Master: An Erotic Novel of the Count of Monte Cristo (29 page)

She looked through the grate, her eyes soft and glazed and hollyhock blue. “So do I, my love. So do I.”

The evening she’d met the Comtesse de Morcerf at the theater, Haydée rode home in His Excellency’s carriage alone. It had been no surprise to her when, after disappearing for a time during the first intermission, and then again during the second (after sending glowering stares across the stage at the comtesse), he elected to accept an invitation from the Comte de Morcerf instead of leaving for home at that time. And His Excellency hadn’t returned to his house on the Champs-Élysées until after dawn, at which time he was, from what Bertuccio said, in very foul spirits.

Thus Haydée had ridden home alone in the carriage—alone, except for Ali, who declined to ride
in
the vehicle with her and instead chose to sit outside, up next to the driver.

All because he was too damned afraid to be alone with Haydée.

Over the next ten days, he continued to avoid her at all costs. Haydée actually found it rather amusing when, if she entered a room where he might be, he would immediately find an excuse to leave.

Or, if she would summon him to her presence for some manufactured reason, he would take care to bring another of the servants with him.

But after a time, she’d had enough of his blasted honorable excuses for not letting her touch him, and she set about hatching a plan to end this standoff once and for all.

If seducing him by making him a voyeur and watching her in the tub with her servants, or sneaking into his bed at night hadn’t worked, then Haydée knew she’d have to resort to the last of the feminine wiles: tears.

And as it happened, an unexpected event occurred that gave her the perfect excuse to do so: a man broke into the home on the Champs-Élysées one night when the Count of Monte Cristo had taken his household to his other residence in Auteuil. The intruder was killed during his escape, and no one had been in the house but the count himself, who apparently had chased the man away . . . but Haydée decided to use the incident to her advantage.

The night following the incident, which she’d only heard about from Bertuccio and the other servants, Haydée selected her trap’s settings very carefully. She was aware that Ali often prowled about the gardens late in the afternoon when the other servants were busy preparing for His Excellency’s evening plans, and she arranged herself in a small gazebo in the very farthest corner of the grounds.

It was perfect for her use, for heavy vines and thick bushes grew around the small building, and it was tucked away just off the pebbled paths. But to ensure that her plot wouldn’t be interrupted, she’d given strict orders to Bertuccio and Marie, the housekeeper, that no one but Ali was to come into the gardens for any reason.

Thus, when the sun was halfway back to its resting place, warm and yellow but not bearing down with its strongest blaze, Haydée settled herself on one of the large, plump chaises that occupied the gazebo. An odd thing to have in a garden house, really . . . but perhaps she was not the first one to choose to use the little structure as a trysting place. It really was perfect.

She checked to be certain everything was in readiness, including the special ring she wore, and then she began to cry. Loudly. Heartbreakingly, wrenchingly, forlornly.

Instead of burying her face in the cushions, she pitched her cries away, into the open, concentrating on making real tears and even turning her face blotchy and red. Ali was not easy to fool.

That was only one of the things she loved about him.

Another thing was the thick, dark length that he refused— unlike other men—to allow to lead him around and to influence his decisions. Damn him for being so insufferably honorable.

It wasn’t long before, between gasping sobs, Haydée heard the soft skitter of pebbles in the distance, and she let a particularly heartrending wail sally forth. And then she buried her face in her hands, ensuring that her shoulders were heaving convincingly.

Since he couldn’t speak, Ali always made certain to create some quiet noise to announce his presence, and this time was no exception. A scuffle of feet on the dusty wooden floor of the building—along with the anticipatory prickling at the back of her neck—told her that he’d fallen for the bait.

Now it was only a matter of clinching the deal.

She felt him behind her, and imagined that he stood there, helpless and uncertain, confronted with a sobbing woman, opening and closing his fingers, beginning to step toward her, then hesitating and stepping back. So, after a moment, she lifted her head and gave a realistic start when she saw him standing before her, just as she’d imagined.

