Jade Star - Catherine Coulter [80]
He continued, his voice jerky, about how he didn’t want her to be afraid of him. She said nothing, merely waited until he had gotten it all out of his system.
When at last he fell silent, she smiled into the darkness and squirmed over to him. She took his face between her hands and kissed him. She missed at first because it was so dark, but then she felt his mouth beneath hers. “No,” he said, trying to shove her away.
She clung like a leech. She wanted to tell him that she loved him, but knew that he didn’t want to hear that. It would make him feel guilty because he didn’t love her. She said in the most seductive voice she could manage, “I want you, Michael. You are my husband. I am a woman, not a child. Please.”
Saint felt her words crash through him. His body was taut, on fire. Lust, you damned bastard! “Jules,” he began, “I will not hurt you.”
“Why would you hurt me?”
He’d turned to face her, his strong hands clasping her shoulders. “Any man would hurt you—if not physically, then . . .”
“You think my weak woman’s mind would snap or something?”
She managed to slip one hand free, and with unerring instinct let her fingers rove down his belly. He gasped, now trying to escape her. “Stop it,” he moaned.
Her fingers found him, hard and throbbing through the nightshirt. “No,” she said, “I won’t stop. You are my husband, and you owe me certain things. You keep telling me that I’m your responsibility. Well, be responsible.”
“Get your hand off me, Jules, or I won’t be responsible for—”
She laughed.
“You damned little . . .” He had no time to search out the right word, for she pressed herself against him, her hand between them, holding him gently but firmly.
“I am not afraid, Michael. Not of you, in any case. Please, be my husband.”
“Oh damn,” he said, still not moving. Suddenly she released him and moved away. He drew a jagged breath, aware of relief and dreadful disappointment.
He reached out his hand, not really meaning to, thinking that perhaps she was upset and needed reassurance. His hand met bare flesh. Her shoulder. She’d pulled off her nightgown. Very slowly he rose from the bed. He lit one lamp, turning to face her.
A sheet was pulled just barely over her breasts. She looked very beautiful, her eyes luminous, her hair tousled about her face, her shoulders white and slender.
She was smiling at him.
“You look silly in that nightshirt,” she said.
“Yes,” he said finally, “I suppose I do.” He pulled it off, standing very quietly at the end of the bed, naked. He was aware that she was studying him, and his member, the focus of her attention, thrust outward.
“Have you had enough yet?” he asked, his voice hard.
He watched her lick her lower lip. “Oh no,” she said, holding out her hand to him. “Please, Michael, don’t be afraid of me.”
“I am afraid for you, Jules. Look at me, for God’s sake!”
“I have, and you’re beautiful. You were perhaps more romantically beautiful that night on the beach when you came out of the water—”
“I am not beautiful. I am a big, hairy man, and you know very well that if I touched you, you would hate me.”
“And be terrified of you?”
“Yes, damn you!”
“Aren’t you getting cold standing there with only your hairy chest on?”
She was goading him, and doing it very well, he thought, frowning at her. She let the cover slip, on purpose of course, and obligingly he dropped his gaze.
“Jules,” he said finally, reaching for his dressing gown, “you don’t know what you’re asking. I would touch you and caress you, and I would come inside your body. It would bring back all the pain and fear you felt with Wilkes.”
She felt a surge of warmth at the very graphic image his words created in her. Wilkes and her experiences with him were a million miles away. As were those with John Bleecher.
“Please, Michael.” She wanted to touch him, wanted to feel his body covering her. She wanted him to kiss her and tell her how much he wanted her, how much he loved—Her thoughts broke off at that. He didn’t love her, at least not yet he didn’t. She would