The Beloved Scoundrel

“Why should I try to— Yes.” His lips twisted. “But why should that make a difference?” He sat down and began to remove his boots. “A bit of conflict can be exciting as a prelude to bed play.”

  It did make a difference. She did not want bitterness and pain to mar this last encounter.

  “But perhaps I’m wrong. Perhaps you want more from me.”

  She had hurt him. No, she must not believe she had that power. She must not believe any of the things she desperately wanted to be true. In this place, at this time, he was the enemy. She took off her cloak and dropped it on the floor. “No, that’s all I want.”

  “The devil you do!” His eyes were blazing. He took a deep breath, and she could almost see him put on the mask of mockery and sensuality. He leaned back in the chair. “Then you’ll have to shed more than that cloak. I’m beginning to get bored. Shall I help you?”

  “No.” Her hands were trembling as she went to the fastening of her gown. “I’ll do it myself.”

  “Ah, what an independent spirit you have. Have I ever told you how much I admire that quality?”

  “Even while trying to crush it?”

  “I never wanted to destroy your spirit. I just wanted to channel it so that no one could enjoy it but my humble self.” He stood up, shed the rest of his garments, and then resumed his seat, completely at ease in his nudity. “I visited a sultan in Morocco once who had a splendid palace in which to store his charming treasures. I did not envy him at the time.” His voice hoarsened as his gaze went over her now-naked body. “I do now. Would you walk to the center of the room?

  “Why?”

  “To please me. I promise I will please you in turn.”

  She started slowly across the room. She was acutely aware of his gaze on the hollow of her spine, the curve of her buttocks. She abruptly stopped and turned to face him. “This is ridiculous. I feel like a slave on an auction block.”

  “What a terrible experience for a woman of independence. I had no such intention. Just another few steps.”

  She hesitated, and then she suddenly realized what he wanted. She took four more steps, and she was in the radiant circle of color formed by the sunlight streaming through the stained-glass window. She felt the warmth of the sun’s rays on her naked body.

  “Splendid,” he said softly. “You look like a Nereid from beneath the sea.”

  She glanced down at herself and felt a strange thrill. It was like looking at a stranger. Her body was crisscrossed by scarlet and gold lines and, where there were no brilliant streaks of color, soft muted pinks vied with lavenders. She wondered what color her hair was in this light. She reached up to touch it and then turned her head back and forth; her hair felt heavier and more sensual as it swung about her shoulders. Her entire body felt different, as if it belonged to someone else. “Nereids should be cool and blue.”

  “Perhaps in the panels you fashion.” She heard him rise from his chair. “My Nereids bask in sunlight, and there is nothing cool about them.”

  He stepped into the circle of color and became one with it.

  Nude. Magnificent. Aroused. His cheeks were hollowed, and his light eyes shimmered as they looked down at her. “Isn’t this amusing? Tell me, do you suppose we look like figures in a stained-glass window?”

  “No.” She swallowed. “Stained-glass windows must be on display.”

  “And I’m a trifle shocking for public display.” His gaze went to her breasts. “And so are you, my love.”

  She knew what he meant. She felt her entire body ripening and readying and a tingling ache beginning between her thighs as she looked at him. Lean, muscular, and streaked with fire, he was the most beautifully sensual creature she had ever beheld.

  “You like this, don’t you?” he whispered. “And why shouldn’t you? When you were making your beautiful windows, you must have sometimes felt that you were part of them.” He paused. “Or wanted to be part of them.” He took a step closer. “And now you can.”

  She was trembling. He was towering over her, and she felt small and helpless and completely woman.

  He took her hand and brought it to his body. “I’ve always been jealous of your work. Did you know that?” He closed her hand around him. A shudder went through him as he held it in place. “You would never share it with me, and I wanted all of you.” His other hand went out to cup her breast. “You’re so tiny, your hand barely goes around me.” He urged softly, “Think how we look now. Imagine us as the figures in one of your panels.”

