This wasn’t just any woman. In her eyes, he glimpsed at times a deep sadness before it vanished, buried beneath ever-present layers of wariness.
He had a hankering to pierce that shield she carried. There were easier conquests, ones no one would raise eyebrows at or gossip over. Courting a frankenstruct might hobble his political career before he even got it off the ground. So why did he feel compelled?
To the devil with self-analyzing. He wanted to do this, so he would. He ran his fingers lightly down the side of her hand to where the metal circled her wrists, and hooked the chain when she pulled away.
* * *
Claire scowled back at Theo, trying to mask the confusion as he stroked her wrist with one calloused finger. She tugged again but he merely regarded her impassively, as if appraising her. Heat surged through her. The world got strangely smaller.
This was more of his courting. Of course, she could pull free, if she wanted. Break his fingers, maybe, before his guards got to her. Or even say his silly word, kokino.
What an idiot she was being. Hadn’t she decided to show some self-control? If only she didn’t feel that quivering sensation down below. One finger on her wrist, and she was losing it. If he kissed her hand as he had the day before, or—she swallowed—if he held her down, she might simply melt.
He released her.
Focus. Calm. Her heart settled. Thank the Lord.
Quietly, she forked up a piece of fried mushroom and put it in her mouth, chewed it. Eating gave her time to gather her scattered thoughts. Logic. Calmness. Breathe slow.
He said he didn’t trust her. Logically, for her to gain his trust, she’d have to answer questions about the airship and her reasons for being on it. Perhaps he waited for her full recovery? Stupid, though. She’d been instructed in the art of torture and interrogation—best to act while the subject was weakest.
This courting business was the passing fancy of a rich man with nothing better to do than ignore the advice of his own security advisor. Mentally, she curled a lip. Why had she been disconcerted by his touch? Her body’s chemical balance must have been disturbed by the shock of the crash. Theo was no more dangerous to her than a pussycat, and she would do well to remember that.
The fork tempted her. She must smuggle it upstairs. It would make a superb lock pick. She should be putting more effort into her escape. Another couple of days and she’d chance it. She’d have to go on foot at first—vehicles would be easily tracked. Though maybe a steam cycle… She needed maps. There should be a study or an office somewhere.
A movement drew her from her reverie. She left off aiming the fork into her mouth and swung her gaze back to Theo.
He’d finished eating and leaned both elbows on the table, watching her. Her heart accelerated. Just a chemical imbalance. That’s all. Pussycat.
Why then did she wish she could inch farther away, yet also want to lean in closer?
The irises of his eyes were more beautiful than she had thought possible. Sea gray specked with flares of gold that made them glow when the morning sun glanced in though the trellis. Above those eyes, his brows boldly followed the line of bone.
What piffle was she thinking? He was just a man. The color of his eyes meant nothing.
“Claire?”
She drew in a controlled breath, felt her ribs expand.
“Yes?” She sat up primly.
Her plate was empty. The fork scraped across the white china. She laid the silver pronged utensil on the tablecloth—near the edge, where a subtle brush of her wrist would topple it over. Get this fork up to her room, sharpen the end tine until it became flexible enough. Yes. That’s the spirit.
“Coffee?” he asked, cocking one of those elegant eyebrows.
“What? Oh, yes, of course. Thank you.”
His servant had left. The folding doors leading back into the house proper had been shut. What little she could spy, through the fringe of plants, of the outside lawns was an empty green expanse. Suddenly, this breakfast area seemed far too isolated.
Theo tilted the gold-trimmed white pot and poured. Steam and an enticing bitter aroma rose from the dainty matching cup.
Training had covered all this. The use of the correct tableware. Small talk. How to smile and say thank you. Only it wasn’t the same. With this man across from her, an undercurrent colored the simplest of things. Her cup wobbled when she raised it.
All the signs of arousal… She pursed her lips. Ridiculous, but she couldn’t deny the dampness in her underwear, or the way her heart beat double time when he spoke to her or held her.
