“Guilt? Listen, Sarah, he sold you to me! Or tried his damnedest to do so. He betrayed you as soon as the wedding vows were out of his mouth. You thought we’d made a bargain, he and I. You thought I was going to throw you into debtors’ prison, for Christ’s sake! You don’t have anything to feel guilty about.”
“It doesn’t matter what he did,” she said, hugging herself. “His conduct was never a reflection on me, just as it is no excuse for my behavior. I let myself . . .”
She closed her eyes, squeezed them shut. Perhaps if Vane knew the truth about her desire for him it would not be so very bad, the least of all evils. Surely any woman with a pulse desired him. She was only flesh and blood, after all.
She drew a deep breath. “When we made love that night, I did not feel coerced. Not in any way. As soon as you touched me, as soon as you held me in your arms, I forgot everything else. Everything.”
His eyes glittered in the candlelight. His body remained poised and still, as if he didn’t want to move in case he halted her confession.
She choked back a cry. “But I keep seeing Brinsley lying there, covered in blood. I keep hearing myself deny that anything happened between us. I lied to him, Vane. He lay there, drowning in his own blood, and I lied and said we had not . . .”
She swallowed hard and tipped her head back a little, willing away the tears. “Don’t you see? I behaved despicably throughout. I violated my own code of honor. I’d been punishing Brinsley for years for his infidelities, so secure in my self-righteousness, so smug in my determination never to stray despite the most blatant provocation. What a hypocrite! And where have my sins brought me? Not to poverty and ruin, but to this!” She flung out her arm, the gesture encompassing both Vane and the expensive elegance around them. “You have given me so much. How can I live with myself if I don’t try to atone for what I’ve done?”
There was a long silence. His shoulders heaved as he sucked in a breath. “Atonement. So that was it. My God.” When she raised her gaze to his, she saw the fury in the taut lines of his face, the blaze of anger in his eyes.
She’d never been frightened of him before, but now . . .
Involuntarily, she edged backward, deeper into the bed.
The grim smile on his face didn’t give her ease. Silkily, he murmured, “You wish to do penance for your sins. Well, I believe I know how to achieve that. Take off your clothes.”
“Vane, no.”
“Do it.”
She swallowed. With shaking fingers, she began unbuttoning her dressing gown. Her insides heated and trembled with something that was mostly excitement yet partly fear.
He watched her with a searing, hungry gaze as she shrugged out of her gown. Her nipples hardened under the night rail she wore. She pulled the thin ribbon at her bosom until the bodice loosened, then grasped the hem and drew the garment over her head.
“Lie down on your back. Stretch your arms above your head.”
She complied, feeling vulnerable and exposed and shamefully aroused.
Vane approached the bed and reached behind her. She angled her head to see what he was doing. In an instant, he’d unfastened the sash that tied the bed curtain back and was wrapping it around her wrists.
“Vane, I don’t think—”
“Did I ask for your opinion? This is your punishment, not a debate.”
He secured the end of the sash around the bedpost and stood back to survey his work.
Punishment, penance, yes, that’s what she wanted, what she needed him to give. Now, he would do what she’d intended at the beginning. He’d take her without tenderness or mercy, and she could set her mind and her heart and soul apart. She could let him do what he wanted without feeling pleasure herself. And in that way she would prove to herself he was not so different from other men, after all. He was not so different from Brinsley.
He’d arranged her so she lay diagonally across the bed, and now he climbed between her parted legs, kneeling over her. His erection nudged her belly but with her hands tied, she couldn’t do anything about it except lift her hips in response.
“So eager,” murmured Vane. “But I’m not going to punish you like that.”
Confused, she said, “What are you going to do?”
“You’ll see.” And he bent his head to her breast, swiping the nipple with his tongue, making her gasp. “Forty lashes,” he murmured, and gave the hardened peak another hard lick that made her body jolt with unwelcome pleasure. “That’s two. Yes, I think forty should do it.”
