“Nonsense. I’m no dreamer. You’re right, my father and I were not at all alike.” He moved across the salon toward the door. “I believe only what I can see and touch.” He locked the door. “And I want very badly to see and touch you at this moment, Juliette. Will you please unfasten your gown?”
She gazed at him in surprise. “Now?”
He smiled recklessly. “Why not? I have a fancy to take you in a place that’s not moving and shifting with every wave.” He took off his coat and tossed it on the desk, half covering the crystal swan. “Indulge my whim.”
She had begun to realize he seldom acted on impulse. There was some reason he wanted to make love to her in this room. Something to do with the rawness of the pain she sensed within him.
Jean Marc was moving toward her. “You have no objection?”
She slowly shook her head, her gaze clinging to his. “No,” she whispered. “I’ve no objection, Jean Marc.”
She could feel the tension flowing from him, envelopingher in its power. She disrobed, every motion steady and unhurried. In a few moments she stood naked before him. “Is this what you want?” she asked quietly.
“Yes.” His gaze went over her slowly. Whatever his purpose, she knew he wanted her. She could see the thick column of his manhood thrusting against the smooth snugness of his trousers, the slight flare of his nostrils, the flush darkening the high planes of his cheekbones. She knew and that knowledge was igniting an answering response.
“Yes, that’s exactly what I want.” He didn’t touch her with anything but his eyes. Yet it was enough to send a hot shiver through her. “And more. Go over and lie down on that lovely Savonnerie carpet in front of the fireplace. I have a fancy to see you framed against those exquisite colors.”
She moved slowly across the study to stand before the mantel. She stood with her back to him, looking up at the portrait of Charlotte d’Abois. “Is she the reason you hated my wig? You said you detested fair hair.”
“I don’t want to talk about Charlotte.” He was standing behind her, his hands sliding around to cup her breasts in his hands.
She inhaled sharply as she felt the hardness of his arousal pressing against her naked buttocks. She looked down to see the tan of his hands in startling contrast against her paler flesh. His hands left her breasts and slowly slid down her rib cage to rest on her hips.
“I don’t want to talk at all.” He held her quite still while he rubbed slowly back and forth against her. “Since you don’t seem to wish to indulge me by lying down, why don’t you bend over and hold on to the mantel?”
His hands left her to make adjustments to his clothing and then he moved closer. “Yes, that’s right. Now your legs, just a little wider…”
He sheathed himself within her in one swift plunge.
She cried out, her fingers digging at the cold Pyrenees marble of the mantel.
He froze. “Did I hurt you?”
“No.” She closed her eyes, trying to steady her breathing. “It’s just…different.” His hot hardness inside her, the coldness of the marble under her hands, the feel of his clothed body against her nakedness. Different and darkly exciting.
He began to move, thrusting slowly, deeply, letting her feel every inch of him. “Don’t cry out again,” he said thickly. “They’ll hear you in the salon.” His fingers slid around and found the sensitive nub of her womanhood. His breath was hot in her ear as he began to lightly pluck with a thumb and forefinger. “You wouldn’t want them to know what I’m doing to you, would you?”
She bit her lower lip to keep from screaming. The sensations he was provoking were indescribable. She could feel Jean Marc’s chest rising and falling against her naked back, the crispness of his linen shirt a sensual abrasion as he plunged wildly.
“You wouldn’t want them to know how much you like it.” His teeth pulled at her earlobe. “How you’re pushing back against me to take and take and take…”
Her breath was sobbing in her throat as she felt Jean Marc striking against her womb.
“You do want this, don’t you?”
She didn’t speak. She couldn’t speak.
His finger pressed, rotated slowly. “Don’t you?”
“Yes.” It was an almost inaudible gasp.
“Then let me give you more.” He pushed her to her knees on the Savonnerie carpet so that she was supporting herself on her hands and followed her down. His hands cupped her breasts, kneading, squeezing, pulling at them while he thrust deep. “While you tell me”—he pulled out and sank deep again—“how much you want it.”
He was moving strongly, roughly, in a fever of hunger and need. “Tell me, dammit.”
“How…can I tell…you?” She gasped in exasperation. “When you’re giving me…so much pleasure I can’t even breathe.”
He stopped in mid-stroke and was still. “Mother of God, I should have known you’d do this to me.”
