She cast him a roguish look. “Lord of the manor though you be, Ned Masterson, this isn’t the thirteenth century. No one lives or dies by your sufferance.”
“I would some did,” he growled.
“Are you referring to me?” She batted her eyelashes and despite his fury he felt a familiar twist of desire and amusement, the potent brew she’d always managed to conjure within him.
And now she’d added searing pain to the brew, because she loved another. She laughed with another. She fought with another. She allowed another’s hand to touch her as she relinquished herself to pleasure.
He had never been a jealous man. He had always measured his responses carefully. But now, jealousy fair consumed him. His imagination drove him with a flail made all the more excruciating because of its acuity. He recalled with acid-bright clarity every murmur, every one of her kisses, her smiles.
“Too bad,” she went blithely on, unaware of the havoc she wrought by spinning gracefully at the foot of his bed, well out of his reach, as pleased with herself as a kitten with a mouse. Her swirling skirts caught and released the light, the liquid glow of the fire molded itself to her body.
She’d thought she’d outmaneuvered him. It would almost be a pity to disabuse her of that notion.
He sat down on the bloody Masterson bed. If only the oaf who’d carved the great monstrosity had been a bit surer of himself—for clearly with a bed of this size and bulk there was some matter of compensation going on here—he’d have been able to drag it across the room. A foot was all he’d managed. Still, it might prove enough.
He lay down on his back, crossed his arms under his head, and stared thoughtfully at the ceiling.
“What are you doing?” she asked suspiciously.
“Relaxing,” he said with great patience. He glanced at her. “No sense in being more uncomfortable than necessary while awaiting my men.”
“What do you mean?” she asked. She hovered near the foot of the bed, silhouetted in a radiant outline by the hearth light, her voice sharp.
“My darling girl, you don’t imagine that my men will simply sit on their horses for hours waiting for me to appear and then, when I don’t show up, sigh and say ‘Oh, well, there’s a night then,’ and go home?”
Actually, that was pretty much exactly what they would do lest someone took command. His men were too well-versed in the vagaries of their profession to assume every job proceeded like clockwork. Especially this one. In point of fact, it was late enough now that the operation to apprehend the smugglers might already have been scuttled.
But Pip didn’t know that. And just because one project had to be abandoned, didn’t mean another couldn’t be undertaken. He could see her luscious lower lip thrust out in vexation.
“No need for you to be uncomfortable whilst we wait.” He patted the bed beside him. “Best settle in for the nonce.”
“You’re lying. You’re a liar.”
“Tch. Your aunt would be devastated to hear you speak in such a manner to your elders.”
Even in the murky light, he could see her measuring the distance between where he lay and the wall. She clearly did not like the odds.
“I’ll scream,” she stated. “Someone will come and then I’ll be free and you—”
“And I will track you to the gates of hell itself before I let you go,” he promised. Then he smiled, shrugging indolently. “Besides, as you said, there’s a storm without and my ancestors built their walls thick and their doors thicker still. Apparently, they, too, had things they didn’t want overheard.”
“Let me go.” The taint of panic appeared for the first time in her voice. “Please. I have to try to find him.”
He jerked upright and swung his legs off the bed, standing slowly. He could not pretend indolence. Not with her reminder of her new lover. Next she’d be pleading for Minton’s life and that ... no, he did not think he could stand that.
“In answer to your request, no. I will not let you go. Not now.” Not ever. Not by choice.
For a long minute, she did not speak. But her chin rose and her shoulders straightened. “Are you threatening me?”
She took being threatened no better than he. She had always been his match in temper and spirit. Damn her.
“Yes,” he smiled. “And if you are wise, you will pay heed that threat.”
He could tell from the expression on her face that she’d had enough, he’d pushed her to her limit.
He understood her so well, each vulnerability, each quality, what she lived by, what she would die for. He had never known a woman as well as he knew her. In his very soul, he knew her.
And that, even more than the romantic picture she’d built around Hal Minton, was probably in truth why she’d made an end with him, he thought. Such intimacy would be immensely threatening to a wild creature such as her.
She moved toward him, and stopped just inches out of his reach. He watched her, barely masking his eagerness. A few more inches.
“You are so easy to manipulate, Philippa. You must acquire more mystique if you are to be a success at your chosen profession.”
“And what profession, pray tell, is that?”
“A dead man’s doxy.”
Chapter Six
Ned was right. Philippa had no impulse control.
Her hand shot out, just as he’d anticipated and just as he’d planned, he caught it before she struck him. But she was fierce, his Philippa, and not one to give in. Not without a fight.
She hit him hard with her other hand, so surprising him with the unexpectedness of her assault that her blow landed against his chest. He grabbed hold of her wrists.
“Let me go!” she demanded. “Let go of me and fight me, you coward.”
He stared at her, amazed. She undoubtedly knew that he would never hit her, just as she must know there was no possibility of her winning any fight between them. But, she was beyond reasoning. She glared at him, panting.
“You want to hit me,” he said.
“You have no idea how much.”
He dropped her wrists and took one step back, his arms at his side. “Fine. Hit me.”
