by EM BROWN
“At midnight,” he repeated.
She screamed inside her head. The man could not be more vexing!
“Regardless, it is most presumptuous of you to assume that I have the time and inclination to take tea with you,” she asserted.
He pulled the curricle in front of his townhouse. His stable boy met him to take the horses and vehicle to the back.
Stubbornly, she remained seated. “You told me you would see me home.”
“And I shall. After tea.” He offered his hand.
“Why not now?”
“Because we’re having tea.”
She clenched her teeth. “I would prefer to go home now.”
“Pray, do not make a scene, Miss Herwood.”
She looked to the stable boy, who watched them curiously. Relenting, she took his hand and allowed him to assist her down. She noted the encompassing warmth of his grasp. The man had remarkable hands.
Cease and desist, she told herself. She pulled at her hand, but he held it a few beats longer than necessary.
If he expects a willing and cheerful guest, he will be quite mistaken, Deana told herself. She intended to be done with tea as quickly as possible.
Midnight tea indeed.
She followed him inside and into the drawing room where she had sat over a year ago. Nothing about the room had changed. She remembered the bronze oil lamp above the fireplace and the tapestry of Rati, wearing a golden headdress, arms stretched with a bow and arrow, astride a many-hued parrot. She flushed at the significance of the Indian goddess of love and carnal pleasure.
“Have a seat, Miss Herwood,” he indicated.
She sat at stiff attention upon the settee without removing her bonnet or releasing her reticule.
“Do you often keep your servants up at such late hours?” she asked when a footman set down a tray upon the table between them.
Seating himself across from her, he smiled at her attempt to censure his treatment of his staff.
She helped herself to the tea and biscuits as it was a useful occupation to avoid conversing with him. Why had he brought her to his place for tea? Was he bored and in need of a companion? Did he have an...urge...when he saw her coming out of the gaming hall and no one else to seek in the middle of the night? She found herself wanting an answer to her questions. She looked over at him to find him appraising her.
“How is Lady Isabella?” she asked the question she had not wanted to ask.
“I understand she is well and currently in Scotland with family.”
Ah. That was why he was in need of company. She sipped her tea and waited for him to speak, but he only continued his observation of her.
“This is a delightful tea,” she said.
“It is a chai blend of cardamom, nutmeg and black tea from the Himalayas. You should try it with milk.”
He picked up the small vessel. She held out her cup and saucer. He held her saucer still, his hand upon hers in the process. Her heart palpitated an uneven rhythm.
“Delicious,” she acknowledged, then proceeded to finish the beverage quickly to hasten the end of the tea.
“More?”
“No, thank you.”
They sat staring at one another until impatience and insecurity forced her to her feet. She walked around the room, pretending to analyze the décor, conscious of his gaze upon her.
“How long do you intend on keeping me here?” she asked, feeling more at ease now that she could more easily avoid looking into his eyes.
“Do you mean to imply that I am holding you hostage?”
“I do.”
“Is my company so distasteful to you?”
She frowned. Though he did not mean it, it was an unfair question. “Not at all, but I am quite puzzled as to why you wish for mine.”
“Do you really?”
“Yes, our arrangement had been executed and finished.”
“Would you care for another arrangement?”
She looked at him sharply, then returned to looking at the walls, stopping before the tapestry of Rati. She felt angry. She had put him out of her life, had met another man with whom she might have a chance, and he had the gall to reappear and ask her for another arrangement?
“Lord Rockwell,” she said, fueling her courage through anger, “you must disavow yourself of this notion that I am always at your beck and call, available to you as you wish. Despite what our past arrangements have been, I am not a whore. Circumstances compelled me to become one, but I have no interest at the moment in renewing that state. There is no sum of money that you can offer that would make me amenable to—”
Feeling his presence, she whirled around. In the next instant, his mouth was over hers. She struggled, but his arm was about her, crushing her to him without give. She pushed against his hard body. He circled his hands about both her wrists and pinned them above her head as he pushed her up against the wall. His mouth assaulted hers with frightful force and suffocating breadth. She panicked that he might try to impose his will upon her, though she would never have thought him capable of such an offense—no, she panicked because her body was responding to him.
“What is the safety word?” he growled as he devoured her neck and shoved his hips into her.
Holding her wrists in one hand, he untied her bonnet and tossed it to the floor. She closed her eyes against the onslaught, trying to pick up the fragments of her anger as her traitorous body succumbed to the longing she had hitherto kept at bay.
“No!” she said, to herself as much as him.
“Safety word, Miss Herwood.”
His hand went to her spencer, tearing it open. The buttons clattered to the floor. She twisted against his grip.
“How dare—”
“What is the safety word?” he demanded.
She stared into his molten eyes. Good God, he wanted her. The realization heated her loins and caused her cunnie to ache.
But he will be back to Lady Isabella tomorrow.
“Have you not heard a word?” she cried in anguish.
Despite the confines of her stays, he managed to shove his hand down her bodice to cup a breast. She groaned despite herself.
Abruptly he tore her from the wall and toward a door that she recognized all too well despite her single acquaintance with it.
