by Edie Harris
They were both trapped in lives of their own making. They might as well be trapped together.
“Claudia, chérie,” and he used a flippant tone one would expect to hear from a man who didn’t remotely lust after his betrothed, “you are tired, yes? Do you wish to retire?”
She nodded mutely, and he allowed her the safety of silence. Hadn’t he tortured her enough over the course of their acquaintance? Her hand lay limply in the crook of his elbow, and the pain in his chest doubled, then tripled as she allowed him to lead her out of the ballroom with her eyes trained on the floor. It wasn’t obedience or submission. It was defeat.
Gaspard wanted her to fight. Hell, he’d discovered he liked it when she fought, resisted and snarled. When she questioned him, challenged him…it made any surrender she offered that much sweeter.
Together, they departed the ballroom, the curious stares of the gathered guests pounding against their backs. Gaspard led her out into the hall, marbled and ostentatious and yet somehow rather boring in the way that only the English could be, and then up the stairs. He’d been relegated to a separate wing from the family’s suites but had made it a point to learn exactly which room was Claudia’s upon arrival at the Pascale home, and he unerringly directed her up the stairs to its tall, white-paneled door.
The bedchamber was decidedly more tasteful than the rest of the house, more her. Rose-and-cream-striped damask papered the walls, and elegant, delicate-looking furnishings with dark wood accents and pale-hued upholstery filled the small space. Its size confused him, considering the opulence of his own chamber, not to mention the rest of the mansion. “This is your room?”
“Yes,” she responded dully, detaching herself from his arm and moving to the bed. “Thank you for escorting m-me here.”
His eyes narrowed as she boosted herself onto the neatly made counterpane. “I am not leaving.”
“Fine.” She curled on her side, the vibrant blue of the dress in stark contrast to her colorless face.
It was not fine, and Gaspard found he could no longer tolerate her listless behavior, his guilt over causing it too close to the surface. Though he feared he knew the answer, he asked, bitingly, “What is wrong with you tonight?”
Her eyes slid shut, and she sighed, so wearily he felt exhaustion weight his limbs in sympathy. “I’m t-tired.”
“Liar.” He strode to the bed, stopping only when his thighs hit the frame, and folded his arms across his chest. “Tell me what has upset you.”
Her shoulder lifted in jerky response, the shrug aborted due to her position on the bed. The capped sleeve of her gown, puffed and tucked around her upper arm with dainty pleats, shifted lower to reveal the smooth curve of one pale shoulder. She didn’t answer.
Not answering was no longer an option for the lady, however. “No more silence, Claudia. If you do not speak to me, we cannot fix what ails you.”
“You.” Her dark-lashed eyes snapped open, flashing sparks at him. “You ail me. I c-can’t do this.”
Even though he’d expected such an announcement, Gaspard stumbled back a step, away from her harsh words, her animosity. “I see.”
“Do you?” She pushed upright, tugging at the bodice of her gown. “Because what I s-s-saw downstairs makes m-me ill.”
“I…see.” He couldn’t say anything else, and so simply stood there, looking down at her while she glared up at him. There was no softness in her gaze, nothing but stiff misery in the straightness of her spine, and his chest felt as though it had been on the receiving end of a swift kick from horses’ hooves. Except horses’ hooves hurt less than this. He brought up a hand to rub over the phantom ache in his sternum.
Shaking her head, she dropped her chin, then began plucking numerous pins from the elegantly styled mass of her hair. “You don’t understand.”
He swallowed around the lump in his throat, unable to stop watching her nimble fingers search out the pins from one curl to the next because he wanted to be the one to loosen her hair. He wanted his blunt peasant’s fingers to be responsible for that shining dark silk to tumble haphazardly down her back. “Explain it to me.”
Her look lashed him with contempt. “You never c-c-cease trying to m-make me s-s-speak. It’s always ‘tell m-me’ this,” she mocked as she forcefully flung a pin across the rug. “‘Explain it to m-me.’ I don’t have to s-s-speak if I don’t w-want to!” With an aggravated growl, she tossed the hairpins from her lap, sending them flying into the air and against his legs, after which they plunked soundlessly to the floor.
