Читать книгу Surrender The Heart - Nina Beaumont - Страница 12

Heat. That was all Ariane could think of as Chris’s mouth pressed against her palm, as his breath skimmed over her skin like a hot desert wind. When he touched the tip of his tongue to her hand, she jolted as if she had been burned. And, indeed, an unfamiliar ache swept through her like a firestorm.

“Don’t” Her voice was so low and smoky that she barely recognized it, and something resembling panic licked at her nerves.

“Don’t what?” Chris asked.

His lips shifted seductively over her skin as he spoke. She knew that she should pull her hand out of his grasp, but it was as if she had lost command over her body.

“Don’t do this,” she managed.

“This?” He traced the width of her palm with his tongue. “Or this?” Moving his mouth downward, he nipped at the fleshy pad beneath her thumb.

She managed to suppress the soft sound that rose in her throat, but she was helpless to prevent the sinuous curl of heat that spread through her to pool in her belly. The desire to close her eyes, to savor this new sensation was so strong that she almost gave in to it. But some last shred of wariness had her bracing against it.

Yet it was that very tension that had her fingers spreading and pressing against his cheek. The slight abrasiveness of his skin tempted her beyond measure, making her want to rub her fingertips against it to acquaint herself with this new texture.

“Go ahead,” Chris murmured, fascinated by her expressive eyes, which were able to conceal neither the curiosity nor the temptation. “It is not forbidden to touch.”

His words pulled her back from the sea of sensation where she had been foundering.

“Let me go.” The words that had been meant as a command came out sounding like a plea. Anger at her own weakness flared within her. Anger—and the traitorous desire to take the words back.

Slowly, his eyes on hers, he lowered her hand and released her.

Fighting an unreasonable sense of loss, Ariane grappled for the right words.

“Is this how your game of seduction is played?” Alarm, masked by indignation, colored her words.

“Would you care to be more specific?”

“Insidiously.” She filled her lungs with air in the vain attempt to soothe her raw nerves. “Unscrupulously.”

Even as she said the words, she understood that her accusation was excessive, but she was trembling. Trembling, damn it! And she had sworn long ago that she would tremble for no man.

“I played my hand with the cards a kind fate dealt me.” He shrugged, trying to rid himself of the sharp desire to feel her fingers on his skin again. “You are making me responsible for your own weakness.”

Ariane stared at him, appalled at his nonchalant words. How could he be so indifferent when he had turned her world and her vision of herself upside down with a few words and a touch?

Forcing herself to move, she paced a few steps away and linked her hands to steady them. A measure of self-control returned, reminding her that it was not her wont to blame others for her own mistakes.

Why was she having this absurd conversation? she asked herself harshly. What had possessed her to pick the most dangerous man she had ever seen for her scheme? Why had she not asked someone safe, someone like Roger de Monnier, or one of those baby-faced young men she had danced with?

But she hadn’t asked someone else, she reminded herself. She had asked the insolent, beautiful American. And she could not back away now, any more than she could have backed away from a wager or a card game simply because she had discovered too late that the odds were against her. Her pride would not allow it.

The turmoil in her eyes made Chris want to reach out and reassure her that he meant her no harm. Even though it occurred to him that his notion of harm was possibly very different from hers, he pushed away from the balustrade, his hand raised in a placating gesture. Before he could take more than a single step toward her, she whirled around to face him.

“Yes, my weakness. That is exactly the point, Monsieur Blanchard.” The fact that her voice was even, showing little sign of the agitation of a moment ago, settled her nerves still further. She was in control, she told herself. And she would stay in control. “You have challenged me to a game where you have an unfair advantage.”

The cool determination on her face made him wonder if he had imagined her confusion, her vulnerability a moment ago.

“If you think so,” he answered, “then perhaps we should lay down some rules.”

“It is not a question of rules,” Her voice was brisk. “The fact remains that you have challenged me to a game where you are apparently quite expert, while I have never played it before.”

“Never?” His body stirred at the thought. “I can hardly believe that you have never engaged in a little harmless flirtation.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “Your demonstration just now had nothing whatsoever to do with harmless flirtation.”

“I’m flattered.”

“That was not my intention.” Because his velvet voice, coupled with his charming half smile, had her stomach fluttering, her tone was sharper than it might have been.

How could he have thought the little spitfire vulnerable? Chris asked himself. His conscience appeased, he prepared to enjoy himself.

“So tell me, ma chére comtesse—” he relaxed back against the cool marble “—have you been kissed before, or has no man braved your fury?” He grinned. “I do not ask because I am indiscreet. I merely want to know how high are the walls to be scaled.”

