Tempted By Fire

by Thea Devine

  Her chintz robe was still on the floor where she had discarded it, and she picked it up and wrapped herself in it, seeking the least little bit of warmth, and then she poked at the fire to uncover the embers and added another piece of wood to it. It flared up immediately, crackling to life and light, the scent of burning wood overcoming the faint chocolatey perfume still in the air.

  She edged the chair gingerly toward the fireplace and sat down to warm herself in the nascent heat. From this vantage point, she could watch him easily and she could defend herself purposefully.

  But there was as yet no need; he slept, a great naked beast lolling on her bed, all legs and hair and rampaging manhood which he could not control, barely quiescent after the shattering culmination they had shared.

  It fascinated her: she could not keep her eyes off of it. Or him. His clothes were strewn all over the bed and on the floor, and in his nakedness, he appeared to her both menacing and vulnerable.

  The firelight softened the harsh lines of his face: sleep rendered

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  him innocent, perhaps even helpless, but the power of his body was not passive, even in repose.

  Everything about him was long, strong and virile. Nothing about him was excess, from his broad muscular shoulders to his well-shaped legs. His was the body that filled out the clothes; his was the body that overwhelmed her bed, and sought to vanquish her.

  But he would never do that, never; at worst he would get tired of their games—or bored. Yes, gentlemen like my lord invariably became bored. Or he would find out he had come to barter on a tissue of lies instead of omissions. All of that was possible, probable even—and then what?

  Which of the myriad men to whom she had been introduced would take her on then? Which of them could she even imagine in a setting like this, in the aftermath of passion? Which of them could she outmaneuver so relentlessly?

  Which of them would she even want to?

  She could not for a moment conceive of where her Banbury tale would finally lead her. She only knew she did not want another protector to supplant lord Southam; she had to focus solely on keeping him totally enthralled by any means possible so he would not abandon her when her fool's quest turned out to be a cheating lie.

  Would she never stop operating on the need of the moment? But it had always been thus, ever since she had undertaken the care and well-being of Therese after the boy had been abducted.

  She had never stopped planning, never stopped scheming, never had a qualm about stooping to use any means at her disposal to get what she needed.

  This was no different, nothing more, nothing less than she had always done; only the setting had changed and the manner of the barter.

  She had exchanged the one thing she was truly free to offer, and it had not proved to be a terrible sacrifice, nor had the cost been too dear.

  Yet.

  The final accounting could be but moments away—or months.

  Lord Southam was religiously unpredictable—everyone had said

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  so. And so she must be as mercurial, and more. She had to keep him off balance and utterly beguiled.

  She had to contain him.

  If only it were as easy as binding him up in blue satin and keeping him her prisoner forever.

  She would take each tie and wind it around the most symbolic part of him and make it hers forever.

  Would that be enough?

  Could she . . . ? She knelt on the bed tentatively and listened to his firm regular breathing. One end of one satin strip just grazed her hand.

  His manhood moved involuntarily, almost as if it were beckoning her. And if he were awake, she thought, her fingers playing with the sleek satiny tie, he would be trying to subjugate her. Always it was better to attack first.

  She pulled at the tie and it slipped slickly between his legs, softly, sensually: a breath, a cloud, a kiss between his legs.

  And gently, ever so softly, she began to wind her satin bonds firmly around the most potent part of him.

  Instantly his manhood surged into her hand, demanding she take it, and she looped the lustrous satin strip on and on around the burgeoning length of him until it girded his erection to the firm ridged tip of him, and then she grasped him firmly and slid her hand down the slick material to the base of his hard male root, and then beyond to the taut sacs below in their crisp nest of hair.

  They fit tightly just in the palm of her hand. She could take the long end of the satin strip that bound his manhood and wind it very gently around them . . . and just lightly pull.

  She felt the power of having him completely in her hands.

  He felt it, god, he felt it—that whisper soft constriction, taut between his legs, encircling him like a collar on a thrall.

  And then her hands, working their way up his satin wrapped manhood, pulling those cloud soft bonds until she could loop one of them around the rounded crown of his erection. And then she tugged gently on it so that it just compressed the very tip, just. . . and a tiny pearlike drop of moisture appeared at its thrusting head.

  She kissed it away, her hands cupping the upper part of his rigid

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  length between them, and he wanted to put every part of his body into her hands.

  He felt boneless, weightless, as if she had absorbed all of his power, and he felt all mighty, as a new rush of vigor surged between his legs.

  She was his, he felt it intensely, that no other man would claim her—ever; there was no tomorrow, no stories, no motives, no half-truths or lies. There was only this moment, with her leaning toward him, her hands surrounding him, her mouth possessing him — that was truth, that was reality: in the dark between them, there was life.

  It was not love; it was solely the urge to possess, to isolate, to restrain, but whatever it was, it existed between them, in the dark and nowhere else.

  He could never let her go, and he could not bear to think of her abandoning him. It would not play like that; it would not happen.

  But he did not know what would happen except that he wanted her then and there again and perhaps again after that.

