Masque of Betrayal (41 page)

Upstairs in their room, Dane lay Jacqui gently on the bed and carefully undressed her down to her chemise. By the time he’d drawn the quilt up to cover her, she was almost asleep.

“Dane … we have to find him … he’s the traitor,” she murmured, her eyes closed.

“Hush, love.” He stroked the hair from her face. “We’ll talk about it all later. Now I want you to sleep.” He kissed her forehead and she sighed, giving in to the relentless need of her body to rest.

Dane sat beside her, watching her drift off, thanking the heavens that she was home unharmed. Sometime later, Whiskey slipped into the room and jumped on the bed. Seeing that Jacqui was asleep, he curled up alongside her, blinking his huge green eyes at Dane.

“No argument from me, my friend,” Dane assured him. “You’ve more than earned the right to sleep here tonight.”

In reply, Whiskey licked his whiskers, then closed his eyes.

Dane remained where he was, wide awake, lost in thought. During their walk home, Jacqui had filled him in on the details of her capture, and Dane could gain no clue of the assailant’s identity from Jacqui’s sketchy description. All she’d felt certain of was that he was a man, not too old, somewhat nervous, tall, with dark eyes and a raspy voice, and that he was probably not acting alone. The sum of which told them nothing.

At the same time, Dane’s heart swelled with pride when Jacqui explained her ingenious management of the situation: not only the successful way she’d stalled her captor, but the clever manner in which she’d arranged the clues that had ultimately led Dane to her. The shattered liquor glass, the resulting stench that had captured Whiskey’s keen sense of smell, and the ribbon she’d placed around the kitten’s neck … all those things had been instrumental in her rescue. Without them … Dane shuddered to think.

He stood and began to pace, wondering if there was an answer to this dark puzzle, one they could all live with.

“Dane?” Jacqui’s voice was a sleepy whisper.

“Are you awake already, sweet?” His eyes fell on the clock, surprised to find that two hours had passed since Jacqui had nodded off.

She sat up, stretching. “I feel much better.”

He smiled. “I’m glad.”

Their eyes met in the dim, shadowed room.

“You saved my life,” she whispered.

His smile faded. “You
are
my life,” was his fervent reply.

She swallowed, then reached her arms out to him. “Dane …”

It was all she needed to say.

He went to her, gathered her against him, and covered her mouth with his. Nudging her head to his shoulder, he urged her lips apart, penetrating her with one plunging stroke of his tongue.

Clutching Dane’s shoulders, Jacqui melted. Matching her husband’s urgency, she opened to him at once, giving herself in a physical and emotional reaffirmation as old as time itself. Slowly, sensually, their tongues melded in a blatantly erotic caress. Dane made a husky sound, and Jacqui could actually feel him tremble as he devoured her mouth, tasted her again and again, drugging her with eloquent, consuming kisses.

She slid her hands between them and tugged his waistcoat and shirt free, spreading the material apart so she could press herself against his naked flesh. Through the thin gauze of her chemise, her nipples hardened and Dane tore his mouth away to stare down at the miracle of her response.

“My God, you’re so beautiful,” he breathed, bending his head and running his warm, open lips across the upper slope of her breasts. He eased away from her, kneeling beside the bed and intertwining her fingers with his. “I was never so frightened in all my life as when I realized you were missing,” he told her. “No threat, not even to my own life, could be so terrifying as the fear of losing you.” He gazed up at her, his burning eyes holding her still. “I never knew what it meant to be wholly vulnerable to another person. Nor would I have guessed that vulnerability could make you strong, not weak.”

He kissed each of her fingers, her palms, her bruised wrists. Then he released her hands, bending to lift her feet, to kiss the red marks at her ankles where the ropes had marred her tender skin. “You have no idea how much I need you,
chaton,
” he whispered, pressing soft, nipping kisses along her calves, her knees. He felt a tremor run through her as he caressed her inner thighs with his parted lips, his warm breath. “Jacqui …” He tugged her to the edge of the bed, urging her thighs apart with insistent hands, bending to bury his mouth in her hot sweetness.

Jacqui fell back on the bed with a cry of pleasure while the world went up in flames, glorying in the reality of Dane’s fervid, absolute possession. She capitulated in a rush, knotting the sheet in her fists, giving Dane the total access he was wordlessly demanding and the erotic, abandoned response he was intent on evoking.

