Jessica saw Wolfe’s need and felt her own, both physical hunger and something far more complex. Without a word she began unbuttoning Wolfe’s shirt.
His eyes snapped open.
«What are you doing?» he asked roughly.
«Undressing you.»
«I can see that.»
«Then you’ll be able to see me bathing you as gently as you bathed me.»
«No.»
«Why not?»
«You’re too tired.»
Jessica’s elegant fingers didn’t so much as pause in their work. «I’m no more tired than you.»
«Jessi…»
Her eyes met his. For a moment he didn’t know if he could bear what he saw in their clear, light blue depths.
«You have done as Lady Victoria asked,» Jessica said quietly. «You have taught me not to fear your touch. Now you are exiling me from your life. Will you deny me this night, too?»
Wolfe knew he should do just that, but he couldn’t force the words past his lips. Jessica finally had accepted the end that he had always known must come: She would fight the annulment no longer.
He hadn’t expected victory to be so painful.
You are exiling me from your life.
Silently, Wolfe removed his boots and socks, then closed his eyes and stood motionless while Jessica undressed him. With a distant sense of surprise, he realized that he had never given himself to a woman in this way, trusting her enough to surrender sensual control to her hands.
The feel of Jessica removing his shirt was exquisite. The tug and release of his belt, followed by the slow, inevitable slide of his remaining clothes down his body was extraordinary, like being naked for the first time. With a feeling of unreality, he stepped out of his clothes and brushed them aside with his foot.
The first touch of the warm washcloth against Wolfe’s face made his eyelids flinch.
«Sore?» she asked softly, echoing Wolfe’s earlier question.
«You flinched the same way when I first touched you with the washcloth. Were you sore?»
«No. I wanted you so much that even the lightest touch was almost more than I could bear.»
«Yes,» Wolfe said simply, opening his eyes, hiding from Jessica no longer.
He felt her breath as a warm rush over his chest when she looked into his eyes.
«In this, at least, we are well matched,» Jessica whispered.
Wolfe didn’t answer. He couldn’t. The feel of warm water against the pulse on his neck had taken his breath. The sound of the cloth being rinsed was a quicksilver music in the silence. The fragrance of a rose’s softly opening petals filled his senses. The slight roughness of the washcloth brought his body toexcrutiating fullness.
He closed his eyes once more, absorbing Jessica’s presence into his very pores while the cloth moved slowly over his arms and shoulders, washing away fatigue with slow sweeps of warmth, dissolving everything but the certainty of Jessica’s touch, her soft breathing, her scent wrapping him in a sensuality he had never known before. For an immeasurable time, he lived suspended between firelight and an elf whose touch created a new, magical world.
Water made gentle silver sounds as first the cloth and then his skin was rinsed. He sensed Jessica kneeling before him. When the cloth returned, it was to wash him without hesitation or inhibition. He couldn’t hide, for wherever she touched him, she would discover his passion.
But Wolfe no longer cared about hiding, for he knew Jessica burned for him in the same way. She was touching him as if he were a dream condensing out of firelight, cherishing him in a hushed silence that was itself another kind of caress.
The washcloth slipped from her fingers and fell forgotten onto the hearth. The feel of her hands on his thighs was both relief and another turn of passion’s rack. The glide of her palms over him was a pleasure so great it was pain. The gentle rush of her breath over his heavy arousal was Heaven and Hell in one.
Wolfe couldn’t prevent the low sound he made when Jessica’s hand cupped him. Nor could he prevent the single silver drop that condensed, speaking so deeply of the need within him.
When she kissed away the evidence of his need, she brought him to his knees.
«You’re burning me alive,» Wolfe said hoarsely.
«No more than you’re burning me,» she whispered, pulling Wolfe’s hands down her body. «Touch me. Know how much I want you.»
It was like sliding into fire. There was no withdrawal, no coy retreat, nothing but the sultry rose opening at his first touch, weeping for him and yielding to him at the same instant. She clung to him, watching him, seeing the shivering rush of her own passion in the expanding center of his eyes, feeling it in the silky heat gilding his hand.
Then Jessica could support her own weight no longer. With a husky moan she sank down onto the fur, drawing Wolfe with her, keeping his hand pressed deeply to her.
«You have taught me so much about a man’s body,» Jessica whispered. «I never would have guessed…»
Her voice frayed into another husky cry as Wolfe’s hand cupped her and stole into her in the same sweet motion. Unable to help her response, she moved her hips in slow counterpoint to his motions, deepening his presence within her body.
Wolfe closed his eyes and tested the heart of the flower that had been given to him. He found only clinging ease and secret rain shielded by a maidenhood as fragile as flame. She wanted him as he had never been wanted by anyone, and she was telling him with each sultry drop, calling to him in a silence that was infused with hunger and the scent of roses.
«What would you never have guessed?» Wolfe asked when he could trust himself to speak.
«That you were made of honey and fire.»
«It’s you, not me. Honey and fire.»
Wolfe breathed Jessica’s name and withdrew from the satin sheath of her body, heard her cry out at the loss of him. For two seconds he endured it, for three seconds, then he could take no more of their shared pain. He slid within her again, and felt the sweet agony of her response all the way to his soul.
«Hold me,» Jessica whispered. «I need to feel you pressed against me. Please, Wolfe.Ineed you.»
«I shouldn’t.»
«Why?»
«You’re too dangerous when you burn. You make me forget…everything.»
Yet even as Wolfe was speaking, he was moving over Jessica, crushing her gently into the fur. The feel of her along his naked body went through him in a soundless explosion of heat. When she shifted to draw him even closer, he pinned her hips with his own.
«Lie still,» Wolfe breathed against Jessica’s mouth. «You’ll make me lose control. I don’t want that yet.»
«What do you want?»
«Your kiss.»
«It’s yours, Wolfe. Only yours.»
He took what she gave, giving himself in return. It was like no other kiss he had known. He felt her as though he was in her skin, burning, and she was in his, on fire. Slowly, his body moved against hers, pleasuring both of them in the same gliding motions. She answered instinctively, opening herself, seeking him blindly, needing him until she wept.
Yet no matter how she struggled, he withheld himself.
«Wolfe,» Jessica said, her voice strained. «Don’t you want me? You’ve taught me so much about your body and my own. Teach me about the shared body of love.»
«No, elf.»
«Is coupling that painful? Is that what you don’t want me to know? Is that what you’re sending me back to
