“Although?” she asked.
“Tell me is there any chance Tillman has a speech impediment? The intellect of a draft horse? For God’s sake, give me something to cling to, woman!”
She struggled not to laugh. “Give me a moment.”
“Come on. Anything!”
“May I lie and say he had bad breath?” she offered and he immediately pulled her more tightly against his chest.
“I will accept that lie with desperate relief,” he said and then lifted her chin for a kiss. “My vanity is in shreds, Raven. Banished and reduced to waiting for news that you wish me to secretly beg entry to your bed at your whim and will… Kiss me and soothe my pride.”
“Is that all it will take?”
He shook his head very slowly. “Wounds these deep? I may need a great deal of attention.”
Serena slowly smiled. “I’m not sure you should be rewarded so quickly. After all, you were very disobedient.”
“Then punish me, my darling.”
“Yes. First, a punishment that you will never forget—and then a reward to warm your blood in the lonely weeks ahead.”
He said nothing, but his eyes gleamed with wicked anticipation.
She never looked away from him as she retrieved the long satin sash from her discarded ball gown. She tugged the sash loose slowly, drawing it out and up until it trailed from her fingertips all the way to the carpeted floor.
His breath caught and when Serena heard it, a rush of power surged through her body. Here. Here was a new way to be conquered. For by ruling him, she would surrender herself and she was smart enough to see it.
She stepped closer and reached up on her tiptoes to press the sash against his eyes. Phillip bent over to allow it, helping her to knot the swath of material behind his head to render him blind although not helpless. He was vulnerable however and the excitement of this shift affected them both.
She kissed him.
Then stepped back to finish undressing. Phillip reached for her. “Come here, woman!”
“No.” She eluded him easily. “Behave.”
He couldn’t see but he could hear the soft weight of her corset falling to the floor and she deliberately stood close enough for him to feel the elusive brush of materials or shift in the air to hint at her movements.
Then it was her turn to undress him. She was an exotically distracting valet as she worked on each button, touching him far more than the task warranted and sending his pulse racing as he tried to anticipate the brush of her fingertips or the path of her attentions. At last, he was as naked as the day of his birth though there was nothing innocent in his stiffening cock or the taut lines of his body.
She took his hand and led him toward the bed, and he smiled. After all, here was more familiar territory and blindfolded or not, Phillip was comfortable in the knowledge that he could hold his own.
“Kneel.”
Serena applied a small amount of pressure atop his shoulders to indicate that she wished him to lower to the floor. He obeyed but lost some of his confidence. They hadn’t achieved the bed and he wasn’t sure what adventure could follow if he was simply set on the floor.
She sat on the edge of the bed in front of him and within a single second, his imagination cleared the gate. Serena guided his hands to demonstrate that he was kneeling to face her, her thighs parted wide, her sex open to him, the scent of her arousal so close he instantly grasped his “task”.
He could feel the tops of her stockings, the ribbons making an indent in the flesh of her thighs and trailing down to touch his bare shoulders and arms. The saucy choice to keep them on added color and depth to the increasingly naughty images his mind conjured of her beauty. He could “see” in perfect clarity the pink moist folds and the taut darker pink nub of her clit rising up in its tiny hood.
“Hands behind your back, please.”
He needed no guidance to find her with his mouth.
He mapped out her sex in a glorious tactile game of feast and famine. He tasted and teased, happy to play along with his hands behind his back and to use only his mouth to please her. She was the perfect blend of salty sweetness and Phillip adored the flavor of her, marveling at how she subtly changed with her arousal until he could actually taste her excitement and the moment before her release.
His tongue lathed her clit in an insistent pattern, every stroke up, down and across, but never lingering too long on her pearl directly, until he feared he’d pushed her too fast. Her fingers spasmed and gripped his hair, and she began to keen and cry as her hips bucked and writhed against his mouth.
Serena moved forward against him to increase the pressure then shimmied away when the pleasure became so exquisite it bordered on pain.
Power.
Control.
She wanted it. She wanted all of it and then when she began to come, she wished for nothing more than to surrender the reins. The red hot coil inside of her began to release and she wanted him to be with her as it happened.
“Enough! Oh, you….are free! Come, ride me! Ride this fire with me!” Serena reached down to pull off his blindfold, eager to end the game but Phillip pulled the sash loose only to loop it over her wrists, shifting her back onto the bed beneath him and then drawing the long tie over the opposite bed post to trap her arms gently over her head.
She didn’t care. If it meant that he would mount her, and fill the void inside of her, she’d have allowed him any liberty.
“Phillip!”
He moved back over her, parting her thighs and she lifted her bottom up to try to precipitate the rogering she desired, but he lowered himself over her, kissing the inside of thighs, the arch of her instep, then the side of her outer thighs, the indent of her hips, the rise of her belly. She’d have struck him in her frustration if the dratted man didn’t know every secret place on her body that kept her temper in check.
Or rather somewhat in check.
“Hurry!”
“No.”
She had commanded him too much. His obedience had been given but he would give no more. Tonight he would take his leave but not before he had made his mark on her soul, before he’d go. He untied her but only to shift her position.