She always looks at me like a wounded animal might. One that’s been kicked repeatedly by its owners.
Except this time, Gaspard had done the proverbial kicking. His head buzzed at the memory of Sabien’s words, and he followed the descent of the pins until he crouched before her, his weight resting on his heels. He picked up an errant hairpin to hold between his thumb and forefinger, neither offering it to her nor keeping it for himself.
He studied the delicate metal object. So tiny, and yet it could carry such a heavy burden. A tool as much for practicality as it was for beauty.
He glanced up at her. Yes—practical, beautiful and burdened. That was his kitten.
She sighed unsteadily and shook her head, hair falling around her face in thick chocolate waves. “I was an idiot to think we c-could ever b-be…”
“Normal?”
“Happy.” Her hand rested over her heart, and she lifted her head to meet his gaze. “Happy, Gaspard. B-but now I know what it will be like f-for us.”
He fisted the hairpin. “I know it now too.”
“I can’t live m-my life b-being laughed at,” she whispered brokenly. “And there’s nothing you can d-do to change that.”
“I—”
“What happens, Gaspard?” She leaned forward suddenly, wrapping her hand around his fist. Her fingers were warm where they curled over his knuckles. “What happens if everyone d-discovers you lied about your…s-s-sexual p-preferences?”
He felt himself swaying toward her, dropping from the balls of his feet to his knees and covering her hand with his. Their faces level, he watched as the tiniest hint of pink returned to the high curves of her cheekbones. Where before dread had left him cold, a tentative heat began to filter through his bloodstream, warming him, giving him idiotic confidence. “Maybe nothing.”
“Now who’s the liar?” Her hand lifted toward his face, stopping an inch shy of his brow. She pulled back, tugging her fingers free of his hold as she sat upright on the edge of the bed. “I know s-spies, remember? You’re always looking over your sh-shoulders. Waiting. J-just waiting.”
The threat of retribution. It was what kept them all in check—him, Sabien, even Évoque to a certain extent. That threat made him reckless enough to say, “We could leave.”
They could leave London, leave England, and reinvent themselves just the two of them, somewhere completely new, as completely new people. In a matter of days, Auguste Pascale would transfer the dowry into the new Bank of England account Gaspard had opened only that morning. They could take the ten thousand, and his title could rot, along with whatever promises he’d made Évoque.
Something akin to desperation clogged his chest, and he grabbed her wrists, squeezed. “We could run.”
Watching the flicker of hope in her eyes bloom and die was the saddest thing he’d ever seen in his travesty of a life. “Then we’d b-be running forever,” she told him. “D-decades. Eventually…eventually, we would c-come to resent each other.” She attempted to wriggle free, but he held fast, even when she continued speaking with that slow, low voice of hers, so English it hurt his ears. “You s—” A pause. “You suffered for this chance, Gaspard,” she said quietly, perfectly, horribly. “I won’t t-take it from you.”
His thumbs pressed against the pulse points of her wrists. “What do you propose we do?” Because they needed to do something.
Because she was right, right about everything.
Because for once he didn�
��t have a plan up his sleeve, strangling the hilt of his ever-present knife.
“We m-marry. You s-s-save your estate, your t-title. I escape m-my p-parents. And then—” She paused. “We take up s-s-separate residences.”
He sucked in a harsh breath, his fingers tightening with bruising force around her wrists. “No.”
“Yes.”
“No.” He hadn’t survived warring, spying and screwing any man who looked at his cock sideways—not to mention the fucking Channel crossing from hell—to be separated from his reward by the reward herself. “You will not live apart from me.” He wanted her so constantly that it was inconceivable to think of a life—decades, she’d said—where he couldn’t bend her over the nearest flat surface and bury himself in her whenever desperation gripped him, selfish beast that he was.
Her jaw clenched, her stubbornness only making him want to take a bite out of her. “I’ve never knowingly s-s-subjected m-myself to ridicule, and I don’t p-plan to st-start now.” She paused, flexing her fingers until he loosened his grip. “Let m-me have this s-s-sliver of control, G-Gaspard. P-please. Everything else is yours.”