Haydée’s mouth went dry as she looked over at him, big and bald and black, wrists cuffed in gleaming gold, looming there next to her chaise. Gorgeous. Inhumanly beautiful and powerful—yet looking as uncomfortable and out of place as if he were being fitted for a corset—and he was going to be hers. All hers.

What is it?
he signed.

Haydée bravely held back another sob and used the hem of her tunic sleeve—a loose-fitting one-piece garment she’d chosen for just those reasons as her garb for this seduction—to dab at her eyes. Her hair she’d collected loosely in a long, low tail that fell down her spine, and she wore only a simple cord around the crown of her head, wrapping across her forehead where a single pearl dangled above the place between her brows.

“I . . . didn’t know anyone was here,” she said, ducking her face as though embarrassed. She waited until he touched her, featherlight, at the top of her head. Featherlight and fleeting, and she looked up again.

She gave a few shaky sobs and then appeared to pull her wits about her, and sat up on the chaise. With a gesture to the other one—the one she’d prepared specially for Ali—she said, “Please sit down. You . . . it’s hard to talk when you’re looming over me.”

Looking abashed, but with concern in his dark eyes, he sank down on the chaise, feet planted on the floor and arms akimbo over his knees.

Has someone hurt you?
His hand motions showed subtle fury, as if waiting for some ugly confirmation before bursting free.

“No,” she replied, sniffling a bit for good measure. “It’s just that . . . last night, that man who broke into the house . . . Caderousse was his name, wasn’t it?”

Ali gave a sharp nod, and she noticed that his large hand relaxed a bit.

“If he had come into the house while we were here, he could have . . . he could have murdered us all,” she said fearfully.

No. I—
Here Ali stopped, his hands slapping nonsense for a moment before they picked up again.
His Excellency, and all of us, would not let that happen. You’re safe.

“But he could have killed the count! And that”—she dabbed at her eyes again—“is what I fear the most! That he would be taken from me.”

She saw the way Ali drew back, ever so slightly, stiffening.
His Excellency is no fool. He is not easily killed, nor bested. He has survived far more than you can imagine.

“But it is possible . . . and then what would happen to me? Where would I go? What would I do? I am afraid to be alone.” Haydée began to sob heavily again, sagging in her chaise so that she was about to fall off . . . unless he caught her.

Which he did. Gently, as though afraid to touch her, he caught her shoulders in his large, powerful hands. Haydée gave him no chance to think, to retreat; she fairly surged off her seat into his lap, snuggling her face into the musky corner between his neck and shoulder. Ahh. She closed her eyes and drew in a long, deep, lovely breath of the man she wanted above all others.

She gave a few more gentle sobs to camouflage her deep breaths, her growing sense of comfort and joy. Of course, with her face buried into his skin, she couldn’t see any hand motions he might make, so after a moment, she raised herself from that most pleasant of positions.

Now she was sitting on his lap, her legs primly to one side of his thighs, his hands gingerly at her waist, barely touching her. The bulge in his trousers was a source of satisfaction to her rather than a surprise, but she took care to hide any evidence of that.

“He is like my father, Ali. . . . I cannot bear the thought of losing another father.”

A wave of happiness swept over her when she saw the truth, the naked emotion in his eyes. No matter how hard he tried to hide it, to deny it, he cared for her . . . as more than a body, as what he perceived as a forbidden body.

“Ali . . . ,” she began, but he stopped her with vigorous hand motions.

Ali’s eyes had gone flat, as though to obscure his feelings, and Haydée was momentarily quieted by his long speech. She’d never seen him “speak” so much. . . . He must have felt it was imperative that she understand.

But she didn’t care.

She leaned forward without warning and covered his lovely, thick lips with hers, drawing in the dark taste of him gently but firmly. Her hand slipped around his neck, pulling herself up off his lap to delve deeply into the kiss . . . but then she settled back into place before he could end it.