  He reached for her, across the distance between them, and he stayed her hands. Slowly, he slid his own up to the edges of her robe and gently he pulled them apart to reveal her naked breasts.

  "Oh God—Diana . . ." he groaned, and he pulled her tightly against his chest, his erection, his mouth, and he assaulted her lips and demanded her kisses.

  She tasted faintly of chocolate and memory, and he felt as if he wanted to drown her in chocolate and lick it all off of her body; and he would—sometime he would. And he would drown her breasts in it and suck every last drop of sweetness from her nipples, he would—as her hands played with the enormous hardness of him between them, unwinding his bonds, enslaving him with her kisses, he swore, he swore, he would, he would . . .

  Chocolate and satin, body and tongue, he would, he would.

  She offered him her breasts, he guided her over his pulsating erection and pulled her deep into the pleasure part of the night, on her knees, straddling his legs, worshipping him, shackled by satin and desire.

  She reveled in the extravagant sense of the connection of their bodies, and the feeling of utter control.

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  His hands grasped her hips, teaching her the ageless communion of lovers in this way. His mouth dominated hers, drowning in chocolate and dreams.

  And instantly his body decreed his culmination: he could not hold back. With one grinding thrust, he took her and his senses went careening over the edge in one long explosive gush of pleasure.

  And he couldn't hold on either, it was too much, too too much with satin and chocolate and the hands of the lady desire ... he toppled her onto her back and sought the nestled point of pleasure before it evaporated and died.

  She urged him on and urged him on; the feeling was different and still the same —she was empty and full and the lightning sense of pleasure crackled around .her. Her body reached for i
t and reached for it, bearing down hard on that amorphous center of her womanhood. A moment later the feeling broke, skittering along her body like snapping bolts of electricity.

  She grabbed him, her fingers digging involuntarily into his skin as the lashing jolts of pleasure suffused her body over and over and over, and then swirling away like a wave from shore, pulling with it feeling, lightness, mind-convulsing pleasure and leaving only memory in its place.

  She arched her body, seeking something more; but her body would not accept it. She pushed at his hand and he relinquished her, and rested his hand on her hip, as if that action could, in the aftermath, contain her as forcefully as her surrender to his sex.

  The heat between them cooled; the heat of his desire was but a memory, and the satin bonds lay limply between his legs, symbols in the distance between them that this was a bargain between them, and nothing more.

  He could not hold her: she did not invite an embrace. There was nothing warm about the goddess of the moon, he thought, but he had never been receptive to that kind of intimacy, either.

  They were a well-matched pair, he thought mordantly as he watched her eyes flicker and her body melt into drowsiness. They were made for each other.

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  Chapter Thirteen

  Lady Waynflete, feeling exasperated that she never could predict if Nick took her requests seriously, sent around a note to Berkeley Square the following morning, stressing the urgency of her desire to see him in person.

  Of course, boy that he was at heart, such a remonstrative command could have sent him out of town for the day, since he took much rebellious pleasure in following no one's path but his own.

  But she was amazed and rather mollified to see him present gratifyingly early on her doorstep, immaculately dressed in his usual black morning coat, buff pantaloons and top boots.

  Nick wasn't a dandy, she thought admiringly, watching him as he entered the parlor where she sat, as was her morning custom, close by the fire with a pot of chocolate at hand. He wore his clothes simply and never affected the vagaries of fashion. No one dictated to Nick, and Nick, in spite of the fact he did not put himself through the exacting contortions of fashioning his neckcloth or wearing skin-tight coats and breeches, still had style and countenance. Moreover, he always looked like he was a man on his way somewhere, a posture decidedly at odds with the usual languid attitude of most young men of fashion.

  Including Jeremy, she thought mournfully. It would have done Jeremy worlds of good to copy Nick's attitude and not his habits. But the other hand was that Jeremy had been right to be distrustful of the mysterious Miss Bowman from a Brighton gaming house.

  "Good morning, Nick," she said lightly.

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  "Lucretia." He inhaled the scent of chocolate the instant he entered the room, as it fused with the scent of his sex and Lucretia's uncertainty.

  "Won't you sit down? I won't be able to think if you pace around here like a caged animal."

  Nicholas sat; plainly it would not do to antagonize Lucretia.

  "Something to drink? Chocolate? I can ring Blexter to bring us some coffee."

  "Lucretia — cut to the chase."

  She sniffed. Nick hated the roundabout niceties that were supposed to cushion unpleasant things.

  "Very well, Nick, if you must have it point blank at first dawn: I cannot have Miss Bowman with me any longer."

  And this was what she most disliked about Nick: he yawned.

  "Really, Lucretia? But it's been barely a month."

  "The girl is impossible. You are wasting your time and your money with her, Nick, let me tell you," Lady Waynflete burst out in a rush. "Not that I can understand anything you ever do, but this caper positively defies comprehension. She has a mouth like a taproom bawd, she will not take advice, and no matter what she does, she has men hanging all over her every which way she moves. I tell you, Nicholas, I was fit to be tied last night, and all out embarrassed for the scene she made with those men. And all those lovely girls trying to get a word in edgewise, with their mothers pushing and trying to prise through the crowd ... it was indecent, and so I told your Miss Bowman.

