Rogue's Mistress(39)

“I don’t”—she gasped—“really want to hate you.”

His mouth closed hard over her puckered nipple. “But you do.”

She squirmed and chewed a fist helplessly. “No. Not—not anymore,” she admitted in a small, raspy voice.

He smiled, stretching upward to reward her with a searing kiss.

He let the damp cloth drift down her belly, leaning over to lap up the delicious wetness. Again, she writhed like a madwoman; again, he pinned her to the bed, continuing to enjoy her at his leisure. When a drop of moisture slid between her thighs, she cried out in wanton pleasure. Watching avidly, Julian leaned over to follow the drop with his tongue until she panicked, tangling her fingers in his hair and begging hoarsely, “No. Please, Julian, don’t.”

“It’s all right, chère, I’m not going to force you,” he soothed, moving upward to lock his mouth on hers again. He kissed her with debilitating gentleness as his fingers boldly parted her thighs. His tongue danced provocatively in her mouth as his thumb exquisitely pleasured her nub. His fingers sank inside her, stretching and probing expertly, creating a tension she could not endure. She gasped into his mouth and dug her fingernails into his spine as he brought her to a fevered, electrifying climax. Somehow, he managed to make her pleasure last so long that she almost fainted away from the sheer intensity of it.

Afterward, she gazed languidly into his eyes. “You didn’t get to . . .” She glanced at his erect manhood, then back into his eyes.

“Darling, you brought me great pleasure,” he whispered. Drawing her hand to his engorged manhood, he added, “Now you will bring me even more.”

His hand helped her set the rhythm, then she needed no further instruction. Moving her fingers up and down the hard shaft, Mercy gloried in his rough moans and the burning look in his eyes. Touching him so intimately made her mouth go dry. He was so hot, so hard, so magnificent, and suddenly she ached to feel his wondrous dimensions straining deep inside her. She pressed her trembling lips to his. “Julian, please,” she breathed. “Please.”

With an agonized groan, Julian brought his wife astride him and penetrated her in a single, riveting stroke. She cried out as his hugeness impaled her, yet she took him greedily, struggling to hold him deeply inside her.

Julian was in ecstasy. Mon Dieu, she felt divine, squeezing about him, so hot and exquisite. He looked up into her deeply dilated eyes, watched the sun pour over her lush body and riotous curls. “I—didn’t want to do this to you again today,” he somehow managed with a weak, contrite smile.

She stared back at him unabashedly, loving the hard, swollen feel of him inside her. And she loved much more about him—more than she dared to name.

Still, she offered him all of herself that she could. Grasping his strong hands, she whispered, “Touch my breasts.” With a smile, she added, “Darling.”

Julian’s heart welled with joy. He caught her to him and captured her lips in a crushing kiss. Then he raised his knees and pressed her back, clutching her breasts with rough hunger.

Mercy tossed her head in delight, arching her back and moaning at the incredible waves of ecstasy crashing over her.

Watching his wife’s uninhibited passion, feeling himself buried to the hilt in her snug sheath, Julian was dying in the best possible way. With several deep, shattering strokes, he exploded inside her.

***

Later, lying on the bunk, they talked.

Julian laced his fingers through Mercy’s and kissed her soft hand. “Tell me about your days at the convent.”

She laughed. “You received a full report from the sisters each week.”

He propped himself on his elbow and twined a red curl about his fingertip. “But I never heard things from your perspective—we were always so at war with each other.”

She frowned. They seemed to be drifting far too close to bitter memories.

“Were you always so miserable there?” he prodded.

“I always resented the strictness of the sisters,” she replied carefully. “I guess I never possessed convent sensibilities.”

“Now that’s an understatement,” he agreed, laughing. “From the things the sisters told me of your antics—”

“Oh, you don’t know half of it.”

“Non?”

“Non.”

As Julian listened in fascinated silence, Mercy told him of various pranks she had pulled over the years—like the time she had substituted wine vinegar in Father Giovanni’s communion   chalice, and the time she had poured pink dye into the laundry vat containing the sisters’ underclothes.