She arched in seconds, calling out to him, rising and falling with the spasms that seemed to go on forever before she collapsed, spent and panting, on the bed. For long minutes she floated on clouds of fulfillment, unable to move or think or even breathe.

When she finally managed to open her eyes, Dane was looming over her, his gaze riveted on her face, his expression galvanizing.

With quick, purposeful movements, he undressed, never tearing his eyes from Jacqui’s, until he was magnificently naked and ready for her, his arousal rampant and throbbing.

He eased down beside her, tugged off her chemise, and glided his hands deliberately over the exquisite curves and hollows of her body. “Beyond beautiful,” he murmured, his thumbs lightly stroking her nipples. “Beyond description. Beyond anything.”

To her amazement, Jacqui felt the pulsing ache between her thighs begin anew and she reached for Dane, pulling him down to her.

He needed no coercion, but wrapped himself around her and began to make love to her slowly, possessing her with his mouth and hands, muttering dark, forbidden promises against her skin. With tormenting patience, he claimed the warm, silky weight of her breasts, the tight, hard buds of her nipples, the trembling wetness between her thighs.

“I love you, Jacqui,” he said, looking directly into her passion-glazed eyes. “So much …
too
much. It astounds me how little control I have when we’re together.” He cupped her face with shaking palms. “See? Can you feel how badly I want you, need you?” He caught her hand in his, bringing it down to close around his throbbing erection. “Can you, my breathtaking wife?”

Jacqui whimpered, all sensation concentrated beneath her discovering hand. She took over the motion herself, curled her fingers around him, caressing gently, feeling the enormous power beneath her touch.

Dane groaned deep in his throat, throwing back his head, his breath coming in harsh pants. He withstood the exquisite torture as long as he could. When it became unendurable, he caught Jacqui’s wrist. “I can’t … no more.” He shook his head wildly, silver lightning ablaze in his eyes.

But when he would have moved to take her, Jacqui slid down the length of him, exploring the taut planes of his abdomen, the flat male nipples that stiffened beneath her touch, the pulsing hardness that quivered in her hand. She bent to taste him, to bring him the same excruciating pleasure he had brought her. Surrounding him with her mouth, she learned him as she never before had, until Dane made a hoarse, anguished sound of primal male need, dragging her away mere seconds before it was too late.

Mindless with arousal, he rolled her beneath him and buried himself inside her, grinding their hips together until he could go no deeper. Hungrily, he repeated the motion, clenching his fists in the pillow beside her head, forcing her to meet the ravenous heat of his gaze.

“Love me,” he commanded, a harsh, guttural sound. “Don’t ever leave me, or frighten me, like that again.”

Drawn by the desperate tone of his voice, the naked longing in his eyes, Jacqui whispered, “I won’t. …” She clutched the bunched muscles of his shoulders, lifting her hips to meet the erotic motion of his.

“Love me,” he repeated, this time a gentle ripple, a reverent prayer breathed into her open mouth.

Jacqui wound herself around him, arms and legs drawing him close, inner muscles clasping him tightly within her. “I do.”

The long-awaited declaration pushed him over the edge.

Control having evaporated, Dane plunged deep inside his wife, joining their bodies in a poignant confirmation of her words, withdrawing only to immerse himself again.

The bed groaned with each staggering thrust, the vortex of sensation coiling tighter, tighter still. Jacqui clung to him, ascended to dizzying heights, and teetered there … waiting, absorbing the frenzied pounding of Dane’s body over hers, in hers.

Then … time stopped, the world tilted askew.

Release came as a stunning explosion, tearing through them both simultaneously, coursing through their bodies in crashing waves, making them both lunge forward and cry out.

When the waves receded, they lay dazed and drenched, in the wake of something more powerful than either of them had ever fathomed.

“Say it again.” Dane raised his head and looked solemnly down at Jacqui, brushing damp strands of hair from her flushed face and lowered lashes. “I want to hear it, not in passion, but in truth. Say it, Jacqui. Lord knows I’ve waited an eternity to hear it.”

Jacqui’s lids fluttered and Dane caught his breath at the look of intense emotion he saw glowing in the midnight of her eyes. She hesitated, a flash of fear and vulnerability flickering there but for a moment. Then she lay her hand against his strong jaw. “I love you,” she whispered, astounded that she had the courage to say aloud what she’d known in her heart for months. “It terrifies me, but it’s true nonetheless. I love you, Dane.”

