Seven Nights in a Rogue's Bed (26 page)

Before he could ask, she burst into speech. “Please take off your clothes and lie on the bed.”

Alertness tightened every muscle. Why should a request likely to elicit immediate cooperation make her skittish? He kept his voice neutral. Whatever this was about, he realized it was important. He needed to keep his wits about him. Difficult at the best of times with Sidonie.

“Let me blindfold you first.”

Her jaw firmed. “No.”

Ah. It seemed she finally rebelled. He should have
expected this earlier. He wondered why he didn’t insist on his way as he had every other time she’d objected to the blindfold. Perhaps because his skin tightened with excitement at the prospect of temporarily surrendering control on this, their last night together. Perhaps because she’d demonstrated that she trusted him so many times, he owed her a return of the favor. His stomach curdled at the idea of making love to her face to face with no hindrances, but he stifled his qualms.

With any woman but Sidonie, he’d insist on his will prevailing. With Sidonie, he was willing to allow her some leeway. He wouldn’t let her go too far.

“As you wish.” Without shifting his attention from her, he dropped the shirt to the floor.

She sucked in a jagged breath and watched with blatant fascination as he shucked off his breeches. “Goodness me, you’re so big.”

Her unabashed admiration made him laugh. “You know just the right thing to say,
tesoro
.”

She blushed but didn’t look away. Her boldness sent heat spooling through him. “You haven’t let me see you before.”

“Eyes are overrated,” he said, lying through his teeth. Reflections of Sidonie proved sight a priceless gift. Fate could mete out no worse punishment than denying him sight of Sidonie after tomorrow.

Her mouth adopted a wry line at his asinine remark. When she folded her arms, her extravagant bosom plumped above her bodice. He muffled a groan of frustration. “You’re wearing too many clothes.”

“Later. Now I want you to lie down.”

Heaven help him, he was already hot as the sun and
he hadn’t even touched her. Who knew a bossy woman would put him in such a lather? “Are you going to kiss me all over?”

“Possibly.” The spark in her eyes contradicted her primness.

His nerves jumping, Jonas padded toward the bed and stretched out upon the crisp white sheets. Sidonie hesitated before following. Sensual curiosity thundered in his head. What was her game?

“Thank you.” She leaned down, offering him a breathtaking view of her breasts under that deucedly loose bodice, and slanted her lips over his. The kiss ended swiftly, but even that fleeting contact made him swell hard and thick. Glancing at his cock with another of those secretive smiles, she lifted his arm and reached toward the headboard.

He tilted his head to watch her. Suspicion tempered his pounding need. “What are you doing,
bella
?”

She bit her lip. The way her small white teeth dug into that full pink flesh was always damnably arousing. “Don’t fight me.”

“Why would I fight?”

Quickly she slipped a cord from under the pillow and lashed his wrist to the bedpost. Damn his complacency. At this rate, he mightn’t have the chance to pull her back into line. Shocked, he jerked against the tie and started to sit up. “What the hell?”

“Don’t.” She placed one hand flat on his bare chest.

She didn’t exert much pressure. Even if she did, he was strong enough to throw her off. But the warmth of her palm on his skin made him stop as though turned to stone. He poised, balancing on the arm she hadn’t tied—
the kingdom’s biggest blockhead could guess her intentions now—and regarded her with baffled anger.

“This is risky play,
amore mio
,” he said soberly.

He tugged on the cord, expecting it to loosen, but Sidonie tied an efficient knot. He shouldn’t be surprised. She was efficient with most things. He admired that—except when she turned that damned efficiency against him.

The color deepened in her cheeks. “Humor me.”

Glancing past her, he saw them reflected over and over. Tethered naked like a beast, he looked confoundedly defenseless. Standing over him, Sidonie appeared distant, queenly, omnipotent. He loathed what he saw.

She shifted to the other side of the bed. “Give me your hand.”

“No.” He reached to undo the cord.

She caught his hand. “Please.”

Her request didn’t mollify him. Anger rose, a potent brew with ever-present desire. “We haven’t been at this long enough for you to tire of the usual variations,” he said snidely and suffered a stab of remorse when her eyes darkened with hurt.

“I’m too inexperienced to know the
usual variations
.” She lent the last two words scathing emphasis.

With her watching him with that plea in her gaze, he couldn’t quite bring himself to untie the cord. “Believe me,
tesoro
, what you’re doing now exceeds boundaries most wives permit.”

“I’m not a wife.” Her spirit revived. “I’m your mistress.”

His heart kicked in protest. A mistress implied a woman of impermanent status passed from keeper to keeper. He didn’t feel that way about Sidonie. “You hate
the mirrors,” he said flatly, hoping to coax her back into cooperating with him.

“I hate the blindfold more.”

The telltale flicker in Jonas’s cheek told Sidonie that she pushed him to the edge. Her belly knotted with trepidation, but she couldn’t give up now. She hovered so close to shattering the final barriers between them. Their first night together had left her with a confusion of vivid impressions. Since then, Jonas had blindfolded her. This was her last chance to watch his expression as his body united with hers. She wanted to cherish that memory against the future. She meant Jonas to look into her eyes as he took her, so she didn’t remain some faceless, blindfolded woman he pleasured, but Sidonie, Sidonie, Sidonie. And that recognition would blast to ashes the tiny but distinct separation he maintained between them, even now.

She was such a savage. She meant to carve her name on his heart in bloody letters that scarred him more deeply than the wounds on his face. She meant to be unforgettable.

At least that was the plan.

“Devil take you, Sidonie.” The aching despair in his low baritone made her heart cramp with anguish. She waited for him to say more but he remained silent. He glowered at her as if he hated her. Right now he probably did. Even sitting taut and naked with one hand fastened to the bedpost, he looked formidable enough to make her quail if she wasn’t quite so determined.