He was breathing heavily, and those eyes weren’t so shuttered and flat any longer. Haydée herself felt out of breath . . . and unsatisfied. But it was too soon to dive back into a kiss.

“I don’t want His Excellency to take care of me,” she said, leaning into him. As she’d expected, he tilted away as if to keep some distance between them, and with a little lunge, she caught him off-balance and tipped him back onto the chaise. Then, with a quick twist, she turned her ring and released its little needle, then reached up to wrap her arms around his neck again, and shoved the tiny needle into one of the veins in his neck as she did so.

He started in surprise, but a little nick like that would hardly be noticeable to a man like him, and she pretended nothing had happened, for it would take a few moments for the sleeping drug to work.

She smiled at him, running her hands back down over his chest as he half lay back, and she saw the flare of surprise and desire in his eyes. Quickly taking advantage of it by running her fingers gingerly along his massive arms, she moved up his body. “You are so strong, Ali,” she said, close to his face. “I want you to take care of me. I would never worry if I was with you.”

When he raised his hands, she covered the underside of his biceps with her wide fingers and smoothed up along those mighty arms—from shoulder to elbow to wrist, guiding his hands back above his head. She leaned forward to kiss him again, and in that moment felt him begin to relax under her body.

Ali shook his head as if to keep himself awake, but he was fighting a losing battle. The drug she’d used was quick and effective, even for a man his size, and Haydée had to wait only another few breaths before he was sagging sleepily in the chaise, his eyes closed, his breathing easy.

She then found it simple to raise his heavy arms and tie both wrists together at the top of the chaise, and then lash his ankles, one at each corner of the end of the divan. She would never have succeeded if he’d been awake and aware, she thought, as she fitted a belt over his hips to keep him from arching and bucking too violently.

Once Haydée was finished with that, she had to wait a bit longer for the effects of the drug to wear off. She helped the process by holding a little vial of eucalyptus and mint under his nose. It was perhaps ten minutes, or a quarter of an hour, later that he began to stir.

She sat and watched with a mixture of trepidation and anticipation as consciousness and awareness returned to his face. When he realized he was restrained, she actually held her breath for a moment as he struggled against his bonds.

His muscles bulged as he pulled at the leather cords, and Haydée swallowed hard . . . partly because of the fury in his face, and partly because . . . dear heaven, but he was beautiful and frighteningly powerful.

“I’m sorry, Ali, but I had to do this,” she said, leaning forward to kiss him. “I don’t want His Excellency. I want you. Only you. Forever. You.”

He moved so angrily, with low, guttural grunts from his voiceless mouth that she thought for a moment he might pull the chaise into splinters. It jolted and shifted and lurched on the floor, and she watched in trepidation.

If he got free, would he kill her?

She should have tied him to a wrought-iron chaise instead of this one. It was made of bamboo, which she knew was used for houses and roofs in the Orient . . . but it was creaking a bit under his movements. . . .

Haydée’s heart pounded in her chest and she swallowed hard, looking at his bulging eyes, dark and furious, his firm-lined mouth, no longer so thick and sensual, the incredible swells of his biceps and pectoral muscles—even in his neck, where the tendons were taut and throbbing and there was a tiny red dot from where she’d punctured him. Regret stung her for a bare moment, but she pushed it away. It had to be done if she was going to have this man for her own, forever.

For that was what she wanted.

“Please,” she said, smoothing her small, olive-skinned hands over his gleaming ebony chest, “let me pleasure you, Ali. I want to touch you. I want to feel your skin against mine. And I knew this . . . this was the only way.”

And with that, she pulled off her loose tunic with one smooth motion and flung it. That left her completely nude, her breasts tight and lifted from anticipation, her nipples jutting up, her quim swollen and tingling.

No
.

His mouth formed the word; she could almost hear it in the exhale of breath, low and deep and heartfelt. His head thrashed against the cushion beneath it, and he ended by turning away from her as his powerful legs jerked in futility.