The carriage finally came to a stop in front of Juliana’s large home. Thanks to funds from the old pirate, the house was already being restored to its prewar splendor. The reception and wedding dinner would be held inside and out on the grounds.
Raimond said, “The guests will expect me to be affectionate with you.”
Sable swallowed.
“So I will be.”
He slowly eased to the edge of the bench.
Sable knew it had to be her imagination but the coach’s interior seemed to grow smaller, so much smaller she could feel the heat of their bodies mingling. He leaned over, further closing the distance between them, and slid a strong finger over her parted lips. “If I remember correctly, your kisses were sweet…That will make playing this game less of a chore. Do you think you can play along?”
Part of her yearned to play any game he wished, but
she knew he’d have complete control over her if she succumbed without a fight.
He whispered softly, “What will you do when I kiss you like this…?”
He kissed her so gently her mind began to spin.
“Or…like this…”
He brushed his lips across her own for a long, trembling moment until hers parted welcomingly.
Sable whispered back, “Then I suppose I shall have to respond like this…”
She kissed him just long enough to remind him of the taste of her kiss, then gently teased her tongue against the corner of his mouth. “Will that convince them, do you think?”
Sable swore she saw a smile slide into his eyes, but it disappeared quickly. Two could play at this game, she told herself. If he planned on making her melt, she’d make certain he paid the same dazzling price.
“The guests are waiting,” she informed him.
Raimond ran his eyes over her lush mouth and saw in her eyes the lingering remnants of the desire he’d coaxed to life with his kisses. Beneath all that white silk was a woman made for seductive games. He looked forward to what promised to be an intriguing afternoon…and evening.
“I’ll be at your side the whole time, so don’t think you can flee,” he warned.
“It never crossed my mind.”
Inside he took her hand and led her through the throng. Many people offered their congratulations, which she accepted with as true a smile as she could muster. Eventually they found the stunningly dressed Juliana and Drake.
Juliana observed them shrewdly. “You two didn’t fight on the way here, did you?”
Raimond shook his head. “No, Mama.”
“Good, then smile. You too, Sable.”
Chagrinned by Juliana’s sunny optimism, Sable smiled.
“She’s much more beautiful when she smiles, don’t you think so, Raimond?”
His voice was deep and even “Yes, she is.”
Sable met his gaze, and a part of her wished he truly meant the words.
Drake drawled, “Treat her right, brother, or we will have to kill you.”
Raimond chuckled. “So you keep telling me.” He then added, “Don’t worry.”
Over the course of the afternoon, his cold eyes met Sable’s often—whether he was across the room or perched on the arm of a divan inches away. She read aloofness and anger there, but she also read a passion so strong and undisguised it seemed to reach out and stroke her. Her nipples responded by slowly hardening beneath her gown, her lips parted of their own accord, and on more than one occasion she had to turn away from his knowing, tigerlike smile.
The wedding dinner following the reception was an intimate affair attended only by family and dear friends. Afterward they stayed around the long table to enjoy coffee, cognac, and one another’s company.
Sable’s husband had discarded his wedding coat and sat with his arm draped across the back of her chair. He was in a deep discussion with an uncle over the plausibility of forming freedmen co-ops. Every now and then his warm hand strayed to her neck and gently stroked her, seemingly unconsciously. The sweet shock of his featherlike touch made Sable pause in the middle of what she’d been saying to Juliana seated across the table.
Raimond appeared not to realize the effect he was having on his new bride, but Sable assumed it was all part of his game. She gently placed her hand atop his to stop his languid caresses and tried to drag her mind back to her conversation with Juliana.
“I’m sorry, Juliana, I seem to have lost my train of thought.”
“No apologies needed, my dear. Raimond, behave yourself.”
Raimond turned to his mother in confusion. “What am I doing?”
“No need to torture us,” Archer stated.
Phillipe added, “We’re already jealous enough as it is.”
Raimond still looked confused, so Drake drawled, “You’re stroking your wife, Raimond.”
A small smile of understanding finally curved his lips. “Sorry,” he said directly into Sable’s eyes, but in direct contradiction, he leaned over and kissed her slowly and sweetly until she saw stars. Then he went back to the conversation on co-ops. Reeling, she wanted to sock him.
