She eyed the soap. Then she eyed him. Perhaps there was one way she could wreak her revenge without saying anything at all.
Sarah rose and moved unhurriedly to the bed. She trailed her fingertips along the gold and black striped counterpane and pressed down her palm, as though testing the ticking for firmness. She picked up the soap, felt him watch her as she raised it to her nose, closed her eyes, and sniffed.
Ah, that was it. His scent. Clean and fresh like an ocean breeze after a summer storm. A subtle hint of lemon.
At that familiar, longed-for scent, her resolution wavered. But only for an instant. She laid the soap down and put her hands to her pelisse.
Her trembling, glove-thickened fingers stumbled a little over the small buttons that marched down the fitted wool coat, but she must not remove her gloves and let him see her hands. Then he’d know she could no longer lay claim to gentility. One might always tell a lady by the softness of her hands.
She shrugged off the pelisse. Her chartreuse gown was old and plain, but well constructed from good-quality cambric. Not the most alluring garment, but given the state of Vane’s obvious arousal, a more enticing ensemble was hardly required.
She laid the pelisse on the bed, took the soap, and moved to the side of the bath. Under her lashes, she glanced from Vane to the soap and back again, a clear question in the lift of her brow.
His lips compressed. Danger sparked in his dark eyes. He held out one hand. “Thank you.”
She whipped the soap higher, just out of his reach. When he dropped his hand, looking wary, she forced a smile.
“Allow me.”
He stared at her and held out his hand again, implacable despite his body’s contrary response. “I don’t think so.”
All the heat drained from her cheeks. Nonplussed, she dropped the soap in his waiting palm and turned away to hide her confusion. Hurt seared her chest, pricked behind her eyes. She’d meant to punish him, make him burn and leave him wanting. It seemed she was the one being punished.
He did not want her, after all.
But now that she’d set the course, her foolish, suggestible body yearned to follow it. Sarah dragged in a breath. She desperately needed to collect her thoughts, gather the reins again, seize control.
With her back to him, she heard water slosh, and the slap of him soaping, lathering, and sluicing himself clean. She did not turn around, though the thought of his hands on his own body, skimming over the slickness of his wet, soaped skin, made her heart pound so hard it pained her chest. Her face burned as with fever.
She heard a loud whoosh and a creak of the tub, and realized he stood now. The fever entered her brain. She couldn’t think. Why had she been taunting him? What madness had brought her here?
“The towel please, Lady Sarah, if you’d be so good.”
With an effort, she forced her limbs to move, to cross the room to the bed, pick up the wide linen towel, and turn back.
Her mouth dried. She’d never fainted before, but her overwrought senses swam at the sight of that gleaming, damp body, limned by firelight. A fat drop of water fell from his hair, hit his shoulder, and streaked a path over one flat, brown nipple. Rivulets coursed between the hard plates of his chest, skipped down his ridged stomach.
“Here.” She shoved the towel at him and turned her back. She was stupid to have come. She must get away.
She snatched up her pelisse and dragged the sleeves over her arms. It seemed to take forever for her fumbling fingers to button it to the throat. When she finished, she realized she’d done it wrongly. One missed eyelet left a gaping buckle of fabric at her breast, and somehow, the prospect of unbuttoning it all to begin again was too much.
A sob gathered in her chest, threatening to rise. She forced it down, battled the shudders that heaved through her so he would not see.
One missed button. Such a small failure in a life filled with monumental ones, and yet it cracked her rigid composure, made her want to throw herself on the bed and wail.
She felt his presence behind her. A hand touched her shoulder and she flinched.
“Don’t cry.” His voice was deep, rough with emotion she couldn’t identify. “Please, there is no need.”
Vane watched Lady Sarah stiffen, lift her chin. By God, she was a fighter. He’d give his soul to have her as his wife. For the thousandth time, he cursed that bastard husband of hers for meeting her first.
She turned slowly, dry-eyed. “I’m not crying. Why should I weep?”
Because your husband has degraded and humiliated you until you were prepared to do this, he thought. Because you believe I would sink you further.
