The Claiming (15 page)

It was not a situation she had expected to find herself in, and she wasn’t entirely certain of how to handle it. She did not, of course, want to confirm Alain’s nasty suspicions about her in the first place. In the second … well, in the second she was a virginal female. She had not been trained to initiate the act of sex. She had been trained to react.

Moreover, now did not seem to be the best time to even attempt to seduce Alain. He was in a very strange mood and she was fairly certain she didn’t like it.

On the other hand, exactly what should she do to get herself out of the mess she’d just gotten herself in to? She couldn’t just say no, could she?

Another thought occurred to her quite suddenly. She had known the moment Alain kissed her in the field that he was the man who’d made love to her on her last night on Earth. He had not seemed to realize it, but would he if she kissed him again?

Did she have a choice, she wondered as she took yet another step back and came up solidly against a tree trunk. Her eyes widened as Alain again matched her retreat with an advance, so that she was sandwiched solidly between the immovable object at her back and Alain’s equally immovable mass in the front.

The crown of her head scraped bark as she tilted her head up far enough to match his gaze. It occurred to her that she hadn’t, previously, appreciated how very large Alain was. He had always seemed intimidating—mostly, she thought, because of his dark, brooding manner and the sense of carefully leashed emotions—but not so broad and muscular. Feeling her neck muscles begin to cramp with the unaccustomed stretching it required to meet his gaze, it occurred to her that he had not seemed so big because he was so tall. At a little distance, his height made him appear more … narrow.

At this distance, his body completely blocked her view of anything else.

He was waiting.

Jana discovered her mind had gone perfectly blank. Her heart was slamming against her ribs like a frantic bird trying to find its freedom. Her lungs labored as if she’d suddenly found herself at a high altitude without supplemental oxygen.

The pulse drumming in her ears seemed to beat out a message—do something, do something. Instinct added the background chorus—run, run, run.

She couldn’t. He’d blocked all possibility of retreat. She was fairly certain her knees wouldn’t cooperate even if the opportunity had presented itself.

She had no choice but to meet his challenge—she should have had no inclination to do so, should have feared the consequences. But she realized she had not really tried to escape because she wanted him to kiss her, because she wanted to feel those things she’d felt before.

Unnerved by the heat of his gaze, she dropped her own to the pulse beating in his throat. Slowly, she lifted one hand and placed it against his chest, above his heart. Beneath her palm she felt the staccato beat of his heart. Several seconds passed before she realized that it was his heart, not hers, but pounding as rapidly as her own. Surprised, she shot a quick glance up at him, realizing that he was not nearly as unmoved as he seemed.

She had thought he felt nothing for her, except, perhaps, contempt for what he believed she was. Heartened that he seemed to feel at least some desire for her, she lifted her other hand to his chest, slid both slowly upwards until she reached his shoulders. She came up on her toes then, reaching higher still, threading the fingers of one hand through surprisingly silky black hair to cup the back of his head, and urging him to meet her as she lifted her face for his kiss.

She paused a breath away from his lips, waiting, her lips slightly parted with her breathlessness. When he made no effort to take control, she allowed her eyelids to drift closed and brushed her lips hesitantly against his. It was a mere breath of a touch and yet it sent delicious shivers of pleasure through her that made her limbs feel suddenly both heavy and insubstantial so that she had to lean against him for support.

His reaction was gratifyingly swift and devastating in effect. A shudder ran through him. With a rumbling groan from his chest, he pulled her tightly against him, molding the soft curves of her body to his hard length. His mouth came down hungrily over hers. Hard and searching, it slanted back and forth across her lips in a restless effort to taste and touch all at once, to meld them with his own.

She was vaguely aware of a sense of triumph at his wholly satisfying response, but for the most part, she was so completely enthralled by the strange and exciting sensations he was creating with his mouth and hands that she was oblivious to all else.

His tongue came out to touch her lips, teasing at the corners and testing the sensitive line where her lips met, seeking entrance. She parted her lips after only a token hesitation.

