He pushed her gently down on the third step of the staircase and sat down beside her. “I’m sure. You wish to play the game. I knew you were ready to make the first moves the moment I saw you walk down the stairs tonight.” His head lowered slowly until his lips were hovering over the exposed flesh swelling from the bodice. His breath was merely warm; it shouldn’t haveburned her. Yet it did burn and caused her to shiver as if with a fever. “You’re trembling.”
His lips touched her flesh.
She made a low sound and involuntarily arched upward. “Jean Marc…”
“Shh.” His warm, wet tongue moved over her left breast, into the valley between, and then shifted to caress the right breast. “I used to wonder how you’d taste. Warm, sweet…” His hands slowly pushed down the bodice of the gown. “I want toseeyou.”
Her breasts tumbled from the gown, the nipples pointing up at him, hard, erect. She felt heat sear her cheeks, her throat, her shoulders as she lay on the steps, her breasts lifting and falling with her quickened breathing.
He carefully arranged the velvet gown so that the low neckline was beneath her breasts, framing and lifting them into prominence. “Now, there’s a lovely picture.” His voice was thick as he looked down at her. “White velvet and exquisite pink flowers. But they don’t have to remain pink. Let’s see if we can make them the same wine color as your gown, shall we?”
His mouth closed on her right nipple.
Fire, fierce hunger.
She arched helplessly upward as he sucked, bit, tongued. She could hear the low groans he uttered deep in his throat as his hands cupped, squeezed, as his mouth worked its own sensual magic.
He lifted his head to gaze down at her with glazed eyes. “Look at yourself.”
Her nipples were deep, deep red, pointed and flaunting. As she watched he slowly took one between his teeth and gently tugged upward.
She gasped as hot pleasure rippled through her.
“I’ve pleased you.” He licked delicately at the engorged tip. “Now it’s time to please me.”
She looked at him in bewilderment.
“I only want you to ask me to pleasure you,” he whispered. “Isn’t that fair? I’ll give you the words and you only have to say them.”
“I don’t—” She broke off as she saw his expressionthat contained desire, hunger, and something else. Something reckless, bitter, and infinitely darker in nature.
“Why are you doing this? Why do you want to make me feel this way?”
“How do you feel?”
“Weak, trembling, as if I want—” She stopped, stiffening as she saw a flicker of satisfaction on his face. “That’s the way you want me to feel.”
His beautifully shaped hand, olive dark against her fairness, squeezed and released her breast. “Yes.”
Her gaze searched his face. “It’s lust but not lust. It’s something else too.” She pushed him away, sat up, and drew a deep breath. “You want to hurt me. Why?”
“I wouldn’t hurt you.”
“Why?”
“Why do I want to bed you?” He smiled crookedly. “Because you taunt me and challenge me. Because one moment I think of you as a child I have to protect and the next as a woman I’ve no intention of protecting.” He paused. “And because you’re perhaps the strongest woman I’ve ever encountered.”
She pulled her bodice back up over her breasts. “And that’s important to you? Do you want to break me just because I have strength?”
“I didn’t say I wanted you to break. It’s only the game.”
“What game?”
He smiled at her. “Why, the one men and women always play with one another. There’s always a victor and a loser in that most interesting of battles. I prefer to be the victor.” He lowered his lips to brush her shoulder. “No one needs to be broken. I know how to win without crushing my antagonist.”
“But you’d hurt me. Not my body, perhaps. You would try to wound me in some other ways. I can feel the anger in you.” She moistened her lips. “I don’t believe you are able to feel true affection for any woman. You just want to conquer me as my mother used to conquer all those men she brought to her bed. It was a game for her too.” She stood up, her hands nervouslysmoothing the skirts of her gown. “It’s a game I don’t know how to play.”
“You’ll learn,” he said cynically as he rose to his feet. “Believe me, you have a greater instinct for the game than anyone I’ve ever known.”