He pulled her close, wrapped his arms around her, despite the resistance he felt in every line of her body. “Hush,” he murmured, fighting his own body’s aching need. “Just let me hold you.”
But the towel around his waist did not conceal his arousal. She gasped as she brushed against his rigid flesh. So did he, but he ran a soothing hand down her back.
“You have nothing to fear from me. I’ll do nothing you don’t wish.”
Vane wasn’t sure she heard him. Her body shook in a final, heart-wrenching quake, and stilled.
For one long moment, all the air left the room.
Then her lips brushed his collarbone, soft as a sigh. The shock of that light, sensuous touch held him motionless, suspended between disbelief and the most powerful surge of desire he’d ever known.
When that fleeting kiss came again, Vane knew he hadn’t been mistaken. He tightened his hold, and she melted against him, and her warmth and sweetness flowed around him, seeped into the deepest recesses of his soul.
He took her face between his hands, kissed those wicked, lost eyes closed, brushed a path to her mouth. Her sensuous, sinful mouth.
He groaned as he tasted her for the first time. Her breasts crushed against his chest and her mouth moved against his, and she gasped as his teeth tugged at her full bottom lip.
He lingered in their kiss as if he could draw out her essence and keep it, as if they had all the time in the world and not just this one solitary night. He freed her hair from its pins, made short work of all those buttons that seemed to give her so much trouble, eased the pelisse from her shoulders. When he drew the garment free and looked down, he saw her nipples outlined against the dampened bodice of her gown.
“Sarah.”
Her hands were on him now, running along his shoulders, down his arms, smoothing over his back. She still wore gloves, and though he’d rather feel her, the slide of butter-soft kid against his skin was strangely erotic. Her breath came in short, low-pitched pants as he lifted away her shining dark hair and kissed her neck.
She choked and shivered, one hand on the back of his head, trapping him there. Tantalized, intoxicated by the elusive scent of lilies, he nipped the soft, white skin, felt the moan vibrate in her throat like the purr of a cat.
He undressed her with ruthless efficiency, kissing and touching every new inch of skin he revealed. He needed to be inside her so desperately he thought he might splinter into pieces, but he’d be a fool to rush her. This night, this one time, was his only chance to show Sarah how perfect they could be together. If only she’d be his, if only she’d stay.
A pang of tenderness flashed to burning need as her fingers raked down his back. She freed the towel from his waist, let it drop to the floor, and molded his buttocks with her hands.
Vane’s mind blanked, the beast seized control, and everything became instinct, pure and simple. He ripped away the last scraps of her clothing, baring her breasts to his gaze. “Beautiful,” he whispered, reverently tracing their shape. Dropping to his knees, he fastened his lips around one taut nipple and tasted, feasted. Worshipped her as he’d never thought he’d have the chance to do in this life.
Oh, no, please! Desperate at the tumult of sensation swirling inside her, Sarah writhed under Vane’s hands. But he had her trapped against the massive bedpost, giving no quarter, allowing her no escape. He
suckled her with firm, relentless pressure, and the pull of his mouth was an undertow in her blood, dragging her down, drowning her with wet heat and prickling sensation. Her loins throbbed in time with the rhythm of his tongue, and when he touched her there, matched the rhythm with one firm, probing finger, she cried out, bucked against his hand.
It was too much. She tried to twist away but he surged up and captured her mouth with his, holding her steady against the bedpost. Still, he touched between her legs. Teased, conjured exquisite, unbearable pleasure, so dark and consuming it terrified her even as she wanted more.
This was Vane. Vane, doing these things to her. She gasped. “I can’t—”
He smothered her protest with his mouth, fingers insistent, working over her tender flesh. When she was silenced, too overwhelmed with colliding sensations to say more, his lips brushed against her cheek. “Stay with me, love. Oh, God, Sarah. Stay with me.”
