Nicole Jordan (17 page)

With beguiling tenderness his hands spread possessively over her back, molding her to him. The heavy arousal at his loins was obvious, and Caro felt a sudden sweet ache between her thighs that she was helpless to control.

His hands moved up to cradle her neck with exquisite possessiveness, making her recall another magical night, the silver moonlight, the whisper of the ocean waves below, the incredible sensuality of this man….

Then Max curved his fingers on either side of her face, tilting it upward, his touch lingering and provocative. Caro stared back at him, trembling at the knowledge that she was the target of his desire.

His beautiful face filled her entire vision now, and then his mouth settled over hers, soft flesh to soft flesh.

She expelled a pent-up sigh. She had no thought of resistance; she had no thought at all, only feelings.

His kiss was a slow, intimate knowing of her mouth. She could feel the treacherous heat of desire build in her, of craving.

A whimper of protest escaped her, though, when she realized where this was leading. She was too needy, too yearning, too hungry. Max stirred the wildness in her blood.

She dragged in a raw breath and tried to draw back, but he captured her face and held her still.

“What are you afraid of?” he demanded, his voice ragged. “That I might touch you like this?” Deliberately his hand cupped the curve of her breast. “Might taste you like this…”

Caro nearly moaned as his lips found the hot, flushed skin of her jawline.

Fierce sensations shuddered through her as he stroked her with his fingers, nuzzled her with his lips.

“All I can think of is being inside you,” he whispered.

It was all she could think of as well. Her body had come to life. Powerful urges swept through her, carnal feelings that set her nipples throbbing, that left her already weak limbs even more limp.

This time when she pushed against his chest, she managed to free herself. Shakily Caro reached out for the parapet wall for support, keeping her gaze averted as she fought the tide of arousal flooding her.

She wanted to deny this wild hunger in herself. Max could so easily make her tremble, make her lose control. He was so dangerous…and oh so wonderful. The sweet tenderness of his kiss had filled the deep, long-hidden need she had striven so long to quell.

She made the mistake of looking up at him then. His gaze seemed to hold her captive to his will.

“What is it you want from me?” she whispered, her voice hoarse.

“Everything you have to give,” he answered just as hoarsely.

When she made no response, his searing fingers lifted to brush the column of her throat. “You want it as well, but for some inexplicable reason, you are set on denying your own needs.”

Caro leaned against the stone wall, feeling as if she were balanced on an emotional precipice. A dozen arguments tumbled over and over again in her mind.

She knew better than to become more intimately involved with Max, knew that she needed to maintain a safe distance.

Yet did she really want to stand by while he turned to some other woman? Made love to a beautiful rival when she wanted him to choose her?

And what harm would there be in indulging in a liaison? Isabella would have been the first to encourage her to live her life to the fullest.

Was it so wrong to want Max? To fulfill her yearning to feel cherished and womanly and feminine again? To end her loneliness for a time? To know his lovemaking once more?

She hungered for physical warmth. His warmth. And he was offering it to her.

More critically, this could be her last chance to experience true passion. She would have the memories to sustain her for the cold, barren years ahead.

There was only one answer she could give, Caro knew.

Yet they couldn’t just brazenly indulge their passions at a ball.

“Not here,” she murmured, gazing up at him. “Not now.”

“Where, then? When?” His mouth twisted in a wry line. “I would prefer a real bed this time, rather than the hard stone of the ruins.”

She rubbed her temple, her thoughts searching. She could meet him somewhere, but no good choice came to mind.

And in any case, she would have to return home from the ball with her companion, Señora Padilla. But the señora was a heavy sleeper. And Caro’s small staff of servants would long ago have retired. They wouldn’t be surprised to hear any nocturnal noises from her quarters, for she regularly came and went at odd hours of the night.

If Max came to her there, she would be able to conceal his presence from prying eyes, as long as he left before first light.

“My house,” Caro said in a low voice. “After the ball. At the southeast corner, you will find a stairway leading to the gallery outside my bedchamber. I will leave the doors unlocked.”

Chapter

Eight

The moon-drenched night held the promise of passion.

Nerves raw with anticipation, Caro sat at her dressing table, trying to calm her excitement by slowly brushing her hair. She had never expected to be in this situation, waiting for her lover to come to her.

She’d put out all the lamps but left the draperies open. The room was white with moonlight, and so hushed she could hear the beating of her heart.

Was this how a bride felt on her wedding night?

Caro glanced over at the bed she had slept in since she was a child. White gossamer sheers hung from the tall posts, bathed in silver radiance, while the sheets were turned down in invitation—seductive and innocent at the same time.

An odd sense of wistfulness tempered her agitation. This was likely the closest she would ever come to a true wedding night, and she wanted it to be perfect.

She had no doubt it would be unforgettable. Max would make it so with the fierce tenderness of his lovemaking.

His approach was so silent, she wasn’t aware he had entered her room until she saw him standing there a short distance away.

All her senses leapt.

Dropping the brush from her nerveless fingers, Caro rose on shaking limbs. Now was the time to let common sense and self-preservation reassert themselves, but she couldn’t seem to think.