His tongue surged forward to lay claim at once, caressing and exploring the moist inner recesses of her mouth. She moaned softly at his intimate touch. Dizzying, heated sensation surged through her in wild jolts of exquisite pleasure as the slightly abrasive texture of his tongue raked against hers, entwined with it, stroked it caressingly. He filled her senses with his taste, his touch, his scent. Her senses rioted.

Feeling as warm and pliant as heated wax, she melted against him. She felt so weak and disoriented with the sensations he so expertly evoked, she could do nothing else even if she’d wished to.

It was quite unlike anything she'd ever experienced in her life, more exciting even than that other kiss in the meadow that had left her in a state of dazed shock, far more intense than when he’d kissed her the first time. He’d been so gentle with her then, almost apologetic, sensing her distress and fears. His kiss now was that of a marauding conqueror.

She thought she would be pleased if it never ended. Rather than pulling away as her mind dimly warned, therefore, she pressed closer, eagerly accepting the devastating sensations his kiss evoked. And finally, feeling a great yearning to give pleasure for pleasure, she returned his kiss, touching her tongue timidly to his.

He seized upon her tentative caress with urgency, suckling hungrily upon her offering. A ball of heat lightning flashed along her veins, settling with pulsing intensity in her breasts and lower, in her femininity, setting them to throbbing with almost painful pleasure. Her muscles turned to pudding, her bones to water.

She felt almost faint when finally he raised his mouth from hers. Raining kisses on her eyes and nose and chin and once more, lightly, on her lips, he cradled her against him, caressing the nape of her neck with his strong fingers as his other hand slid in a slow stroking motion along her back.

She leaned weakly against him, listening to his harsh breathing, glorying in the slight tremors that still shook him.

After a moment, she pulled away slightly and lifted her lips in mute appeal, feeling a quiver of anticipation as his lips descended to claim hers once more. But, although she felt an answering tremor run through his body as their lips met, this kiss was all too disappointingly short. He ended it almost before it had begun, tearing his lips from hers with a strangled oath. She sent him a look of reproach, just a little hurt that he didn't seem to want to kiss her again.

He gazed down at her a long moment, his golden eyes gleaming with emotions she could only guess at, then chuckled softly. Pressing a light kiss to her lips, he pulled her tightly against him. “Princess," he murmured caressingly. "I'm sorely tempted to take you here and now. If you kiss me like that again, I can't answer for the consequences. I have only so much self-control and I'm afraid it's wearing thin."

Chapter Eight

He could not have found anything to have said that would have been more effective in bringing Jana crashing down from debilitating bliss to cold, clear headed logic.

Somewhere between ‘this is dangerous and risky’ and ‘I can’t escape this’ she realized she had totally lost all sense of self preservation.

She had been too ignorant of how matters stood when she’d arrived on Orleans to think beyond making a place for herself, hoping Alain would find her pleasing enough to keep her ... or fight to keep her if Marty found her and the need arose.

Slowly, but surely, it had been born in upon her that she was making very little headway with Alain, and that coaxing him into her bed would be the worst thing she could do. She had, somehow, to engage his affections before he discovered that her virtue was doubtful. The very moment he discovered her virginity was reconstituted, he would immediately realize that he had no way at all to gauge her virtue, and, knowing him as she did now, that would translate into a woman who could not be trusted and was not wanted.

She found it almost more disturbing that he did not seem, even after having kissed her twice, to remember her, when she had known him the moment his lips had melded with hers, but she resolutely dismissed those troublesome concerns. She should, she knew, be relieved that he hadn’t. Denouncement would almost certainly follow hard on the heels of recognition. When she had no escape route plotted, that translated to being shipped off to Earth, and returned to Marty.

He had clouded her reasoning abilities the moment he’d trapped her and challenged her to prove her expertise with a kiss.

It would have been safer to have risked his wrath, she saw now.

She released him. Placing her palms on his chest once more, she pushed, without noticeable effect. He yielded ground, finally, and she slipped away, moving to retrieve the clothing she’d used to dry herself.

