Seven Nights In A Rogue's Bed
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“I’m not your mistress,” she snapped, annoyed that he immediately attributed her ill temper to jealousy.
“Yet.” He subjected her to a thorough inspection. “It fits.”
“It’s too tight. Mrs. Bevan had to shift the buttons. That’s why I’m late.”
“You’re more…generously endowed than your sister.”
She stared into his face and stupidly wondered whether he preferred a more slender woman. Compared to Roberta’s willowy proportions, she was a Valkyrie. “Roberta doesn’t ride,” she said, telling herself she didn’t care what this miscreant made of her appearance.
More hollow bravado. She was becoming quite expert in the art.
“I don’t know your sister well enough to be familiar with her amusements—apart from chasing the next hand of cards.”
“You judge her harshly.” She bit back the impulse to tell Merrick that her sister hadn’t always been the brittle, supercilious creature he knew. When they were children, Roberta’s affection had been Sidonie’s only refuge against their mother’s indifference and their father’s contempt.
He shrugged. “She was a means to an end.”
Sidonie’s lips tightened. “That puts me in my place.”
He skimmed the back of his gloved hand under her chin. “You’re in a different category altogether, bella.”
The caress—if such fleeting contact justified the name—lasted a mere second but she felt it to her toes. This absurd physical awareness heightened rather than ebbed with familiarity. “Yes, I’ve agreed not to fight you,” she said with a bitter edge.
“The day’s too fine to quarrel,” he said lightly. “Let me help you into the saddle. Kismet grows restless.”
When he grabbed her around the waist, she waited for his hands to linger, to stray, but he merely tossed her into the sidesaddle with breathtaking ease. The beautiful horse sidled then settled at a reassuring word from Jonas. He had a way with females, Sidonie thought with another spike of resentment. Strange to remember Roberta describing him as so hideously ugly that he gave her nightmares. She tried to imagine what Merrick would look like without scars, but they seemed as much part of him as that sensually knowing mouth.
He stepped close enough to catch Kismet’s bridle. “Still now while I adjust your stirrups.”
He brushed her black skirts aside. She waited in quivering expectation for him to touch her legs but his hands were sure as they tightened the leathers. Something about the sheer competence of those strong gloved hands made her stomach jump. From Kismet’s back, she had a fine view of his wild gypsy hair. It was pitch black and untidy and another indication that he insisted on the world taking him on his terms.
He shifted away and glanced up. “Are you cold?”
How she wished she could hide her reactions. “No.”
She waited for some comment about her trembling, but he merely turned to collect his beaver hat from the bench behind him. Smoothly he rose into the bay’s saddle and her heart slammed with admiration at his effortless strength.
Believe me, tesoro, I’ll touch you over and over again, in ways you haven’t even imagined a man can touch you.
She smothered the memory of Merrick’s daunting promise and frantically sought some neutral topic of conversation as they trotted away from the castle. Difficult when every time she looked at him, she remembered him kissing her, touching her skin.
“Why do you tease me in Italian? I would have thought you’d speak—” Then she recalled that the world accounted his mother little better than a whore. The subject of Consuela Alvarez was likely off limits.
He arched a satirical eyebrow as if guessing her quandary. “You imagine I speak fluent Spanish?”
“Don’t you?”
“My mother died when I was two. I don’t remember her.”
“Oh.” She paused. “I’m sorry.”
An uncomfortable silence fell. They crossed a wide green field, the cliffs to their left. The waves crashed upon the rocks below. Gulls on the wind cried like lost souls. Behind her, the bulk of Castle Craven squatted dark on the horizon. Even in sunshine, it looked a dour place.
The silence extended, became increasingly awkward. The horses’ hooves landed dully on the thick grass. She was casting around wildly for something to talk about—the weather seemed too banal but a remark about the bright day hovered on her lips—before he finally spoke. “After I failed to make a success of Eton, my father took me to Venice to live.”
Something in his tone indicated a complicated story behind the laconic accounting. There was so much she didn’t understand, so much she wanted to know. Her feverish curiosity disturbed her. Merrick was a stranger. It would be easier if he remained so.
He went on when she didn’t respond. “We rarely returned to England.”