Control. She needed control, or she’d leave him.
Their future hinged on this moment. He’d still get her dowry. He’d still get her, but unless this wounded animal stole a little power for herself, he wouldn’t get her. Not in the way he wanted, and certainly not in the way he feared he needed.
His body made the decision before his brain, his mouth already moving as he released her hands and yanked viciously at his cravat. “You can have control, kitten,” and he purred the words, as he had in so many seductions past. “If control is what you need…” He tossed aside the cravat and began to shrug out of his evening coat. “If this is what will make you happy…” The coat discarded, his mind finally caught up, and nervous energy made him shake as he continued stripping, unbuttoning his waistcoat.
He’d promised himself that he would never submit to another soul after leaving France. He would never let himself be mastered again.
Yet here he stood, ready to break that promise and allow her to control him as she saw fit.
His stomach twisted. Even when he’d whored for the Crown, the reins stayed firmly in his grasp, the situation his to change, to manipulate. Forfeiting that control to her, even knowing in the back of his mind that he could physically overpower her in a heartbeat if panic suffused him…it was terrifying.
Was their future worth the fear? Was she?
Yes. Yes.
“Tonight, I am yours, Claudia.” His fingers dropped to his trouser fall, teased the top button. “Command me.”
Chapter Fifteen
Confusion reigned, bouncing off the fuzzy corners of her brain to pound painfully at her temples. “What are you d-doing?”
“What do you want me to do?” he countered.
“I…” Understanding dawned as her gaze locked on his thumb, stroking slowly over the top button holding his trousers to his lean waist. The front placket strained suspiciously, displaying his growing arousal, and her traitorous body clenched in response. Laying a hand over her fluttering abdomen, Claudia glared at him. “No.”
“That is not an answer.”
As well she knew. “This won’t f-fix anything. What you’re d-doing.” She nodded toward his hand, face heating.
“How do you know?” His broad shoulders shifted, and the white linen shirt beneath his waistcoat gaped open at the neck, revealing firm muscles dusted with brown-gold hair. “This may fix everything.”
She met his heavy-lidded stare as she considered—remembered—the feel of his body over hers, behind hers. His bite thick and throbbing inside her. He was a predator pretending to be prey, watching her with devious intent, and she knew that somehow he would manage to get his way tonight. One false face after another, he’d try them all on for size until he found the mask that weakened her resolve, and then he’d trample her into submission.
She had no defenses against him.
The ball downstairs had shattered her last hope for a peaceful future as his wife, yet she couldn’t deny him.
She was almost surprised to discover she loved someone, after a life completely devoid of it, and to discover that loving someone was just as dangerous and epic and splendid and tragic as she’d always suspected it might be. Twenty years she’d been left bereft of the emotion. It wasn’t until her heart crumbled in the comte’s rough hands that she’d known how desperate this particular starvation had left her.
She’d been cognizant of the longing in her limbs since arriving back on English soil. Her arms wanted nothing more than to wrap around his solid torso. Her knees carried the memory of knocking with his as they tangled in the bedsheets, slumbering together on that fateful Paris night. Beneath her skin, aching from the absence of his hands and mouth, her ribs creaked with every expansion of her lungs—without him looking at her, wanting her, she couldn’t take in enough air.
But here he was, standing in front of her and looking at her. Wanting her…and she could breathe, at last. She was positively lightheaded with all the breathing she was accomplishing.
“Gaspard—”
“Do you want me to remove this?” He lifted a hand to the prettily embroidered lapel of his waistcoat, stroked the silk with casual fingertips.
She was aware of the rise and fall of her chest, heard his soft intake of air as she nodded. The pale scars across the backs of his hands tautened as he gripped the waistcoat, shrugged out of it. After letting it hang loosely from his wrist in a half-second’s hesitation, he shook the garment to the floor.
That hesitation snared her attention, and her gaze flicked to his.
