A Midnight Dance Read online

  “Where else do you want me to kiss you?” Where else? “Tell me,” he coaxed while his mouth continued to hover over hers.

  Why couldn’t he just get on with this?

  “My neck,” she offered. Once the words were out of her mouth, she was flooded with a warm rush.

  “And?”

  “And?”

  “Where else?”

  How many more places did he need her to mention? How many more places did a man kiss a woman? Maddeningly, it was clear he wasn’t going to proceed until he was satisfied by her answer.

  “And . . .” There was another place that came to mind where she wanted him to kiss her. Again. “My . . . breasts.” Never in her life had she uttered such a brazen request. But then again, she wasn’t Sabine at the moment, was she?

  He pulled back enough to look into her eyes. Dimples adorned his gorgeous smile. “Anyplace else?”

  Good Lord. Enough! “No. For now, the list will suffice. I’ll give you further instructions later.”

  His brows shot up. He burst into laughter. “Elise, you are delightful.” He lowered his head and gave her the lightest kiss. Pure bliss vaulted inside her. “Beautiful,” a slightly deeper kiss, “fiery,” a longer kiss, “and wonderfully impatient. My favorite combination in a woman. Let’s get to work on your list.”

  Jules had her mouth in an instant, muting her gasp, driving his tongue past her parted lips. Of all the pleasures she could have selected when he’d given her carte blanche, she asked for a kiss. He found that strangely touching and, coming from her alluring mouth, utterly erotic. Capturing her face between his hands, he angled her head for better access to the soft recesses of her mouth. It took all of two frantic beats of his heart for the kiss to become hot, demanding, unleashing the pent-up desire he had for her. Kissing her mouth was heaven on earth. A taste of paradise. He couldn’t stop the bliss that groaned up his throat.

  Jésus-Christ, how he’d missed this.

  This was perfect spine-melting passion.

  She kissed him with equal fervor, matching every hungry stroke of his tongue. He could feel her melting in his arms, surrendering to the raw desire, helpless against it, and he wanted to howl at the sheer pleasure it gave him. The small sultry sounds emanating from her throat incited him further. His cock seeped more spunk. Yet at the height of passion, when the fire burned white-hot, when all he could think about was driving his prick into her dewy cunt, he became aware of her hand at the nape of his neck gently caressing him there.

  The tender, unusual gesture surprised him.

  He broke the kiss and looked down at her, their breathing labored. Her eyes were darkened with passion and he wasn’t certain she was even aware she was touching his neck this way.

  Breathlessly, she said, “Don’t—”

  “Don’t?”

  “Stop.” She lifted her head, seeking his mouth. “Work on the list . . .”

  He couldn’t help chuckling, her responses adorably novel. Dieu, he’d smiled and laughed more with her during their brief acquaintance than he had in the last five years.

  “How is this?” he said and trailed his mouth down her neck, moving across her skin, toward her breasts. A soft mew escaped her and she arched to him. A delicious untamed reaction.

  A blatant invitation to suck those pretty nipples again.

  One no man would refuse.

  He slid his body lower, wrapped an arm around her tightly, and rolled with her onto his back, pulling her soft form on top of him—her nipple dropping into his ready mouth. He sucked. She gasped and jerked, her palms slamming down onto the blankets on either side of his head. But he held her securely in place, not allowing her to pull away from the sudden spike of erotic sensations. He sucked, laved, and lightly bit her tender teat—enjoying the arousing sounds she made, the restless wiggle of her soft derrière. And the glorious friction against his engorged cock.

  Bending his knees, he kept her legs spread apart and grazed a hand over the seam of her bottom, following its sweet curve until his fingers slipped into her juicy folds. He sank a finger into the slit of her sex with one fluid glide. Her bottom flexed. His groan eclipsed her soft cry.

  A single digit was all he had buried in her hot wet core, yet it was so tightly clasped, it was mind-numbing. His cock twitched eagerly.