She could imagine why. She was too young to remember the original scandal of Lord Hillbrook and his imposter viscountess, but vicious gossip had persisted over the years. So much of the story remained mysterious, like how Jonas had earned the marks on his face. Sidonie was familiar with the basic facts. It was common knowledge that all his life Jonas’s father, Anthony Merrick, protested the validity of his marriage. After his death, the Hillbrook title fell to William, Jonas’s cousin. William, who married Roberta Forsythe for her dowry soon after inheriting.
Anthony Merrick had achieved posthumous revenge of a sort. He’d been one of the richest men in England and aside from Barstowe Hall in Wiltshire and Merrick House in London, none of that fortune was entailed. Upon Anthony’s death nine years ago, Jonas Merrick had inherited vast wealth. William Merrick was left with two tumbledown houses, deliberately neglected by his uncle, and no funds to support the dignity of the Hillbrook title.
Since then, Jonas’s fortune had grown exponentially. He was clever, determined, innovative, and ruthless. His wealth ensured grudging social acceptance, despite his illegitimacy. William careered from one financial disaster to another, until now he verged on bankruptcy. With every failure, his loathing for Jonas built to mania. So many times, Sidonie had heard William curse his cousin. His attacks upon Roberta became especially vicious after Jonas had bested William in some way. A reminder, if she’d needed one, of what was at stake here at Castle Craven.
Merrick veered toward the headland. Sidonie followed him down a gentle slope toward the wide sweep of beach. Despite the warm day, the waves were a gray tumult, thundering against the shore with malevolent force. Suddenly needing the release of speed, she urged Kismet to a gallop. For a sweet interval, there was only rushing, briny air and pounding hooves upon smooth sand. She heard Merrick behind her but didn’t look back. For this moment, she needed the fantasy that she could outrun trouble.
A brief moment indeed.
She reached the debris-strewn end of the beach and reined Kismet to a quivering stop. She turned in the saddle to watch Merrick’s thundering approach. The big bay reared to a halt behind her. Merrick’s easy control over the highly strung horse shivered awareness through her. Those skillful hands that calmed a restless horse would soon touch her body.
As he leaned to pat the horse’s satiny neck, he glanced up at her. A light in his silvery eyes indicated he divined the tenor of her thoughts. Of course he did.
“Feeling better?” That slight twist of his lips cut straight to her heart.
She blinked. Her heart? No, no, no. Her heart wasn’t involved. She veered close enough to disaster bartering her body.
He saw her perturbation. “What’s wrong?”
She bit her lip and chose dangerous honesty. “I keep forgetting you mean to destroy me.”
If she hadn’t watched so carefully, she might have missed the troubled frown that darkened his eyes. It struck her that, if Merrick could read her, she was learning to read him. This encroaching intimacy leached resistance, but she didn’t know how to fight it.
“Nothing quite so drastic, surely,” he said mildly. “This gothic setting plays with your imagination.”
The gelding edged closer until Merrick’s leg bumped hers. He reached to curl his hand behind her neck, tangling his fingers in the strands of hair loosened in her reckless gallop. Heat tightened her skin.
Oh, Lord …
Nervousness crashed through her like a landslide. That cursed promise to allow him access was a mistake, but it was too late to renege.
“Merrick…” She stiffened without drawing away.
“Jonas.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Jonas, then. Let me go.”
Holding her with gentle implacability, he loomed nearer. His answer was a whisper upon her tingling lips. “Oh, no, Sidonie. Never ask me to let you go. Not yet. Not before we’ve discovered paradise.”
“Stop it.” Her heart thumped so hard she thought it must burst.
“I would if I could.”
She tensed against his grip. “Balderdash. You’re just playing with me.”
“Most definitely, tesoro. But your dilemma is your own fault. You’re so irresistible and I find myself unable to…resist.”
“Command your willpower, Mr. Merrick. Defeat this weakness.”
“I try, dear lady. I try.”
“I’ll bite you,” she said savagely, although she didn’t move.
“I’ll bite you too before I’m done.” His gaze sharpened upon her lips, making her heart hammer a panicked warning. “Eat you like a ripe peach, all juice and sweetness. And lick my lips afterward.”
She knew enough to recognize he meant sin. More than kissing, that was certain. For a rogue like him, kissing must be small beer indeed. “You’re…you’re frightening me, Mr. Merrick.”