“Your effrontery appears to be truly boundless.”

“Assuming that as given, why don’t you answer my question.”

Because his cheeky grin made her want to smile back at him, she took refuge in a haughty look.

“Yes, I have been kissed before.” Clumsy kisses, she thought, or bland ones or simply dull ones. Before she knew it, her gaze had drifted down to Chris’s mouth. His kiss would be—Oh, God, if his mouth had created such delicious sensations when he had touched it to her palm, what would it feel like if he kissed her?

Suddenly aware of the direction of her thoughts, her cheeks flamed, but she did not avert her gaze, not even when she saw the knowledge in his eyes.

“Go ahead, Ariane.” Slowly he pushed away from the balustrade again and took a step forward and then another. “Go ahead and satisfy your curiosity.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Liar.” He took another step toward her. “Kiss me. Don’t say you don’t want to.”

“No.” That one small word seemed to cost her all her breath.

“Afraid?”

“Cautious.”

“One could think that you believe me a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

Ariane gave Chris a long, slow look before she shook her head. “No. I don’t think you would ever bother disguising yourself with sheep’s clothing.” Giving in, she grinned. “At best you’re a wolf wearing a scrap of some poor sheep’s pelt who was too imprudent or too slow getting away.”

He laughed. “You have a wicked tongue, Ariane.”

One association led to another and his laughter died as he imagined taking her mouth, twining his tongue around hers, tasting it, feeling her passion come to life.

The heat in his eyes was so intense that Ariane would have sworn that she felt it on her skin. “So I’ve been told.” Her voice had grown softer and softer until she had only mouthed the last word.

They stared at each other, breath uneven, pulses racing.

“So where do we go from here, Ariane?” Chris asked when he was certain he could speak without babbling like a fool.

“I don’t know.” Her teeth worried her lower lip. “I still need help—yours or someone else’s.”

“Mine,” he said quickly, not recognizing the sharp emotion that sliced through him as jealousy.

“Yours,” Ariane agreed. With him, at least, she would know just where she stood.

“Even though I’m the big, bad wolf.” A corner of his mouth lifted.

“But I’m not Little Red Riding Hood.” She smiled, regaining her confidence now that she had seen that this time he had been as moved as she. Surely this had been only a random moment where they had unwittingly gotten under each other’s skin. “Nor one of those imprudent sheep.”

“And the other?” he pressed.

His gaze was so serious, so intense that she felt the dangerous breath lessness return. It occurred to her that perhaps the moment had not been such a random one after all, but she pushed the thought away, unwilling to believe it.

“And here I thought you were a gambler, Ariane. A risk taker,” Chris goaded, the urgent beat of his heart at odds with his flippant words. “A chance,” he said softly. “That’s all I’m asking for.” His voice lowered, grew huskier. “Surely you would not deny a man a chance.”

Ariane’s head made one more attempt to remind her that she was a reasonable person who had never made a decision without carefully weighing both sides of an issue. A sensible person who had never taken a risk that could not be calculated. But now her heart was pounding so madly, so loudly that she heard nothing else.

“All right, Monsieur Blanchard. A bargain. You play the suitor and in return I shall give you a chance.” She lifted her small hand against his triumphant smile. “But not a chance to seduce me. That is just a prettier word for the strong forcing their will on the weak.”

“Then just what is it that you are offering me?”

She took a deep breath and ignored the feeling that she was making a terrible mistake.

“I am offering you the chance to persuade me that a taste of that pleasure you guaranteed personally is an experience not to be missed.”

Because the flare of excitement was strong, he wanted to reach for her, touch her. Because it was too strong, he did not. He had never been a man to be ruled by desire, but for the first time in his life he understood the true temptation of a woman.

“That sounds fair enough.”

“How good of you to think so, Monsieur Blanchard.”

When she held out her hand to him, not languidly as women present their hand to be bowed over or kissed, but thrust straight out like a man’s, Chris’s eyebrows lifted in surprise.

“Is the custom of sealing a bargain with a handshake unknown in California?” she demanded, feeling foolish with her hand thrust out in front of her.

“Of course not” Belatedly, he took her hand in a firm grip. “Forgive me. I have never made a bargain with a lady before.” He grinned wickedly. “At least not a bargain like this one.”

“Monsieur—”

Chris shook his head. “Why don’t we put Monsieur Blanchard to rest? Or don’t you think that we are well enough acquainted for you to call me by my given name?”