Her protest lengthened to a dull moan as he took his time administering her punishment. She gasped and squirmed, even pleaded, but he ignored her, or said she’d made him lose count. And then he’d start again.
When he’d finally finished with her breasts, he moved slowly over her body, kissing and licking every inch of exposed skin, until there was little left of her he hadn’t intimately explored.
Her body hummed and throbbed, and where the air hit the moisture from his tongue, her skin tingled deliciously. He built her desire with excruciating patience, and when he finally touched her between her legs, she fell apart, shaking and convulsing as pleasure exploded and radiated up to her bound hands and down to her toes.
“That’s right,” Vane said, nuzzling against her breast, working her with his fingers. “Come for me, Sarah.”
She hated the smug certainty in his voice. Hated it, hated what he did to her, hated ceding control of her emotions to him even as ecstasy stormed through her body time and again.
The pleasure grew too intense and she tried in vain to squirm away, but he held her down and plunged two long fingers inside her and stroked inside and out until she couldn’t stand it anymore.
“No, stop!” she begged, but he just smiled wolfishly and ducked his head to replace his hand with his mouth.
Sarah nearly shot off the bed. She wanted to push him away but she was helpless to stop this intimate assault. She’d never experienced this before, the decadence of it, the pure wicked delight. Seeing his big hands holding her thighs wide apart as he worshipped her flesh with his mouth, she felt like a goddess being serviced by a slave. His tongue burrowed into the knot of sensitive flesh, kneading and swirling and flicking until Sarah gave a hoarse scream of pleasure.
She gritted her teeth to cut off the sound that ripped from her throat, squeezing her eyes shut. She’d never realized she would relish being punished so much.
Sarah lost count of the times he brought her to climax, finally gave up begging him to stop because the more she begged, the more exquisitely he tormented her.
Somewhere during that virtuoso performance, she stopped fighting what he did to her and how it made her feel. She tried concentrating on the physical sensations, but the urge to submit, to surrender, to let him breach that stronghold around her heart grew and grew.
The need to take him into her became a sharp craving, heightened by the knowledge she was helpless to do anything about it, completely at his mercy. She thought of his hardness and his size and her mouth watered and her insides clenched, desperate to feel him there. She couldn’t use her hands to bring him to her, so she would have to ask instead.
“Vane.” She bucked her hips a little as he moved up her body, nipping her flesh lightly with his teeth.
“Mmm?” He laved one nipple with his tongue, then drew it into his mouth and sucked until she writhed. He released it with a small popping sound and said, “What is it, my precious?”
“I-I want you.”
“I didn’t ask what you want. This is your punishment, Sarah.” He nipped her throat and as she shuddered, his erection brushed her sex. “Or had you forgotten?”
She was almost crying with frustration, and yet he remembered how this had all started; he held firm to his purpose when she’d surrendered completely. She wanted to weep in earnest.
“Yes,” she breathed. “Yes, I had forgotten.”
He stilled at that and lifted his head. She tried to look into his eyes, but he kept the
m lowered, his expression veiled.
Vane raised himself and sat back on his heels. His erection jutted out from between his powerful thighs, and she stared at it, hungered for it in spite of herself. She had the most curious and shocking urge to lick the slitted head, to take it into her mouth. She knew about such practices, but she’d never felt the least inclination to indulge before, despite Brinsley’s coaxing.
“You want this?” Vane closed his fist around his erection.
Lost to shame, she nodded.
Dragging her gaze from his member, Sarah looked into his face. Fury still masked his features, and suddenly, she realized her mistake. “No. Not that,” she said quietly. “I want you. Make love to me, Vane. I need you.”
He was silent for a few moments and the harshness of his expression didn’t abate. She wondered if he would untie her and tell her to get out.
Finally, he reached forward to release her wrists from their binding, only to capture her hands in his. Deliberately, slowly, he made a meal of each one, starting at her fingertips, kissing and suckling them, then licking, tracing his tongue over her palms, where the scarring made nerve endings raw and sensitive.