His words struck a chord deep within her, an answering longing, a desperate need she’d fought too long. She whimpered as the pressure inside her spiraled and coiled tight, then shudders racked her body over and over, and still he wouldn’t let go. Unable to bear more of that intense, agonizing pleasure, she pushed him away.
The next moment, his hands settled at her waist, lifting her. He laid her on the bed and swiftly moved over her, kneeling between her legs. A thrill of fear shot through her at this sudden change of pace, but she dismissed it. She wanted this, him, inside her so badly she thought she’d die of it. She closed her eyes as he opened her, pushed into her a little way.
The sensation of stretching almost to a breaking point jerked her body from its sensual haze. It had been many years since she’d lost her virginity, yet she remembered the shock of tissue rending, the sting. Sarah shifted and squirmed to ease the way, tamping down her slight, unreasonable panic at the sheer size of him.
He seemed to gather himself, then gripped her hips and thrust. She cried out, in fear or delight, she didn’t know. After a pause, he surged deeper, far deeper than she’d thought possible, until something inside her gave way in an explosion of pleasure bordering on pain.
Vane’s dark eyes were glazed with heat, his face stretched taut, lips parted, shoulders shaking as he held still, accustoming her to his thick, iron-hard length.
The sight of his struggle filled her with a sense of feminine power, making all her doubts take flight.
She arched toward him, but he restrained her, held back. “Not yet.”
He withdrew, then eased into her again, until she felt every inch of him, until his body covered hers. “Relax,” he whispered in her hair. “Let it happen.”
Let what happen? she wondered, but the hot, slow, sliding friction felt glorious, and her bones seemed to melt away, so she let him do as he willed, ran her hands down his back, shamelessly gripped his buttocks, tasted his groans as he kissed her, relished all his hard maleness, wished she could feel the texture of his skin through her gloves.
She’s still wearing those gloves, he thought vaguely, but her lush, wet heat enveloped him, tight as any glove and he didn’t care. He focused all his will on holding back until she was ready. They might only have this one night, but he’d make sure it was a night she’d never forget. She would feel him in her blood until the day she died, just as he knew he would feel her.
So as he thrust steadily into her, sensed the changes in her, watched for the signs, he pondered all the least erotic subjects he could think of. Calculated the amount of money he had invested in the funds, named each winner of the Derby as far back as he could remember, recited passages from Horace and Virgil he’d learned at Eton as a boy.
But as her head thrashed from side to side and her brow puckered as if she searched for something just outside her reach, as her breathing grew labored and small sobbing sighs escaped her, he increased the pace, and she held him and stayed with him until their bodies clashed together and she convulsed and tightened and pulsed around him, strong, insistent, irresistible as the tide.
The world went black, and as she cried out, he hurled himself over the edge, fell through space and shattered on the stars, spilled himself inside her.
It was the most perfect moment of his life.
HOW could he sleep? Sarah lay on white silk sheets beside him, winding a lock of hair around her finger. Her body still sang with the memory of his.
Afterward, Vane had tried to speak, but she’d pressed her fingertips against his lips, not wanting to break the strange spell of contentment. He’d lain beside her and stared into her eyes for a long time in silence, perhaps waiting for her to change her mind. Eventually, he turned down the coverlet and pinched out a few candles before he clasped her hand and collapsed into slumber.
After a few minutes, she’d eased free.
She still wore her gloves, stockings, and garters. Her slippers had fallen off at some stage or she would still be wearing them, too.
The fire had died to sullen embers and the night air chilled her. But when she glanced at Vane, an unfamiliar warmth flooded her chest.
She gave a faint smile. He would probably sleep through a blizzard. She crawled to the foot of the bed, where the coverlet bunched at his feet, and pulled it over him. He remained so still, she looked closer to make sure he breathed. Even with his hard features softened in slumber, they stirred her.
Dangerously tempted, she unbuttoned her right glove. She tugged each finger loose, stripped it off, and laid it on the bedside table. She rose onto her knees, swept her hair behind her shoulder, and bent over him. Holding her breath, she reached out and traced the sleek line of an eyebrow.