  A warning flitted through his mind, and quickly burned away. He lightly pumped his finger in her. Her sheath twitched convulsively. He was so fucking hard, his cock unbearably full, yet he couldn’t pull his hand away from her snug wet sex. Releasing her nipple from his mouth, he gazed up at her. Her eyes were closed, her delicate brows drawn together, and her hair was down around them like a silvery veil.

  “You’ve got the sweetest cunt, Elise.”

  A small sound escaped her lips on a pant, but she didn’t open her eyes, enthralled by the sensations in her sheath as he pushed and pulled his finger with measured strokes. He wasn’t sure she even heard him.

  He plunged his free hand between their bodies and captured her clit. She whimpered loudly and ground herself against him. He was fingering her, her juices dripping down his thrusting finger onto his hand, driving him to the edge of his control. He’d barely stroked her clit twice when she lurched at the sheer force of her release and came with a long hard cry, her body straining against him, her orgasm taking them both by surprise.

  He refused to stop, his hand still working her soaked sex, milking more pleasure from her body until her little shivers and shudders, until those decadent spasms of her vaginal walls, completely ebbed.

  Only when she was slumped on top of him, boneless, dragging air in and out of her lungs, did he withdraw his finger and ease her onto her back, pinning her beneath him. She buried her face in his shoulder, her warm breaths caressing his chest. Her pale tresses tickling his chin.

  “It’s been a long time since a man made you come, hasn’t it?” he said in her ear. She came so quickly.

  She kept her face in his shoulder. “You could say that,” she mumbled against him.

  He was on his knees between her thighs in an instant. Reaching down, he undid his breeches in haste. “We’re going to remedy that and make up for lost time. This time, I’m going to make you come with my cock.” He couldn’t wait any longer. He had to possess that snug heat right now.

  She looked so good naked in the moonlight—it made his mouth water.

  Freeing his prick from its confines, he grasped his cock and squeezed it to combat the throbbing, his cock feeling thicker and heavier than it ever had before.

  Her gaze was riveted on his erect shaft protruding from his open breeches. She bit her lip, her earlier confidence faltering.

  “You’re . . . um . . .” she began, looking flustered. “Rather, your . . . generous size . . . Have any of your past lovers experienced . . .” She looked uneasy. “Discomfort?”

  A smile pulled at the corners of his mouth once more. He was large, but he knew just how to use his girth and length to pleasure women.

  Jules lowered himself slowly onto her soft form.

  “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  She was so slick, he anticipated an easy thrust would see him buried to his balls. “This is about mutual pleasure, remember?” He wedged the head of his cock at her entrance. He had every intention of entering her with a slow downstroke, feeding her his length inch by inch, savoring every moment of his possession, but with his cock at the entrance to paradise, with the overpowering allure of his beautiful forest fairy and his self-imposed celibacy all decimating his resolve, he thrust in all at once.

  She recoiled with a painful cry.

  “Jésus-Christ!” he hissed out from between clenched teeth. A virgin.

  Her face was turned. Her eyes were squeezed shut, refusing to look at him.

  Balanced on his forearms, he was practically shaking with the effort it took to hold still. The pressure around his cock was magnificent, his prick pulsing within the confines of her sex. She had the tightest, most glorious
sheath he’d ever known.

  Good Lord . . . There was no way he had the strength to pull away from her now. He was past the point of no return.

  He withdrew slightly. The drag against the sensitive underside of his shaft tore a groan from his throat. Pleasure exploded through his senses. He filled her with one solid stroke. She made a strangled sound at the back of her throat that sounded less like pain. More like pleasure. A mimic of his own sound of rapture.

  His possession was complete. He felt her body relax and she drew her arms around him again, enveloping him further. He couldn’t stop thrusting. The friction was sublime. Dear God, he’d never been inside a woman who felt this good. He gave her long deep luscious strokes of his cock, quickly picking up the tempo, until he was fucking her with complete abandon, with powerful plunges, his angle making perfect contact with her sensitized clit.

  The sensuous sounds she made inflamed him further.