She squirmed with panic and delight, knowing relief and disappointment and anticipation in equal measures when he finally set her free. As he moved down her body, she sighed and stretched and wrapped her arms around him. She cried out as he entered her with a single, powerful thrust.
And then he loved her deeply and long, and made her scream once more.
Seventeen
THE bed was empty, save for Sarah, and she was naked and cold. The coverlet had slipped off some time in the night. She pulled it over her shoulder and tried to allow the warmth to comfort her, to ward off the chill of apprehension in her heart.
There was no going back now. Her plan to hold Vane at bay had been predicated on his civilized behavior. There’d been nothing remotely civilized about the way he’d tied her up and pleasured her until she was nothing but slack muscles and raw nerve endings and naked need.
Now, she would have to face this intimacy, this stripping to bare self. She would have no excuse, nowhere to hide from his passion, or her own.
Fear gripped her lungs so tightly she could scarcely breathe. How could she have let this happen? But she hadn’t allowed it; she’d been overwhelmed by a will even greater than her own. Could she have stopped him from tying her to that bedpost? Yes, certainly. Yet, she hadn’t even voiced a protest. She’d wanted it, wanted to surrender her will to him, for this one night.
But her capitulation had consequences as actions always did. And now she would have to live with them. She would have to concede to Vane her body and her passion.
That did not mean she must surrender her heart.
It was still dark. She must not have slept long. Sarah sat up, shivering a little as goose bumps swept over her exposed skin. A glow of candlelight in the sitting room drew her to her feet.
She couldn’t find her garments in the gloom, so she hauled the coverlet off the bed and swung it over her shoulders, pinning it in place with one hand at her breast. Modesty was probably superfluous, but she felt it nonetheless. And besides, the night was chill.
She moved to the threshold and stood there, arrested by the sight of Vane, in a chair by the fire, head bowed, his elbows on his knees and a glass of brandy cradled in his hands.
Despair. She felt it emanate from him in powerful waves, thickening the air between them. And when he raised his head to drain his glass, she saw it in his face.
His strong throat moved as he swallowed. Then he dropped the glass. The empty brandy balloon fell to the thick carpet with a soft thud and rolled a little way. He shoved his hands through his hair, then rubbed them over his face, as if trying to erase something awful from his brain.
“What is it?” She scarcely breathed the question.
Slowly, he turned his head and raised his eyes to hers. Dark eyes, full of pain. “You’re awake.” For once, he didn’t stand when she entered the room. Something was very wrong.
“Yes. I was cold.” She pulled the coverlet closer around her shoulders. More urgently, she said, “Tell me. What is it?” What could be wrong after the passion they’d shared? Wasn’t that what he’d wanted? Fear clutched at her. She didn’t know what he was about to say but she braced herself for a mortal wound. Cursed herself for lowering her guard.
“I’ve been trying to justify my behavior.” His voice was low and graveled. “But I cannot.”
He took a deep, long breath. “My actions toward a de fenseless woman, one, moreover, who is my wife, was inexcusable. Please accept my deepest apologies.”
“But Vane—”
“I should have acceded to your wishes. A gentleman would have done as you asked and left you alone. It seems I am not the gentleman I thought I was—the man I thought I was—after all.”
Sarah watched him force out the words. And relief would not come.
She ought to thank heaven for her deliverance. She ought to agree with his assessment of the situation, allow him to wallow in this ridiculous, unfounded guilt. Use his shame as insurance. Yes, she could say. You frightened me. You hurt me. Don’t ever touch me again. A month ago, two weeks ago, she would have said that without mercy or hesitation, to protect herself.
It was nothing less than she’d done before. Hadn’t she let him think she’d been coerced into his bed that first night? Hadn’t she let him carry that burden for far too long? She’d wanted a white marriage; well, here it was, handed to her on a silver platter with a noble crest etched into its surface. With a little judicious fanning of the flames of his guilt, she could get everything she’d wanted, go her own road, keep her life separate from his.