When he did not rouse, or move in the slightest, she grew bolder, touched trembling fingertips to his firm, parted lips. The gesture felt more intimate than anything else they had done.
Suddenly, his hand gripped hers and pressed her palm against his mouth for a kiss. She gasped, fear and desire shooting through her in equal measure. His lids drifted open and he stared into her eyes. She tried to draw her toil-roughened hand away but he trapped it in his own, caressing her bare palm with his thumb.
Vane’s straight, black brows snapped together. He raised himself on one elbow, spread her hand open, and tilted it to the dim light afforded by the lamp he’d left burning at the bedside.
His widened, shocked gaze lifted to hers, and her stomach clenched in pain, as if he’d driven his fist into it. He’d seen the ugly scarring on her hands. Now, he knew what she’d become. With that foolish, weak need to touch him, to feel him with no barrier between them, she’d destroyed everything.
Her mind lurched, pulled up short.
Destroy what? There was nothing to destroy.
Without a sound, he yanked her into his arms, and his mouth was hard on hers, demanding, and even while the heat and yearning swelled within her, she felt she was being sullied. Used.
Incredibly, she had not felt like that when he had taken her before. The experience had been so perilously close to heaven, its piercing brilliance had cast sordid reality aside.
But now, his powerful, almost desperate possession wrenched her conscience from its slumber. For the first time, she remembered. She was an adulteress and a whore.
And he had made her so.
Four
LOST. Utterly lost.
Even as guilt and shame lashed her with sharp, stinging cuts, even as she despised herself and Vane—most especially Vane, for doing this to her, for making her need him, for making her feel—her treacherous lips answered the passionate question on his.
A resounding, unequivocal yes.
He wasn’t gentle, but he didn’t need to be. If he’d been tender like the first time, he would have broken her. Thank God he didn’t know it, or she’d never be free.
He kissed her with a force that snapped her head back, gathered her tighter in his arms, enveloping her in muscled strength. The big hands roving her body could crush her, but the knowledge did not frighten her as it should.
Against her w
ill, against all reason, she felt protected, safe. A heady sensation for one who’d stood alone so many years.
Anguished, craving him, knowing it was wrong, she couldn’t stop, couldn’t resist that masculine power that was quintessentially Vane.
But she could make him feel some of her agony.
Like a cornered vixen, she turned on him, bore him back against the headboard, nipped and scratched and licked his wounds, then scored them again.
He groaned and shuddered, arched into her mouth as she bit his throat, threw his head back when she ripped his chest with her nails. She took one nipple between her teeth and tugged with just enough pressure to make him bunch his fist in her hair and moan.
He gripped her hair as she slid lower, grazing her teeth down the ridged stomach, aware of his erection nudging her, big and hard below. Her breast brushed the swollen shaft.
On a strangled groan, he put his hands on her waist, pulling her up for a kiss. With a buck of the hips, he rolled and pinned her, flat on her back, helpless beneath him.
Vane fought to master himself, but for once, his iron will proved too weak to cage the fierce passion, the rage and hopeless longing that twisted and strained inside.
It was as if her damaged hands, the final evidence of Brinsley’s cruelty and neglect, had broken his last link with civilized behavior. She’d caught this wildness and fed it with her own, driving him to the pinnacle of torment and desire. Now, all he could do was slake his need, and trust she could handle the man that he was, the beast he could be.
He pinned her wrists above her head with one hand, nudged her legs apart and thrust into her. Only blind luck found her ready for him, slick, hot, lush, everything he desired.
A soft beat in his brain urged him to think of her, her needs, her pleasure, but the beast gave no quarter. He thrust in a strong, selfish rhythm, then gripped her hips and tilted them so he could stroke deeper.
With a long moan that was almost a sob, she wrapped her legs around his waist and moved against him. The rasp of a stockinged foot skimming his buttock nearly shot him to oblivion, but he hung on, determined to stay inside her as long as he could, as if by maintaining that intimate connection he could keep the morning, his conscience, the rest of the world at bay.
Wicked Little Game Page 5