“I think you will want your safety word, Miss Herwood,” he said as he pulled her inside.
With chains, shackles, crops, and floggers, the room could have fit easily into the East Wing of Chateau Follet. It even had a bed not too dissimilar from the ones in the room they had shared with Lord Devon. She saw a wooden chair and treacherous memories of how he had bent her over the back of it made her hot with desire. Would he do the same tonight or did he have other plans?
“Well?” he prompted.
She said nothing, her mind searching for how she was to extract herself from the situation.
He was standing behind her, cupping her neck, tilting her chin up, his mouth beside her ear.
“Do not keep me waiting much longer, Miss Herwood.”
Chapter Nineteen
HER LEGS THREATENED to liquefy. She had always found his voice sensual, the sound of her name upon his lips wickedly enticing.
“Rati,” she whispered.
How was it she could not refrain from submitting to Lord Rockwell?
He turned her head so that he could access her lips. His mouth was more controlled this time, probing and commanding. With his lips and tongue, he enticed hers into a sensual dance. Desire pooled low and hot in her abdomen. He released her head. His mouth trailed across her jaw, down her neck, and to the edge of her décolletage. His hands grasped the spencer and pulled it down past her shoulders, pinioning her arms. As his mouth continued to caress her about the neck, he pulled down the bodice her frock. She gasped as the fabric tore a little to accommodate. He went for her stays next.
“They lace in front,” he noted with approval.
With her back still pinned to his chest, he reached around her bosom and
unlaced the ribbons with ease despite his hindered view. He pulled the stays down her arms as well. She now had three layers of garments—her spencer, frock, and stays—locking her arms uncomfortably to her body. He palmed both breasts through her shift and rubbed her nipples through the cotton fabric. They pressed against his hand. He rolled and tugged at the points of flesh between his thumbs and forefingers. She writhed against him. As she became more and more aroused, his touch became harder. The attention was devastating. She did not know whether to bend away or arch her back further into him. The ache in her cunnie throbbed angrily.
Taking her by a nipple, he pulled her over to a chair—the very chair he had bent her over the last time she was here. This time he sat in it, pulled her skirts to her thighs, and positioned her over his lap. He parted his legs, forcing hers open. With her arms pinioned, she felt unbalanced and had to concentrate to stay atop him. Reaching under her skirts, he found the moisture between her thighs.
“This pleases me, Miss Herwood,” he said, swirling his fingers in her wetness.
She groaned. Her body began perspiring. An agonizing tension had built within her, and only he could release it.
“In due time,” he murmured as if reading her mind. He began to rub and torment that rosy nodule of flesh between her legs, his gaze intent upon her reactions.
He pulled down her shift to bare a breast, then took it in his mouth. She nearly toppled from his lap as he sucked her tit while toying with her other highly sensitive nub. He put a hand to her hip to hold her steady. Moaning, she writhed at the pleasurable assault. She had been right to submit to him, her body signaled. She had already done so in the past. One more night was of little consequence and could only bring such delights as she was unlikely to ever experience again.
His mouth sucked, his hand fondled with increasing vigor. The pressure within her was just about to reach the boiling point when he released her. As if she had been hit with a wall of fresh air, she inhaled at the sudden deprivation. He put her back on her feet.
“Shed your clothes,” he instructed as began to unloosen his cravat.
Eager to return to her earlier progress, she struggled to pull her arms free. It was no easy deed for the garments on top had secured the ones beneath. Lord Rockwell, also disrobing, had a much easier time as he cast his cravat onto the back of the chair and began to unbutton his silk brocade waistcoat. As she struggled with her attire, she found herself mesmerized by the calm with which he undressed, revealing a broad and chiseled chest, arms and torso. She drank in his splendor.
“Let us not tarry, Miss Herwood,” he said as he retrieved a crop.
Doubling her efforts, she wiggled and jumped, her unrestrained breasts bouncing with the exertion, but the tight sleeves of the spencer were caught. The crop fell against her backside, its sting blunted by her clothing. Nonetheless she yelped. Straining one hand, she reached for the cuff of her spencer. The crop fell against the side of a breast. With a hasty yank, she pulled the sleeve and the spencer slipped from under the sleeve of the frock and the strap of the stays. He struck her thigh. Quickly she shimmied her arms out of the garments and pushed them to the floor. Her petticoat and chemise quickly followed.
“Give me your stockings.”
She kicked off her slippers and untied the garters. The stockings slid down her legs and she handed the pair to him. He pulled her arms together behind her back until her elbows touched and tied her arms in place with her stockings. The position forced her breasts forward. He ran a finger along the tops and bottoms of her breasts. He tapped the crop against one orb.
“I think I shall leave these free for tonight.”
She barely heard his words, though it almost sounded as if this was not to be their only night together. She would have to make clear later that she had no wish to see him ever again, but for now, she only wanted him to continue his sublime agony.
The crop bit at a nipple. She cried out. He massaged the affected breast and kissed the smarting nipple. He flicked at it repeatedly with his tongue, and she groaned as the fire in her belly stirred. She watched him walk over to a chest of drawers. After opening and shutting a drawer, he returned to her holding a pair of small clamps joined together by a thin chain.