The froth on the surface of the coffee seemed a safe place to look. As the level in the cup sank, a memory crystallized. The cup wobbled again, rattling when she placed it in the saucer. She remembered when she’d felt a little of what he awakened in her.
Part of her training had been interrogations practice. The realness of the pain had been frightening…yet, when she’d been bound to the chair with her hands at her back and her feet tied to the legs, she’d found it exciting. The powerlessness had made her feel so alive.
“Claire?”
She snapped her eyes open.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m perfectly all right, thank you.” How dare he appear so unruffled?
“Truly?” Such a warm voice, deep enough to swim in.
Time to go, before he addled her mind even more. She dabbed her mouth with the napkin, put her hands to the table to steady herself before she pushed back the chair.
“Stop.” The word lashed out, freezing her. Startled she looked up.
She’d trained for this, over and over. Rapid decisions in the face of adversity. Yet…her mind emptied. Before she could decide what to do, he snared her wrists and pulled her down onto the table. Her elbows slid, plates bumped out of the way as he stretched her arms out in front of her. She turned her head, found herself face-to-face with him, jerked at her wrists, and couldn’t budge. Her talent lay in speed, not strength.
“Let me go!”
The danger was back in those gray predatory eyes. She lay helpless, half across the table, feeling her breaths come faster and faster. She daren’t blink. The table pressed against her waist, and Theo’s lips were mere inches away. With his other hand, he found and twined a piece of her hair around his finger.
“Ahh. How curious,” he murmured, twisting the hair a little tighter. Then, as if she were something remarkable that needed fixing in his memory, something he’d never seen before, he examined her, inch by inch.
When she tugged against his hold and found herself still held fast, heat flooded her. The chair wouldn’t move back. He must have hooked it with his foot. He leaned in and wound another curl of hair onto his finger until it pulled at her scalp. Beyond the bitter richness of the coffee, she smelled the cologne she’d come to associate with him—a dark, masculine aroma that made her imagine the grinding of cogs and engine parts.
This isn’t inescapable. If she struggled, she might near upend the table. If she screamed, someone would come running. He waited, holding her, gray eyes watching, as if some choice teetered in the balance. She tensed again. His grip adjusted an infinitesimal amount on her wrists, as if to say I have you.
Yes. You do. Everything about him enveloped her, made her crave exactly this. His possession. In her mind something relaxed; the balance shifted. She welcomed every way he could touch her, the heat from his body, the atoms of his breath. Everything.
As if he sensed her surrender, she felt the warm shift of air as he exhaled. Then his lips met hers, kissing her ever so gently.
The touch quaked her to the core. She shut her eyes, wanting only to feel. With each press, his mouth ventured more—harder, more urgent, drawing each lip under his teeth, then releasing it, parting them and pushing, until his tongue slipped warm into her. Beneath the coffee flavor, he tasted strange and foreign—exciting.
She had his tongue in her mouth, and the way she lay, her breasts half-swelled from the bodic
e of her dress. If he touched her there… She moaned into his mouth.
He pulled away. The loss made her ache for his lips on hers again.
“Better,” he said. “Much better. An obedient woman. It suits you.” He let go of her hair, ran his hand under her chin.
She should move. Resist. All she could do was blink up at him, then jam her eyes shut and shudder.
Timber grated on granite as he moved his chair closer to the corner. Without freeing her, he reached under the table. His fingers touched her dress, then inexorably inched the fabric up past her knee, along her thigh, upward. Her heart hammered. There was bare skin under those fingers. Where was he going? Not there, surely. Not here, at the table. She opened her eyes and found his waiting for her. He smiled back, smoothed those fingers higher to the juncture of her thighs.
“Open your legs, Claire.”
She shook her head, trembling.
“Am I hurting you?”
Heavens, no. This feels so good, so dark and wicked. Can anyone see? She chanced a look. Beyond the veil of flowering wisterias, nothing stirred. Though her stitches ached, with every new sensual advance on her body, the discomfort shrank further into the background.
“Claire? There’s only us. Open your legs.”