  She was imagining it. She could see him.…

  Dear heaven, she could see both of them. Her breast was lifting and falling beneath his hand as his thumb teasingly flicked her nipple.

  “Am I part of it?” he whispered.

  “Yes.…”

  He smiled. “That’s not enough.” He suddenly lifted her, wrapped her legs about his hips, and plunged deep! “I want to be all of it.”

  She cried out, her hands clutching his shoulders.

  “Take me!” His voice was a guttural growl. His hips worked frantically back and forth as he held her sealed to him. “All of me!”

  She was moaning, grunting, savagely trying to press closer, as if she were a different woman from the one who had stepped within that circle of light. She was vaguely aware of him falling to his knees and then pushing her down on the floor. The wood was cold on her back, but the sun was warm on her body, and Jordan was hot.… His face was only a dark shadow above her, but his body was outlined in a fiery radiance.

  Vulcan, she thought feverishly. Vulcan striking …

  His dark hair had come loose from its queue and brushed her breasts with every thrust. “Think—of—me.” He punctuated every word with a deep plunge. “I need to be—”

  “Be still!” she gasped. “I can’t think at all. I don’t even know what you—”

  She arched upward as explosive release tore through her. She was aware of Jordan’s hoarse cry above her.

  They lay there, joined, in the pool of light, while shudder after shudder ripped through them.

  “And you think you can give this up?” he asked in a low voice.

  He was the one who would give her up, she thought sadly. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  She thought he was going to protest, but after a moment he said, “Very well. I suppose I’m satisfied with my progress to date. I hope my services proved satisfactory?”

  She moistened her lips. “Let me up. I want to go back to the fire.”

  “In a moment.” He swung off her and then lifted her to a kneeling position in the brilliant circle of light. “I have another window I want you to remember.” He knelt facing her, took her hands, and looked into her eyes. “It is true, you know. I do love you. I love your body and your mind and your soul.” He lifted her hand to his lips. “I want all of them. I’m sorry I don’t have much to give in return. I’m selfish and arrogant, and Gregor will tell you that my soul is constantly in jeopardy.”

  He had a great deal to give. He had wit and courage, intelligence and honesty. She wished desperately to reach out and gather everything he was to her, but she could not do it. The risk was too great.

  She said nothing.

  He shrugged. “I see that you agree with him.” He drew her into his arms. “It will do you no good. Fate is definitely on my side.” His hand stroked the back of head, and he slowly rocked her back and forth. “Why else would we have been brought together, if not to belong forever? None of it would make any sense at all.”

  She should not let him hold her like this. She had not expected tenderness. It was much harder to bear than passion, and would only make the parting harder.

  She did not move. She could not give him up. Not yet.

  Her arms tightened around him, and they knelt there until the last rays of the sun faded and the radiant circle slowly vanished from around them.

  CHAPTER 16

  Why do they call you the Duke of Diamonds?” Jordan’s tongue gently traced the aureole around her nippl
e. “What brought that to mind?”

  “I remembered something Dorothy said a long time ago.”

  “And you’re just wondering now?”

  “She said it had something to do with pouches of diamonds and women.… I think I didn’t want to know.”

  “Then why are you questioning me?”

  Because now she had a hunger to know everything about him, the bad and the good. She wanted to savor every aspect, every quality. She would have only memories later, and those memories must be of the complete man. “Tell me.”

  “It was a long time ago,” he said impatiently. “I don’t practice such idiocies any longer.” He rubbed his cheek back and forth against her breast. “And it’s not for my wife’s ears.”

  “But I’m not your wife.”

  “You will be.”

  She did not argue with him. She had no wish to spoil the moment. “I want to know.”

  He raised his head. “You won’t like it.”

  She looked at him from beneath her lashes and murmured teasingly, “It cannot be any worse than what I know of you already.”

