Part 18 (1/2)

Xanthia did as she was told. He dragged his body over her nakedness and pushed her legs wide with one knee. For long moments he kissed her, his fingers buried in her hair, his c.o.c.k throbbing hot and urgent against the warm velvet of her thigh. Kissing her so deeply, so intimately, Nash began to lose touch with the present, began to lose himself in the raw need as he slid, hopelessly and inexorably, into that blinding sensual abyss he knew so well.

Xanthia's breathing was ragged when his lips left hers. He sat back and let his eyes sweep over her-feast on her, just as she had said. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s rose rapidly, their large areolas dark pink against the ivory of her skin, skin so pale he could trace the blue veins just beneath the creamy surface. Her nipples were hard nubs now, and her skin p.r.i.c.kled with sensual awareness.

Nash set his mouth to her breast and drew her nipple between his teeth, biting just enough to make her gasp. Her hips bucked beneath him instinctively, a clear signal of what her body wanted. For long minutes, Nash suckled her, tasting and nipping, until her trembling and her breathing had risen to a fevered pitch.

When he sat up, her mouth was slightly parted, her face turned half-away. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were still rising and falling as she gasped. He gently turned her face back to his, and held her wide-eyed gaze.

”Do I frighten you?” His voice was abrupt and husky.

”Yes,” came her whispered response. ”We both frighten me.”

And she frightened him just a little. Though he would never have admitted it, Nash was on unsteady ground, and he knew it. But best not to think of that too deeply. Instead, he pushed her thighs wider with the flats of his hands, then trailed one thumb through her glistening wetness. She gasped twice, like a woman on the verge of release-and yes, just a little afraid of herself.

On impulse, Nash picked up the pink hibiscus blossom and stroked it down her breastbone. The stiff green leaves were almost black against her fairness, and he found the contrast deeply erotic. Slowly, he brushed the flower over her left nipple, hardening it even further, as if such a thing were possible. Over and over, he stroked her with the heavy pink flower, fixated on the way her flesh s.h.i.+vered as the rough leaves lightly p.r.i.c.kled at her skin. Then the wide, milk-soft petals would follow, almost soothing it. He stroked her throat, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, the crooks of her arms, slowly working his way toward the sweet swell of her belly.

He toyed with that perfect little navel. With the slight curve of her pelvic bones. Then down the quivering flesh that guarded her womb. Her breath was rough now, almost as if she were crying. She was looking not at him, and not at the flower, but at his hand. With the opposite fingers, he gently parted her, then drew the blossom through her slick, creamy flesh. She cried out, a tremulous, uncertain sound.

Again, he stroked. And again, until she was s.h.i.+vering. Until the s.h.i.+vering became something more. ”Come for me, Xanthia,” he crooned after a time. ”Let yourself go.”

”I-I-can't,” she gasped. ”I want-I want-you inside.”

He wasn't sure why he urged her on. ”Just feel it, Zee,” he whispered. ”Feel the soft touch of the flower on your sweet, hard-there, do you feel it?”

”Yes-” she gasped. ”Oh! But I want...oh, Nas.h.!.+”

”You want this, Zee,” he whispered, lightly tormenting her with the hibiscus. ”Come for me, my tropical flower. Let it go. Tremble, and let me watch. Here-take your own hand and-”

She jerked her hand away. ”I need...more,” she said. ”I want you.”

”This is me,” he rasped. ”And you don't need more, Zee. You are such a wild, sensual creature at heart. Think of the silk drawers you wear-so slick, so erotic. You wear them, Zee, because you like that silky softness against your skin.”

”Yes,” she gasped. ”I...like it.”

He drew the hibiscus just a fraction deeper. ”The next time you draw them over your thighs, Zee,” he whispered, ”I want you to think of this flower. To think of me-making love to you with this flower. Making you cry out like the beautiful, sensual woman you-”

And then she was crying-and trembling to her very core, her hands curling deep into the loose petals and the softness of the coverlet. When her cries subsided, he dropped the hibiscus and crawled up the length of the bed to cover her shuddering body with his own. He felt...deeply gratified. Amazed. Inspired. Xanthia was beautiful-beautiful in her pa.s.sion-both in bed and out. He held her close, planting light, rea.s.suring kisses down the swanlike length of her neck.

When Xanthia came back to the present, she found herself inextricably entwined with Nash-literally and figuratively, she feared. Her arms were around his waist, and one of his rock-hard thighs was between her legs. But her heart-oh, that he held in the palm of his hand. In that perfect moment, however, time held suspended, and her life beyond this-this room, this night, this man-seemed fleetingly to hold no meaning.

Making love with Nash, she feared, would ever be like that. It would shut out the world, leaving only the two of them.

She felt Nash's weight s.h.i.+ft smoothly upward, the rough, dark hair of his chest p.r.i.c.kling at her b.r.e.a.s.t.s as he moved. Xanthia, still trembling, reached instinctively down to grasp his swollen manhood. Nash made a sound, an almost raw, urgent groan, then he mounted her. In the candlelight, his hard thighs bulged, and his shoulders seemed impossibly wide. Still fascinated, she slipping one palm down to cradle his heavy sac, then slowly she guided the firm, hot length of him between her legs.

