Page 6 of To Dance with a Devil

“I wasn’t chastising,” she retorted. “I was only asking you to hurry.”

“Well, don’t. I’ll do it in my own good time.” Except at that moment the knot came apart in his hands and he wasn’t ready, hadn’t steeled himself to say, there you go, you’re free. I’ll leave you to it now. He couldn’t leave her half-dressed and alone in the stables in any case, he reasoned. Anyone might come across her and think her fair game for a tumble. No. No, he’d have to stay. Just to… to be on the safe side.

He tugged just as he’d imagined earlier and, just as he’d imagined, she turned around and around before him, her bindings unravelling along with his sanity. His breathing grew ragged as she turned and turned, and the tight wrappings tumbled to the ground as his pulse beat in his ears and his body grew taut with interest.

She was faced away from him as the last length of fabric fell and she let out a heartfelt sigh that he felt somewhere in the pit of his belly.

“Oh, thank heavens,” she murmured. “That’s better.”

As though he was watching someone in a dream—some poor fool hellbent on destruction, no doubt—he reached out and traced one of the red lines across her back, where the bindings had left imprints in her soft skin.

“Look what you’ve done to yourself,” he whispered, hearing the breathless quality of his own words. His finger trailed to her waist, and he put his hand on her at the point where the curve of her hips began.

She stilled beneath his touch and then looked back, over her shoulder at him. Her eyes were wide and dark, and she licked her lips.

“It’s worse this side,” she said, her voice low. “I wish you’d kiss it better.”

Oh God, there it was: the toll of doom clanging in his ears.

Bonnie reached down and took his hand, guiding it to her breast.

“Bonnie,” he said, shaking his head even as his body throbbed with desire. His heart was a drumbeat in his ears, his swelling cock pulsing in time with it, with need. Oh, good Lord, he was in deep trouble. “Bonnie, no,” he said, though it was a pitiful effort to act the gentlemen as his hand curved about her breast and squeezed as he spoke.

“Your hands are so warm,” she said, the words spoken on a sigh. “So big and warm.”

She leaned back against his chest and he took it for the invitation it was, filling both his hands with her soft flesh, gently kneading and stroking and then pinching her nipples, rolling them back and forth between finger and thumb.

She gasped and tilted her head back, exposing the pale line of her throat.

Jerome stared down at it, willing himself to find the strength to move away from her, to stop, when the desire to kiss a path down that slender neck was so fierce he could taste it. She turned her head and looked up at him.

“It’s all right,” she said, and her eyes were clear, focused entirely on him. “I know we won’t marry. I’m not trying to trap you. I want this. I want you.”

“It’s wrong….” he said, forcing the words out. “I ought not—”

“Nonsense,” she said, smiling at him. “I want you. I want this night for myself, before my life is no longer my own. That’s not so much to ask, is it? Unless… Unless you don’t want to.”

He watched uncertainty flicker in her eyes, saw the glimpse of vulnerability before she turned away from him, and he hated it.

“Seriously?” he asked, pulling her closer so that her bottom cradled his arousal. She let out a breath as he pressed against her. “Don’t be so bird-witted.”

“Jerome,” she whispered, and turned in his arm, tugging at his neck, pulling him down and down into a kiss that drowned out good sense and any notions of gentlemanly behaviour.

After all, she wanted him, wanted this, her last chance to make her own decision about anything before she was married to a man she didn’t even like. How could he refuse her?

Somehow, he guided her back into an empty stall, thickly bedded with clean straw, praise be to God. Not that he liked straw—it always ended up sticking you in the arse, blasted prickly stuff—but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

They tumbled into it, the sweet scent of summers past and gone rising around them as Jerome found the buttons on the fall of her trousers and flicked them undone, sliding his hand beneath. His hand moved over the gentle swell of her stomach, over skin like satin until he found the feathery curls he sought and trailed his fingers through them.

Bonnie’s breath caught and her hips arched, seeking more of the tentative touch his fingers teased her with. Jerome smiled at her impatience.

“Wicked girl,” he crooned, nipping at her earlobe. “Always in such a hurry.”

“I’m afraid you’ll change your mind and leave me alone,” she admitted, before tugging his shirt free and sliding her hands beneath. Jerome closed his eyes as her hands moved over him, the caress making him want to purr like a cat to announce his approval.

“I’m not that noble,” he said, bending to swipe his tongue over her nipple and grazing the tender bud with his teeth, enjoying her soft cries and exclamations as his fingers slid through the curls between her thighs and caressed her intimate flesh. He groaned as he allowed his caress to slide deeper and found her hot and wet, wanting and needing him.

“Please,” she begged him, clinging to his neck. “Please.”