“The sisters never told me of all this!” Julian exclaimed at last. “I’m surprised they didn’t summon me to the parish house much more often.”

Mercy shrugged. “Perhaps they were a little afraid of your reaction, and a little protective of me. When I think about it, they were really quite patient and kind to me in a lot of ways.”

“And you were a hellion.”

She grinned up at him. “Now I’m your hellion, m’sieur.”

Julian laughed, then stroked her hip and growled ominously. “I think I’ve repeatedly warned you not to call me m’sieur.”

Utterly remorseless, she wrinkled her nose at him.

“That, minx, calls for swift retribution.”

Julian claimed her lips in a thorough, breathtaking kiss that was no punishment at all.

Mercy sighed contentedly and snuggled next to him. “Now you must tell me more about your family.”

Julian seemed pleased by her interest, and spoke eagerly. He told her of his parents, his upbringing, and his education—partly in France and partly in this country. He spoke of how his father had died. He then traced his lineage back to his grandparents, telling her of how Pierre Devereux had settled in New Orleans in the first place and had taken a bride.

Mercy rolled her eyes. “Him! Your mother already told me all about your wicked grandfather.”

“Indeed?”

“Oui. He was just like you—forcing his wife into marriage.”

“Forcing?” Julian’s eyes danced with merriment.

“Of course! Don’t you remember? He kidnapped her and dragged her off to a keelboat, where he had a priest waiting. When she still balked, he threatened to . . .”

“Yes?” Julian prompted delightedly.

Mortified, she whispered the rest in his ear.

Julian howled with laughter. “Mercy, you have your facts all wrong. First of all, my grandmother couldn’t wait to be kidnapped by lusty old Grand-père. Secondly, my grandfather never threatened Grand’mère with such dire consequences on the keelboat. My mother embellished the truth for the sake of a good story.”

“Then what?” Mercy asked in shameless fascination.

Julian grinned wickedly. “He only threatened to spank her.”

***

The next morning, the steamboat arrived at Natchez, docking at the port of Natchez-Under-the-Hill. A four-hour stop was announced.

Mercy stood with her husband on the hurricane deck, watching the busy stevedores unloading cargo and loading wood along the gray, sagging wharves. The smells of mud and ripe vegetation filled the humid air.

Mercy glanced out at the ramshackle buildings of infamous Natchez-Under-the-Hill. Warehouses, saloons, hotels, and brothels sprawled out in rowdy, haphazard rows along the slanting, muddy earth, in stark contrast to the looming, celestial bluff above, where ivory-pillared mansions stretched toward the heavens.

“Do you want to go into town, dear?” Julian asked. He grinned endearingly. “I do need to buy you a new frock.”

Mercy smiled back at him. Then a look of uncertainty flashed across her eyes. “That’s where my mother’s people, the Dubois, live,” she murmured. “If they’re still there.”

“I know,” he replied solemnly.

She stared up at him. “You remembered?”

He smiled sympathetically. “I remember everything about that night, and your mother. Most of all, I remember you.”

Mercy glanced away to hide her suddenly smarting eyes. So far on their honeymoon, they’d managed to leave their troubles behind them. It was a fragile peace, and now Mercy struggled between her natural curiosity about her mother’s people and her fear of ripping open old wounds between herself and Julian.

Yet her memory drifted back irresistibly to that night so long ago, when Julian had been there to ease her mother’s passing, when he had comforted her, a small, lost child.

She tried to set aside what had happened between Julian and her father earlier that fateful night, and when she did so, it occurred to her at last that Julian had always been more loyal to her and her mother than the Dubois family had ever been.

She still couldn’t meet his eyes, but her fingers reached out to clutch his. “I’m glad,” she managed at last, swallowing a huge lump of pride, “that you were there with her.”

He nodded, wisely not pressing her.

“You’ve stood by me all these years,” she continued.

“Of course I have, chère.”

“Did you ever . . . ?” She bit her lip.

“What, darling?” he encouraged tenderly.

She glanced warily toward Natchez proper. “Did you ever think of contacting my mother’s people?”