“Don’t refuse me, Jonas,” she said softly, laying her hand over his racing heart. His hunted expression told her he felt under attack.

He raised his free hand to his face before he realized how the gesture betrayed him. Dear God, she’d seen that gesture before. What a slow top she was, not to realize its significance. A world of pain lay buried inside this man. She’d always known it. But sometimes, like now, his suffering made her so furious, she wanted to squall like a banshee.

He tugged at the cord. “You breach our arrangement, madam.”

Not
bella,
not
tesoro
, not
amore mio
, or any other extravagant Italian endearment.
Madam
.

If she’d needed proof how her siege angered him, she had it. Still she stood her ground, trying to ignore the apprehension kicking in her stomach. “You released me from that arrangement,” she said through stiff lips.

Restlessly he rolled over to concentrate on undoing the cord. “I’ve had enough.”

“Don’t,” she said, her voice choked.

His fingers paused in their work and he shot her a coruscating glare. Astounding how those silvery eyes incinerated bravery to ashes. If she faltered now, she’d never have another chance to challenge him.

Of course you won’t. Tomorrow you’re heading back to Barstowe Hall.

She strove to ignore the taunting voice in her head. Tears stung her eyes. “It’s my turn to ask you to trust me.”

Like his voice, his smile held more regret than rage. “The road to hell is paved with good intentions,
bella
.”

To her astonishment, after a tense silence, he lay flat on his back and extended his free hand above his head. Compassion scored her heart as she recognized what the concession cost him.

His attention didn’t waver as she tied his wrist to the other bedpost. Quickly she circled the bed to tighten the first bond. Deliberately she didn’t look at the magnificent body arrayed against the sheets. Her hands were unsteady enough.

She moved to secure his feet. She felt vibrating tension as she lifted lean ankles. He was far from easy with what she did. That still he submitted made her belly clench with gratitude.

“Will you blindfold me?” She heard how he struggled for an offhand tone. His strained expression made the scars stand out white and shocking against his face. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. He was naturally a dominant male. Even if she hadn’t long ago guessed that most of his games stemmed from self-consciousness about his injuries, she knew he’d hate the way she seized control.

Although there were definite benefits in what she did. She couldn’t help the way her gaze lingered as it traveled up his body to his face. “Do you want me to blindfold you?”

“What I want doesn’t count.”

Her lips twitched. “You sound like you’re five years old.”

To her relief, he laughed, the sound reluctant and rusty. “Easy to mock when you have me where you want.”

This time, her eyes swept him with deliberate languor, lingering on the virility that rose hard and demanding between his thighs. “I definitely want you.”

His eyes narrowed until silver glinted between sooty lashes. “Show me.”

J
onas stretched on an excruciating rack of desire and shame. Stoically he stared into the mirror above, but the view offered no reassurance. A big ugly man lay naked and spread-eagled on a wide bed. His cock stood at attention and his eyes glittered with panic.

He was hers to do with as she willed. The thought was loathesome, even as his rational mind reminded him this was Sidonie who had never treated him as less than a man. But old wounds of mockery and disgust barely healed. He just had to look at his scars to know that some old wounds didn’t heal at all. This vulnerability was why he never surrendered control when he took a woman.

When Sidonie placed her hand flat on his abdomen, he jerked at the radiating heat. His belly tautened until it was hard as stone. His cock throbbed like the very devil. And she hadn’t even started her seduction.

She moved her hand in tantalizing circles. His heart
thumped fit to burst and his breath kept jamming in his throat. “You didn’t need to bind me.”

“Yes, I did.”

Yes, she probably did. They both knew he liked to command. That was one of the rewards of his games with blindfolds and mirrors. He had a grim feeling his ascendancy ended tonight.

“Where did you get the cords?” Not that he cared. All he cared about was that she moved her hand and touched him where he burned. Arousal built to such a pitch, it almost swamped shame.

“The curtains.” She perched on the bed and the soft curve of her hip warmed his flank through her skirts. His heart thundered as he recalled she wore nothing underneath the dress. As if he touched her, his hands opened and closed in their bonds.

“You’ve cheated me,” she said thoughtfully.

In its erratic travels, her hand swept lower and for one flaring moment she skimmed the hair at the base of his erection. He groaned with frustration and felt himself thicken. “How?” he croaked.

She leaned down and her hair fell forward, catching the glow of candlelight, brushing the over-sensitized skin of his belly. He sucked in a painful breath as hunger blazed through him. Automatically he reached to touch her hair, only to come up short against the cord. Damn it.

She ran her hands along his ribs. He thought she’d forgotten his question. Hell, he was close to forgetting his name. He couldn’t condemn her distraction. She pressed her mouth to the center of his chest.

“You’ve been hiding your magnificence.” She nipped at one pectoral even as he jerked in protest.

“Don’t ridicule me.”

He regretted his response when compassion darkened her eyes, deepening them to velvet. She cupped his face. He tried to evade her but she had him trapped. “Oh, Jonas…”

The murmur echoed in the heart he struggled to barricade against her. It felt like she held his brittle soul in the palm of her hand. Would she crush it to dust? His experience of the world said yes. His experience of Sidonie made him long to entrust her with everything he was.

“I love your body,” she said softly. “It’s so beautiful.”

He felt as though a knot of tarred rope stuck in his gullet. He couldn’t have spoken even if he could think of something to say. Nobody ever called him beautiful.

“You’re breathtakingly exciting. You’ve turned my nights to fire. You’ve lit my whole world with flame.”

“Sidonie…” No other woman struck him dumb. Blast her, she did it all the time without trying.