by Sharon Page
That kiss had felt like his lips had been sliced by razors.
He touched his stinging lips tenderly. The pain was easing.
It had been hell while he’d been kissing Ophelia, but at least it hadn’t hurt her. Just him.
He could bear it for his sister’s sake.
Lady Ophelia grasped up her hems and scurried away like a frightened animal. She had pulled her gown on, and it hung around her, for she hadn’t bothered with her undergarments.
Many times he’d seen his sister run away from him in such a pose—biting her lip to fight tears, her heart filled with black fury toward him. When he’d become head of the family at twenty, he had seemed to spend most of his time leveling his sister’s dreams, breaking her heart, and, as she would describe it, ruining her life.
How was he going to coax Lady Ophelia into his bed? She could not see him as anything other than her captor. Raven had hoped her simmering anger might ignite into passion. Perhaps it would, in time. But he needed a way to cut to the chase.
He had to give Ophelia orgasms. How was he supposed to do that with a woman who ran away from him?
Ophelia would be searching for escape. There was no way out of his house. It gave him time to think.
How badly was it going to hurt him to seduce her? Hell, he couldn’t begin to guess. And it didn’t matter—he had to do it.
Raven stood absolutely still for several minutes.
Then he knew what to do.
From the battlefield, he knew the fear of imminent death made a man turn to anyone for help and rescue. Even an enemy.
There must be a way out.
But with each room she ran into and searched, Ophelia was losing hope.
No wonder Ravenhunt had left her room unlocked and had let her run around his house. No wonder he had not pursued her when she ran from him.
This house was indeed a prison. Except for the two of them, it was utterly devoid of life. No cook resided in the kitchen, no maids tended to the rooms. Ophelia hadn’t encountered another human soul.
The house showed its neglect. Cobwebs were strung from ceiling to bedposts and furniture in every room but hers. She had found no other bedroom that appeared occupied by her captor.
Every door to the outside was locked. He must carry the keys with him.
If she’d had her sculpting tools, she might have been able to spring open a lock. But she had nothing. Even if she broke a window, each one was covered with bars spaced too tightly for her to squeeze through.
If she could get hold of the keys . . .
If she let him kiss her again, could she search him for the keys? She shivered as she imagined running her hands over his body, pretending to be filled with desire but actually trying to find her escape.
She didn’t want to touch him. But she had to.
Now she had to find him. Or let him find her. She must ensure he did not guess her plan.
Where could she let him find her? She was on the upper floor, a few doors down from her bedroom. Ophelia pushed a door open. This bedchamber, too, was festooned with dust and spider-webs. But the bed was made.
This had to be Ravenhunt’s room. But why in heaven’s name was it not cleaned? How could he stand sleeping in there?
“Ophelia.”
Ravenhunt’s voice made her jump.
He had found her, and now she must make this convincing. She had run away from him once—it would be artificial and suspicious if she suddenly threw herself into his arms.
She couldn’t rouse his suspicion.
Weakness. She hated to act like a ninny, but weakness would be believed. Mrs. Darkwell had bought in to it on the times she’d escaped from the woman’s house. If she was docile, meek, and frightened, no one thought she had any courage at all. No one thought she was using her wits.
She made her shoulders shake. “Are you going to force a kiss on me again? Are you going to attack me?”
“You liked the kiss,” he answered softly. He stayed put, studying her. Not moving, as if she were a deer he didn’t want to frighten.
“I—” How to play this? “I didn’t want to like it.” That was honest. But she knew it also was not a denial that she wanted him to kiss her again.
“Maybe I always wanted to know what a real kiss was like,” she continued, hurriedly. She had to sound genuine. “But I can’t.”
“Think of it as just that. A chance to see what a kiss is. Forget who I am. Imagine the man of your fantasies kissing you.”
His words made her want to mentally kick herself in the bottom. He had been the man of her fantasies for two weeks. “You’re going to do it again, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” he said simply.
Then he was there in front of her, and she supposed she was so nervous she hadn’t focused on him coming to her. He’d seemed to move in a heartbeat.
Let him touch you. Don’t panic. It’s not that you want this. It’s that you have to do it. His scents filled her head. Sandalwood, witch hazel, wool, and leather. She looked up at him, her lips parted invitingly. Hoping he didn’t need any more encouragement than just her standing docilely, waiting for him to master her again.
Anything else—any faked enthusiasm—would look strange.
He tipped up her chin, kept his finger there, as gentle as if she were fine porcelain.
His mouth lowered to hers. So slowly, her heart was pounding when their lips touched. It was like a burst of thunder after waiting and waiting for it.
She gasped into his mouth.
A plot . . . just a ploy . . . that was all it was supposed to be. She kissed him as passionately as she could. Everything he did to her—the play of his mouth on hers, the touch of his tongue to hers, the way his tongue teased hers—she tried to do it back to him.
Deep inside, she throbbed and ached. She was responding.
Stop feeling things, she warned herself. The keys. Find them!
Kissing him back, she put her arms around him. Awkwardly. She let her palms skim down his back.