She swallowed and slipped out her tongue a second, then gave in and parted her thighs, groaning as he slid his hand under the edge of her panties and onto her wet cleft. When his hand pressed again, she opened her legs more. His thick fingers trailed along, dipping in here and there, just enough to part her swollen lips. Hot sensation pulsed. She clenched down there, inner muscles acting of their own accord.
I can’t stop him. Not now. That thought made her muscles spasm again, her pelvis nudge forward. Touch me. More. Deeper.
Panting, struggling not to writhe, humiliated by this consuming need, she moaned quietly.
“So wet.” Amusement tinged his voice. “So very nice. I’d bare your nipples as well, and taste them, but I doubt you’re ready for that much exhibitionism. Are you?”
She couldn’t answer; the sensations made thought impossible.
With his finger, he found the entrance to her, fingertip pressing barely in, then out again, sending fiery pulsations to her clit. He put his forehead to hers and waited like that while his finger moved in and out and in… She gasped.
“Mmm. I love hearing you.” He kissed her forehead. “This is lesson two, by the way.”
Vivid, delightful ideas inundated her—his mouth, his tongue there, licking her. She’d used her fingers on herself, and it had never felt like this. Everywhere throbbed to the beat of her heart.
His thumb weaved in rhythmic circles around her clit; then another finger and another joined the first, delving in a little farther each time. A ring at the base on his finger let her gauge the depth. Slipping, sliding, deep, shallow. She could hear the liquid noises, her panties so wet the air cooled her. Her clit rose up into a tight ball, expanding, blood thumping through it, and so sensitive she bit her lip when his thumb brushed her.
Now his thumb rolled over the center of that nub, up and down, smearing her juices. Her pussy tensed around those invading fingers.
“I wonder, will you come for me, Claire?” Theo whispered.
She stared, dazed, into his intent eyes, barely comprehending, wanting that rhythm to take her to the edge. More. Her hips jerked to get closer, but the table’s edge stopped her. Her wrists were pinned, her body held in exquisite limbo.
“There’s no one here to see. Except me. Just don’t squeal too loud.”
Then his thumb skated onto her clit, pressing in time with his fingers. Again. Again. She sucked in a last breath, held it, straining, until at last a tumult of ecstasy rolled through, shaking her like a diamond jigsaw into a million brilliant pieces. Slowly the world calmed, and she found he still held her wrists. As he removed his fingers down below, his thumb grazed her clit, making her shudder in the flare of another shock. She panted, head down on the table, feeling the linen against her skin.
He released her wrists and carefully turned her head to face him. “Well done. You’re the first woman to come at this table.”
His eyes smoldered. She couldn’t conjure up a single coherent word and stayed put as he ran his finger along the line of her jaw and across to tantalize her lower lip.
“If you lie there much longer, I’ll be tempted to tie you to the table legs and try buttering your ass instead of the toast.”
My God. That spurred her into action, and she sat up. She straightened her dress, finding it difficult to meet his eyes. I shouldn’t have done that.
“I’d be delighted if you’d sit on my lap a moment.” Theo wiped his fingers on a napkin—skin shining with her arousal—then leaned back, sprawling with his arm propped on the back of his chair. “No?”
“No.” She vigorously shook her head. What had she done? That didn’t feature in any of the books on ladylike manners she’d read. She’d had an orgasm at the breakfast table.
If he commanded her to sit on his lap, she wasn’t sure she could say no.
“Perhaps next time?”
She blushed. “There won’t be a next time! You”—she cleared her throat—“caught me unawares. I should not have let you do that.”
“Oh, and why is that?”
She stared at him. Anger took over from indignation. “I…” The heat on her cheeks upped another few degrees.
“Claire. You didn’t do that. I did. There was nothing to be ashamed of. “ He sat forward. “I think that settles it.”
She shook her head.
“If it is anyone’s fault, it’s mine. I have a foible—I like making women, some women, do what I want them to. You happen to be delightfully susceptible.” His eyes glinted mischievously.