But instead of applying bellows to the fire, she heard herself say, “Vane, don’t. Not another word.”
She moved toward him, dragging the rest of the coverlet behind her like the train of a ceremonial robe. Lifting her free hand to his face, she brushed his lips with her fingertips, as she had done that first night. This time, without more than a passing thought to her scars.
He closed his eyes at her touch, as if in pain. “I was angry. I should be horsewhipped for treating you like that.”
She opened her eyes wide. “I don’t remember complaining.”
There was the faintest hint of laughter in her voice but he missed it. He sucked in a breath and turned from her to stare into the empty fireplace. “I detest bullies. Men who bully women are the worst kind of scum. I can’t believe I’ve just joined their ranks.”
Sarah cocked her head to the side, studying him. He really had no idea what went on inside a woman, nor how utterly irresistible he was. The notion filled her with a strange satisfaction, tinged with fond amusement. And a faint, warm glow that felt something like hope.
“Yes, it was very bad of you to pleasure me until I was nothing but a quivering jelly,” she agreed. “But then, you know, I could have refused to do as you asked, couldn’t I? I’m not entirely without a backbone, Vane, though I suppose it must seem so to you, of late.”
His gaze snapped to hers and his eyes burned like hot coals. “Is this more of your penance?” he said harshly. “Or do you need a man to mistreat you in order to give yourself to him? Was that the way it was with Brinsley?”
She flinched, stunned at this vision of herself. Had she enjoyed being mistreated at Brinsley’s hands? The doubt crept into her mind and made her pause. Perhaps she had relished torturing him as much as he tormented her, but that was quite different from taking pleasure in the torment in the first place.
She’d received a devastating shock when Brinsley had shown his true colors. She didn’t recall that she’d ever viewed his misbehavior with anything other than disgust. She’d never conceded mastery over her body to him, couldn’t imagine reveling in his physical power over her, the way she’d done with Vane.
“No,” she said, her tone strong and confident. “It wasn’t that way with Brinsley. Not at all.”
/>
This conversation wasn’t leading them anywhere she wanted to go. And now she’d made her decision to let Vane in and face the consequences, the prospect of reneging seemed less and less enticing. She deserved the punishment of living alone, without the warmth of a lover’s touch. But Vane didn’t deserve that existence, and she couldn’t continue to pretend that he didn’t need her. She couldn’t go on hurting him.
So instead of punishing herself, she’d give herself to him freely. And take the risk to her own heart as penance for her sins.
Holding his gaze, she simply shrugged.
The coverlet fell away, leaving her naked, exposed. She stood without covering herself and let him look.
For long, breathless moments, he sat there motionless, while his gaze traveled slowly over her. His lips parted, but no sound came out. She realized she would have to move first.
She placed her hand on the arm of his chair and bent to him. Her hair swung forward in a dark, tangled curtain as she kissed his lips gently, then ran her tongue over them in a teasing swipe.
He was like warm granite, very hard and still. She longed to touch him, to explore the hot skin and strong, muscled contours of his body, to worship his flesh with her mouth. She took his head between her hands and touched her lips to his, then opened her mouth and kissed him with all the passion inside her.
With a groan, he responded, letting his hands caress her curves from ribs to hip and up again, his thumbs brushing her nipples on each pass. She straddled him, knees hugging his thighs and fumbled through his dressing gown to find warm, hard flesh. His mouth opened beneath hers as she stroked him. He moaned into her and a surge of triumph and excitement shot straight to her loins.
She took as much as she gave, words of need and desire and passion tumbling from her lips as he kissed her ear and bit down on the tender skin of her throat. She eased herself over him until they were joined, shuddering at the perfect way they fit together. And she stared into his deep, dark eyes as she moved with him, filled with tenderness and awe.
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