She was searching for pockets.
Ravenhunt wrapped his arm around her back, clamped her close, and gave her such a long, intense kiss she almost fell dazedly to the ground.
She clung to his coat, knowing now he had no pockets in them.
He picked her up, his hands at her waist, and then pulled her forward. He supported her on his right thigh, with his leg thrust between hers. It made the most shocking pressure against her private place.
It made her want to wriggle against him to ease the yearning she felt there.
He was kissing her breathless, making it hard for her to explore him, to get her hands to the waistband of his trousers to search for pockets.
Did he know what she was doing?
And how could she be so . . . aroused for her captor?
Raven knew exactly what she was doing. Kissing him in the most tempting way she could as a distraction. While she ran her hands all over his body.
She was searching for the keys to the doors.
Clever lass.
She had found the perfect solution to his problem of building her trust. He needed her to escape. He needed her to find the keys.
Groaning, Raven slid the lapels of his tailcoat from under her hands. He jerked it back, shook his coat off his shoulders, let it slide down his arms.
He sensed her sudden tension as his coat came off. He also pulled off his waistcoat. Neither made a thunk as they hit the floor, which she must understand meant there were no keys in the pockets.
His keys were hidden in a place she would easily find.
He should hasten her to her objective, but Hades, he didn’t want to. Her touch hurt, but it aroused him. Blood flowed down to his cock, making it as hard as a cricket bat.
It felt bigger than one.
How long since he had last had sex?
Two years. Since he had left Jade. He got aroused—randy, aggressive, irritated—but he didn’t want to have sex anymore. After Jade, he never wanted to touch a
nother female vampire again. As for mortals—once they caressed him, they got more than they bargained for. His hunger was unleashed along with his lust. He couldn’t help but feed from them.
He couldn’t feed from Lady Ophelia.
Fighting his nature made his every muscle shake. He had to—for Frederica.
Softly, Lady Ophelia explored the skin at his neck. Damn, he’d forgotten how sensitive the skin of his throat could be.
How erotic it was to feel a woman’s gentle fingers stroking the muscles of his neck.
His heart started to pump faster.
Her hands skimmed along his shirt at his shoulders. Up behind his ears, which made his breath hitch.
As a vampire, his skin felt more alive. When she touched him, with her power, it was like having lightning crackle over him.
Painful, but hot.
But where did she think he’d hidden the keys? In his hair?
Her hands went down his back. At least she was getting closer. Raven smothered a grin as he kept kissing her. He wanted to go for her neck, kiss her there, but that would be—
Too much temptation.
He would bite her if he tried it.
She moaned. He knew she was faking every fluttering sigh and soft groan. But she had a lovely, throaty voice, and her moans were so sensual . . .
His cock was so filled with his blood it was getting harder to keep control.
He had to.
He couldn’t do what he wanted, which was to rip off her dress, and kiss, lick, and suck her all over. What he had to do was let her go.
At least, let her run a certain distance, far enough to get into trouble. Then he would fly to the rescue.
And his seduction could begin.
Raven’s lips and his skin burned with heat and pain—it was the pain from her power. If he wasn’t a vampire, with superhuman strength, the burning of his lips would be agony.
Lady Ophelia’s hands went lower. Down his back to below his waist. His cock pulsed with a shot of arousal and bucked against his belly. His prick had shifted shape from limp to rock-hard faster than he could grow his wings.
She groped his back. He would have to help her as the key was not trapped within the linen folds of his shirt. It was somewhere quite different.
Raven pulled off his cravat, opened the throat of his shirt, and yanked it off as quickly as he could.
Strange. Normally his naked chest was a bluish-white, as though he’d been frozen in ice. Even when he fed, he didn’t gain a more normal color. He looked more like a marble statue than other vampires did. Many of them easily passed for mortal.
But right now his skin was lightly flushed. It looked almost human.
He gazed down at her beneath his lashes. Ophelia was the most fetching human he’d ever seen. Pink glowed on her cheeks. She possessed the dewy skin of a lady who protected her face with bonnets and parasols. Amber lashes swept over eyes that glittered and sparkled.
She was so human, so alive; it was like taking a blow to the chest.
Stupidly, he broke their kiss and put his lips to her throat. It lured him like iron to a magnet. Pulled him there as if he were a dumb chunk of metal.
Her skin tasted of warmth, lightly of salt, possessed a lovely, unique flavor.
Her heartbeat pulsed under his lips.
Drinking from her would be the most pleasurable experience he’d ever known. So Jade had said. His instincts were screaming that it would be.
All he had to do was plunge in his fangs—
No. If he did, he would sacrifice his sister.
But, hell, he was going to kill pretty Ophelia, wasn’t he, when he took her power?
Remember, idiot, she has to escape. He had to move this along. Before he bit her. Or fucked her.
Raven gripped her wrists. He moved her hands so they were on his trousers. On his arse.
Ack. Ophelia jerked her hands back up. She’d wanted to search for pockets, but she was not ready to cup his . . . his derriere.
Her palms touched smooth skin. The skin of his bare back.