”Now, Nash,” she whispered. ”Make me...make me yours again.”

He entered her almost reverently, inching slowly deeper as the sound of his breath roughened. At the last, Xanthia lifted her hips to take him. Nash slid inside on a triumphant grunt. He set his hands to either side of her head, closed his eyes, drew out, and thrust again. ”Good G.o.d, Zee,” he rasped. ”You...you madden me. Bewitch me.”

She lifted her hips again, and slid her hands down the hard muscles which layered his ribs, then his thighs. ”Make love to me, Nash,” she pleaded.

Apparently, he did not need a second invitation. Soon his thrusts were deep and strong. His powerful hands were everywhere-on her shoulders, clutching her hips, stilling her b.u.t.tocks as he thrust in a wild, carnal rhythm. His hands caught hers, pus.h.i.+ng her arms high above her head. Xanthia rose to meet him, curling one leg about his waist. His too-long hair had long since fallen forward to shadow his face, and the glistening sheen of exertion lit his skin. Their bodies slid over one another, his dark, glittering gaze like that of something wild and untamable.

For long moments, they thrust and exhaled and melted to one another, the rhythm rising to an almost dizzying pitch until Xanthia's heart was like a drumbeat in her ears. She felt her whole body begin to throb with it; felt her pa.s.sion draw tight as a bowstring-and then his fingers dug deeper into the flesh of her hips, and he cried out, a guttural, almost agonizing sound. Xanthia went over the black precipice with him, her hands entangled with is, her leg still wrapped around his lean, taut waist.

She came back to the sounds of their roughened breath. After long, wordless moments had pa.s.sed, Nash lifted his body from hers and s.h.i.+fted his weight to one side. She rolled over, and he curled himself almost protectively about her. Xanthia's last thought, before she slipped into a deep and dreamless sleep, was of Nash's hand, curling possessively beneath her right breast.

Chapter Ten.

A Long Way from Yorks.h.i.+re To sleep. Oh, to sleep the sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care! Nash had not had such a night of rest in a score of years or better. And now, he was vaguely aware that someone-something-was set upon dragging him from it. He buried his face in Xanthia's neck, forced the racket away, and drifted off again. But the clamor began anew.

It was Gibbons, devil take him. No one else could knock so hard. Or so relentlessly. Nash tried to bestir himself from Morpheus's depths. In his arms, Xanthia murmured something inaudible and rolled over. He felt her warm fingers touch his face and slide round the turn of his jaw.

”Nash?

His eyes fluttered open ”Nash, is there...someone downstairs?”

The relentless pounding came again, echoing through the empty house like a drum tattoo.

Alarm shot through him. It was not Gibbons. ”b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l!” He jerked upright, and scrubbed his hands down his face. Someone at the front door. And not a servant in the house.

”They...they will go away, won't they?” said Xanthia hopefully.

But Nash was already drawing on his trousers. ”It would appear not,” he said grimly. ”It could be Rothewell, my dear. He may have discovered you are here. And if he has, ignoring him will not help matters.”

Xanthia sat up, her eyes wide. ”Oh!” she said, clutching the sheet to her chest. ”Oh, no, Nash, I think it cannot be. He would be gone from home at this hour. What is the time?”

The knocking came again, more rapid. More urgent.

”Almost eleven.” Nash was stabbing his s.h.i.+rttails in. He was sorely tempted to ignore the din, but a thousand troubling thoughts were running through his mind. An accident. An illness. Tony. Edwina. The girls.

”Good G.o.d, the girls,” he said aloud.

”What girls?” she echoed from the bed.

”My sisters.” Nash was throwing on his waistcoat. ”Something might have happened.”

Xanthia looked worried. ”Perhaps it is just a late caller? A-A friend? Or your brother?”

”I think not,” said Nash. ”Someone has been pounding on the door a while now. Tony wouldn't dare-not unless someone was bleeding to death.” He leaned over the bed and swiftly kissed her. ”But if it is Rothewell, love, and he shoots me dead on my doorstep-you were absolutely worth it.”

Xanthia could do nothing but stare after him. He had been perfectly serious.

Feeling more than a little anxious, she leapt from the bed the moment the door shut. Absent the warmth of Nash's body, she felt cold to her bones. She looked down at the bed, and at the fringe of hibiscus blossoms which now lay haphazardly around it. How romantic and unreal it all seemed now. And how dreadfully cold it had suddenly become.

For a moment, she debated throwing back the bedcovers, but that seemed...oddly presumptuous. She gave a sharp, slightly hysterical laugh, then went into his dressing room. There was a cream silk dressing gown hanging from a bra.s.s hook. She put it on and wrapped it around her in voluminous, awkward folds. She crept to the door and heard nothing. She was sorely tempted to tiptoe partway down the stairs. But no, that would not do. Her eyes flew across the room to the mahogany escritoire.

Well. There could scarcely be a better opportunity to do what she had vowed to do. Feeling dreadfully guilty, Xanthia turned up the wick of Nash's lamp and carried it across the room. One by one, she began to pull out the little drawers.