She didn’t wait for a second invitation. She lifted both hands at once and began swinging wildly at him, with such ferocity—and no form, at all—that her balled fists sometimes met something other than his blocking forearms.
He absorbed the blows. He absorbed everything she sent him. All the months of anger and frustration and betrayal poured out of her, realized in a flurry of flying fists. Though she was no brawler, her wild rides on the rugged Cornish coast had toned her body, pared from it all laxity. She’d stamina and she’d desire and so it went, long minutes broken only by her occasional sob of frustration as he parried the majority of her wild blows. Still, she refused to stop, refused to lower her arms. And finally, at long last, when her face was damp with sweat and her hair hung wildly about her shoulders and her arms were so tired she could barely raise them, he could stand no more.
“Philippa ...” he said, frowning as he warded a feeble hit. “Stop.”
“No!” she rasped. “No!”
“Easy,” he said, startled by her vehemence and finally, seeing no other recourse he wrapped his arms around her and held her tight. “No!” she grated out. “No! No! It’s not fair”
She was too wrought up. She’d exhaust herself. Do herself harm. “What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing? What do you want?”
“To hurt you!” she cried, raising her face to his. Her voice broke. “I can’t hurt you. I never could. It’s not fair.”
“You can’t hurt me?” he echoed disbelievingly. “Is that what this is about? You want to hurt me?”
She’d cut his heart out, wrung pain from him he’d never imagined possible, trampled on his pride, destroyed his peace of mind and she couldn’t hurt him?
“You’ve gone too far, Philippa.” His voice was as cold as his rage was hot. It had always been a barometer of his emotions, at distinct variance with
what he felt. It was frigid now.
He yanked her around, spinning her effortlessly, and lashing his free arm around her waist. His manacled hand clasped her throat.
She stilled, her back against his naked chest. Her heart thundered. Even through the thin material of her dress, he could feel its pounding. Her shoulder blades cut into his pectorals with each draw and release of her agitated breath. She was afraid of him. More pain.
“You haven’t any idea, do you? You’ve no concept of what you’ve done to me. Well, sweet darkness, you can rest easy for I swear to you, you hurt me,” he rasped, his lips inches from the velvet cockle of her ear. “Now, give me the key.”
“Take it.”
Things were moving too fast. Every act committed now unalterable, each word irrevocable. No time to think, plan, only time to act on instinct, and perhaps something less dependable, less reliable. Emotion.
Her whispered challenge caught him off guard. He hesitated. Her body was as lithe and supple as a spring willow, a feminine mystery. But not completely so. Not to him. He’d trespassed there and had craved a return until he ached.
He’d played with her, drawn a line along the velvety curve of her hip. His palms had weighed the slight, soft abundance of her breast. He’d tasted her. And it was the sensory memory of her that roused him and caused him to hold himself away from her.
She undid him.
“Don’t play with me, Philippa.”
She let her head fall back against his shoulder and gazed up at him now, unafraid and unreadable. Philippa, his open book, unreadable. It should have made him laugh but he could not even find a smile. He had no idea what was going on behind those dark, luminous eyes. Treachery? Simple desire? Some odd, desperate combination of both?
“You won’t like my games,” he assured her under his breath.
“I might.”
Was she daring him? He slipped his hand up her throat, capturing her jaw. He pressed his lips against her temple, fanning her closed eyelids with his breath. “We’ll see.”
Before she could react, he spun her around, put his hands on her shoulders and shoved her, toppling her on the bed. He followed her down, imprisoning her beneath his body, his arms braced on either side of her, his hips heavy and insistent over hers. Even through the layers of her skirt she could feel him.
She squeezed her eyes shut. He grappled her wrists together and pulled them over her head, trapping them, just as she’d done to him.
“Open your eyes!”
Her eyes flew open at his fierce tone. The minute they did, their gazes locked in contention.
“Do you see me?” His voice had turned into a harsh whisper. “Do you?”
“Yes!”
“Do you feel me?” His lower body moved against her and she gasped.
“Yes,” he whispered, answering for her.
His lips drew back in equal parts self-derision and desire, needing her to acknowledge what she was doing and who she was doing it with. “My name. Say my name.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she said. With his free hand he raked the heavy hair back from her face, clutched a handful of the dark stuff and tugged her head back, exposing her throat. Her heart thundered beneath him.
“My name.”
“Are you going to hurt me?” she asked, still not afraid.
“Hurt you?” he asked, honestly amused. His head dropped alongside her throat. His lips glided over her flesh, assaulting her in ways against which she had no defense.
She’d always been ruled by sense and sensation far more than sensibility. Her body heeded the sensual call. Her eyelids shut, and she caught her lower lip beneath the pearl white ridge of her teeth.
“I would that I could, Philippa, and pay you back in kind for the hell you’ve put me through. But you’d need to feel something other than lust for me to do that. So, I have other plans for you.”
“Ned—”
“So you do know who has you.”
“Yes.”
“You wanted this. For me to force you,” he accused her.
“No.”
“Yes,” he said. “You wanted me to control this. Because you’re afraid of it. I’d never have pegged you as a coward, Pip.”
