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.
Even in the throes of delight, he held to strategy. His hands ached to touch her body, trace every curve and hollow. But if he pushed too far, he’d lose any advantage he’d gained. Heat rose, threatened to incinerate him. Still some distant voice in his mind reminded him this was meant as a lesson only. His arms loosened, although he couldn’t summon the will to release her completely. Gradually he doused frantic passion until his mouth glanced across hers in an echo of his first kiss. Except now he knew her taste. He knew the tiny breathless sounds she made when surrendering to dark delight.
She’d be magnificent in his bed.
He chanced once last touch of his mouth to hers then drew away. She was flushed and her lips were red and moist. Her glowing beauty made his heart stumble. A man with one ounce of principle would send her on her way with Roberta’s vowels safely folded in her reticule. If Sidonie stayed, Jonas would tarnish her shining goodness. He’d drag this angel down to share his hell.
“Oh, my,” she whispered, staring up with eyes more gold than brown.
“Oh, my, indeed.” He smiled, he feared, with drunken joy rather than the cynical amusement with which he usually confronted the world.
“If I’d known a kiss was like that—”
He loved how she didn’t pretend she hadn’t enjoyed the kiss, purely for pride’s sake. The problem rapidly became finding something he didn’t like about her. “You’d have kissed every man in your vicinity?”
A shaking hand brushed her hair from her face. He saw she gradually returned to reality and discomfiting comprehension of how thoroughly she’d succumbed to his kiss. “Well, perhaps every man under forty.”
He was only human. “Shall we do it again?”
She cast him a disapproving look, marred by the tender fullness of her lips. “When you kiss me, I can’t think.”
“That’s good.”
“I need to think.”
He laughed softly. “Think inside. I don’t fancy a dousing. The weather’s closing in.”
“Oh,” she said on a gasp of surprise, glancing around. Another shock of arousal jolted him as he realized she’d been so focused on him that she hadn’t noticed the change from sunshine to approaching storm.
He easily caught the horses and tossed her up into the saddle. Loving the way the wind played merry hell with her chignon, he smiled at her as he mounted Casimir. “It’s a pleasure to see a pretty woman sitting well on a good horse.”
She blushed. How had such a gorgeous creature lived twenty-four years without becoming inured to compliments? She’d leave Castle Craven knowing how spectacular she was. He stifled a disagreeable pang at the prospect of her departure and urged Casimir to a gallop. Behind him, he heard her shout encouragement to Kismet. Ahead of a rising wind, they pelted along the beach.
Jonas had started this battle confident of victory, but he had a sinking feeling he’d end up surrendering as much to Sidonie as she surrendered to him. Damn it, he wasn’t sure he could afford the sacrifice.
Chapter Six
Another lobster patty?”
Warily Sidonie eyed the long, lean man slouched beside her on the brocade sofa, his legs stretched across a priceless oriental carpet in crimson and cobalt. Merrick hadn’t done anything overtly seductive since he’d kissed her, unless one counted the lazy, heavy-lidded attention he devoted to her. Still, she didn’t trust him an inch.
What she’d give for a nice straight chair, the more uncomfortable, the better. If she hadn’t known Merrick would mock her mercilessly, she’d fetch an oak chair from the hall. Her back ached from the rigid posture she maintained against the temptation to sprawl. She suspected if she started lolling against the cushions, she’d end up lolling against Merrick. She knew her starchy attitude amused him. But last time she’d lowered her guard, she’d succumbed to his wiles with terrifying swiftness.
After their ride, he’d brought her to this sultan’s bower of rich silks and velvets. Outside rain pounded against the mullioned windows but inside Castle Craven, everything was warmth and sybaritic comfort. Stained glass lent the light a sensuous dimness. Heated braziers scented the air with subtle perfume. This seraglio seemed incongruous inside the grim medieval fortress. Until Sidonie remembered idiosyncratic décor was the rule here. Think of the mirror-lined room upstairs.
Foreboding made her shiver. No, she didn’t want to think of the bedroom. It reminded her of what Merrick meant to do to her there.
She straightened her back another degree, even as Merrick’s eyelids sank lower. He looked half asleep but he remained alert to everything around him, including her increasingly frail resistance. Good heavens, he didn’t have to watch her to confirm her vulnerability. Hadn’t she just let him kiss her into a stupor?
He hadn’t mentioned the kisses. Nor had she. But every time she met his glinting silver eyes, she remembered the shocking intimacy of his tongue in her mouth.
“You needn’t keep pushing food at me,” she said, even as she lifted the patty from the gilded porcelain plate. Everything delighted the senses. For a girl who had lived upon her brother-in-law’s sufferance for years, and a not-too-prosperous brother-in-law at that, the luxury was overpowering.
“But it’s marvelously entertaining.” He smiled in a manner that made her want to upend her untouched glass of champagne over his tousled head. “You’re so deliciously afraid that each morsel lures you a step nearer to ruin.”
“It takes more than a few scraps to suborn me,” she said stoutly. Before he could deride her unconvincing defiance, she bit into the concoction. “I see why you tolerate Mrs. Bevan’s eccentric manners. What a pity she’s forgotten cutlery.”
Merrick sipped his golden wine. The pleasure on his face reminded her of his expression after kissing her. Devil take him, everything reminded her of his kisses. “What a pity,” he said with spurious regret. “Eating with one’s fingers is so… primitive.”