“You wish a ride? Then let’s have a ride, Raven.”
He guided her to sit astride his hips, his cock an upright invitation for the lady to do as she pleased.
Serena did not need to be asked twice.
She knelt above him, savoring for just one moment the way the silken hot head of him notched against her flesh, before she lowered herself onto him, gasping at the intense mix of pleasure and pain as her body fought to stretch for him and to hold him. She shuddered as a sweet flood of heat uncoiled between her hips again and she was slick and soft with her own arousal.
He pressed his fingers into his hips as he lifted up, adding to the sensation of fullness and goading her to move. Serena smiled before she reached up to pull her hair back and up from her face, wishing him to see her wickedness as she shamelessly rode him.
His breath caught in his throat and she knew the gesture had achieved its aims. Of course, it also lifted her breasts and arched her back to make a pretty picture for the man. The advantages of vanity had finally come into play.
The ride became a full gallop quickly and Serena reached down to bring his hands up to breasts and then to bring his fingertips to her mouth where she could suckle them, mirroring the wet thrust and grip of her body with her lips. It was an unorthodox notion but she was immediately rewarded as he thickened inside of her, his excitement unmistakable.
If he’d meant to slow her, the notion was abandoned now.
He rolled her off and finally buried himself into her, each thrust another step toward an impossible climax. The grip of her muscles were so hot and so tight, Phillip gave in to raw desire and forgot to care for anything—for punishments or rewards, or for anything beyond the moment. He came so hard it robbed him of air and he would have sworn he saw sparks of light behind his eyes only to
taste his own blood in his mouth, apparently from biting down on his tongue.
Jesus. Why does that seem fair?
She meant to banish him.
She meant to tell him good-bye.
All he could do was love her and make sure that whatever mark he could make in her world, it would be an indelible one.
Afterward, they lay with their limbs entwined and Serena lazily trailed her fingers across his chest and arms, mapping his body in a sensual survey.
“What are you thinking?” he asked softly.
“I’m thinking that it is frightening how simple the scheme against Trent may be, but I have learned that complicated plans are always riskier and if there is a direct path open, it is never unwise not to consider it.”
“But if it’s too simple… Trent is as wily as a fox and may be leading you on a merry chase for his own amusement.”
“Possibly.” She conceded the point, then stretched out like a cat. “I’ll have to play along to see.”
“No more secrets. Tell me what you have in mind.”
She leaned up to sit next to him in a nest of the bedding, her knees drawn up like a child’s. “Unless my instincts are wrong, Trent is eyeing me as if he believes he has a chance at bedding me—or even wedding me, if that is his aim.”
Phillip closed his eyes with a groan. “God, I may be sick.”
“If I allow him to believe that I am still loyal to him, if I vaguely allude to some lingering affection without overplaying it, then I’ll have the whip hand. And if I then turn my attentions to his nephew, I am fairly sure that the play will write itself.”
Phillip sat up, leveraging his body to sit across from her. “Ignoring how much I already don’t like you flirting with Tillman, I think you’re underestimating how savagely Trent will turn, teeth bared, if he thinks you’ve betrayed him.”
“Of course he will. How could he not? It will all echo his past too closely as he is once again bested by a younger man but this time from within his family. It already chafes him to grow older and to see Adam stepping into his place. But when Adam looks to be mocking his virility and taking the woman he wants, this time, I will make sure I twist that point cruelly home until all Trent can see is red.” Serena sighed in pleasure as the chilling plan came together. “It was you he went after, remember? Not his mistress. Not the woman who flirted with another man and invited you into her bed. He blamed you.”
“Yes. So?”
“In his mind, women are pawns not players. So, it will be Tillman that he blames. If I drive him mad with rage and provoke him so that there is no biding his time in some grand scheme, then I can push him into fast and unthinkable action. Like a sick animal, he will feed on his own flesh and blood and be forced to face the consequences of the feast.”
“No. It’s too much.”
She shook her head. “It will be whatever Trent chooses. But if I’m right, at the very least, he will be socially destroyed for his actions against his heir.”
“What more would you expect?”
“If there is violence and he ends his own bloodline, then I might expect a front row seat at his hanging, Phillip. Not that I would wish for it, but Trent is dangerous and unpredictable and I would be foolish not to steel myself against the very worst that fate might serve up.”
Phillip’s breath caught in his throat. Raven looked like a pagan goddess in the moonlight, sitting amidst her bedding with her black hair tumbling wild down her bare shoulders and back. But this goddess was casting a spell as she spoke of mayhem and blood and he felt helpless to stop any of it. A hidden part of him admired the ruthless cast of her mind but a shiver of ice worked down his spine.
“I asked, didn’t I?”
“You don’t approve?” she asked.
“No, I don’t approve. But I said no more secrets. I just—you aren’t a murderer, Raven.”
“No. Not yet.” Her expression was impossible to read. “The plan is still evolving. You asked what I was thinking and I told you. That’s all.”
“Yes, but you’re thinking of setting Trent up to murder his own nephew!”