“No.” She shook her head violently, her dark hair whipping across her pale face. “No, you’re wrong. I know what I’m doing. What I’ve done. But I hate not being strong enough to say no.” Her eyes blazed up at his. “And if I’m not strong enough to say ‘no,’ I’ll be damned if you are.”
He laughed acrimoniously. “That, darling, is the most obtuse bit of reasoning I have ever heard.”
She flushed brightly at his laughter. “Let me go. At least let me go back to the other side of the room.”
He laughed again. “But I haven’t found the key yet.”
“I don’t have it.”
“And I no longer care.”
She bucked beneath him and he kissed her. For an instant, she resisted and then she was kissing him, kissing him with a hunger he’d thought he’d never know again. He released her wrists, slipped his arms under her and lifted her up into his embrace.
Her arms closed around his shoulders. Her fingers raked through his hair. Her tongue thrust deeply in his mouth, sounds—sweet Jesu!—sounds of desperate want and pleasure rose from deep in her throat.
He drank passion from her mouth like a drunk imbibes mead, sweet, honeyed, intoxicating. He burned with the need to bury himself within her, to finally take this to its ultimate ends, to finish this madness and complete the dance they’d begun so many months ago. To complete himself. With her.
He thrust his chained hand between their bodies, dragging the metal over her belly as he grappled with her skirt, fisting the thin material in his hand and dragging it up over her thighs. Suddenly, she broke away from his kiss, shoved her palms flat against his chest and pushed.
White hot, the suspicion she’d once more played him for a rutting dog was born and as quickly died. Because as soon as he fell back, she rolled her leg over his hips, and rose, straddling his thighs.
For one intense moment she paused. Then, with a sigh of abandonment? Of distress? she lowered her head and placed her lips on his stomach.
Chapter Seven
Allowing Ned to catch her had seemed her only possible choice if she was to get away. And she had to get away. She had to find John and warn him. At least, she had to try.
The only way that she could do that was to escape this room. And the only way Ned was going to let that happen was if he had no choice in the matter. If both his wrists were manacled.
But the moment he’d goaded her into striking him, all the frustrations and pain of the last months had overtaken her in a torrent of anguish that could only be expressed in violence. From that moment she’d been lost. And yet, when he’d kissed her, her body and her heart, already sensitized to his touch, had betrayed her all over again.
She wanted him. It was that easy, that simple, that horrifying. Her body sang to him, strained and flushed and swelled toward him.
She rubbed her cheek across his flat belly, the dark hairs silky beneath her cheeks. His belly dished in, leaving hard ridges beneath her lips. She nuzzled him. He smelled of soap and faintly of wood smoke and of masculine arousal, musky and warm.
She felt his hand hover above her head but he didn’t touch her, didn’t cradle her head with the destroying gentleness he once had shown her. She wanted that. She wanted too much and from this man and this man alone. Deftly developing expertise, her fingers worked the buttons of his trousers free. She heard him suck in a deep breath.
He’d never asked anything of her, never demanded anything. And she suddenly wanted to give him pleasure as much as she wanted it for herself. More. And she would have if… If things had been different. If he hadn’t been intent on arresting her brother and ruining their lives. If there had been a future for them.
A lady did not do this with a gentleman with whom she had no intention of continuing a re
lationship. She hesitated. Of course, she thought desperately, a lady would not have done any of the things she and Ned had already done.
“No,” she heard him say. “Never with misgiving.”
He gripped her beneath her arms and hauled her up his body. He’d misunderstood her hesitation, thought she had been persuading herself to commit an act she found repellant. She tried to tell him differently, but in dragging her up, her gown was dragged down.
Her breasts fell free of the small bodice. He cupped her shoulders and lifted her up, looking down at her naked breast with a smoldering gaze.
“You have the most beautiful breasts in the world,” he said.
“Small.” She seemed to have been rendered near mute by the expression in his face, for that was all she could manage.
“Perfect. Made for a man’s—” He shifted her forward as easily as if she was a mannequin and held her suspended there. Slowly he eased her down until his mouth was an inch from one puckering nipple, “— mouth.”
The word sloughed over her breast in a warm rush and she shivered.
Tenderly, he touched his lips to her. She jerked in reaction and he laughed, a pleased masculine sound. She scowled, glaring at him, her breath coming too rapidly, well past the point of schemes and plans.
Fine. She admitted it. He’d been right. She wanted him to dictate this. She wanted to relinquish control.
She’d always been strong, independent and proud of it. But strength and independence are bought only by keeping one’s heart whole and unassailable, by being answerable to no one. And by never letting another close enough to threaten one’s invulnerability.
She’d never wanted anyone to conquer her before, to claim complete control over her body. But she wanted Ned to. Because he would take her places she only dimly imagined, as both guardian and guide. And she trusted him.
How perverse her heart must be, how convoluted her soul, if the only man she trusted was the only man she feared.
“I want you to want me, Philippa. I want you to feel some small measure of what you do to me, what I crave from you. Do you want me to touch you?” He already knew the answer.
Her Captive Page 4