Iris Johansen - The Beloved Scoundrel

“Perhaps in the panels you fashion.” She heard him rise from his chair. “My Nereids bask in sunlight, and there is nothing cool about them.”

He stepped into the circle of color and became one with it.

Nude. Magnificent. Aroused. His cheeks were hollowed, and his light eyes shimmered as they looked down at her. “Isn’t this amusing? Tell me, do you suppose we look like figures in a stained-glass window?”

“No.” She swallowed. “Stained-glass windows must be on display.”

“And I’m a trifle shocking for public display.” His gaze went to her breasts. “And so are you, my love.”

She knew what he meant. She felt her entire body ripening and readying and a tingling ache beginning between her thighs as she looked at him. Lean, muscular, and streaked with fire, he was the most beautifully sensual creature she had ever beheld.

“You like this, don’t you?” he whispered. “And why shouldn’t you? When you were making your beautiful windows, you must have sometimes felt that you were part of them.” He paused. “Or wanted to be part of them.” He took a step closer. “And now you can.”

She was trembling. He was towering over her, and she felt small and helpless and completely woman.

He took her hand and brought it to his body. “I’ve always been jealous of your work. Did you know that?” He closed her hand around him. A shudder went through him as he held it in place. “You would never share it with me, and I wanted all of you.” His other hand went out to cup her breast. “You’re so tiny, your hand barely goes around me.” He urged softly, “Think how we look now. Imagine us as the figures in one of your panels.”

She was imagining it. She could see him…

Dear heaven, she could see both of them. Her breast was lifting and falling beneath his hand as his thumb teasingly flicked her nipple.

“Am I part of it?” he whispered.

“Yes…”

He smiled. “That’s not enough.” He suddenly lifted her, wrapped her legs about his hips, and plunged deep! “I want to be all of it.”

She cried out, her hands clutching his shoulders.

“Take me!” His voice was a guttural growl. His hips worked frantically back and forth as he held her sealed to him. “All of me!”

She was moaning, grunting, savagely trying to press closer, as if she were a different woman from the one who had stepped within that circle of light. She was vaguely aware of him falling to his knees and then pushing her down on the floor. The wood was cold on her back, but the sun was warm on her body, and Jordan was hot… His face was only a dark shadow above her, but his body was outlined in a fiery radiance.

Vulcan, she thought feverishly. Vulcan striking…

His dark hair had come loose from its queue and brushed her breasts with every thrust. “Think-of-me.” He punctuated every word with a deep plunge. “I need to be-”

“Be still!” she gasped. “I can’t think at all. I don’t even know what you-”

She arched upward as explosive release tore through her. She was aware of Jordan’s hoarse cry above her.

They lay there, joined, in the pool of light, while shudder after shudder ripped through them.

“And you think you can give this up?” he asked in a low voice.

He was the one who would give her up, she thought sadly. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

She thought he was going to protest, but after a moment he said, “Very well. I suppose I’m satisfied with my progress to date. I hope my services proved satisfactory?”

She moistened her lips. “Let me up. I want to go back to the fire.”

“In a moment.” He swung off her and then lifted her to a kneeling position in the brilliant circle of light. “I have another window I want you to remember.” He knelt facing her, took her hands, and looked into her eyes. “It is true, you know. I do love you. I love your body and your mind and your soul.” He lifted her hand to his lips. “I want all of them. I’m sorry I don’t have much to give in return. I’m selfish and arrogant, and Gregor will tell you that my soul is constantly in jeopardy.”

He had a great deal to give. He had wit and courage, intelligence and honesty. She wished desperately to reach out and gather everything he was to her, but she could not do it. The risk was too great.

She said nothing.

He shrugged. “I see that you agree with him.” He drew her into his arms. “It will do you no good. Fate is definitely on my side.” His hand stroked the back of head, and he slowly rocked her back and forth. “Why else would we have been brought together, if not to belong forever? None of it would make any sense at all.”

She should not let him hold her like this. She had not expected tenderness. It was much harder to bear than passion, and would only make the parting harder.

She did not move. She could not give him up. Not yet.

Her arms tightened around him, and they knelt there until the last rays of the sun faded and the radiant circle slowly vanished from around them.

Why do they call you the Duke of Diamonds?” Jordan’s tongue gently traced the aureole around her nipple. “What brought that to mind?”

“I remembered something Dorothy said a long time ago.”

“And you’re just wondering now?”

“She said it had something to do with pouches of diamonds and women… I think I didn’t want to know.”

“Then why are you questioning me?”

Because now she had a hunger to know everything about him, the bad and the good. She wanted to savor every aspect, every quality. She would have only memories later, and those memories must be of the complete man. “Tell me.”