  He flinched. “What a comforting thought. However, I beg to disagree.” He lifted her hand and pressed his lips to the palm. “There are details of my unsavory past that you don’t know and should not know.” He asked absently, “What on earth is that smell?”

  She stiffened and tried to tug her hand away. “What smell?”

  He sniffed her palm. “I noticed it before. It’s familiar, but I can’t quite place it.…”

  “Horse,” she said quickly. “I told you that I had little chance to bathe on this journey.” She forced a smile. “And you should not be so ungentlemanly as to remark on it.” She had to distract him. “Or are you merely trying to avoid my question? I want to know about the Duke of Diamonds.”

  He frowned. “By God, do you never give up?”

  He had dropped her hand, but she must be quite sure the memory of that scent was blotted from his mind. Her jaw set, and she said, “Evidently everyone in the ton is familiar with the reason they call you that. I think it completely unfair you should know everything about me, and I—” She stopped as he made a gesture of surrender.

  “It was only an absurd conceit. At the end of an evening of pleasure I’d leave a leather pouch of diamonds for the lady. The pouch would contain one diamond for every time she had pleased me.” He looked away from her. “It aroused a certain competitiveness that intrigued me.”

  He was not telling her everything. “Dorothy said there was something else … that they laughed when they spoke of it.”

  “Dorothy should not have even discussed this with you.” He shrugged and then said curtly, “It was the places I left the pouch in that they found amusing.”

  “The places—” Then she understood, and heat flooded her cheeks.

  “I told you that you wouldn’t like it.”

  “I don’t like it!” She sat up and reached for her cloak. “I find it wicked and depraved.” She jumped to her feet, flung the cloak about her, and strode toward the door. “As I find you.”

  “For God’s sake, where are you going?”

  “Away from you. There must be somewhere in this huge place where I can avoid seeing—”

  “It was years ago. I was scarcely more than a boy.” He was on his feet, following her into the foyer. “Come back to the fire. You can’t go wandering around in this cold.”

  “You were never a boy. You were born a wicked, lustful scoundrel who—”

  “Why are you so angry?” He grabbed her by the shoulders. “I only told you what you asked of me.”

  “I didn’t think—” She hadn’t thought it would hurt so much. She hadn’t thought the picture of that wild boy and his debaucheries would fill her with this anger and pain. She had been wrong. She did not want to know the complete Jordan Draken, if it meant she had to think of those women in his past. “It should not surprise you that I’m shocked at such an act.”

  His eyes narrowed on her face. “It wasn’t shock.” He added softly, “Jealousy?”

  She quickly shook her head.

  “Why not? If you’d told me you’d had your own Duke of Diamonds, I’d have wanted to kill him … and you.” He took a step closer. “But then I have reason. I’ve already told you I love you.”

  “You don’t—”

  His lips covered hers, smothering the words, his tongue entering to joust and play. She was breathless when he finally lifted his head. “And I think you must feel a similar affection for me. Or something very near it.”

  “No,” she whispered.

  He smiled recklessly. “Then you must be feeling cheated. I can think of no other reason for this display. I shall have to rectify the omission immediately.”

  “What do you— Jordan!”

  He had picked her up and was carrying her toward the staircase.

  “I want you under me,” he said hoarsely as he climbed the stairs. “As you were this afternoon, but with nothing between us.” He paused at the sixth step. “I believe this is right.”

  “I don’t want this.”

  He laid her on the steps and then straddled her. He impatiently pushed aside her cloak. She gasped as she felt flesh on flesh, hardness against softness.

  “Then convince me, and you won’t have it.” His thumb and forefinger pulled gently on the tight curls surrounding her womanhood. “Convince me.”

  A hot shudder went through her, and her breasts swelled.