Max was watching her, his compelling eyes dark and intent. And when he spoke, his voice was a low, throaty command. “Come here.”

Hesitantly, she obeyed. When she reached him, Max drew her against him in a light embrace. Caro held herself rigidly as the heat of his body seared through their clothing. She could feel her breasts swell painfully against his powerful chest, feel the hard contour of his manhood, but it was his gaze that riveted her, that held her enthralled.

It alarmed and thrilled her to be the sole, intense focus of this beautiful man’s attention. One look from his sapphire eyes could make her pulse go wild. He had simply to touch her and her breath fled—as it did now.

His thumbs flickered over the tight buds outlined by her cambric nightdress, sending a ripple of desire shivering through her. Until Max, she had never realized how sensitive her breasts could be.

Then he loosened the ribbons of her bodice to expose the rounded globes. The knot clenching her stomach seemed to tighten as she realized he meant to undress her.

Reflexively she raised her arms to cover her bosom, reacting with a woman’s private fear of looking foolish.

“I am hardly the kind of lover you are accustomed to,” she whispered.

His expression softened, holding a tenderness that made her heart flutter. “You are the only lover I want, sweet Caro. See how desirable I find you?” Drawing her close again, he let her feel the bold evidence of his desire.

As she stared up at him, his smile was gentle and starkly masculine, his eyes caressing. “If you think I become this acutely aroused for just any woman, you haven’t nearly the intelligence I credited you with.”

He was teasing her misgivings away, she realized with gratitude.

“You are incredibly lovely,” he insisted, bending closer. His lips grazed her ear, sending waves of fiery chills throughout her. “And your body is perfectly suited for making love. It fits mine superbly. See?”

He held her against him, letting her feel how their bodies matched. After a moment, his hands rose to her hair, his fingers slowly sliding through the curling tresses, stroking.

Caro shut her eyes at the sensual feel of it.

“Every night for the past year,” Max said quietly, “I’ve lain awake thinking about you. I’ve wanted this moment to come. Wanted to make love to you again.”

Caro felt her tension ease a measure. She couldn’t maintain her defenses in the face of his beguiling avowal. She couldn’t sustain her panic, either.

Max had once initiated her into the mysteries of love, had given her the most riveting kind of pleasure. She had nothing to fear from him now.

His lips covered hers then in a featherlight kiss, and a sigh of longing escaped her. She made no protest as he slipped her nightdress down over her shoulders, exposing her breasts to his warm breath.

Her nipples contracted into tight, aching buds at his acutely masculine appraisal. With excruciating slowness, his warm hands cupped the swells, while his lips brushed the taut crests. His touch was deliberate, knowing, making fierce, restless feminine need whisper though her body.

“Let me show you how much I want you,” he whispered, seeking her lips this time.

The night trembled around them as he explored her mouth with his tongue. He kissed her so softly, so deeply that a silky fire flowed between them, fanning downward to pool in a molten well between her thighs.

Caro was dazed and quivering when Max finally broke off. His fingers nudged her nightdress lower, letting it fall to the floor. Then he stepped back and drank his fill of her, his blue gaze touching her everywhere.

“Your body is even more beautiful than in my memories,” he said almost reverently, making her want to believe.

He moved away to undress then, leaving an aching awareness in all the places where his gaze had caressed.

He had changed his clothing from the ball, she saw. He wore no jacket or cravat or waistcoat, merely a white shirt and dark breeches and boots. He sat in a wing chair to remove his boots, then shed his other garments and stood nude before her. When he moved toward her in the silver light, the graceful motion of his body took her breath away.

Would the impact of his presence ever lessen?

His muscles were coiled with a vital, dangerous energy she could feel even from a distance. She was smotheringly aware of his magnificent body, scaldingly aware of his nakedness as her gaze locked on his loins….

Rising there from swirls of dark hair was that hard, pulsing maleness she’d felt burning through their clothing. His rigid phallus arched nearly to his navel. She thought of how that swollen arousal felt entering her, filling her, and an urgent need began to throb in every part of her body.

Max felt the same throbbing ache as he stood before Caro. Her eyes were clear and huge, touched with a shy yearning—a guileless, vulnerable confession of innocence. The thought of bringing her to passion interfered with his breathing and made his loins burn.

How many times had he dreamed of this? How many times had he imagined her beneath him, writhing in the throes of desire that he’d awakened? It seemed he had waited for this moment forever.

She was even lovelier than he remembered. Freed from its customary strict knot, her curling brown hair rippled wildly over her shoulders and down her back; her skin was creamy, its satin texture pearlized by moonlight. He wanted to make love to her slowly, kissing every hollow and pulse of her slender form. He wanted to take her fiercely, till neither one of them could think.

His body felt molten with desire. The need that had gripped him in its talons for weeks now tightened its hold ruthlessly. The need to feel her softness spread and filled by his man’s heat. The desperate need to touch her, to taste her, to feel her quicksilver responsiveness. To hold her and not let go.

He lowered his head again. Her lips had the texture of newness. His kiss stroked her mouth, relearning the shape, the unique contours, the sweet, dark recesses.