Although fear was only part of what she felt. License had never lured her. She’d never imagined she’d give her body to a man. But something about Merrick charged her blood with inchoate longing, despite what she knew of him and what he intended for her.
“Seize your courage, Miss Forsythe.” He mocked her formality. Even she felt idiotic calling him Mr. Merrick when he was about to kiss her. Ruthlessness hardened his jaw. “No more preliminary skirmishes, Sidonie. Let’s start the games. To the victor the spoils.”
Chapter Five
Sidonie braced to revisit last night’s chaste kiss. There was the same inescapable intimacy. The same reluctant delight. The same suspense, as if revelation hovered just out of reach. That had been disturbing enough. But this was…more.
The kiss was an unmistakable invitation. To what? She was too inexperienced to know. What she did know was that the slightest signal of cooperation would bring her more trouble than she could handle. As she had last night, she remained unmoving under his lips, hoping lack of encouragement would deter him.
A futile hope.
He took his time so that she moved through resistance to overwhelming awareness of physical details. The sleek texture of his lips. The soft flexing of his hand on the back of her neck. The mad race of her heart. The heat pooling in the base of her belly. This unfamiliar, unwelcome sensation lured her to sink into the kiss. Disturbed, she edged away. Kismet whickered and shifted under her.
“Shh,” Merrick said softly.
“Are you talking to me or the horse?” She loathed the betraying huskiness in her voice.
He laughed softly. “What do you think?”
“I think you should stop.” Her hands tightened on the reins, although she was careful not to unsettle her mount again.
“Not yet,” he said mildly, even as the excitement glittering in his eyes set the blood rushing through her veins.
She gave a long-suffering sigh. “Get it over with, then.”
His eyes sparked with the humor that rapidly became irresistible, curse him. “No need to beg, tesoro.”
The grip on her neck tightened, although she’d immediately recognized the futility of running. She’d made promises to him and he still held Roberta’s vowels. Kissing her stretched the boundaries of their agreement, but she’d known he plotted blatant seduction when he offered the bargain.
His lips rubbed across hers, pursed to kiss the corners, returned to suck subtly at her lower lip. More dangerously alluring pleasure blasted her. She made a muffled sound of distress, raising one hand to his chest. To push him away or draw him closer? She couldn’t have said.
Her eyes fluttered shut and her senses flooded with Merrick. With his male scent, so alien yet so alluring. The emphatic beat of his heart under her palm. The firm warmth of his mouth.
When his tongue flickered out to touch where he’d kissed her, she started. What an odd thing to do. If he’d told her he meant to lick her, she would have been revolted. In practice, it was…intriguing. Another whimper escaped as her hand clutched at his loose shirt. The leashed power beneath the shirt should terrify her. Right now, that strength stirred curiosity rather than trepidation.
Already his kiss sapped common sense. She more than most women knew the cost of giving in to a man, especially a demanding, managing man. Witness her mother drifting like a ghost under her father’s domination. Witness Roberta’s helplessness against William. Sidonie didn’t fool herself that Merrick’s charm concealed anything but a will to be in charge.
She made an incoherent protest and tried to pull away, but his hold was implacable. Still he brushed his lips against hers. Pausing briefly here to taste more thoroughly. Lingering there. Without conscious volition, she pursed her lips. Just a hint of kissing him back. No more. Satisfaction rumbled deep in his throat. Her belly pitched as she realized even ceding so little, she ceded too much. Once more she tried to retreat, but it was too late. The hand at her nape flexed and brought her nearer. More heat. More gentleness. More kisses inviting her into the unknown.
By the time he raised his head, she trembled with fear, resentment, and unwilling sensual reaction. She sucked in her first breath in what felt like an hour and opened dazed eyes. He was so close, she had to lean back before his features came into focus. He watched her with an alertness that contradicted the kiss’s leisurely sweetness.
“You shouldn’t have done that.” She wished she sounded appalled rather than beguiled.
The breeze played with her untidy hair, wafted strands across her eyes. Beneath her, Kismet was still. Merrick’s bay nosed desultorily at some seaweed. A few feet away, waves crashed upon the beach. When Merrick kissed her, all she’d heard was her heart’s wild dance. She’d been deaf to everything else. Including dictates of self-preservation.
