Page 76 of The Wolf and the Wildflower
“Oh yes,” the Cyprian purred, sauntering over to Jules to run a finger over her lip. “I can tell you’ll be the sweetest with me.”
Almost amused by the absurdity of it all, Jules bit her finger and the cyprian darted away, gaily laughing.
Her eyes sparkling with wicked anticipation, the cyprian shifted to James. “I can tell you’ll be the one to ride me the longest…and perhaps the roughest?”
She licked her lips, clearly anticipating that treat.
Something hot and dangerous burned inside Jules’s throat, and she must have made a sound, for James glanced at her, a cynical humor burning in his gaze. Jules narrowed hers on his in ire.
Good heavens, I am bloody jealous!She had to take command of her emotions lest the marquess start to wonder why the hell she was out of sorts.
“Ah, sweetheart, I am wounded,” the marquess said pressing his hand over his heart. “No thoughts on my prowess?”
The courtesan smirked. “You’ll no longer feel so when I take your cock in my mouth, darling.”
The marquess hummed his approval, grabbed her around the waist, and claimed her mouth in a deep kiss that had the Cyprian sagging against him. With shocking ease and skill, she undid the marquess’s flap and sank to her knees. Jules contained her gasp when his manhood sprung forth and the lady sucked along his length. The marquess fisted her hair in his hand, tilting her head back.
“Are you to join us, James?”
Jules glanced at the duke. He was watching the display with an indecipherable mien. Was he curious about the pleasures the marquess experienced? Pinpricks of ice and heat stabbed at her chest, and jutting her chin forward she demanded, “Areyou joining, Your Grace?”
Chapter Fourteen
James wrenched his attention from the lascivious display to stare at his Wildflower. She stood by the connecting door, her hands fisted at her side, something wild and fiery in her green gaze. The soft question throbbed with an undercurrent of anger and something else James could not identify. It felt unquestionably dangerous. “Joining?”
“Are you to ride her while she sucks the marquess and I presumably drink brandy and watch?” Jules drawled.
He stared at his Wildflower, noting the pert bite in her tone. There might even be a hint of anger in those pretty green eyes. He smiled and she narrowed her dangerous regard. James padded over to her so that his words could not be overheard. Not that he thought Linfield paid them any heed. “If I should join, Wildflower?”
Her chin lifted in feminine arrogance, then she squared her shoulders. “I should indulge, too, of course. Very easy to find a room to change into one of those revealing dresses. I wonder if Linfield would know that—”
A feral hiss leaped from James before he could control it, and he hauled her roughly against his chest, tugging her into the adjoining room. The door closed behind them, and he latched it. She whirled away from him, far more agile and graceful than he expected.
“Should the marquess or any other man touch you I would break them to pieces,” he said with mild calmness, so at odds to with the raw feelings rushing through his veins.
A smile, bold and teasing, curled at her lips. “So you do not like the idea of another gentleman touching me?”
“No.”Not now and not ever. His damn heart pounded at the emerging awareness.
She swallowed, and within a few steps stood before him, curling her hands around his neck. There was something soft and uncertain in the eyes that looked up at him. “I do not like the idea of you with another woman. Not while we are lovers,” she said softly. “I cannot bear the idea of it.”
James dropped his forehead to hers, then lowered even farther, his lips touching hers. “My loyalty and faith are yours, no one else’s.”
The words were pushed from him without conscious thought and echoed with a truth he knew with implacable certainty. His promise wrapped itself around their bodies like a tangible entity. Shock widened her eyes and he realized she had not expected it from him.
“James?”
“You heard me correctly.”
He could feel the racing of her heart, and knew she was frightened before he even scented the change in her. James tugged her even closer against his body, and she immediately softened against him. He covered her mouth with his in a ravaging kiss, his tongue parting them, and he sank into bliss. His wildflower smelled like the fresh crispiness that lingered in the air on the breaking of a new dawn. The scent of the forest invaded his senses, the fragrance of snow. She surrounded his senses and burrowed deep under his skin. He smelled her hair, unable to stop the urge, trapping her wild flavor into his lungs.
He licked and sucked at her tongue, then groaned with desperate pleasure as she sucked at his. He fell into something he hadn’t known had been missing from his life…from his damn soul. He fell into her taste, sweet and refreshing as the water droplets from the ice-laden branches in the mountain.
“I feel as if I never want to lose you,” her breath whispered against his mouth, her eyes wide and searching on his. “I do not like this feeling of not being able to control the longings beating inside my heart, but I do know that my loyalty and faith also belong to you.”
His Wildflower was asking James for an answer to whatever burned between them. He could give her none, for he himself had never felt chained to anything greater than surviving. This felt like…living. That hope he had buried so deep nothing would ever unearth it, pushed upward from its dark crevices, and reached for the woman in his arms.
James was not a man who thought of the future. Nothing mattered but the present. But as he cupped her cheeks and took her mouth once more with his, he thought that if he could do this tomorrow…and the next day and the next…the unexpected could be searched for.
