Winds of Nightsong. V. J. Banis

gasped, feeling the color rise in her cheeks. She didn’t know whether she was blushing out of embarrassment or anticipation.

      “You do not want me to make love to you?”

      For a moment her voice left her. Then she found herself smiling seductively. “I think I would like that very much, Count Cambruzio.”

      “Good. We will go.”

      * * * *

      Tonio’s apartment was not far from the restaurant. They walked the short distance, hand in hand. When he ushered her into the large, airy suite of rooms she had the feeling that the place had been decorated by a woman. Though the overall effect was somewhat masculine, there was something definitely feminine about the curtains, the floral arrangements, the placement of furniture and pictures.

      Tonio kissed her the moment they were inside the suite. “I do love you, Caroline.”

      She didn’t answer; she simply responded encouragingly to his kisses.

      He swooped her up in his arms and carried her into the adjoining bedroom. Here, too, a woman’s touch was evident in the color scheme, the coverlet, the fringed canopy of the four-poster. But Caroline was too intent upon the way Tonio was carefully, skillfully removing her clothing to care about anything but the burning need deep inside her. He lowered her to the bed and slowly started to strip himself of his evening clothes. He had a magnificent body, so sleek and muscular, a dark fan of hair covering his well-chiseled chest, trailing down over his abdomen in a thin thread only to bush out into a tangle of black pubic hair that crowned the base of his jutting erection.

      He fell down beside her and took her in his arms. Caroline felt a twinge of regret as she realized that she wanted Tonio to make love to her. She was being a traitor to her love for Adam Clarendon, but the erotic feel of Tonio’s body swept over her and she found herself oblivious to everything except the way his hands were caressing, stroking her bare skin. His full, sensuous lips scorched her flesh as he kissed her breasts, her stomach, the insides of her thighs, and Caroline found herself surrendering completely to him.

      “Make love to me, Tonio,” she moaned as he placed his mouth against her seeping wetness.

      Tonio pressed his face between her legs and began sucking her greedily until Caroline was moaning with pleasure. He kissed and licked and ran his tongue around inside her.

      “Tonio. Tonio.”

      He raised himself up over her and crushed his mouth to hers. Caroline tasted her own sex on him, pushing her tongue between his lips. She spread her legs as Tonio bent his naked body over hers.

      Caroline was quivering with expectancy, waiting to feel the hard contact of him against her. He prolonged it, gently massaging her, taking his time, lowering his lips between her breasts, nuzzling and kissing the pouting nipples until he saw she could not take much more torture. He closed one of her hands around the solid shaft of his penis and whispered hoarsely, “Put it in, darling.”

      When she hesitated, Tonio said, “Don’t you want me to fuck you?”

      “Oh yes. Yes, for God’s sake, Tonio. I want you. I want all of you.”

      Tonio smiled and rubbed the head against her. Then with a quick motion he tensed his buttocks and slid in. Caroline moaned and he stopped, poised above her, the head of his erection buried in her warm, wet cavity.

      “Not too big?”

      She was too aroused to answer. She simply shook her head frantically.

      He tensed his hard, muscled buttocks again and as her hips arched up to meet him he put everything he had into a powerful lunge that sent him plunging deep inside her. Then he lowered his full weight onto her, his muscular chest pressing into her breasts.

      Caroline dug her fingernails into his back, pulling him to her with her hands and legs as she worked frantically to match his movements. Her hips tensed and relaxed, squirming and rising to meet his thrusts. Tonio was bringing her to agonizing heights of pleasure with his pounding passion.

      Caroline’s lips opened to form a passionate whisper that she hardly recognized as her own voice. “Fuck me, Tonio. Oh God, fuck me!”

      “Always, my beloved Caroline. I will fuck you until you die.”

      She smothered another cry as he filled her completely. He was so much larger than Adam, and the feel of his body was smooth as velvet. The hairs on his chest tormented her tender nipples as he drove ever deeper into her. She gave herself up to the ecstasy of her senses, moaning over and over again her terrible need for him.

      Tonio was an expert lover, not naive and inexperienced as Adam had been. And with her hands and her lips, Caroline urged him on, meeting his thrusts, arching her hips to give him deeper access.

      Something strange was happening to her. As Tonio’s passions mounted, all thoughts of Adam left Caroline. The sexual awakening Adam had created dissolved under Tonio’s assault. Her passionate fires burst into gigantic towers of flame as the violence of Tonio’s thrusts and poundings sent her into oblivion. Little cries of pleasure escaped her lips. Her hands stroked his muscled back, his buttocks. She kissed his face, his neck, his shoulders. She dug her teeth into her own shoulder as her orgasm began to build.

      “Tonio,” she cried as something wild and wonderful burst into fragments deep inside her. She threw back her head and sacrificed her body to his onslaught. He continued to pound into her until a low, warm flame began to rekindle itself, sending waves of heat coursing through her body.

      “Tonio. Oh, Tonio.”

      Suddenly she felt Tonio tense. A groan came from his throat as he bolted into her, filling her to overflowing.

      “Oh, Tonio,” she gasped, and exploded again, her mind flashing and sparking as blazing stars whirled around inside her head.

      “Love me, Caroline,” Tonio whispered. “Marry me,” he sighed as the last spasms gripped him and he kissed her lovingly.

      “Tonio,” she sighed. Something told her that tonight, when she returned to her bed, she would dream of Tonio. She wanted to. She wanted to be free of her love for Adam.

      You never will be, an inner voice told her. Never.

      CHAPTER THREE

      Adam Clarendon felt uncomfortable walking around the familiar grounds of the estate on which he’d been raised. Technically, none of it belonged to him. He wasn’t Adam Clarendon at all but Adam MacNair, the son of April Nightsong and David MacNair. It seemed an age since his adoptive father and mother, the Lord and Lady Clarendon, had perished in the fire that destroyed an entire wing of Clarendon Hall. Yet it was no more than a year. What a short and agonizing year, he thought as he glanced at the newly rebuilt wing of the house. He had never before felt like a stranger here, but he did now. Everything had changed so much. Including him.

      He thought about Caroline Nightsong. He had fallen in love with his own sister. Or had it been love? She had been the first woman he’d ever gone to bed with and he still wasn’t sure whether it was love or lust he’d felt for her.

      Adam didn’t blame the Clarendons for their part in this nightmare. The lord’s letter had tearfully explained how he’d taken Lady Clarendon to specialists in America when she was incapable of giving him the son and heir he so desperately wanted. Their private railroad car had been stopped at the San Francisco station when a poor, bedraggled wretch was found unconscious in one of the third-class coaches. The woman had a small child with her, a boy of about four or five. The woman died before regaining consciousness and the boy was taken to the Clarendons’ private car for warmth and comfort. They hadn’t known the child had been kidnapped or anything about him, assuming the dead woman to have been his mother. It had all seemed innocent enough until they read in the newspapers about the Nightsong child who’d been taken from his mother in San Francisco. But by then they were almost clear across country and Lady Clarendon was threatening to kill herself unless her husband took the boy as their own.

      In his letter