With one gloved finger, he traced an invisible line down her cheek. Last night he’d touched her naked breast like this. The memory spurred the outrage she should have summoned when he started kissing her.
“Don’t.” She jerked away. Kismet shifted restlessly at her rider’s abrupt movement.
“You’ve never been kissed before, have you?” Merrick didn’t sound his usual mocking self. He sounded shaken. The silvery eyes were soft as autumn mist and his mouth was soft, too, full and so tempting it made her ache.
She blinked, horrified to realize she stared at him like a child entranced by Christmas candles. “What…what did you say?”
He regarded her almost tenderly. A warning clanged in her mind’s distant reaches. Beware. Beware.
“You’ve never been kissed before.”
She frowned, trying to make sense of the words. “Of course I have.”
A skeptical lift of one black eyebrow. “Thousands of times, I’ll warrant.”
She flushed and her hands fisted on the reins as she fought the desire to slap him. “Well, once. You kissed me last night.” Her voice developed an edge. “Or don’t you remember?”
His hand slid under her chin and tilted her face. He inspected her like a bizarre new species under a naturalist’s magnifying glass. “Of course I remember, bella. The memory haunts me. It’s just that you’re more…untouched than I’d realized.”
Annoyance coiled in her belly that he dared to mock her inexperience. She tugged her chin free. “I don’t make a habit of associating with unprincipled rakes. Why are you making so much of this? You know I’m a virgin.”
“Oh, yes.” Something flared in his deep-set silver eyes before he lowered his eyelids and studied her mouth. “But you’re even more…virgin than I’d guessed.”
“You can’t be more virgin than a virgin,” she snapped.
He leaned forward with unmistakable intention. She’d had enough of lying kisses and sarcastic teasing. She twisted to avoid him. Kismet snorted and sidled uneasily.
“Whoa there!” Merrick grabbed Kismet’s bridle and the horse immediately settled. “Get down, Sidonie.”
The brusque tone lifted every hackle that hadn’t risen when he’d derided her awkwardness. “Just because I let you kiss me doesn’t mean I’m about to lie down for you.”
He was still laughing at her. “Even I’m not so presumptuous, bella. But you’re overdue for a lesson in kissing and I can’t do the task justice when we’re in danger of tumbling on our arses.”
If her face got any hotter, it would burst into flame. “I have no wish to suffer further tawdry pawing.”
“Interest in physical pleasure is perfectly natural. Nothing to be ashamed of.” He dismounted and tied the bay’s reins on its neck so they didn’t dangle. “There’s no need to apologize.”
Oh, she really wanted to slap him. Her hand curled in its glove. “I’m not apologizing.”
He ignored her. “You must be burning with curiosity.”
“I’m burning with the desire to box your ears.”
He slapped the bay’s rump so the horse trotted out of the way with a snort, then strode across to where Sidonie sat fuming on Kismet. “Repressed passion turns violent if unaddressed.”
“Only if one is mentally deranged.”
“I look forward to deranging you, tesoro. Now don’t gallop away.” He caught the bridle. His instincts were acute indeed. She’d been about to canter off. “Wouldn’t you rather discover what you’ve been missing?”
“You just showed me what I’ve been missing. Such a lot of fuss about nothing.”
“You weren’t complaining a few minutes ago.”
He still smiled. Blast him, he wasn’t taking her seriously. Perhaps because, blast her, for one forbidden moment she’d been idiotic enough to kiss him back. “You caught me by surprise.”
“Then this time consider yourself forewarned.” He released Kismet and grabbed Sidonie’s waist. She wasn’t a small woman. Compared to Roberta, she was a lumbering draft horse. But Merrick easily lifted her to the ground.
“The horses will bolt,” she said shakily, unaccountably wobbly on her feet with him so near. Her heart dived and swooped in her chest in a most disconcerting fashion. She was unbearably conscious of those hard, strong hands constraining her.
“If they do, they’ll just go back to the stables and we’ll have a walk back.” As if to prove her fears groundless, Kismet sidled a few yards then stopped beside the bay.
“I’ll run away,” Sidonie said without shifting.
“I’ll chase you.”
“Why bother?”
He took her trembling hands and stupid, weak female she was, she didn’t draw away. Danger clanged around her like a huge bell but she remained glued to the spot.