“I don’t think—”

“Say it.” Suddenly it was important to him to hear her say his name. Not merely important, but crucial, as if that would, in some odd way, turn a bargain made half in jest into a promise. At the moment it eluded him why he should find promises so desirable, when he had always assiduously avoided them.

Still holding her hand, he took a step and then another until they stood so close together that his body pushed her crinoline back so that her skirt billowed behind her. So close that he could feel the light, tempting press of her body against his.

“Say my name, Ariane.”

She should be frightened, Ariane thought. He was so tall, so broad that her world was suddenly completely circumscribed by his body, whose power was not disguised by his elegant evening clothes. His fingers circled her hand so relentlessly that she might have been manacled to him. But it was his eyes where the true danger loomed—his eyes, so intent that they seemed to consume her.

“Christopher,” she whispered obediently, spellbound by those cool green eyes that held more heat than a thousand fires.

“Chris,” he corrected.

She smiled. “That suits you better.”

“So?”

“Christopher belongs in a stuffy drawing room. Chris belongs among mountains and deserts and beautiful, empty valleys.”

Chris chuckled at the precision of her observation. “Is that a polite way of saying that I don’t belong here?”

“It’s not an insult when I say that. On the contrary.” She smiled ruefully. “I don’t particularly belong here myself.”

“It depends on how you define ‘here.’” Slowly he loosened his grip on her hand and placed it palm down against his chest. Then, using thumb and forefinger, he tipped her face upward. “You belong here perfectly.” He lifted his other hand to lie against the nape of her neck. “Perfectly.”

He remained very still, his touch so light that they both knew all Ariane had to do was step away.

But she did not step away. She had been waiting for this moment, she realized, ever since she had seen him in the theater.

“Now we will seal our bargain my way.”

Despite the command in his voice, Chris lowered his head slowly. Then he touched his mouth to hers.

Not wanting to frighten her and knowing well just how much a little control could intensify pleasure, he reined in the impulse to take her mouth fully. Instead he tasted his way along her lower lip, adding only an occasional flicker of his tongue.

Even when her lips parted beneath the light pressure of his, he did not take the invitation. Instead he continued to tantalize, to tease, allowing himself no more than a brief foray to taste her.

Ariane felt heat blossom within her. It poured through her veins until she was suffused with it. Until she was light-headed with it. And still he did not kiss her, but continued to brush her mouth with his as if he was interested in no more than a casual game.

Her hand was still lying on his chest just over his heart and when her fingertips picked up his quickening heartbeat, she knew that the same heat that curled through her like a living, breathing entity had taken possession of him as well. But he continued with the maddening game, even as his heart began to pound heavily against her fingers.

She opened her eyes to find him watching her. How could he be so controlled, she thought, when she could feel the drumming of his heart? How could he be so controlled when she was melting with the need to taste him?

Lifting her other hand, she threaded it in his hair. She felt the leap of his heart and the answering thud of her own.

“Now,” she whispered against his mouth.

The tug of her fingers on his hair and her breathy invitation had his control crumbling like a house of cards. As he took her mouth fully, he heard a sound that he only vaguely realized came from his own throat. Now that he had surrendered, he plunged into the kiss like a man on the brink of starvation.

For a moment Ariane went still as he invaded her mouth. Voracious, his tongue explored and probed. Unbearably aroused, even more by the sensation of being wanted so badly than by the kiss itself, she moaned.

Her moan pierced his consciousness, which had been clouded by his passion. Oh, God, he thought as he pulled back. He had fallen on her like a wild animal. When she moaned again, his eyes flew open.

As he looked down at her, her eyelids rose to reveal eyes dark and unfocused with arousal. Ridiculously grateful that he had not frightened her, he lowered his mouth to hers again.

She waited for the passion to blaze again, but she found that everything had changed. The fire and flash of a moment ago were gone and in their place was a steady, bright flame. Where he had plundered, he caressed. Where he had demanded before, he offered. Where he had taken before, he gave.

Minutes passed that seemed like hours as they feasted on each other, breaking away only because their breath had become as ragged as if they had run for miles.

As Chris lifted his head, the stunned look in his eyes matched hers. He had not expected such hunger, such need. Nor had he expected a pleasure so sweet, so sharp.

They stared at each other, trying to come to terms with their feelings. If they heard the opening and closing of the door, neither one gave a sign. Even when the indignant voice sounded, they moved apart slowly, choppily, like windup dolls whose mechanisms had begun to run down.

“Monsieur!” The voice sounded again.

Only then did Ariane recognize her father’s voice.