  The moonlight streaming through the long windows on the landing touched the crystal chandelier beyond his shoulder with icy radiance. Cold and heat. Darkness and fire. Dominance and submission. She tried to retrieve the anger that had faded into the shadows of sensuality. “I’m not one of those women to whom you gave those pouches. I won’t have you treating me—”

  “Shh.” His fingers touched her lips, silencing her. “It will never be like that with you.” His eyes were suddenly glinting with mischief. “Though I may give you diamonds someday.” He felt her stiffen and bent forward to whisper in her ear. “There are two huge diamonds that my barrister keeps for me in London. They’re very beautiful with a clear, bold fire. Like you, Marianna.”

  “I don’t want diamonds.”

  “But you’ll want these.” He slipped two fingers deep within her. “Because we’ll put them here.”

  She gasped and arched upward.

  His fingers thrust slowly back and forth. “I like the idea of you wearing my diamonds, love.” A third finger joined the others, and the rhythm quickened. She bit her lower lip to keep from crying out. “I believe you’ll like it too. I hope you’ll wear them as you work, dine, ride, and walk. Every time you move, you’ll find they rub together and bring you a burst of pleasure.”

  The erotic words were as inflaming as his fingers within her, stroking her to fever pitch. She was barely aware of him moving, adjusting her position. He smiled wickedly as he whispered, “And it will be my great privilege to remove them when we do this.”

  He plunged deep, ramming her to the quick.

  She cried out and reached out blindly for him. He lifted her legs about his hips and rode her with a passion that was almost brutal in intensity.

  She was whimpering, her fingers clutching helplessly at his shoulders. The sensations were unbelievable. She thought she could bear no more, and then he gave her more and it was not enough. He was everything that was savagely male, and she was female accepting with equal primitive wildness.

  When the explosion came, she convulsed, her scream echoing off the high arched ceiling.

  His breath came in short, labored gasps as he lifted his head to look down at her. “I was too rough. Did I hurt you? Are you well?”

  She was, except for a weakness that pervaded every limb and a feeling that the world had ended and been reborn. “You didn’t hurt me.”

  “I had to make you see.” His hand gently stroked her cheek. “The Duke of Diamonds was a long time ago, another man. The only time I?
??ll resurrect him is for you, when it brings you pleasure.” His gaze held hers, willing her to believe. “It’s only for you now. Forever. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you still don’t trust me.” It was a statement, but she knew he wanted her to deny it.

  In this moment she could almost trust him, almost believe he loved her.

  Almost.

  “I’m cold,” she whispered.

  Hope faded from his expression, and he forced a smile. “And no wonder.” He moved off her and stood up. He pulled her to her feet and draped the cloak about her. “Come back to the fire.” He took her hand and led her down the stairs. “I believe I said that before. I must admit I’m delighted you didn’t comply.”

  She had the cloak, but he was totally nude. “You must be cold too.”

  He shook his head. “I feel as if I’ll never be cold again.” He closed the door of the anteroom and led her to the rug before the fire. “Lie down. I’ll hold you until you go to sleep.”

  As he had held her at Dalwynd. She had been so full of fear and resentment during those weeks that she had not appreciated those precious moments of intimacy. Well, she had tonight and would savor it to the full.

  She cuddled close to him before the fire. She would not think of tomorrow. He was holding her with exquisite tenderness, and tonight she could pretend everything he said was true. She could pretend he loved her more than he wanted the Jedalar, that his passion was only for her.

  And that there was a love that could last forever.

  Ah, this is very good.”

  Marianna drowsily opened her eyes to see Gregor standing in the doorway.

  “For God’s sake, Gregor.” Jordan snatched the cloak from the floor next to them and covered Marianna. “Didn’t it occur to you to knock?”

  “I was in a great hurry.” He beamed. “And there is no shame in this room. You are very beautiful together.” His smile faded. “And it is better I find you here than Nebrov.”

  “Nebrov.” A cold chill went through Marianna as she sat up and brushed her hair back from her face. “He’s here?”

  “Not yet. Niko says he will be here within two hours.”