He shifted his position, lowering his leg, pulling her hard against him.
Against her tummy, there was a bulge in his trousers. Ravenhunt believed she desired him. Just as she’d wanted him to.
But now she felt awful. It stung her pride, churned up fear, made her want to be sick. She didn’t want to think she was embracing, kissing, exploring a man who was half-unclothed and whom she hated.
At least the fact he was naked above the waist meant she had fewer places to search for the key.
What if the key was in one of his boots? How would she explain sticking her hand down in one of those skintight leather things?
Worse, what if it was down inside his trousers?
He must have a pocket of some sort. And if she couldn’t find it there, she would make up some reason for him to take off his boots. She could say she was afraid he would step on her toes while kissing her.
She had gotten good at lying since she’d had to keep her power secret.
Wait? What was he doing?
His hand was sliding between their stomachs. Ophelia took a quick look down.
He opened the placket of his trousers. He was pushing them down.
She could not let this continue.
Even for the key.
Ophelia tried to pull her hands away but he grasped her wrists and drew her arms around him. Behind his back, he planted her hands on the edge of some soft material. His linen drawers.
He had put her hands on his underclothing.
This wasn’t what she wanted. Panicked, she started to move her hands away—
Her fingers brushed a rigid lump.
Shutting her eyes, tense as a drawn bow, she explored. The shape in his drawers was long, slender, and hard. A shape very like a key.
In his arousal, he must have forgotten he had put her hands right beside the key.
She gathered her courage. Then she thrust her tongue into his mouth to play with his, kissing him with desperate abandon.
To distract him while she eased her hand down the back of his drawers.
Firm, hard contours met her fingertips. It was the warm skin of—gah!—the globes of his bottom. Then she brushed cool metal.
She was breathing hard into his mouth, half-paralyzed with fear. She was terrified he would feel what she was doing.
Sliding her other hand down, Ophelia cupped the curve of his derriere on the outside of his underclothes. Her fingers felt stiff. But she managed to squeeze his rump. He jumped, apparently startled by her boldness. In that moment, with him distracted, she slid out the key. It was cold and hard against her palm, and she curled her fingers around it.
With her object hidden in her hand, she didn’t need to endure the kiss any longer. What she needed was to get away from him.
She tore her lips away from his. “Stop! I don’t want this.”
His lips curved up. “This is sudden. You seemed to be enjoying it up to now.”
“I was not!”
“You liked it and that bothered you. I understand, Ophelia. I’ll leave you alone.” He took a step back.
She couldn’t believe he would surrender so easily. But her heart soared with relief. She had the key squeezed so tight against her palm it was cutting her skin.
Shrugging, he picked up his shirt, then buttoned his trousers. “Until next time.” With that and a quick bow, he strolled away from her, still half-naked. Humming, for heaven’s sake.
There would not be a next time.
That made her smile. Smugly.
* * *
Ophelia pushed open one of the front doors. It creaked as it opened. She winced, then remembered she didn’t have to. There was no one to hear it.
After she had taken the key, she had hurried up to her bedchamber to hide it. She knew she could never escape with him in the house.
He had come up to her room at dark, had shouted through the closed door that he was going out and he had laid out a su
pper for her in the dining room.
She hadn’t planned to waste time eating, but once she was racing down the stairs, she’d smelled the delicious aromas and she’d run to the table to grab some food before making her escape.
Where the food came from, she had no idea. There were no cooks or maids after all. She’d stuffed a slice of roast beef in her mouth in the most unladylike way, swallowed it fast, and thrown down a glass of wine for courage.
Now she stepped out onto the front step, her heart thundering.
She was outside. She’d done it.
She quickly drew the door closed behind her and locked it from the outside. There was a slim chance Ravenhunt had no other key and would find he was locked out of his prison of a house. At the very least, a closed and locked door might give her time to get away before he discovered she was gone. It would be what he would expect to find.
She was out, but she had no idea where she was. On the outskirts of Mayfair, she would guess. Ravenhunt’s house was old—but across the street there marched a line of new townhomes. The street appeared to have some affluence, but was not of the best address. Perhaps it was a street where city merchants lived. It was quiet—only two carriages rumbled down it. But having at least some people around her gave her confidence. She must be safe now. If Ravenhunt pursued, she would scream. On a street such as this, which was not the stews, surely a cry for help would actually bring assistance.
But she was not about to wait about and be caught again. Ophelia lifted her hems and ran down the street. At the corner, she saw the name. Hope soared—she knew where she was. Only a few blocks from Mrs. Darkwell’s house.
One of the carriages slowed in the street at her side. A young man leaned out and called, “Can I help you, miss?”
She was about to shout, “Yes!” Then she stopped. Beneath his beaver hat and mop of brown curls, the young gentleman stared at her. What if this man was helping Ravenhunt? What if he meant to take her back to that prison?
She kept running. It took only two more blocks and she was panting. Her chest heaved. Pressing close to the edge of a fence that surrounded a house, she sucked in deep breaths. A narrow and shadowy lane led off from the street—she stood at the corner of it.