  He drove into her faster. Harder. Her body now rising up to meet him on his every downstroke, sucking him in deeply each time.

  Her inner muscles fluttered and contracted. He knew she was about to come. He braced himself for it, aching to spew everything he had. The most exquisite torture he’d ever known.

  She surged her hips upward, her cry filling his ears. Delicious uncontrollable little spasms quivered through her core, sending spellbinding sensations coursing along his cock, and hurling him into orgasm. He reared just in time; come shot from his prick onto the blanket, powerful jolting eruptions, each a burst of ecstasy, a deeply draining rush. Until his muscles melted.

  Until he’d purged his prick dry.

  It took a few moments before he could muster the strength to roll off her. The lassitude that had seeped into his muscles quickly dissipated, her lies igniting a fury he was all too prone to nowadays.

  Merde! How did a virgin convince him she was a whore? Because you wanted her so badly, you ignored the signs. Everything. Just so you could have her. Merde! Merde! He was livid at her for tricking him. And at himself for letting her.

  She may have been untried, but she was not entirely innocent. She’d put on a performance, with the intention to deceive. Clearly, she was up to something. But what? Why the deception? What did she hope to gain?

  He bolted upright.

  Jésus-Christ, an ambush!

  He scanned the trees and shrubs, looking for men lurking, waiting to attack. No. If it had been an ambush to gain his treasure, it would have occurred by now—before he’d had her, not afterward.

  He shot her a look. Her face was turned away, her alluring form open to his view. She hadn’t moved. The question “Why?” bellowed in his head.

  Sabine reeled. In her wildest dreams she’d never imagined the physical act of copulation could be this powerful. Could leave her this shaken. She was so undone. Emotions clashed within her. She felt good. She felt vulnerable. She felt angry.

  She felt the sting of tears.

  She was not going to cry. Not in front of him. She hadn’t cried in years, not since the day Isabelle left. She hadn’t even cried when she’d been told the news of Isabelle’s death a year later. That day she froze inside, numbed herself to the pain of it all. Since then she’d battled daily between what her head told her and what her heart felt—that Isabelle was alive.

  It left her unbalanced, bewildered. Lost. Just as she felt now. How pathetic was she?

  She couldn’t accept her sister’s demise. She couldn’t remain detached, even remotely, in her enemy’s arms. And she hadn’t fooled Jules into believing she was sexually experienced either.

  He’d realized the truth.

  Sabine sat up and slipped her chemise back on, her hands shaky.

  He jerked her chin up, startling her. He was down on his haunches, clearly furious. “You lied to me,” he growled. “Why did you pretend you were experienced? What game are you playing?”

  Her own emotions erupted. She shoved his hand away. “Game? This is no game.” She shot to her feet. Turning away from him, she took a few steps, needing space and time to collect herself. Needing to shut him out and the devastating effect he’d had on her.

  She pulled on her skirt, becoming frustrated with her fumbling fingers as they bumbled with the fastenings.

  Collect yourself!

  From the way he was behaving, she was going to have to provide answers. She was going to have to think of something believable that would satisfy him—at a time when she felt too unraveled to think clearly. She’d already paid a price for her plan with her lost innocence.

  She couldn’t let him cast her out now.

  He grasped her arm and spun her around to face him. “Why. Did. You. Do. This?”

  She laughed and blinked away more tears she refused to shed. Being Elise was exhausting. Consuming. And she was beginning to despise her.

  “Why?” she repeated. “Are you that much of a fool? Why would any woman profess to be a whore and enter a men’s camp if not because she was desperate.”

  “My patience is running out. Speak plainly!” he barked. “And your words this time had better be the absolute truth.”

  The stone-cold look in his eyes sent a shiver of dread through her. Fury was coming off him in waves. She found herself mourning the loss of his smile, his heated looks. And she hated it that she did. She felt defeated. She’d lost the battle. Yet she had no choice but to fight on.

  She still had to steal his captured prize.