She blinked. He was doing it. He was actually handing her the reins, and she was in control. She was the strong one.
She was strong.
His eyes dared her to comment, to demand more of him. So she did, because she could—because, apparently, he would let her. “N-now your shirt.”
Those hands of his—big hands, the hands of a blacksmith’s son—yanked the hem of his shirt from his trousers, then whipped the linen over his head to land atop the discarded waistcoat. The movement mussed his hair, haphazardly displacing the strands across his forehead. Bare-chested and breathing heavily, he watched her with wariness and defiance.
And wanting. There was so much wanting in his eyes that it stole her breath.
Arms at his sides, Gaspard Toussaint was ready, ready for her next words, ready to do her bidding.
The power in the room shifted suddenly, a palpable tug on the very center of her being. No more predator, no more prey. No longer did he hunt her. In this moment, he belonged to her, and Claudia—empty, yearning, desperate Claudia—fully embraced that rabid starvation living in her soul. She reached for him. Grabbed on to him. Claimed him.
Yet her hands never left her lap. “The shoes.”
He toed them off.
She jerked her chin at his lower body, adrenaline coursing through her veins and setting her nerve endings on fire. Anxious excitement churned in her stomach. She forgot the distress of the party in her parents’ ballroom, the agony of her feelings, the mess she’d made of her future by falling in love with this man. The excitement poked her, prodded at her, made her wriggle on the edge of the bed as she grew consumed by a singular purpose.
To toy with him, as he had with her since the moment of their meeting.
Apparently love didn’t quite quell one’s desire for revenge. “The rest of it. T-trousers, hose.” Smallclothes. “D-down to nothing, if you p-please.”
His hand fell again to the button of his trousers. “Tonight is about what pleases you, chaton.”
The term of endearment sloughed away the sharpest edges of her tension, and she curved her lips, a mere hint of a smile. “To nothing,” she repeated.
He thumbed free the button and slowly pulled back the placket. The heavy, curved shape of his erection tented his undergarments, stretching to kiss the shallow dip of h
is navel. Hooking his fingertips into the layers concealing him from her gaze, he peeled his trousers down his muscled legs, smallclothes and hosiery too. He kicked the crumpled pile of clothing aside, and, arrogant as ever, planted his hands on his naked hips.
His fingers fit perfectly into the fascinating cut muscles carved over his hipbones. Such a provocative sight, golden skin so firm, so deliciously smooth, and she hungered to taste him. What would his flesh feel like under her tongue tonight? Different than in Paris? Would his very skin hint at the bitterness she felt, betrayal sour on her tongue? Her mouth watered with the need to know. “C-come here.”
He moved to her, the head of his cock bobbing with each footstep, halting only when he stood between her knees. The skirt of her gown bunched around his bare legs, brilliant blue satin catching on the coarse hairs, and she spread her legs wider, welcoming him forward. His breathing quickened as she tugged one scarred hand from his hip, bending to replace it with her mouth.
The tip of her tongue traced the sleek, indented line of muscled hip, gathering the clean, heated taste of him. Oh, this was better than before, his skin so much purer than his actions, and she shivered as she absorbed him into her bloodstream. His flesh gave beneath her teeth.
He hissed as she bit him, that earlier excitement now coursing with thrilling speed through her veins. She laved away the sting, eyes drifting closed, and moaned as she grabbed on to his hips, holding him to her.
His hand attempted to settle on the back of her head, but she slapped him away. “No,” she whispered as she nibbled that intriguing delineation of muscle. “Did I s-s-say you c-could touch?”
Lord only knew where she unearthed that bit of sass, but the comte fell for it and dropped his arm with a peeved grunt before telling her, “Non.”
Well, look at him, being so acquiescent. Arousal slicked to life between her legs.
Her lips continued to explore the dips and valleys of his hip and flank. She wanted to devour him, he tasted so good. He felt so good. His very nearness caused her lungs to seize, her heart thumping madly and her skin sizzling with the painful need to be touched by him, as she knew he must want to touch her…but not yet. Not when she was having so much fun with him. With the power.