Forbidden by Susan Johnson (best feel good books txt) 📗

brilliant color down to the flaring flange. Then taking the newly painted crest between her thumb and fingers, she gently squeezed.

He was dying, he thought.

Bending low, she brushed her lips over his mouth. "Tell me," she softly urged, "do you like my version of war paint?"

With enormous effort he focused on her amused dark eyes and nodded.

"It looked that way to me," she whispered, her breasts warm on his chest. "Now let's see," she playfully mused, sitting upright again. "Will you need directions later?" she teased, painting a sleek red line up the length of his distended arousal, capping it with an arrowhead design.

He looked down. "Not likely," he murmured with a small tight smile. "But feel free."

"You're pleasantly amenable."

"I'm trying," he said very quietly, not, in fact, comfortable being tied—some barbaric throwback, no doubt. But he was accommodating her and the sensual reality couldn't be faulted.

Daisy repeated the painted arrows in tantalizing slow motion twice more on his penis while the Duc wondered whether the thunder of his heart could be heard in Paris.

"Do you think a Sultan would have liked my artistic talents?"

"Considerably more," the Duc agreed in a suppressed whisper, "than the… Thousand and One Nights tale."

"I rather think so too." She was smiling. "Painting can be aesthetically gratifying," she went on, following the direction of her painted arrows with a delicate brushing movement of her fingers.

The Duc groaned, low and muted. No matter how experienced he was at restraining ejaculation, there were limits—very swiftly nearing.

"Umm," Daisy murmured, immune to the Duc's internal, imminently explosive timetable, "you've grown another two inches." The lines of red paint were irregularly broken now, fractured into a discontinuous jagged rhythm with the added length of his arousal. "I'm afraid you're much too large for a virgin," Daisy softly teased. "You'd hurt me terribly; you're too enormous for my Virginal trepidation. Faced with the daunting prospect of being invaded by… this…" She gently squeezed the base of the shaft. "Would a true virgin decline or be… more tempted? You wouldn't know about virgins though, would you," she whispered, heated and jealous, "because you've had too many experienced women vying for your time."

She couldn't repress her flaring pique, had no control over her jealousy. He was too beautiful, lying bronzed and powerful on the Sultan's bed, too perfect, too used to eager women wanting him. Too casual even in the extremity of his arousal. Controlled. Able to maintain his roused passion just short of orgasm. How long could he maintain that equilibrium? How much practice did it take to become that accomplished?

"Answer," she murmured.

"No."

"No?"

"No." His voice was extremely soft and had Daisy known him better she would have taken cautious note.

Not familiar with the Duc's temper, impelled only by her own, she ignored the intense quiet of his tone and moved suddenly just beyond his reach. Was jealous pique the impetus behind her provocative pose, so close he could have touched her—if his arms weren't tied with braided silk cord to the gold rings behind the secret doors? Could her languorous stretching that raised her heavy red-tipped breasts and narrowed her waist and brought the scarlet detailed juncture of her thighs within inches of his face be more then sportive tantalizing?

The Duc's reaction was unequivocal. His erection was stiff against his stomach and pulsing with his heartbeat, his eyes half closed, his outward composure maintained with effort.

"You've teased enough," he said, his breathing visible in the rise and fall of his chest.

But in reply, Daisy lay beside Etienne in a languid indolent pose, using one of the delicate ivory-handled feathers to trace a leisurely path up the length of his arousal, retracing a descent with equal slowness. Lightly brushing upward again over the distended pulsing veins, she circled the engorged head with feathery flickering rhythm.

The Duc's back arched against the overpowering sensations.

"That's enough," he said very softly when he could catch his breath again.

But she only bent her head as he spoke and, drawing his rigid length into her mouth, sucked and licked and nibbled on his painted flesh until his breathing had changed into an erratic rhythm.

He tested the strength of the silk cords over the rise and fall of her head, his fists clenching, his biceps straining, but the ropes held—a tribute to their craftsmanship. Relaxing his fingers as Daisy languidly drew her tongue up the hard pulsing length of him, in a tight controlled tone those familiar with the Duc de Vec were heedful of, he said, "Untie me."

It took her a moment to answer but when her head lifted and she gazed into his heated eyes, she said, "Later," as if he had only questioned her timetable for croquet. Testing his control, pushing him, she moved then, sleek and curved and voluptuous so she was straddling his thighs. Her smile was teasing flirtation when she murmured, "I like your harem bed… and your submission…"

It was not precisely the word to describe Etienne's present disposition. His eyes shone with a green and glowing fire.

"Let's see," she said glancing down at his distended erection and then back up to his face, "if I had decided after all, to say… experiment… as a virgin, titillated by the sight of you, how exactly would I place that very large…" Daisy smiled, swaying gently, so her warmth and dampness slid over his skin. "Could you help me," she added, coy and teasing, when she knew he couldn't, "… or at least give me directions?"

He shut his eyes briefly against his throbbing ache of desire.

"Untie me," he repeated very quietly. "The games are over."

"Don't you like to be bound?" Daisy's voice was light.

His was not. "No," he said.

"Did the women you entertained in this bed like it?" She shouldn't have asked, but the words were there suddenly when she thought of all the newly filled containers of perfumes and oils and unguents in a bed a century old and she couldn't stop them, even while she thought: How could it matter in any event if