Raimond had had no idea he’d been touching her honey-gold skin until his mother had brought it to his attention. He’d given Sable the kiss to pay her back for being so damn bewitching. He’d expected to be repelled by her presence, knowing her true nature, but his unquenched desire had sprung to life hard and true from the moment he first saw her in his mother’s parlor. Instead of being repelled, he was hard as iron and angry with himself because of it.
It had been a long, emotionally tiring day. As the cigar smoke thickened and the talk and cognac continued to flow, Sable yawned discreetly behind her hand. Nervous jitters had kept her from sleeping last night, but tonight she envisioned no such difficulties. Who knew? Maybe she would awaken in the morning to find it had all been a dream.
As if he had heard her thoughts, Raimond turned from his conversation with his uncle and held her eyes. For a moment he said nothing aloud, but his dark gaze, alternately dangerous and desirous, made her heart begin to pound. He leaned over and whispered in her ear, “It’s
time for us to retire, my queen. The night is still young…”
The heat in his voice sapped the last of her strength. She’d survived the day, but doubted her luck would hold. As her part of this arranged union, she’d agreed to have his child. She knew of only one way in which that could be achieved.
They did not linger over their good-byes. She shared a tight hug with a teary-eyed Juliana, and the brothers raised their glasses in salute as Raimond led her out the door.
A carriage and driver stood waiting. On the dark ride through the city, Sable was silent and off balance. She felt him watching her from the opposite seat, but he seemed content to be silent. The urge to explain the reasons for her flight from the camp become overwhelming, but he didn’t appear to care about hearing her side.
She asked instead, “Where are we going?”
“To a house I purchased a few days ago.”
“Is that where I’ll live?”
“Yes. I’ll keep my own apartment across town.”
Sable knew from their earlier conversation that she would not be sharing his life, so why did hearing it again now create a tiny ache in her heart?
The large, sprawling house lay in shadows as they entered. Only a few candles had been left burning on the main floor. He took her by the hand and led her up the stairs to a room ablaze with light. Shimmering candlelight undulated over the furnishings, particularly a large net-shrouded four-poster bed dominating the far wall. The verandah doors were opened to let in the breeze and the stars. Near them had been placed one of the largest bathing tubs Sable had ever seen.
She turned from her visual tour to find him staring at her. Once again she read desire in his eyes. Not certain how to proceed, she asked, “Am I supposed to remove my clothing now?”
“No. When the time comes, I will remove it.”
Sable fought to keep her breathing even but did a poor job. Her previous impression of him as a tiger couldn’t be more true. He’d lured her into his lair, and she was as mesmerized by his powerful presence as she was wary of it.
Raimond gently placed his hand beneath her chin and lifted her eyes to his. He ran his gaze slowly over the face that had floated through his dreams since last November and said honestly, “Sable, no matter how angry I am with you, I will never, ever take you in anger. Never. We can fight tomorrow, but this is our wedding night, and I wish to make love to you as I would a true wife.”
His words touched her with such sweet force, she felt tears well in her eyes.
“Don’t cry,” he whispered. The sight of her tears twisted his heart and made him place short, soothing kisses against both damp eyes. Not even his anger could mask how good it felt to have her near again.
“I’m not crying,” she replied softly. “We queens know that crying alters nothing.”
Short, sweet kisses were now falling on her cheeks, her eyebrows, her jaw. She drew in sharp, soft breaths as he brushed his lips across the lobes of her ears and then her parted mouth.
Raimond wanted her. He knew she was a Jezebel, but he craved nothing more than to taste her fully and without inhibition. Her traitorous lips were lush and sweet, even sweeter than he remembered. The sultriness shining behind her proper, well-mannered facade called to him with the mind numbing song of a siren. Although he’d originally planned to seduce her out of vengeance, he’d become ensnared in his own net.
And for now, he didn’t care. The touch, taste, and scent of her overrode his original purpose; all his desire centered on making love to her until dawn.
Sable trembled as he slowly turned her and began to undo the long line of hooks down the back of her dress.
He had a sure, deft touch that signaled his familiarity with the task and soon had the dress open wide enough for her to feel the night air mingling with the long, lingering brushes of his lips across her neck and the skin above her silk shift.