After a long moment he lifted Caro in his arms. The moon sent a wash of gleaming light over the bed as he lay her down and sat beside her.

With both hands, Max set about arousing her. His fingertips made a languid, circular motion around the peak of each breast, then drifted lower, roaming with slow thoroughness over her body. He watched the movement of his hands against the pale, shivering flesh of her abdomen, then the dusky hair curling at her thighs.

It was then that she grasped his arm lightly, staying him. “Max?” she murmured, uncertainty lacing her tone.

Reaching beside the bed, she retrieved a small leather pouch from the table there.

“I would like to make use of these,” she stated. Opening the pouch, she showed him several small sponges with strings attached, along with a vial of amber-colored liquid.

“A sponge soaked in vinegar?”

“Yes,” Caro replied. “Some of our island women rely on these to prevent conceiving more children, and I think it wise that I do the same. Would you object?”

“No.” His solemn gaze swept across her face. “I think I told you,” he said in a low voice, “I’m not anxious to sire any children. Nor do I want you risking the scandal of being with child out of wedlock.”

She hesitated before asking another embarrassing question. “Would you…happen to know how to use these? I know in principle what to do, and Isabella explained it to me once, but if you are experienced…”

His mouth curved in a tender smile. “I can show you how, angel. But not just now. I have something else in mind for the moment.”

Setting aside the pouch, he stretched out beside her. Then bracing himself on one elbow, he resumed his earlier caresses, letting his hand sweep over her abdomen to her thighs.

Instantly Caro felt renewed desire shiver through her.

When he brushed the tight nest of curls there, she gave a soft whimper. Her femininity throbbed with a hot and heavy urgency that made her eager for his searching fingers.

His touch was profoundly tantalizing, burningly tender, as he explored the slick velvet bared to his fingers. Pleasure flared wherever he stroked. Then he cupped her between her legs, and one bold finger thrust deep, making Caro draw a sharp breath. She could scarcely bear the brazen heat that uncoiled inside her.

Hungrily, she reached for Max, and he obliged by easing his weight over her. She could feel the press of his male hardness against her swollen folds as he kissed her lips lightly, yet he didn’t enter her. Instead his mouth traced downward to her breasts, then lower, burning a path to the juncture of her thighs.

She felt the silken probe of his tongue parting her, and her breath splintered at the pure sensuality of the act. When she felt his arousing, inflaming tongue lapping her, she tried to repress a strangled moan.

Max paused to gaze up at her. “No, don’t hold back. I want to hear every sweet, husky gasp.”

She forced herself to remain still as his tongue found her again. Like dark fire, it flickered and teased, determinedly arousing. In only moments, her hips were restlessly straining against the velvet torment.

The shameful pleasure built until all Caro could think about was what his scandalous caresses were doing to her. She was so feverish beneath him, her body was no longer hers.

When a tremor shook her, she tried to ease away from the scalding heat, but his fingers spread and clasped her hips, giving her no opportunity to evade him. The sensation of being held still while he pleasured her was almost paralyzing.

A shudder rocked her when his tongue dipped inside her, and she made a soft sound, a wild sound.

“Yes, let me hear you cry for me,” Max urged in a husky whisper.

She could do nothing else. By now she was writhing under a lash of sensation so exquisite and unbearable, she thought she might ignite. Then he gave her one last arousing kiss, delving deep, setting off a firestorm within her.

Stunned, she arched upward, straining with frenzy as she plunged into a raw pleasure so intense it seared.

When her dazed senses finally returned, she realized Max was suckling her rigid nipples, intensifying the slow-ebbing bliss.

Unable to move, she lay panting, her eyes closed, her tongue wetting her dry lips. Then he shifted his position again, and she could feel his kisses moving upon her flushed face, could sense his satisfaction at giving her such a shattering release.

After another long moment, he reached for the pouch beside the bed. When he had made use of the vial, he parted her thighs and slid a soaked sponge deep within her body.

To her surprise, then, he lay down beside her, easing onto his back. When he made no move to kiss her, Caro realized Max was letting her take the lead. Raising herself up, she let her gaze drift over his nude body, admiring the rippling play of sleek muscles in his bronzed arms and chest. Filled with the searing impulse to touch him, she let her hand follow suit. His skin felt like raw silk, his flesh vibrant and alive under her palm.

She leaned closer, smelling his warm, musky scent. His throbbing manhood lay arched against his belly, and she reached down. When her fingers gently traced the pulsing length, he shuddered, seizing a raw breath.

Satisfaction flooded her. For the second time in her life, Caro felt a true sense of feminine power.

Yet when she tried to stroke him, Max grasped her hand, stilling her caresses. “Do you know what it’s like to have you touch me?” he asked hoarsely.

She suspected it was very much like what she felt when he touched her—like kindling ready to burst into flame. He felt that way now, Caro was certain. She could sense the pulsing urgency in his body, the coiling tension, as he drew her down so that she stretched against him full length.

Heat leapt between them, shocking and primal, as she felt the throbbing maleness of him against her loins.