Chapter 80 80
He took advantage of the position to bend and capture one silk-clad nipple and nip it with his teeth.
“Justin!”
The moaning cry finally got through to him. He straightened, his face flushed, his shirt awry thanks to her frantic need to touch his chest. Everything about him was disheveled, earthy, intent on carnal pursuits. Even his eyes were cloudy and unfocused.
“What?” he growled, his sexual frustration palpable.
“We have to agree on something.”
He released her, bent at the waist and stared at the floor, clearly in pain.
“God give me strength. You are the most ball-busting female I’ve ever met. Make up your mind, damn it. Do you want me or not?”
She rapped her knuckles on his head. “Don’t talk to me like that. You started this insanity. Yes. I want you. But only for the moment. Only while we are here. In this house. Got it?”
When he straightened and faced her, a shiver of primal feminine apprehension danced through her veins. Here was a man at the end of his rope. And he looked as if he would as soon strangle her with it than let go.
“Are you seriously negotiating a relationship at this goddamn moment?”
“There is no relationship,” she shouted, stung by his incredulity. “And there will be no marriage either. All we’re going to do is indulge in wild monkey sex. No strings.”
“Strings…” He repeated the word, his mouth pursed as he tried to decipher her meaning.
“Tell me you get what I’m saying.”
She didn’t understand exactly why she was pushing so hard. His eyes narrowed, he straightened to his full height and his chest rose and fell with each harsh breath.
“Here’s what I get,” he said softly, the words forced through clenched teeth. “I get that you’re crazy. Or maybe this is an act you put on to drive men insane so they’ll grovel at your feet. But yes. I get it. Hell, sweetheart, I’ll sign over my soul to the devil on the spot if you’ll take off that gown.”
She licked her lips. “Well, okay then.”
It was rather heady to have a man so intent on ravishing her. She waited impatiently for Justin to take her in his arms and undress her. Arousal danced and twisted in her lower abdomen, and her heartbeat skittered out of control. She held out her arms.
“Say something, damn it. Or are we going to stand here all night?” She was too agitated to worry about her language at this point.
He shrugged, his expression calculating…like a tiger eyeing a mouse.
“Take off the gown.”
The blunt words sent moisture blooming between her thighs. “But I thought you would—”
“Now, Sherry. Slowly. Make me wait. Tease me. Taunt me.”
The guttural commands were something new. She didn’t know Justin had it in him to be so deliciously barbaric. But she liked it. Feeling his stare like a hot brand, she shrugged out of the robe and tossed it onto a chair. Now there was no disguising her excitement. Her tightly furled nipples actually hurt. She wanted his hands on her skin, everywhere.
Feeling a bit foolish, but breathless with excitement, she put one hand over her breasts, and with the other hand slid the narrow straps of the gown down first one shoulder and then the other. Releasing each arm completely was a little more awkward than she would have liked, but she gave herself points for bravado.
Justin was transfixed, his entire body tense, hands fisted at his hips. “I want to see your breasts. Lower the top.”
For a woman who liked being in charge in almost every situation, it was surprisingly comfortable to cede control. Despite Justin's arrogant demands, she realized that in a deeper sense, she was in the driver’s seat. Feeling faint and giddy, she took the bodice of her gown and dragged it to her waist. Someone gasped. Him? Her? It didn’t matter. Justin's gob-smacked response went a long way toward making up for the past. She knew he had seen his fair share of naked women, so his reaction to her no-more-than-average breasts was a balm to her battered ego.
He cocked his head, arms folded across his chest. “You’re not done.”
The heat from the fire singed her back, warming the silk against her skin. She felt exotic, dangerous. Never in the occasional fantasies she’d allowed herself had Justin looked at her in quite this way. She put her hands in the sides of the gown and shimmied it down her hips. Stepping out of the pile of ruby cloth and kicking it aside, she removed her slippers and faced him bravely.
“I seem to be doing all the work,” she said, mesmerized by the enormous bulge beneath his fly.
Justin swallowed, the muscles in his throat rippling, betraying the fact that he was deeply invested in this moment. “Do you want me, Sherry?”
Here it was. A chance for revenge. An opportunity to take that dreadful memory of his rejection and incinerate it. All she had to do was walk out of the room. She’d have a better chance of baking cookies and serving tea to the queen of England. Nothing short of an earthquake could have made her call a halt to this wonderful madness.
“Yes,” she said. “I believe that I do.”
Time began to move in slow motion. Even the sounds of the fire muted to a faint murmur. She held out a hand. “I would ask your room or mine, but neither sounds appealing at the moment. Do you have any ideas?”
“For you, baby, always.”
With one lingering look at her nudity, he stepped away long enough to rob a nearby cupboard of its stash of throws…a blanket, several afghans and one quilt. As Sherry watched, amused and touched by his urgency, he fashioned a makeshift bed in front of the hearth. Grabbing a pillow from the sofa, he tossed it down on the pile and then added a couple more logs and tinder on top of the coals until the fire blazed hot and orangey-red.
Sherry had scooted out of his way while he worked, but now he dragged her back with a challenging stare that said louder than words what he expected of her. She joined him, limbs trembling, and somewhere found the acting skills to emulate a woman who knew her way around the bedroom. “Put your hands in your back pockets, Justin.”