The Perfect Waltz (34 page)

He cupped his other hand around the nape of her neck and tilted the glass. Her lips closed around the glass, and she took the golden liquid into her mouth. Her eyes locked with his, she swallowed, shuddering as the liquor burned its way down her throat. She gasped as the cognac reached her stomach and shuddered again, extravagantly. She threw her head back, savoring the heat of the brandy, her eyes closed, her cheeks wet, her mouth glistening with brandy in the moonlight.

When she opened her eyes again, she said simply, “My grandfather used to lock me in the small cupboard under the stairs.” She gave a jerky sob. “I cannot bear to be confined, and he knew it.”

He nodded. He’d thought it would be something like that.

“Never again, I promise you. Never again,” he whispered and smoothed her hair. His fingers looked big and crooked and ugly against her delicate beauty. “Now, another mouthful.”

She licked her lips and pursed them around the glass again. He ought not to watch so hungrily, but he could not force his eyes to look away. He was already rock hard with wanting her.

She swallowed and shuddered again under his hand as the spirits hit her. Her eyes were huge in the moonlight, her lips moist and pale and slightly parted.

He stroked the place he’d been staring at earlier, the soft, delicate groove of her nape. Soft wind stirred her silver-gilt tendrils against his fingers. His finger moved in slow rhythms, savoring the velvet, silky texture. She shivered.

“Cold?” he asked.

She shook her head. Her cheeks were tear-silvered in the moonlight, her eyelashes damp and spiky. She lifted her face to him, and he possessed her mouth in one swift movement.

She was all heat and softness and brandy and woman, and she kissed him back with a clumsy honesty that shot straight to his heart. And loins.

He tasted tears and need and desire. And innocence. And exhaustion. He pulled back, fighting for control, cupping her nape, smoothing her hair, breathing deeply as he forced his body into submission. She was worn out by her recent emotional storm, and he should be protecting and caring for her, not keeping her out here to face his uncontrollable lust on the roof of the opera among discarded bits and pieces in the cold moonlight. What was he thinking of—taking her up against the stone facade?

He wasn’t thinking at all, that was the trouble.

He stroked her hair again, and she shivered again. She must be cold. He held her close and reversed their positions, angling them so that he leaned back and she could lean against him—or pull back. She didn’t pull back. She leaned into him more fully, soft breasts, soft thighs pressed lightly against his racked, tensed body.

The chill of the cold stone balustrade seeped into his back, a necessary cooling, he thought grimly. Her eyes were in shadow now. Her softness pressed against him. He was fully aroused.

Hope tried to read his grim expression. The cognac burned deep in her stomach and throat. His eyes were shuttered, shadowy depths of hidden thoughts. In moonlight his mouth was fully lit in all its sculptured perfection. Carved masculine beauty.

Why didn’t he kiss her again? Didn’t he know she wanted, needed him to kiss her now, more than ever? He’d claimed her; now she wanted the possession. And she needed to hold him, kiss him, love him, to drive out some of those dark, lonely shadows from his eyes. He’d taken her out of the darkness into the moonlight. She wanted to do the same for him. Because he was the one, the man of shadows and moonlight she’d dreamed about and waited for all her life.

In the cold, lonely bleakness of the night he’d come to her then . . . and now.

He’d held her, one arm wrapped around her waist, and turned, drawing her away from the cold stone wall behind her toward his heat. His strength and his heat. Powerful, life-affirming heat. His other hand cupped the back of her head, gently, as for a newborn babe. One finger stroked her nape, slow, rhythmic strokes . . . sending secret shivers of pleasure down her spine.

So gentle. He was so big and powerful and tough-looking . . . and so gentle.

“Kiss me again.” she whispered. “I need you, Sebastian.”

He froze, and she poised on the brink of who knew what for a long, long moment. And then he lowered his head and took her mouth.

Heat. Hunger. Possession in one soul-scorching touch. His kiss rocked her to her depths. Fierce, implacable need, hunger like she’d never felt, instantly leashed and controlled.

