“I came to say farewell,” he murmured, somehow knowing she was feigning sleep.
Reluctantly, Vanessa turned over to gaze up at him. In the moonlit darkness she could just make out his hard, virile features. “I wondered what brought you after all these nights.”
He must have heard the chill in her voice, yet he didn’t reply directly, or give an explanation for why he had stayed away. “Did you miss me, sweeting?”
Vanessa drew back, stung by his blitheness. “I think you flatter yourself, my lord. I didn’t miss you in the least.”
He went still, his expression unreadable. “I gather you are piqued at my neglecting you of late.”
“Hardly,” she lied. “I was glad to be given a respite from your lust.”
Damien’s smile was ironic. “I suppose I owe you an explanation. I thought perhaps our… association was becoming too heated for my peace of mind.”
She stared at him, as if wondering whether she could believe him.
His fingers found her lips and stroked languidly over the sensitive surface. “You are dangerous to my control, Vanessa. I find myself wanting you a dozen times a day.”
“Fortunately you will soon be able to satisfy your carnal urges with someone more willing. Your Hellfire gathering should provide you ample opportunity for carousing and debauchery.”
Hearing the accusation in her tone, Damien held her defiant gaze. He had no intention of revealing how terribly vulnerable he was to her.
Vanessa might be startled to know he had no desire to attend Clune’s house party. He was forcing himself to leave Rosewood in an attempt to distance himself from her.
Yet he couldn’t go away without being with her just once more, without touching her, holding her. It had shocked him to realize just how powerful his need for her was. He had fought it-fiercely-but he had lost the battle.
He regarded her silently for a long moment. “Do you wish me to leave you?”
“And if I said yes?”
“Then I would try to persuade you to change your mind.”
Vanessa gazed up at him, mesmerized by the cool fire in his eyes, aware of an undeniable sexual tension between them. She was his mistress, bought and paid for. That had always been the ugly truth between them.
But it was not her obligation to Damien that made her heart sink with a feeling akin to despair. It was the knowledge of her own defenselessness. He had only to touch her and she melted.
Just as now. The subtle brush of his fingers on her flesh riveted her, made her tremble. His caress moved lower, down her throat, along the line of her collarbone, dipping beneath the bodice of her nightdress to follow the rising swell of her breast. Vanessa shivered.
“What must I do to mollify you, sweeting?” he murmured as he softly stroked her skin.
The tempo of her breathing quickened. She had meant to resist him, but it was futile to think of escaping Lord Sin. In truth, she didn’t want to escape.
When his knuckles brushed her nipples beneath her nightdress, heat rose to inflame her. She could feel the feverish ache starting deep inside her.
He knew precisely what his skilled caresses did to her, devil take him. His gaze locked with hers as deliberately he drew down the covers and rested his hand on her hip, only inches from the center of her desire.
She began to throb there, a vibrant, urgent pulsating. He was using the pleasures of her own body against her.
“Shall I go or stay?” he asked.
She returned his gaze, unable to look away. “Stay,” she whispered involuntarily.
She saw the fire that leapt in his eyes, saw the determination in his expression, even though he didn’t move a muscle. He meant to turn her reluctance to welcome invitation, she knew.
With unwilling fascination she watched as he shrugged out of his dressing gown. He was fully aroused, and the magnificence of his nude body took her breath away. The muscles in his chest and torso rippled as he joined her on the bed.
His face was hard, his eyes burning with intensity as he bent over her. “I want you, Vanessa. Now.” Raw desire darkened his husky voice. “I want your softness clenching and shivering around my hardness.”
He lowered his head, his fingers threading through her hair. His mouth hovered above hers, its beautiful lines stark and sensual.
Vanessa fought back a moan as his lips began to caress hers. She could feel her will weakening, feel the uneven beat of her heart.
“Don’t deny me, angel. Don’t deny yourself…” His whisper filled her mind and stirred a quickening deep within her. His touch felt so right…
She didn’t protest when he drew up the hem of her nightdress to her waist or when she felt his thick, velvet-smooth shaft pressing against her thigh. Her lips burned beneath his deep, penetrating kiss, while her body quivered at the promise of that hot, rigid flesh giving her pleasure.
He kept up his sensual assault, stealing her will from her, until she warmed and softened and surrendered to the dark magic he commanded. Unable to disguise how desperately she wanted him, Vanessa threaded her arms around his neck and whimpered, needing him to ease the inexplicable hunger.
Damien felt her fiery response to his kiss and moved over her, covering her luscious form with his hard one. For a moment he braced himself above her, steeling his body against his raging need.
“Tell me you don’t want this,” he demanded softly, giving her the choice. “Tell me you don’t want me inside you.”
She couldn’t say such a thing. She did want him, far too much. She wanted him loving her, filling her…
When she didn’t reply, he pressed her thighs wide and fit himself to her, thrusting in hard and deep, finding her sleek and hot and welcoming.
He heard her breath catch in a startled gasp of pleasure as his powerful length filled her. Sheathed tightly inside her, he began to move, withdrawing and thrusting again, until Vanessa arched and cried out, helplessly caught in the web of her own desire.
Damien captured her soft, wild sounds with his mouth, sharing her desperation, her ravenous need. When she wrapped her legs around him and lifted herself to match his hard rhythm, he drove into her fiercely. Blinding desire overtook him. When moments later she shattered, rigid and lost, he followed, shuddering and spilling his seed deep within her in a burst of explosive ecstasy, his hoarse groans mingling with her cries as he convulsed against her.
For a long while afterward he lay there, breathing harshly, shock waves still pulsing, his face buried in the sweet fragrance of her hair. Finally, though, he eased his weight from her and rolled onto his back, his skin still sheened with sweat from their wild lovemaking.
Drawing her into the curve of his body, he stared up at the canopy overhead, cursing himself for letting his passion become so uncontrolled. Hell only knew, he had meant to stay away. He understood all too well the danger Vanessa Wyndham presented. He was perilously close to becoming obsessed with her. Yet he could no more have denied his desire than he could have stilled the beating of his heart.
His fingers toyed absently with a curl of her darkly burnished hair. Even after sating himself so fiercely, need for her still ran like flame-warmed brandy through his body.
What the devil was happening to him? He’d had countless women in his admittedly licentious past, but the desire to completely possess one was utterly new to him. He wanted Vanessa Wyndham more than he had ever wanted any woman, and he didn’t know why.
The depth of his desire was new as well. The gut-wrenching, fiery, primitive need was not only in his loins, but in his entire being. When she was near, all he wanted was to lose himself in her, in the feel of her, the taste of her, to drown in the exquisite pleasure of making love to her. To become part of her.
Damien shut his eyes. He very much feared he was succumbing to the fatal affliction he’d always despised in other men.