Dane turned his face to kiss her palm, his expression humble. “Don’t be terrified,
mon chaton colereux.
I’ll never leave you. What we have is forever.” He brushed her lips softly with his. “Now listen to
me
say the words: I love you, Jacqui. Always. And, just as you belong to me, I belong to you.”

W
ILL IT ALWAYS BE
so wondrous?” Jacqui murmured, awed and sated in the glorious aftermath of their long night of lovemaking.

“Always,
chaton.
Forever.” Dane brought a handful of her hair to his lips, marveling at the way the first golden rays of dawn shimmered on the satiny tresses.

Jacqui fell silent.

“Jacqueline.” Dane looked down at her. “I know how afraid you are to believe in forever. I even know why.” He answered her startled, questioning look with the truth. “Your father and I talked … about your childhood, and your mother.”

Jacqui lowered her lashes, but Dane refused to let her retreat from him. Catching her chin with his forefinger, he gently forced her to meet his gaze. “I know how devastating her death must have been for you. I wish I’d been there to hold you in my arms and tell you the pain would pass, to promise you I’d never leave you, that you’d never have to endure so staggering a loss again. But I wasn’t. So I’m telling you now. I love you, Jacqueline. My love is something you can count on, for it is yours, unconditionally and always. I’m strong, I’m healthy … and I’m very sure of my feelings.”

He caressed her cheek with his thumb, determined to erase the lingering filaments of doubt from her mind. “Did I lie when I told you I’d always accept you as you are and never try to change you?”

“No.” Her voice was small.

“Nor am I lying to you now.” He interlaced her fingers with his, placed their joined hands over his heart. “Fate created us for each other, darling, and nothing is going to separate us or alter my feelings. You have my word.”

Jacqui smiled faintly. “Your word as a gentleman?”

He chuckled, tracing her kiss-swollen lips. “No. My word as your husband; which is guaranteed to be infinitely more reliable than my word as a gentleman.”

“I’m glad,” Jacqui returned, her voice breaking as she battled to regain her self-control. “Since the past months have not shown you to be much in the way of a gentleman.”

“That is because you,
chaton,
make me forget all my good intentions. You’re a constant challenge, in
and
out of bed.” His eyes twinkled.

“Speaking of which, you did vow to murder me,” she reminded him.

Dane nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, I did, didn’t I?” He scowled, recalling the events that led up to that threat. “You scared the bloody hell out of me yesterday.”

Jacqui propped her chin on his chest. “I know. And I’m truly sorry. Next time I promise to be more careful.”

Dane shot up like a bullet, nearly knocking Jacqui to the floor.
“Next time?”

Baffled, Jacqui gathered up the bedcovers and wrapped them around her. “Well, of course, next time,” she returned, totally exasperated. “I told you, my captor is obviously one of the traitors for whom Secretary Hamilton is searching. Unfortunately, he escaped into the woods before you could apprehend him. Therefore, we must think of a plan that will expose not only him, but his accomplices as well. And since Laffey seems to be the likely target—”

“Over my dead body!” Dane exploded, silencing her words. He bounded from the bed and began pacing back and forth, oblivious to his nakedness. “After what occurred yesterday,” he berated Jacqui, angry and incredulous, “how can you even suggest using Laffey’s column again as bait for our trap?”

“But, Dane, I wouldn’t—”

“No!”
Dane halted at the foot of the bed, grim-faced, shaking his head vehemently. “The idea is unthinkable!”

“It’s a splendid idea.”

The Secretary of the Treasury nodded decisively as he spoke.

“Are you as insane as my wife, Alexander?” Dane demanded.

“I thought you might agree,” Jacqui was saying, ignoring her husband’s remark. “It is our only logical alternative, given the circumstances.”

Dane slammed his fists on Hamilton’s desk. “If you permit another column such as the last, you are inviting a repeat of Jacqueline’s abduction.” His eyes blazed silver fire. “And that I
will
not allow. Friendship be damned. Patriotism be damned.” He jerked around to glare at Jacqui. “Promises be damned. This time the answer is no, Jacqueline. You will
not
write that column.”