the thin fabric.

"I thought you said..." Christian did not finish. He watched her with growing confusion as the shadow of a smile changed the shape of her mouth.

"I did," she said steadily. "I meant it as well. I will not be your mistress, and I will be gone tomorrow, but you are not the only one who needs. Tonight we will exchange payment in kind."

Chapter 10

Christian decided it was possibly the most brazen proposal he had ever received. This was the woman he thought of as a fragile and delicate spirit? He stared at her.

Jenny unlaced her shoes and kicked them off. "Don't mistake this for a declaration of love," she said, rolling down her stockings. She buried her feet beneath the goose-down comforter. "All I want from you is... how did you phrase it? Oh, yes... carnal pleasure."

A muscle worked in Christian's lean jaw as his ugly words were impassively hurled back at him. She was watching him through the long, heavy fan of her lashes, her head tilted to one side. A sigh parted her lips, and her hand paused in the act of lowering her chemise strap. Her thumb made a light pass across her collarbone, drawing Christian's eyes.

"That's what you said, isn't it?" she asked softly. "Not to make it pretty? Well, I'm not."

Christian's eyes darkened, but remnants of his earlier anger lingered and turned in on himself. He could have told her that when he was with her, that when his body joined hers and the sensations of their coupling were shuddering through him, it was so exquisite, so beautiful that it made him afraid. He did not believe he had done anything in his life to deserve the kind of pleasure he had known with her. He said none of it, though. He could not expose more of himself to Jenny Holland. She already knew too much. She had seen his paintings.

"Christian?" She said his name with a whisper-soft huskiness. "Should I go how?"

He shook his head, reaching for her wrist. "But perhaps we should go to my room," he said on the same thread of sound. "It's too cold for you here."

"Warm me."

"Oh, God, Jenny Holland." Christian tugged on her wrist so that the gap between them was narrowed. "I will. I
will."
His palms stroked her arms from wrist to shoulder, suffusing her skin with heat, but it was his mouth on her lips and his tender, tasting caress that warmed her from the inside out.

The embers of desire were buried deep and faintly lit, but Christian found them, nurtured them, and brought out the fiery response that Jenny wanted to know again. He brushed her mouth lightly, teasing her with gentle kisses at the corners of her lips until she opened her mouth and asked for something more. The tip of his tongue made a damp outline of her lips, traced the ridged barrier of her teeth, and finally dipped into her mouth deeply and took up the sweet battle with hers.

He kissed her temples. The dark strands of her hair tickled his mouth. There was nothing more fragrant, more alluring than her soft, sable hair. Christian found it difficult not to tell her that. He rubbed his cheek against her instead and was awash in the silky cascade that was Jenny's hair. His teeth caught the lobe of her ear. He tugged and heard the tiny catch in her breathing. "Sweet Jenny," he whispered just before his tongue followed the whorl of her ear.

Christian's mouth touched Jenny's brows, her eyelids, the delicate line of her pared nose. He kissed the faint hollows just below her cheekbones, the tip of her chin, the exposed line of her throat as she arched it beneath him. Her pulse beat warmly against his mouth.

There were words exchanged, hurriedly whispered instructions that substituted for other words, other phrases neither of them dared to think, let alone say aloud.

"Help me with this," he said, fingering the neckline of her chemise.

"Later. Your shirt. Take it off."

When they were naked: "Put your hand there."

"There?" she asked.

"Yes," he said, sucking in his breath.
"Yes."

The goose-down comforter covered them from head to toe. "This must be what a chrysalis is like," she said, pressing herself against the length of his body.

"Do you want to be a butterfly?" His fingertips slid up the soft skin of her inner thigh.

"Yes."

"Then spread your... wings, Jenny."

Christian's breath was hot against her neck. His mouth moved to her breasts. They were sensitive from the earlier manipulations of his hands. He took one coral-tipped peak in his lips and tugged. He could almost feel the cord of fire that snapped in a whip-like fashion from her breasts to the core of her pleasure. Her thighs opened to him and his fingers found her, exploring, stroking. She held him tightly, placing her mouth against his shoulder so that he could feel the murmurs of her desiring against his flesh.

Her hips bucked as he continued to caress her with his fingertips. Her heels dug into the tick. Christian could feel her nails in his back, her palms sliding along the length of his taut skin from shoulder to buttocks. Her knuckles brushed his thighs. She cradled him with the heat of her body. Her legs entwined with his so that he knew the long, lithe shape of them.