She found the tension he’d created in her still gripped her, that she could not meet his curious gaze, that she could think of no response to his remark. “Yes, it was nice,” she finally said, forcing a light tone she thought would annoy him as much as her comment. “But I, at least, was in no danger of losing my head. There was nothing really remarkable about it, after all.”

She flicked a quick glance his way to gauge his reaction. The intention, after all, was to merely diffuse the situation, not provoke him to anger. She saw, however, that he was looking very amused and downright smug … as if he knew very well she was lying.

She felt a spurt of irritation, but decided to ignore him. It wouldn’t do at all to provoke him into another round of exploration.

Wadding her discarded clothing into a ball, she plunked them on the fallen tree she had sat on earlier to pull on her stockings and shoes, then quickly twisted her hair into a knot at the nape of her neck and jabbed her hair pins into place.

"Nothing?" he asked quizzically.

She jumped, realizing she’d been so preoccupied with her thoughts she hadn’t noticed when he’d moved to stand behind her. "Nothing what?" she asked blankly, more disturbed by his nearness than she liked.

His lips curled into a slightly mocking smile. "Nothing remarkable in it?" he prompted.

His tone, his comment implied that he had not experienced what she had, otherwise he would not have been so completely aware of the effect it had had on her. Somehow it made her very angry that he, apparently, had not been as affected as she had been. How could he not know the difference between kissing her and anyone else when she had recognized his touch instantly? “One is much like any other,” she said tightly.

“And you’ve kissed so many men you can’t tell a difference?”

In point of fact, Jana was more inclined to feel as if she’d never, truly, been kissed by any other man. The few times she had allowed it previously had been more like an attack than the pleasurable assault to her senses kissing Alain was. She saw no reason to stroke his ego, however. “Yes. I mean, no. I’m afraid I can’t really tell much difference.”

“Curious.”

“Why?” Jana asked warily.

“It seemed to me that it was not something you were at all accustomed to doing.”

Jana gazed up at him doubtfully, feeling very much as if she'd had the wind knocked out of her, wondering how he could tell. “I didn’t do it correctly?”

He grinned, his eyes gleaming triumphantly. Jana felt a surge of irritation, realizing she’d fallen into a verbal trap. “It seemed the same,” she said belligerently.

“I accept,” he said promptly.

Jana felt her jaw drop. “Accept?”

“Your challenge.”

***

In her desperation to put some distance between them, Jana forgot about the fallen tree she’d been standing beside. Bumping against it as she took a hasty step backward, she teetered, precariously close to losing her balance. Alain grasped her around her waist and jerked her up against him.

"It wasn't a challenge," she disclaimed breathlessly, but whatever other objections she might've thought to utter were smothered as his mouth claimed hers once more.

Braced for an assault, she was disarmed by the light, almost playfully teasing touch of his hard mouth as it gently grazed hers in a brushing stroke that instantly revived her heated response of before. She uttered a sound of both distress and pleasure, urging him to take firmer possession. Instead, he ceased the teasing brush of lips to lips and nipped at the soft fullness of her lips with his own before carefully tugging at first one then the other with his teeth.

A shudder ran through her. All thought of resistance fled. The hands she'd pressed against his chest to push him away, clenched, gripping his shirt tightly. Mindlessly, she followed his lead, rising up on her tiptoes to press herself against him as she mimicked his caress with her own lips.

He uttered a deep groan of satisfaction. Grasping her hands, he disengaged them from his shirt, wrapped her arms around his waist and pulled her fully against his chest. He held her there, tightly, running one hand down to grasp her hips to bring them into hard contact with his own. A shudder of pleasure rippled through him. His mouth closed firmly over hers. Without hesitation or further preliminaries, he parted her lips and plunged his tongue inside to explore, caress, possess.

She met his stroking tongue eagerly, with more surety now, giving him back stroke for stroke, caress for caress. The heated lightning jagged through her again, electrifying her senses, seeming to magnify every sensation at every point their bodies touched. And, just when she thought there could be no more pleasure in the world, he changed the tempo of his kiss and taught her there was more.