But it was too easy to imagine Inkline sneering and insulting her. Slut would be his favorite word. She was nothing more than an animal.
“Claire,” he said more sharply, “you did nothing wrong!”
He didn’t understand. Hell, she wasn’t sure she did.
Furious, just plain blindly furious, she yanked on the tablecloth, upsetting china and cups, then shoved back her chair with a squeal of its legs on the tiles, and a bang as it tipped over.
“Didn’t I? Well, someone did!” She spun around, prepared to march off.
Dankyo skidded onto the balcony, followed closely by the four guards. He flipped the cover off his holster.
“Wait!” Still in his chair, Theo held up a hand. “Stand down, Dankyo.” He ran his palm over the top of his head. “Sit, please, Claire. I can see there are misunderstandings I should clear up.”
“No!” She flounced her skirt out from where it had wrapped around the chair. “No. I’ll not stay. I have nothing more to say.”
That infuriating combination of reasonableness and… She set her mouth firm, glared at him again. And pure goddamned maleness would unhinge her if she stayed a moment longer. She could even smell the difference between him and other men.
She turned and sailed toward Dankyo, who’d stopped halfway to the doors, clearly appalled that anybody would defy his master. When she went to brush past, he put out his arm and barred her way. Harry and a second guard moved to back him up.
“Claire”—Theo’s voice remained even—“I may comprehend your reasons, but I will not have impoliteness at my table.”
Fuming, she put her head down a moment before turning and walking back to him. “You comprehend my reasons? I doubt that. Very much.”
He rose. She looked up, disconcerted, having forgotten his height. “I require an apology.”
She nodded, dry-mouthed, finding she’d lost track of why she’d become so angry. She was an assassin, a trained killer, and not his rag doll to be ordered this way and that. Her anger should surely be at herself, not at Theo. Or, was there no one to blame and get angry at? Was Theo right?
“I’m…sorry, Colonel.” And she was, in a way.
He leaned in, whispering in her ea
r, “Thank you.”
The gentle stir of her hair beneath his sweet breath sent a mesmerizing signal through her flesh. Her knees threatened to give way.
She stepped back onto someone’s toes. “I’m…ah… Thank you for the breakfast.” Cheeks hot with embarrassment, she swung around and set off blindly for the stairs.
Once she had Dankyo and his guards in tow, her mind calmed, and by the time she’d reached the bottom of the stairs, she allowed herself a small smile and a mental pat on the back. She had the fork tucked into her underwear. That was her practical side. The other side of her, where those words of Theo’s fluttered round and round in the back of her head, well, she’d think of that again, later, when she was alone.
Chapter Six
The sound of her sharpening the fork against the metal hinges of the bathroom cupboard would have been impossible to disguise if it hadn’t been for the regular firing up of some engine on the estate. The cacophony drowned out almost everything at least three times a day.
When an airship arrived that evening, she watched Theo march out to it with a retinue of four men. Dankyo trailed along last in line, like some prehistoric, overmuscled rear guard.
The dire red airship, emblazoned with a black rose and its name, Final Rebuttal, rose into the cloud-strewn purple and orange sky, floating away to the purr of its propellers like some giant bee.
Both men were gone. She smiled bleakly. He’d gone without saying another word to her.
No lady would have let him be so rude to her at the breakfast table, you silly git. Whatever made you think he really liked you?
* * *
As the airship reached cruising altitude, Theo left the helm to Captain Muir and headed for his study.
The Final Rebuttal showed her age in the worn spots on the brass of the metal apparatus about the ship, in the frayed patches on the Oriental carpet in the gangways and the creaks and groans from the envelope as she went aloft. Not fast enough or well-armed or armored enough to be a warship, but she was his.
Almost every part of this ship stirred memories. He took pleasure in the solidity of the oak door to the study as it silently swung beneath his hand. Dankyo stalked in behind and closed the door. Warm colors surrounded Theo: the plush red of the curtains over the portholes along the far side melded with the golden colors of the timber of the desk and the framework of the leather-upholstered chairs.
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