“Because you’re quite beautiful, dolcissima,” he said gently. “Don’t you know that?”
Last night he’d told her she was beautiful. Before he’d stalked out in a huff. He sounded as sincere as he had then. Just as it had then, her heart slammed to a stop. “That’s a rake’s trick, to tell a girl she’s beautiful.”
“Is it working?” he said amiably, stripping off her gloves.
“No.” She wished to heaven she meant it.
“Pity.” He dropped her gloves to the ground and stripped off his own. “Damn it, you’re always inconveniently overdressed.”
Not always.
The thought hovered between them as if spoken aloud. She was free to run; he no longer held her. Go, go, she told her feet, but they stubbornly refused to budge. “I don’t find it inconvenient at all.”
“Another regrettable sign of innocence. One day you’ll be grateful I showed you the ropes.”
Her lips flattened in disapproval. “This is a public service?”
She wished she didn’t like his laugh. Every time she heard that deep, musical rumble, another brick crumbled from her defenses. “A chap has a duty to his fellow man.”
“They’ll probably give you a medal,” she said faintly as his hands framed her face. Sucking in a shaky breath, she exhorted herself to be strong. She strove to stiffen a backbone that showed a lamentable tendency to curve in his direction.
His palms were warm against her cheeks. “A knighthood at the very least.”
“For services to womankind.” She tried to sound sarcastic but the words emerged on a burst of breathless excitement.
A light flared in his gray eyes. “Oh, I intend to service you, bella.” Before she mustered another unconvincing protest, he lowered his lips to hers.
Heat. Softness. Trembling uncertainty. A hidden longing to respond. Jonas tasted all of that when he dipped his lips to Sidonie’s. He couldn’t say why he was so deeply moved to be the first man to kiss her. His cock swelled to attention. Her merest presence aroused him. It had from the first. Whatever power she possessed, he was helpless against it.
Experimentally, he nibbled, licked at the seam. She was bewitching. Even now when she conceded little more than she had when he’d kissed her last night. She quivered under his hands. He still wasn’t sure whether she was excited or frightened. He’d read both curiosity and dread in her pansy eyes. Her thick tortoiseshell hair tickled his fingers. After her wild ride, she looked enchantingly disheveled. It made him contemplate other wild rides he’d like to take with her.
Raising his head, he stared at her. Her eyes were shut and her lashes fluttered against flushed cheeks. His nostrils flared as he drew in the evocative scents of the sea and Sidonie.
“Open your mouth, tesoro.” He angled her face higher. “Open your mouth for me.”
At his raw demand, her eyes flared wide. For a drunken moment, he drowned in glorious brown, rich, autumnal, sensual.
“O-open…?”
He took advantage and claimed her, sliding his tongue into the interior. She made a sound of surprise and tried to back off. “No.”
“Bella, don’t be afraid.”
She stopped edging away but her lips closed against him again. He returned to demanding nothing more than her stillness. She stood unresponsive, although her choppy breathing indicated she was far from unmoved. She resisted to the point where he thought he’d run mad with wanting her.
Just resistance, resistance, resistance. Endless resistance.
Then in the space between one second and the next, endless resistance dissolved. Her hand curved around his shoulder. On a sigh, she leaned into him. Warmth powerful enough to melt the chill from his obsidian heart enveloped him. The hand on his shoulder flexed into a caress. Her lips parted and at last gave up the honey within. Luxuriously he savored her mouth. She was delicious. His tongue flickered over hers and he heard a smothered protest.
If he had an ounce of charity in his soul, he’d release her. But her flavor was as addictive as gin to a toper. He’d blithely imagined he’d keep his head during this impromptu lesson. Instead she made a mockery of arrogance. She who had never kissed a man.
On a long, languid exploration, he stroked her tongue. This time, he felt faint movement in return. He released a low growl of approval and teased her again. When she tentatively brushed her tongue against his, the surge of arousal nearly blew his head off. He, the worldly libertine, brought to his knees by an innocent’s clumsy kiss. Except now she cooperated, she wasn’t clumsy. She was sweet and passionate and quick to follow his lead. When his tongue danced along her lips, she copied his action. When he sucked her tongue into his mouth, she gasped with surprise then tasted him so deeply and with such unalloyed pleasure, his heart crashed against his ribs.