ROMANTIC VENTURE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Maurette made her way up to her chamber. She pushed at the heavy door, and it was with a relieved sigh that she found the chamber empty. In the dimness of her room, she discarded her ruined clothing and bade a startled Kitty to warm water for a bath. The girl had entered to find her mistress naked and dripping near the fire.

Maurette sank into the warming depths of her scented bath and reveled there while going over the events of the afternoon. Her eyes closed in warm peace. Kitty had left the room after building up the fire and lighting candles against the thickening darkness of the room. Maurette had informed her that the bath would be a long one and that she was not to be disturbed.

"I shall not need you till dinner," she said, smiling into the girl's serious brown eyes. Maurette was, therefore, startled when she heard the soft scrape of the big door. Her eyes opened wide, and she turned to find Dominic in the doorway, his massive form blotting out the torchlight from the dim hallway behind him. She placed a delicate white hand to her breast. Her hair was swept in a mass of curls onto the top of her head. She looked very fragile and inviting in the rose-gold glow of the firelight.

Dominic pushed the door closed. Saying nothing, he moved across the room to where her tumbled garments lay in a sodden heap. He lifted all the clothing in one large hand.

Maurette followed him with her eyes. Her heart lurched in her breast as she watched him inspect the undergarments, which lay atop the heap. Her eyes widened at the inscrutable stare he leveled at her. She moistened her soft lips.

"I fell into the water," she said in a whisper.

Dominic arched an eyebrow. A half-smile crossed his firm lips, but the smile did not reach his eyes. He held her in his silver gaze. His eyelids hooded, and he let the garments slide from his grasp to fall to the floor at his feet. His gaze never left her. The fire lit shadows played across his chiseled features. The cloak that hung from his broad shoulders swept the floor silently as he moved to stand over her. His eyes were like hot steel, and Maurette could see the flames from the hearth reflected in their depths.

With what seem to Maurette to be excessive care, he bent and placed his hands firmly upon her naked shoulders. Grasping her flesh, he lifted her to her feet. She felt very small and fragile in his strong hands. His face was taut as he looked down upon her. The skin that stretched over his cheekbones and jaw glistened darkly. His firmly etched lips had a hardness that seemed to Maurette etched in granite. Beneath dark Lashes, his gaze bore into her. Her breasts quivered at his unrelenting appraisal. Slowly, slowly he lifted his hand. His fingertips brushed the translucent mounds of her breasts, and he tantalized each coral peak with his thumb. She gasped audibly as his hand ranged down to her stomach and rested on the swell oh her hip. He lifted his gaze to her eyes. He stepped closer and pulled the pins from her upswept curls. Her hair fell in shimmering waves over her shoulders and breasts.

Eyes wide, Maurette endured Dominic's silent ministrations. She felt that some terrible violence lurked beneath the exterior of his finely muscled form. She waited, unmoving, for the violence to erupt.

He scooped Maurette into his arms and carried her to the bed. He lowered her and then himself into its thick folds. Maurette felt his terrible weight and gazed up into his face that hovered inches above her own. She could not move beneath his menacing gaze. She was transfixed, as a small animal before being devoured by a ravening bird of prey.

Dominic's hand came up to brush her hair away from her shoulder and neck while his other arm forced itself beneath her shoulders. Her head fell back sharply exposing the tender white flesh of her throat. His mouth came down savagely and he sucked at the soft flesh. Tears popped into her eyes as she felt his teeth on her bared skin. With unbridled hunger, his mouth traveled downward to the mounds of her breasts and then to her exposed white belly. Maurette writhed beneath his attack. A low sob emanated from her throat. Dominic looked up. His eyes glowed silver in the firelight.

"Do you deny me?" he said, his voice a growl.

"No, my lord," Maurette gasped. " 'Tis only that your loving is not loving."

"Is it not," he snarled. In one swift powerful motion, he drew himself up and straddled her slender, white body. His cloak billowed out behind him, and in the dancing shadows of the firelit room, he seemed a glowering bird of prey. Maurette splay her hands out before her in a self-protective gesture.

"Please, Dominic," she whimpered.

Grabbing her wrists, he jerked them above her head and held them there. Her whole body trembled as his mouth came down on first one beast and then the other to suck at the tender mounds with rapacious, all-devouring intent. Maurette wriggled helplessly in his grasp. She sobbed openly as his mouth captured every inch of flesh from her neck to her belly. Hot tears flowed down her cheeks at his brutal assault.

Finally, mercifully, he stopped. Maurette's tear-filled eyes watched in horror at what happened next. The ravening beast that was her lover of the night before gazed down upon her. He let go her wrists and with his powerful hands spread her thighs as far as they would stretch. Lifting her buttocks, he raised the lower half of her body to his mouth.

"No!" she breathed, horrified. Nevertheless, like a slavering bird of prey, he slowly raised his quarry to his hungry jaws. Maurette felt his lips and then his teeth cover her quivering flesh. His tongue savored her as he sucked languidly. Maurette squeezed her eyes shut. She could not believe what this savage act was doing to her body. She felt her life juices flowing into Dominic's voracious mouth. As his tongue flicked at her mercilessly, hot fingers of desire filled her woman's body. She moaned and writhed beneath the frenzied pulsation that racked her. Then, when she believed that she could endure no more, she felt the thrust of Dominic's ravening tongue into the core of her womanhood. She screamed in an agony of voluptuous torment. He continued to suck hungrily at the bud of her desire, his tongue thrusting savagely and then retreating to leave her in tortured ecstasy. With his teeth, lips, and tongue, he tickled, teased, and tantalized her female ripeness until she cried out over and over for him to satisfy her craving needs. A rasping laugh rose from Dominic's throat as he tortured her ripening desires. His hot breath on her woman's mound set flames of lust afire in her body.

"Please," she sobbed in a final desperate choking rasp. Dominic's tongue flicked out in one last derisive gesture and the, unbelievably, he stopped. Setting down her enflamed womanhood, he rose from the bed and shrugged his heavy cloak from his massive shoulders. Slowly, he divested himself of his other garments. Maurette watched him in writhing anticipation. "Oh, please hurry," she rasped huskily. When finally his bronzed body loomed above her, she grasped at the sight of his engorged manhood. It was poised before him as a weapon. Maurette raised her eyes in questioning horror.

"Do you want me, Maurette?" His words were a low rumble.

"Yes," she breathed.

"Are you mine?"

"I am, Dominic," she said softly. "Only yours."

He smiled lazily. "Tell me what you want, Maurette."

"I want…you, Dominic…your body to fill me. I want you to take me." Her breath came in shallow gasps. "Please, Dominic take me now."

He lowered himself onto the bed and turned her to him, taking her in his muscled arms. With slow and practiced ease, he began to hiss her quivering flesh. Maurette felt her flaming senses soar to unimagined heights. When he finally took her, she could barely tolerate the rapture of her passion-filled soul. Stars and suns burst devoured her Her until she was engulfed by an ebon void. She lay panting and sobbing in Dominic's arms until her exhausted body fell into a dreamless slumber.