  "You never did bring her to London to find a husband, and if you want to set her up as your light o'love, I would prefer if you removed her from my premises before that event."

  "But," Nicholas interposed gently, "what exactly did she do?"

  Lady Waynflete huffed. "She doesn't have to do anything, Nicholas Carradine. She just is."

  This was so exactly the case that Nicholas hid a smile. "Well then, what do you want me to do?"

  "Find someone else to lend her countenance, of course."

  "Lucretia, dear—it is too late now. You have pulled not only Jane Griswold into the plot, but Arabella as well. It would be more scandalous to turn Miss Bowman out than to keep her on with you

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  for the next several months. It cannot do harm, and you may rest assured that by the end of July she will be out of your life forever."

  "Well, yes. . . but what I don't understand is, what is the plot?"

  And so like the ingenuous Lucretia to put her finger exactly on the case, Nicholas thought, hesitating a moment to consider his answer. Even he did not know at this point, because the fact was the elusive Miss Bowman had to provide him with some proof that his instincts had not been off the mark, and now she had been squired about to four different events, she had still come up blank each time,

  "The point is," he said finally, "just what I told you: she is in my debt and I always collect."

  "Smokescreen," Lucretia said roundly. "You have spent more to dress her in the first style of fashion than you can ever collect in the next ten years, and to what avail. Tell me."

  Quick, sharp Lucretia, he thought: she and Jeremy might trip him up yet. Still, there was a point that he must teach Lucretia not to cross.

  "I believe that is my business," he said coldly.

  "Not when you bring it into my house and involve my friends," Lucretia retorted. "And not when the creature exudes such a magnetism that a man will look at no one else when she is —"

  There was a knock at the door, and Jeremy entered.

  "Mother— "

  "My dear," Lucretia gushed, and then she turned to Nicholas. "In any event, Nick. You have to do something. Tell her not to exude so much . . .ah, Jeremy darling, how are you? Did you enjoy the Ottershaw party last night? And why didn't I see you for more than a moment?"

  At that, it became a good morning. Nicholas did not leave. Jeremy arrived in time to have some coffee and was shortly followed by a host of his friends with whom he was going riding later that morning. And beyond that, she had made sure to send a brief little note to Miss Bowman, cautioning her to dress with care as she would be expecting callers that morning.

  Indeed, following hard on Jeremy's friends' appearance, came Jane Griswold with the escort of her son, and soon after, Arabella Ottershaw, who refused to see anyone the day after her parties, pre-

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  ferring to hide out with old friends who would never gossip about her behind her back.

  Jainee's indefensible tardiness was the only blot upon the early part of this day, and after a quarter hour passed, Lady Waynflete sent a discreet second note commanding her presence.

  Marie delivered it and Jainee held it crumped resentfully in her hand as she paused in the hallway to check that her appearance was as it should be.

  She resented Lady Waynflete's highhanded demands, but she knew she could not flout her wishes. The morning had been fraught with little things to put her in a bad temper: Marie's entrance into her room at dawn to find the bed in disarray and the blue satin strips entangled in the sheets; the first presumptuous note demanding she take particular care in her manner of dress that morning; Marie's knowing gaze as she impassively rolled up the satin strips and set the bed to rights. And then the second note, demanding her presence.

  It was enough to make her scream, and that was over and
above her regretful momentary feeling of tenderness for Southam, who had barely waited for the moment of her slumber to withdraw himself from her presence.

  And Lady Waynflete's displeasure. And the fact she had as yet found no one who even remotely resembled the man she remembered.

  It was curious that Southam had not questioned her last night, but then, she had chosen very carefully just how she would distract him —

  And she meant from now on to wear the symbols of the night which had shown him clearly just who had enslaved whom.

  She gazed at herself in the hallway mirror, and thought that her dress would pass muster with Lady Waynflete and her friends. It was a plain blue day dress from the collection of those she had brought from Brighton, the kind of dress in which she spent the mornings before she needed to dress for her nights at the gaming tables. Because of that, it had very little decoration, a plain front with a rounded neckline made to look like a vest over an underdress, long sleeves and black velvet bands edging the high waisted sash, the hem and the collar.

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  Nothing could be more innocuous except for one small meaningful detail: the sinuous cuff of blue satin wound around her wrists.

  She patted her hair, which she had brushed into docile curls, smoothed the skirt of her dress, then turned and knocked on the parlor door.

  ******************

  It really was easy to get along with these well-to-do patronesses, Jainee thought from her seat to the right of and slightly behind Lady Waynflete. All she had to do was curb her tongue, restrain her dress, keep her hands folded in front of her and act awed and delighted that she had been lifted above her station by their beneficence.

  It was hard; it was damned hard. She had not expected to see Southam there, nor Jeremy or Griswold and his mother, and she was especially shocked by the presence of Arabella Ottershaw, who ought to have been home receiving cards and thank you calls.

  Still, Lady Waynflete treated her with that starchy, kind respect that paid obeisance to appearances, and welcomed her with a small degree of warmth, and invited her to sit beside her.