“Why? Do you want me to wear one, Jemmie? Come into bed, my lord, else you catch your death of cold.” She motioned to the place beside her, holding the covers back in invitation.
He slid in beside her, and Jasmine immediately cuddled up against him. His big hand smoothed her long dark hair. “I can’t stop wanting you tonight,” he finally admitted. “What magic is this, darling Jasmine, that you have spun about me like a spider’s web?”
“God’s blood,” she swore softly, “my uncle is right. You are in love with me, James Leslie, but you mustn’t be! This must be a marriage of convenience, and respect. It cannot be a love match!”
“Why not?” he demanded, looking down into her beautiful face.
“Because the men I love die! You know that, Jemmie!”
“We all die eventually, darling Jasmine. Why Madame Skye lost five husbands to death before she wed your grandfather and lived happily with him for over forty years.” His arms tightened about her. “You are going to love me, sweetheart, and when you realize that you do, you are going to admit it to me.” He kissed her worried brow. “Now go to sleep. Your lusty desires have exhausted me, and I need my rest if we are to enjoy another bout of Eros before the dawn.”
“You are the insatiable one,” she muttered, nestling contently.
He chuckled throatily.
They slept for several hours, and when Jasmine awoke she saw that the fire was burning as brightly as it had been when she had fallen into slumber. She lay upon her back and had obviously thrown the covers off. Feeling a fluttery movement,she glanced down, and saw that he had placed a destemmed strawberry in her navel, and was even now in the process of eating it. Placing a second berry where the first had been, he devoured it, too.
Jasmine giggled. “How long have you been using me as a plate for your fruit?” she asked him.
“I’ve eaten six berries so far,” he admitted, grinning.
“‘Tis my turn then,” Jasmine said, sitting up. “Lie back, sir, and I shall begin.” He had destemmed the remaining berries in the basket. She set one each upon his nipples, then ran a ribbon of strawberries down his chest to his navel, and from his navel to his groin. She outlined his dark bush in a half-moon of berries, then finished, she drew herself up and began to eat the fruits of her labor.
He forced himself to lie very, very still, even when her small teeth grazed his flesh, sending a tingle down his spine. He watched her, totally fascinated, as she picked at each berry delicately. His torso was soon covered in strawberry juice, which she licked from his flesh. Finally only the six berries half-circling his bush remained. Slowly, deliberately, she ate each one, and when she had finished, licking the juice up, she bent lower and took him into her mouth. Half-rampant already, he groaned with pleasure as her teeth delicately nibbled upon him, and her tongue sensuously teased at his hot flesh. And when he thought he would burst with desire, she released him briefly, climbing atop him to slowly, slowly, lower herself onto his hard manhood. Reaching out, he began to fondle her breasts with his hands as she moved on him, her little cries telling him of the pleasure she, too, was receiving.
Jasmine’s head was spinning as she rode him. He was big and hard, and she couldn’t seem to get enough of his passion.This isn’t love,she insisted to herself.This is lust. Nothing more than healthy lust.She couldn’t love him, for if she did,he would surely meet as bad an end as had Jamal, and Rowan, and her sweet prince, Hal. But, ohh, he was an incredible lover! “Jemmie! Jemmie!” she cried out to him, unable to restrain herself. Oh, God! It wasn’t enough!It wasn’t!
James Leslie saw the frustration and confusion upon her face and took immediate charge of the situation. Rolling her over onto her back he thrust hard and deep into her again, and again, and again. She needed him even if she couldn’t admit it, and he knew it.Oh, darling Jasmine,he thought to himself,you are falling in love with me even if you cannot yet admit it to yourself.
Beneath him Jasmine writhed with total pleasure. There were stars exploding behind her closed eyelids and a building hot pleasure in her nether regions. Unable to help herself, she clawed fiercely at his broad shoulders as the spasms began to unleash themselves within her with a torrid violence that racked her very soul. She was crying out. Her teeth sank viciously into his shoulder, and then she and he exploded together in an incredible burst of raw passion. She could feel the heat of his juices almost burning her womb even as she tasted the blood in her mouth from his shoulder. Frantically, she licked the wound.
“Bitch!” he groaned, and his mouth descended upon hers in a fierce kiss that left her almost breathless, until he finally rolled off of her and lay panting upon his back. “My God,” he at last managed to gasp. “What has happened between us? Is it always going to be so … so … so wild?” His heart was hammering against his ribs.
“I … I … don’t know,” she half sobbed. Dear heaven, ithadbeen wild. She didn’t understand this fierce desire between them. Jamal, her first husband, had been a gentle lover. Rowan Lindley, her second husband, had been passionate and tender, as had Prince Henry, when she had been his mistress. This was beyond anything she had ever known. It was a savage passionwith each of them trying to gain a mastery over the other. Would it always be this way between them she wanted to know? Did they want it always to be this way? Could they survive if it remained this way? Jasmine just did not know.
He reached out and took her hand in his. “How can you not love me when our passion is so deep?” he asked her.
“I mustn’t love you,” she whispered.“I mustn’t!”
“You do love me,” he insisted. “I know you do!”
“I am afraid, Jemmie!”
He cradled her in the curve of his arm. “Why? And do not say it is because the men you love die, sweetheart.”
“But they do, Jemmie,” she said desperately. “Each time I have been given to a man, first by my father, and then by my grandparents, I have fallen in love, and I have been happy. All I have ever wanted was to love my husband and bear healthy children to love and raise. When Jamal was murdered I lost the child I was carrying. When Rowan was killed by that fanatic I was left with two children and wascarrying a third. I almost died myself that time. And finally Henry Stuart. He should not have died! He should have lived to be England’s king, but he did not. He loved me, and he died.”
“The prince died of an illness contracted by swimming in the river when he was overheated from sport. It was unfortunate, but you cannot be held responsible for young Hal’s death, Jasmine; and the fact that he was in love with you is inconsequential to the matter. As for your first husband, he was assassinated on the orders of your brother. The bullet that killed Rowan was meant for you, and not the marquis. Both incidents were lamentable. Jamal, Prince Henry, and Rowan Lindley were unlucky, but that is all there was to their deaths, Jasmine.” He kissed the top of her head. “We are being married on June 15, sweetheart, and we are going to live a long and happy life together, darling Jasmine, because I will not have it any otherway,” the earl of Glenkirk concluded. “Now, tell me you love me, you impossible wench! I have certainly waited long enough to hear the words from your mouth.”
“You are too sure of yourself, my lord,” she replied.
“Jasmine!”His tone was threatening.
She looked up into his handsome face. “I do want a long and happy life together with you, James Leslie.I do!”
“Do you love me?”he persisted.
Jasmine nodded. “Yes, Jemmie, I love you,” she told him, “and I always will.”