  But Jules de Moutier was not a man to be trifled with. This former officer of the King’s Navy was a veteran in battle, skilled at weapons, with a small army of armed men at hand under his command.

  She had only her two younger cousins and desperation arming her.

  “I didn’t wish to deceive you. I didn’t think you would want me if you knew I was a . . . virgin.”

  “You are correct there! Who are you?”

  Lying was much like acting. You had to put on a believable performance. And the most convincing lies incorporated as much of the truth as you could allow.

  “My name is Elise Marquette.” The false name slipped past her lips. “I couldn’t have you turn me away. I’m desperate for funds. What else was there for me to do?”

  Mistrust was clearly readable in his eyes. “You have the wine. You could have sold it for coin,” he said tightly.

  He’d cornered her. What she was about to admit to was a risky tactic to take, but she was out of options. He didn’t look as though he’d let her skirt around the subject of the wine. God help them . . . “I couldn’t. The—The wine is . . . tainted.”

  “You poisoned the wine?” he roared.

  “No!” Her heart was slamming in her chest. “Not poisoned. I swear! It’s drugged. To induce sleep. We were going to take coins from you and your men. We wouldn’t have taken everything. We would have left you some.” She was oh so careful not to let on that she knew of the captured wealth on hand.

  “So you came here to steal.” His expression was fierce. “Why let me fuck you? Because you couldn’t get me to drink the wine beforehand?”

  She crossed her arms, feeling chilled by his anger. Once again she found herself longing for his previous warm manner. “I’ll admit I didn’t come here with the intention of participating in any sort of . . . intimate act with you, but then . . .” Her next words caught in her throat.

  “But then what?” he snapped.

  She forced the words out—words that spoke too much of the truth for her liking. “But then . . . you touched me . . . kissed me . . .” She wanted to say no more. Each day she went through the motions of living, unable to mourn her sister. Simply surviving, more dead than alive. She’d forgotten how to feel. She didn’t even want to. Yet this man—of all men—had inflamed her senses and jolted her body to life with such startling intensity, she still trembled in the aftermath. She’d rather cut out her own tongue than have to admit to him, “I didn’t want you to stop.” How she wished that was a lie.

  “Really.” His voice was bl
and.

  “Yes, really!” His skepticism was wounding when it shouldn’t be at all. How ironic that she had to convince him of something she wanted to deny.

  It took everything she had not to give up this mad scheme and run. But she didn’t have that luxury. “You . . . overwhelmed me.” Sadly that, too, was the truth.

  He placed his hands on his hips. “Why didn’t you sell the wine before you ‘tainted’ it?”

  “We tried to do that at the market. The realm is in financial chaos, in case you haven’t noticed. We had no takers. I’ve been traveling for some time. I’d only met the young men I’m with today. The wine was theirs. The idea to do this was mine. I convinced them to barter some wine for some sleeping powders. They did just that, mixed it into the wine, and we devised a plan.”

  His jaw tightened. Tensed, she wondered if he could hear the pounding of her heart.

  “Why did you select us?” he asked.

  “You were the first group of men we came upon who looked as though you had some coin to spare.”

  His brows shot up. “You walked into a camp of men you knew nothing about?”

  “Yes.”

  “Merde. Woman, are you mad?”

  “No. Just utterly desperate. And out of choices. I had nothing to lose.”

  “Except your innocence and your life.”

  She gave a harsh laugh. “Why worry about my innocence if I am dead? And dead is what I’ll be without coin. Most of my family is gone. My home is gone because I didn’t have the money to pay our lord his taxes. What choice did I have?”

  He studied her in silence. Her insides in frenzy, she prayed he believed her.

  His eyes narrowed. “Those men you are with, did they know you were a virgin?”

  “No!” She was intent on protecting her cousins, for she could see his ire rising once more.

  “Did you lead them to believe you were sexually experienced?”

  “I told them nothing about myself. They’re practically boys. Like me, they only resorted to this because they’re trying to survive. What would you do if you were in our desperate situation?”