“I don’t expect it to come to the worst. Sir Tillman is not a sausage-fingered child to be overtaken in a fight. If! If it came to such a moment, he’ll defend himself and the only one who will be hurt will be the earl.”
Phillip shook his head. “You don’t know that for certain. It’s all a guess, isn’t it?”
She shuddered, turning her face away from him. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
“I may dislike Adam for the way he looked at you at Drake’s and how lovely you looked in his arms but…I don’t wish him any harm.”
“I don’t wish him any harm either,” she whispered. “Just leave it.”
“The earl isn’t the only one who could be hurt. Can’t you see how this tears at your own soul? You aren’t just moving chess pieces around a board. You toy with putting an innocent man in the path of a madman and—“
“I don’t want to fight about this, Phillip!”
“No?”
“No. A fight insinuates that I have an opinion or position that is under threat of being overturned and that I have to defend myself, or that I need to change your mind. You can say whatever you want, Warrick, but I am already on this journey and my path is set in stone. I will have my revenge against Trent.”
Phillip climbed off the bed, his movements jerking and betraying his fury as he retrieved his clothes and dressed. “Your path. Your terms. Your revenge. God, how the hell does a man come to this? I should just shoot Trent on the street and spare us all!”
“Phillip! You’ll do no such thing! Getting yourself hanged, are you mad?” She scrambled to follow him, shedding useless modesty to reach him, naked and vulnerable. “Please, Phillip. You swore to love me, to give me this, to let me do what I needed to do! I need all of it. Not one part or piece, but all of it to move forward in this world and to survive. You left me. I left you. Hear me when I say that I don’t want to know what is on the other side of truly losing you.”
“Raven.”
“Once I was Spring itself, wasn’t I? Help me, Phillip. Help me not to become Winter.”
He pulled her into his arms, one last time, once more before his exile, both of them desperate to push away the inevitable.
Alone in the grey of predawn, Serena stared up at the ceiling. Phillip’s departure had come at last and she marveled that this time, the impact was less. No doubt because he had left with tender words, with both of them whispering eternal pledges of their love and vowing to reunite as soon as possible. And no doubt because she was the founder of it all, and the one holding the power to end their separation with a single summons.
She wasn’t as cold or calculating as she’d deliberately seemed to him. Speculating aloud about the worst possible scenarios served more than one purpose. She knew from past experience that not being prepared for the bleakest outcomes left her too vulnerable and allowed for too many mistakes. It was better to include the nightmares early so that they could be potentially avoided.
But there was no getting around it.
Phillip Warrick was going to be tested to his limits and softening the blows with deception wouldn’t serve either of them. If their love was going to survive, then it would have to withstand the deadly fire ahead.
I am no murderer.
Oh, God. Not yet.
Chapter Nine
Serena dressed for her day’s outing with Pepper’s assistance, a new clarity and calm enveloping her senses. With Phillip’s cooperative retreat, she was a woman freed of constraint.
But not of conscience.
“Sleep well then?” Pepper asked brightly.
“I must have,” Serena replied, eyeing the deceptive glow in her own cheeks. By all rights she should have laid abed until the luncheon bell rang, but she felt like a colt straining against the traces. “I am eager to see where the day leads.”
“Shall I have Donovan ready the carriage for t
he park?”
“Yes but not for the park. I will have the top down to enjoy the weather, but there is an exhibit at the museum I am planning to take in. I wish to make an innocent turn out with Harriet. After all, Lady Serena Wellcott cannot always be seen dancing, Pepper.”
Pepper shook her head as she finished the row of covered buttons at the back of Serena’s back. “No man worth kissing is going to waste a pretty day like today standing about some musty paintings and lifeless stone heathens prancing about in their birthday suits!”
“Pepper!” Serena gave her friend a look of mock horror. “Why would I spoil a day at the museum with male company? And where in the world did you get the idea that any man is truly ‘worthy’ of kissing?”
“Aren’t they?” Pepper asked breathlessly.
“No.” Serena struggled to keep her expression serious. “And even if a man did earn a kiss or two, it would be a foolish woman who would allow him to think they were his due. Men are already too full of their own power, Prudence, and a man worthy of kissing is usually the one who thinks to deserve it least.”
Pepper crossed her arms, a mischievously defiant student. “That’s a mash of nonsense! I am not bestowing kisses on any hangdog of a man who doesn’t see his own way to it!”
Serena smiled, openly pleased at the flash of spirit in her maid’s eyes. Whatever ghosts remained from her experience at Southgate appeared to be banished, once and for all. “I stand corrected.”
“Yes, well,” Pepper’s hands fell to her hips. “I know better but at least you stand ready for the day.”
Serena made a quick turn to check Madame Montellier’s latest creation. Periwinkle blue silk, so rich it looked like liquid, shimmered and gleamed, artful cascades of pleats and Pauline’s delicate florets completed the spring-like effect of the bustle. She sighed. “It seems cruel to wear anything this pretty knowing that Harriet will be dressed like a crow.”
“Lady Lylesforth prefers it that way. She likes the way you divert attention away from her and she’d thank you for it if she wasn’t too starched to say it.”
Lady Triumphs (The Black Rose Trilogy Book 3) Page 8