Always a Rogue, Forever Her Love (Scandalous Seasons #4)(28)

Nothing had been all right for more than a year. Not since Papa’s unexpected death. Not since Albert had assumed the responsibility of care of her.

He inclined his head. “Because I believe you groaned.”

Her cheeks warmed. Of course a primal tiger should note even the subtlest of sounds of his prey. “Did I?” Her mind went blank.

The half-moon that hung high in the sky beyond the window, cast a bluish-white glow through the windowpanes, and bathed him in its eerie light, giving him the look of a dark god, not a mere mortal, before her.

His body shifted forward, ever so close to hers.

Thumpthumpthumpthump. Her heartbeat pounded loudly in her ears, dulled her senses, slowed her thoughts so all she knew, all she felt was the heat of his broad, masculine body, radiating out, caressing her with its warmth. Juliet blamed such foolish yearnings on the pull of the early morning moon. In the light a new day, when the sun rose in the distant horizon, logic and order would surely be restored. But for now, she could see naught but him.

She devoured him with her eyes, even as he stood there seeming wholly unaffected by her presence. She’d never considered herself small of stature. In fact, over the years she’d bemoaned her oddly tall height that had her looking down at too many gentlemen. Yet, the earl’s towering frame, six or so inches taller than her own, made her feel for the first time in her life, graceful and delicate. His nearness filled her with a heady sensation, and drove back the history between them, the resentment she’d carried in her heart for his casual possession of Rosecliff Cottage, the vast differences in their statuses. All truth and reality was stripped away, so all that remained were a woman and a man.

Jonathan reached out and trailed the back of his knuckles along her cheek. Back and forth. Back and forth. “I would trade all my holdings to know what you’re thinking just now, Juliet,” he whispered.

I want you to kiss me. The thought, so very real, and desperate she marveled he’d not heard her innermost wishes. “That would be a fool thing to do.” She prided herself on the steady deliverance of those words. Unable to hold his heated stare any longer, she let her gaze slide away from his, off to the side, toward the full floor-length windows.

He continued his delicate stroking. He brushed his knuckles along her chin. “I must be all kinds of fool,” he murmured.

Her lids fluttered closed, as she leaned into his touch. A man such as this could never be accused of being a fool. Not him. “Why do you say that, my lord?” She managed to squeeze out on a breathless whisper.

He lowered his brow to hers, his sapphire blue stare pierced her with its intensity. “Jonathan,” he demanded with all the authority of one accustomed to having his every desire met. “Say my name.”

“Jonathan,” she whispered, loving the feel of his name upon her lips, so utterly masculine and yet all the same, smooth as warmed chocolate.

He cupped her cheek. “Now tell me you still do not desire my kiss, Juliet?”

She swayed against him, hating the inherent weakness inside her, that she should crumble so easily beneath his delicately sensual touch. Not when he should appear so wholly unaffected by her presence. Juliet tipped her chin up a notch. “Is that what this is, Jonathan? A manner of game? A battle of wills between—”

His mouth closed over hers, hard and searching. Her body stiffened at the unexpectedness of his embrace and then it was as though all the muscles drained from her body, leaving her weak-kneed as she melted against him. She moaned as his lips slanted over hers again and again, almost punishingly, as though he hated himself for his own weakness as much as she detested herself for this hungering for his touch.

He urged her mouth open and plunged his tongue deep inside. Oh God, he tasted of brandy and honeysuckle, an unexpected taste to this sinfully handsome man. The sweetly erotic combination she longed to lose herself within. Her legs buckled, but he caught her to him, anchoring her close to his chest, while he continued to plunder her mouth. “Jonathan,” she moaned into his mouth, the breathless whisper swallowed by his kiss.

He pulled back and she groaned in protest, but he only moved his attention to the lobe of her ear. He drew the sensitive flesh between his teeth and lightly nipped her. “You’ve bewitched me, Juliet Marshville,” he said, his pronouncement harsh and guttural in a manner she’d never before heard from the polished Earl of Sinclair. He trailed his lips down her cheek, to the corner of her lip, and nipped at the flesh there.

Juliet bit her lip to keep from crying out.

“I’ve never encountered a woman who looked at me with such fire in her eyes, and yet burned so hot for my touch,” he said, hoarsely. He concentrated his attention on the sensitive flesh where her neck met her ear.

Her head fell back, and a breathless giggle escaped her. “Th-that ti-tickles,” she rasped but the words ended on a pained groan as he gently sucked at the flesh there. “What are you doing to me?” she implored. This man, who laid careful mastery over her body.

He cupped her breast and she cried out, but he immediately swallowed the sound with his lips. “I’m making love to you, sweet Juliet.” And he did. His expert fingers rolled the swollen bud of her breast, and never more had she wanted to shrug out her gown and expose her naked skin to the night air.

“Oh, please, Jonathan,” she begged as he pulled his mouth away, not knowing what her body begged for, only knowing with his touch he’d erased the logic that drove her hatred and turned her into a quivering mass of fierce desire.