Free Banish Misfortune by Anne Stuart Page B

romantics like Peter.
    But Springer was tall enough and strong enough to do the thing with grace. He might even—
    Suddenly she jumped, startled, and stared up at him in amazement. Springer had just bitten her on the nose.
    "When I kiss a woman I like her complete attention," he observed politely. He still had her tightly wrapped against his body, and she recognized belatedly the feel of his hardened flesh against hers.
    "I was just wondering how you were going to get me over to the bed," she said, hoping to puncture that imperturbable calm of his.
    "Who said anything about a bed?" he drawled, nudging her hips with his blatantly aroused pelvis. "I thought we could make love right here."
    She knew he was goading here deliberately, making her angry enough to shatter the dreamworld she built up every time he kissed her, but it didn't halt her rage. Shoving him back with a sudden surge of strength, she caught him off-balance. He fell back against the door, and she was free, racing across the room toward the sliding glass door and an unwanted freedom.
    She didn't get very far. A large foot stuck out, catching her ankle, and she tripped, sprawling sideways across the rumpled bed, with Springer beside her, half on top of her, his hands catching her pale shoulders and pressing her against the sheets.
    "That's how I'm planning to get you on the bed," he said, his voice breathless with suppressed laughter and something else. Jessica looked up at him then, recognizing that laughter, and to her amazement, released a small, rusty laugh of her own.
    "Very adept," she said dryly, ignoring the unfamiliar tightening in her loins. Even with him supporting the majority of his weight on his elbows he was still heavy, his hips pressing against hers, one long leg flung carelessly over hers, imprisoning her. And yet it wasn't a prison, she thought. It was safety, protection from the outside world. And very dangerous protection it was.
    "Well, well," Springer said softly, his breath warm and damp and sweet on her suddenly vulnerable face beneath him. "I've done very well with you tonight,
    Jessie, love. I've made you laugh—" his mouth gently brushed her temple "—and I've made you angry—" he kissed her nose "—I've frightened you—" he kissed her ear "—and I've turned you on." He pulled back to eye her speculatively. She could feel the warmth of his flesh through the open shirt, feel the rigidity of his desire through the heavy denim jeans. "That's quite a torrent of emotion from a Snow Queen."
    The room grew suddenly still as Jessie lay beneath him. She could hear the distant sound of the Long Island surf, the quiet rustle of the sheets around them and the springs beneath them. Everything else was silent.
    "I wonder," Springer murmured with a vague, almost clinical interest, "if I could make you cry?"
    "Would you want to?" she whispered back.
    "Very much. Not from sadness," he said, moving closer to kiss each fluttering eyelid. "I want to make you moan and weep from pleasure. And I want you to cry when you need to, and something tells me you need to a lot."
    "I don't cry," she said, ignoring the strange emptiness in the pit of her stomach. "And I hate to disappoint you, but I make love in total silence."
    She could see the grin slashing across his face in the midnight room. "Liar. I'm sure you make all the appropriate noises at the appropriate times. You're a professional actress, poor Jessie. You know your part and you play it to the hilt."
    "Then what am I doing here?" She wanted the words to come out stubborn and challenging; instead, they merely sounded plaintive and just a tiny bit lost.
    "Stepping out of character," he whispered. "And tonight when you moan and cry you're going to mean it." Springer's mouth feathered hers, softly, his tongue delving past her parted lips. "Aren't you, Jessie?" he taunted, returning again and again to her mouth like a hummingbird drawn to a flower. "Aren't you?"
    "Yes," she found herself saying, not