“Devon should have started with these,” he said.
She gritted her teeth at the sharp pinching pain upon her nipples. The clamps were not nearly as bad as what had been used at Chateau Follet. But the relativity mattered not. The hellish things upon her now hurt plenty well. Her toes curled.
“Breathe.”
She focused on her breath and found her tolerance for the pain.
“Well done.”
He tugged at the chain. The clamps pulled at her nipples. Tears pressed the backs of her eyes. He brushed his lips against her temple.
“You are a sight to behold, Miss Herwood.”
His words encouraged and enflamed her. She wanted to withstand everything he would do to show him how capable and strong she was. She wanted him to reward her.
He led her back to the chair and sat down. He had her stand astride him. To her delight, he undid his front fall and pulled out his very solid cock. She hoped he would let her take possession of the erection soon. He rubbed himself slowly so that his cock lengthened to its limits. He pointed it between her thighs.
“Bend your legs.”
Yes!
She lowered herself.
“Stop,” he commanded just as the tip grazed her cunnie.
She looked at him curiously.
“Fall and pay the price,” he said.
No.
He rubbed the bulbous head along her slit. It felt wonderful, but she wanted his cock to touch the deepest part of her. He pressed his cock at her clitoris and she closed her eyes to further relish the pleasure. Back and forth he worked his cock. Coated in her wetness, it slid easily along her. Beautiful, delicious sensations fanned from her cunnie. But squatting over his cock was an awkward exertion, and her legs soon began to tremble. Surely he would let her take him at any moment?
She grunted as beads of sweat formed along her brow. “My lord—”
The labor required to stay in position distracted from her ascent toward orgasmos.
He increased the rubbing, pushing it at her perineum. She quivered in delight. But her legs threatened to buckle beneath her. If only she could spend before...
Her legs gave way. She sank onto his lap, sheathing his cock in her cunnie. The feel of him inside of her was nothing short of wonderful. For a second she didn’t care that she had not succeeded in keeping the position he wanted. She looked at him through lowered lashes, but instead of a frown, she saw his eyes gleaming.
“Suit yourself, Miss Herwood.”
It was hardly a choice! she wanted to say. Her muscles simply could not persevere. They had no practice in crouching in such a fashion for lengths of time.
He twisted a finger in the chain between her nipple clamps. They pulled at her, renewing the pain there. At least he had allowed his cock to remain in place.
“Make yourself spend.”
She blinked. Well, she was not about to remind him that he had mentioned a ‘price to pay’ earlier. Taking his offer, she worked her hips, trying to push his cock as deep inside her as she could. He continued to twist the chain. His other hand found her clitoris, slick and engorged. The triple stimulation, his cock inside her, his thumb at her clitoris, the clamps pulling at her, combined to send her over the edge. He snapped the clamps off her nipples just as she imploded with a bloodcurdling scream. She would have convulsed right off his lap if he had not caught her hip. Shuddering violently, she fell against him, her hot and sweaty body against his.
She murmured an oath, then realized she had spoken it aloud. Recovering from her raptures, she found him stroking her back tenderly. She stirred slightly and felt he was still hard inside of her. Oh dear, that meant she was not finished.
“Pleased?”
The strange inquiry made her look at him.
He was gazing at her as if searching her face for something.
“A little,” she teased.
“Good. On your knees.”
She stood up, glad to stretch her legs, then knelt on the cold, hard ground. He stood, his cock at her face. She opened her mouth willingly, wanting to give him the same pleasure he had provided her. He slid his cock inside of her. She tasted her own wetness upon him, unsure of how she regarded her own flavor. With her arms still bound behind her, she could not exert herself as well upon his shaft, so he fisted a hand in her hair and guided her mouth. She tried to take him down her throat as much as possible and managed to suppress most of her gagging reflexes.
His lordship’s eyes closed, and he grunted his enjoyment.
“Suck. Harder.”
She obliged until her cheeks hurt. He tensed further, and she sensed his end was near. He bucked his hips at her, and with a roar, he shoved himself deep into her. Warm, tangy liquid filled her mouth. She swallowed to prevent from choking as he pumped his seed into her. His legs shook, and his fingers curled in her hair. Pleased that she could cause his surrender, she licked her lips after he had pulled himself from her. He knelt down before her and kissed her. Reaching around her, he untied her stockings. Relief rushed through her sore arms.
“And now, the price, Miss Herwood.”
She cursed herself. The man had not forgotten. The hour was late, and she was tired. But her pride would not allow her to ask for leniency.
After buttoning the fall of his trousers, he lifted her and placed her among the numerous plush pillows underneath a blood red canopy with golden tassels and orange curtains. He lay beside her and fitted his hand between her thighs. His languid strokes felt pleasant, but she wondered that she had the wherewithal to go another round.
“Have you thought of Chateau Follet since your departure?” he asked.
Many, many times.
“Often enough,” she replied.
“And what in particular does your memory fancy?”
She thought of all the times she had been with him. How could she pick a favorite among them? For days afterward, she had relived each one twice over.