She knew about hunger, knew about need. She kissed him back with everything in her, holding nothing back, showing him what she could not say in words.

He drew back, breathing heavily. She could not see his eyes but felt them devouring her. She lifted her face to him, hoping he would read in her eyes the message there. His mouth tightened, then he bent forward and kissed her gently, reverently, as if she might break, as if he needed to ration himself.

He feathered kisses along her jawline, smoothing away the last dampness of her tears, kissing first one wet eyelid, then the other, with ravishing delicacy. Beneath the careful tenderness she could feel his hunger, simmering, severely leashed. His big, powerful body was braced, hard and wanting, yet he held her lightly, just enough to support her while he lavished her with silken angel kisses. Angel kisses that sent quivers of sensation rippling through her body, like brandy in her blood. Burning, soothing, exciting . . .

She ran her hands along his arms. Beneath the superfine cloth of his jacket, each powerful muscle was rigid with the effort, racked with controlled desire.

It was just like the waltzes, she realized, the reason he was so stiff and awkward with her. He was holding back, like a stallion, champing at the bit. He wanted to do more than just dance with her. He wanted more than feather kisses across her eyelids.

She wanted more as well.

Any remnants of doubt she had about giving herself to such a big, powerful man dissolved with the realization. Never in her life would she have believed any man could be so tender, so gentle, let alone such a hard-seeming, tough, controlled man.

She felt safe. In his arms, for the first time since her parents died, she felt safe. Wholly cared for, wholly protected, wholly desired. She had longed for this all her life, yearned for it. And now she wanted to fly, fly in his arms.

Below them they heard the faint strains of music. Another act had begun. His eyes were dark shadows, his voice was thick and strained as he said, “We should return. Do you feel ready to go inside now?”

“No,” she whispered. “I want to stay here with you. I want to be yours.” She pressed against him, savoring his strength and heat. She slipped her hands up the strong, warm column of his neck and ran her fingers through his cropped, dark hair, pulling his head down to her level. Her mouth found his, and she kissed him with all her heart, blindly, feverishly.

For a few seconds he let her kiss him, let her explore him almost passively, and then, with a great, racking shudder, he took control, planting his mouth deeply over hers, possessing, searching, cradling her head, angling his mouth to taste her deeply, intimately. She reveled in the intimacy, the powerful sense of connection. The heat spread in waves.

His taste, the insistent demands of his tongue and hands, set her body thrumming to an unfamiliar rhythm. She could not think, only react. She wanted to climb him like a tree, get somehow closer. She clung, returning kiss for kiss, her awareness spiraling out of control until she could barely think, only react.

His hands roamed up and down her body, leaving hot trails of pleasure in their wake. He brushed his knuckles across the tips of her breasts, and she was dimly aware of arching her back and making some sort of sound. He groaned and caressed her breasts again and again, and she rubbed herself against him like a cat.

He hesitated. “May I?”

She frowned in confusion, not knowing what he meant and not truly caring. She rubbed herself against him. “More.”

He kissed her hard, then fumbled for the drawstring of her dress, loosening it, then drawing it down over her shoulders in the moonlight. She felt the chill, the whisper of the night breeze on her naked breasts, and felt suddenly self-conscious and unsure of herself—until she saw his eyes. Worship took on a new meaning. She watched as his big hands moved to cup each pale breast, and she felt suddenly as if she was close to tears.

“You wore a dress with yellow ruffles once,” he said. “And I looked at those yellow ruffles, at the way they cupped your breasts, and I wished my hands could be those yellow ruffles.”

His eyes were dark and intent. “I dreamed of it often afterward. But I never thought my dream would come true.”

“I always knew my dream would,” she whispered and pressed her hands over his.

“So beautiful.” He bent his head and kissed each breast lightly, reverently, moving his mouth softly back and forth in waves of silken pleasure. She watched his dark head bent over her in the silvered light, unbearably moved. And then his beautiful hard, gentle mouth closed over one damp, aroused nipple, and she arched as if lightning had flashed though her body.