As he continued to press his lips against her awakening skin, his expert hands slid slowly around her breasts, cupping them, stroking the already ripened buds until she closed her eyes. When the sweet conquest continued, her head dropped back and a small moan escaped her parted lips. He leaned down to recapture her mouth while his hand continued to make her nipples ache. She turned to him to savor more of his kisses and desire flared higher as he undid the dress past her waist. She drew in a soft breath as his palms slid her silk drawers over her hips. His touch warmed her, tempted her to open herself to him.
As he pulled the long-sleeved dress down her arms, Sable reluctantly broke the kiss, but because he wouldn’t stop pressing his heated lips against the crowns of her breasts and the pulse point at the base of her throat, it took more time than it might have to free her arms and step out of the gown. Once she did, he kicked it gently aside, and stood looking down at her with his hungry tiger’s eyes.
Raimond eased down one side of her shift and feasted his eyes on her lush golden breast. He reached out to stroke it but stopped as he caught sight of what appeared to be a star carved across the skin. “Who did this to you?”
“My aunt.”
Sable waited for his reaction to the knowledge that his wife’s skin bore the symbolic markings of the Firsts. Since she’d always thought the work beautiful it had never crossed her mind until now that a husband might not agree.
“How extensive is it?”
“Not very. I’ve some moons on my upper thigh and a sun on each hip.”
Raimond’s manhood flared at the idea of slowly exploring her until he learned every intimate part of her. “Let me see…”
Sable swallowed her self-consciousness and removed her camisole. He brought one of the fat candles over and set it down close. The sputtering light revealed the delicately carved moons that were splayed like jewels across her breasts just above the dark nipples. His glowing eyes made her nipples tighten in response.
He filled his hand with her honey-gold breasts and his nostrils with the scent of her neck. The markings on her drew him like a spell. He slowly placed his lips against her shoulders and slid a whispering finger over the moons cresting her breasts. On his world travels he’d seen many forms of ritual marking, but Sable’s was unlike any design he had ever seen.
“Do you know what any of it means?”
She doubted her ability to answer his question in the face of his distracting lips and wandering hands, but she managed to say, “Some of it has to do with my grandmother’s tribe.”
He took her nipple between love-gentled teeth. Her choked cry of response floated on the room’s silence. As he moved his attentions to the moon adorning the other breast, she found it hard to stand without swaying. He suckled her deliciously, languidly. He slid his hand into her drawers and wantonly explored her virgin’s heat. Using his tongue to trace the golden undercurve of her breasts, his hand continued to cup, stroke, and slide over her silken hips and thighs.
He picked her up and carried her to the bed, and his commanding presence took her breath away. Never in her life had she imagined being so overwhelmed by a man, or by his ability to bring her pleasure. He set her down on the large mattress as if she were the most precious possession on earth, and for this one night Sable
didn’t mind pretending she was. He’d opened passion’s treasure chest and gifted her with kisses and caresses she was certain she’d never experience with any other man.
Holding her eyes, he removed her stockings and untied her drawers. His gaze was so fiery she expected flames to encircle the bed. Leaning back on her arms, she lifted a bit so the garment could be eased away, and a breath later she was nude. He was seated on the edge of the bed beside her. Under the flickering light of a lone candle, he slowly traced the aureole of one sable tipped breast with a feather-light touch, first one way and then the other until she arched her back sinuously in response. He rewarded her by lightly circling his tongue around the yearning, straining bud before suckling her wholly. She moaned from the rising intensity and he treated her other breast to the same erotic sampling, leaving it damp and throbbing in the candlelight.
Raimond found her too magnificent to resist. She was a Jezebel with satin breasts and a mouth created by the gods. He eased her to lie flat, and her golden skin drew him to taste, savor, and caress. His roaming hand found the thin line of moon and stars banding her left thigh. Its beauty left him in awe. Bending down, he greeted each tiny symbol with a deep kiss, then placed another on her navel. He felt her trembling beneath his roaming mouth, heard her halting breath when his hand explored the silken hair below. He found her damp and sweetly flowing. Watching desire bloom on her face, he slowly and intimately circled her heat. The sight of her rising so shamelessly to his hand fired his desire even higher. He continued to play, stroking, teasing, and tempting her to enjoy the pleasure of his touch.