Jonas caught her. “No mirrors.”
“They’re still there.” She gave a halfhearted tug. Uncertainty lent her tone a raw edge. “I don’t like these games.”
“Ten minutes, tesoro. That’s all I ask. After that, if you don’t like it, we’ll play something else.”
She exhaled with annoyance. “You think just because you ask nicely, you’ll get your way.”
“Manners maketh the man, amore mio.”
“Do you always blindfold your lovers?”
“Often.” She could tell he meant always. She shivered, not sure whether she was appalled or curious. She suddenly remembered how he’d snuffed the candles last night before tumbling her.
“You’re a manipulative devil, Merrick.” Her tone was edged.
“Jonas.”
She sighed. “Merrick for the next ten minutes.”
Her answer was grudging permission to continue. He released her and she heard him shift again. Dear God, she was painfully conscious of him when she could see him. Plotting his movements through sound alone threatened sanity. Thought dissolved when he dropped a kiss on her lips. Her hands curled in her skirts as she fought the urge to grab him by the ears and make him kiss her properly.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
“Ten minutes.” She had a sinking feeling each minute would last an hour.
“I’m counting, tesoro.”
Trying to track him, she turned her head. She jerked when he caught her hand and kissed the pulse at her wrist. Without benefit of sight, her skin felt unnaturally sensitive.
She bit her lip then jumped when he pressed a finger into the cushiony flesh. His touch felt like a kiss. She felt the air shift, then his mouth covered hers. He sucked her poor gnawed lip into his mouth. Her heart set out on a frenetic gallop. Before she could deepen the kiss, he withdrew. Frustration coiled in her belly. Clumsily she reached to catch him but he avoided her.
Confounded blindfold.
She supposed she could take it off. She wasn’t a prisoner. Something made her leave it in place. But, oh, how it smarted, waiting for those glancing caresses from every direction.
“You’re playing with me.” She hated how breathless she sounded. She fumbled after him and caught his arm to keep him still.
“Oh, yes.”
This time she had warning. His breath was warm on her neck, raising a legion of goose bumps. His mouth traced a tendon until she trembled.
“Have we had ten minutes?” she asked in a ragged tone.
“Not yet,” he said casually, nibbling a hot line along her jaw. “You’re the most delicious dish in creation, dolcissima.”
He kissed the corners of her lips and she whimpered. He smiled against her cheek. For all that she missed her vision, there was something breathtakingly seductive about feeling his expressions rather than seeing them. What he did to her felt forbidden, like a wicked sensual adventure.
Her fingers dug into the muscles of his arm. “At this rate, I’ll be ninety before you do anything about it.”
He shook off her hold. “Patience.”
She felt the mattress dip as he kneeled behind her. It shouldn’t make any difference where he was. She couldn’t see him anyway. But having him at her back put her on edge.
All capacity for speech fled when he tugged on her gown. As the dress sagged open, she felt the drift of air on her bare back. The sharp nip of his teeth on her earlobe set off another cannonade of response. A pulse began to pound, heavy and hard, between her legs. She gulped in a mouthful of air. She kept forgetting to breathe.
“You make me wanton.” Resentment pricked under growing arousal.
“A wonderful wanton.” Silk glided over her skin when he lowered the gown from her shoulders.