He looked up, and his look burned through her with the same heat, and he returned to lavish his attentions on her breasts until she was arching and burning and shuddering.

“Sebastian,” she heard herself mutter. “Sebastian.”

She felt the cold night air on her legs and was warmed by his big hand smoothing up them, over her silk stockings, caressing the flesh where the garter was tied. Her legs were trembling, and at his touch they sagged beneath her.

His arm tightened as he supported her, half leaning against him, half lying on him. His eyes burned into her, filled with the sort of hunger and desire she hadn’t even known to dream of. Desire for her. Hunger for her . . .

His big, rough-skinned hands moved higher, circling and stroking until they cupped her so intimately she stiffened for a moment, as self-awareness asserted itself briefly, then flickered out as his fingers caressed her lightly, and sensation swamped her.

His fingers were long and strong and seemed to know exactly what to do, and she quivered and pressed against them, pushing rhythmically, frantically wanting more, more, more.

His mouth returned to hers, hard, hot, demanding. Half biting, thrusting, demanding, taking. No gentle angel kisses now but pure, passionate glory, blazing glory that demanded, even as it gave. He drove her, carried them both, to the brink; insistent, feverish, burning. Like being carried on a wave, out of control. Flying? Yes, and yet much earthier.

She clung to him as she felt herself spiraling, shuddering—

Rrrraoull!
The scream shattered the night. Unearthly. Like a soul lost in hell.
Rrrraoull!
Then a crash.

She clutched him, dazed, still partially in the grip of the waves of sensation. “What is it?”

His head was flung back, his eyes closed, and he held her hard against him for a second, before he slowly, reluctantly released her. When he opened his eyes, he looked devastated. He swallowed convulsively and said, “I’m sorry. I should not—” He tugged her bodice up around her shoulders, tying the drawstring ribbons with shaking fingers. A grimace almost of pain crossed his face, and he said in a heavy voice, “I took advantage of your emotional state. I’m sorry. I should not have done such—” He looked mortified.

She stared at him, not quite knowing what to say, unable to fathom what had just happened. One moment she had been on the verge of something . . . momentous, and the next she was plunged back to reality, standing cold and shivering as if someone had thrown cold water over her. He finished tying the ribbons and tucked the ends neatly inside her neckline, his fingers—the fingers that had brought her to a state of mindless rapture—now barely skimming her skin.

Rrrraoull!
An unearthly wail of torment. She shivered. “What
is
that noise?”

He sighed, heavily. “Cats.”

“Cats?” She was incredulous. “It sounds to me like children lost and terrified and hurting.”

He looked a bit embarrassed. “Well, it’s not children. It’s cats. On the rooftop.”

She frowned, doubting his story. “Are you sure it’s not children?”

“Positive.”

“I’ve never heard any cat make a noise like that. If it is cats, then someone must be torturing them. I’m fond of cats.”

He gave her a shuttered look. “No one is torturing them.”

“But they sound like they are in pain.”

He muttered something she could not quite catch. Something to do with knowing the feeling.

“I beg your pardon?”

“They’re not. In pain. They’re perfectly all right. Now, I think it’s time we returned to the others. They will be wondering what has become of us.” He started to lead her toward the door.

She stopped, worried. “How do you know those cats are all right? They sound in the most frightful pain.”

He closed his eyes briefly, sighed, and with a grim, mortified look on his face, ground out, “That’s what cats sound like when they’re copulating.”

Copulating?
She clapped a hand over her mouth in surprise. And then she thought about it. And realized why he was so very embarrassed. If they hadn’t been interrupted by copulating cats . . .

He looked so grim and forbidding she could not say it. She allowed him to wrap her securely in her ruched velvet cloak and escort her to the door, his hand resting lightly in the small of her back, burning effortlessly through the layers of her clothes there like a brand.

A small sound escaped her.

He stopped instantly. “Are—are you all right?” He bent over her, trying to see her expression in the shadows. “I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t have done what I did. I-I lost my head, got carried—”