Hot Silk (14 page)

“He’s done this before?” Devlin’s voice was low, dangerous. “You said you avoided him.”

“I tried but there were times when he saw me. At balls, he has walked toward me, with a power and harshness that made me run. I didn’t have courage to stand my ground.” She gave a rueful smile. “I fled for the ladies’ retiring room every time.”

“I will slice out his tongue so he can never use it to disparage you again.”

“No!” she cried once more. Was she always going to have to fight to control her brutal pirate? It frightened her how close he was to doing something violent. “I gave him license to do this, and it is my cross to bear—”

Devlin put his fingers to her lips. “Stop.”

Fierce anger burned in his eyes. At Wesley? Or at her?

“Stop doing this, Grace,” he growled. “I cannot stand listening to you blame yourself. If you do it once more, I
will
walk away from you.”

That stung. It shouldn’t—really, what should she care what a criminal thought? But it did hurt. “I don’t care,” she stormed. “You don’t really care about me. I’ve no doubt you made love to…to all those women in your house the very day before you kidnapped me.”

Devlin slapped his hand to his forehead. “Hell and the devil! You were not in my life the day before I kidnapped you. Have I even glanced at a woman since I reacquainted us?”

“You call holding up my carriage a ‘reacquaintance’? What you did was madness. And you are inconstant. How long do you normally bestow all your attentions on a woman before growing bored and seducing another? A week? A month? Or merely a day or two?”

“It will be different with you.”

“It always is, though, Devlin. A man always regrets a bruising blow to his wife’s face, until the next time he is drunk and enraged. I lived in the country and I helped my mother with her duties to the villagers. I’ve seen enough men cry over dead wives when it was their fists that did the deed.”

“I would never hurt you.”

“No, but you would break my heart. I can’t go through that again. Can you deny that each carriage you rob is an exciting conquest?”

He gave a half shake to his head, a typical male gesture—he couldn’t understand what she was trying to make him see.

“Of course it’s excitement,” he said. “I’m risking death—that tends to excite a man.”

“Could you live without the excitement? Could you ever be content in a simple life? How can you promise to be constant to me when you are one of those who lives for excitement?”

“Perhaps you excite me, Grace.”

“I wouldn’t always. You must understand that.”

“I suspect you would, love.”

Lights glowed in the windows of the house. It was the unlit windows that worried her because those were the ones through which prying eyes could see them.

She had to make Devlin leave her alone, as much as it hurt when all she wanted was to walk into his embrace. To be held. To feel loved. To pretend she was loved.

“Can you describe two women who you bedded five years ago?” she asked harshly. “Only two. What did they look like? What color was their hair? Their eyes? Do you remember even two of their names?”

“Some women are unforgettable, Grace.
You
are unforgettable.”

She began to protest but he snapped, “It’s true. Walk away now. It doesn’t matter. I would never forget you.”

Was it possible…possible that he loved her? But what difference did that make? All it meant was that he would hurt, too, when they had to part. She should make the break now, before she brought scandal down on her family.

She must.

But after being first cut by Prudence and Wesley, then having Wesley try to force her into a kiss, she was hurting. Her heart felt too tight and cramped to beat properly and she couldn’t seem to catch her breath.

She needed to hold Devlin close. Needed to touch him. Breathe his scent. She was able to take care of herself—she had been about to give Wesley a solid knee to the groin when Devlin had yanked him away. But this was not about protection.

She reached out to him.

Her fingers slid up to his shoulders, so high above her head. At her touch, he bent and moved them back a step, retreating into the dark. “Make love to me tonight.”

She couldn’t resist.

H
ad anyone seen them as they came to her bedroom? Grace couldn’t be certain as she slipped beneath the sheets beside Devlin. It was heaven to slide into the crisp warmth beside his long, hot, naked body. Her hip brushed alongside his, and he rolled onto his side to embrace her.

The hallways of the rambling mansion had been quiet, and it appeared most guests had gone to bed.

His legs entwined with hers, the hairs a soft caress against her skin. Her feet brushed his hard shins and his sculpted calves.

“Do you want to know how special you are?” he murmured as his arm came around to rest beneath her breasts. His rock-hard forearm pressed against her curves.

He nuzzled her neck and she whispered, “How do you plan to show me?”

“I’ve never let a woman tie me up. Would you like to be the first?”

“Tie you up? Why?”

His chest rumbled with his soft laugh. “To ravish me, love.”

“Goodness.” She had seen such scenes in a book—not one of her father’s. The book bore no title nor artist’s name, as though both publisher and creator were too embarrassed to be connected with the work. The pictures were cruder than those painted by her father and many were unfinished. The sex acts were shown with the backgrounds barely sketched in. But the pictures had stunned her.

Women bound. Blindfolded. And young males, too, spread-eagled on beds, with wrists and ankles lashed to bedposts and their naked erections jutting upward. The first time she’d found the book, she’d quickly shut it and thrust it back in its place. But days later she had been drawn to find it again. And again, she had looked at three pictures, had felt her heart twist and her throat become a vise, and had guiltily shoved the book away. For several months, that had become her routine. Find the naughty book, peruse it, suffer the spears of guilt, stuff it back, then be driven to look all over again.

“Well,” Devlin said. “Do you want to?”

Devlin bound? Looking like one of those pictures? She couldn’t find the words, not even a simple
yes
, but she nodded her head.

“Not on the bed?”

Devlin grinned at Grace’s question. “It’s my fantasy, love. Indulge me.”

Holding her handful of improvised bonds—his cravat, her corset ties, and both her gossamer stockings, Grace nibbled her lower lip. “But really, Devlin, that chair is hardly comfortable. Why would you want to be tied to it?”

“Discomfort can be erotic.”

She tipped her head as though considering it. “I can’t imagine it.”

“Pampered Grace,” he laughed.

“I’m not,” she protested, but his teasing had the desired effect. She marched over and dropped all the ties but one—his cravat. “I was poor. As a church mouse. Or worse. A mouse always has a roof over its head.”

He looked down to see the fluid already dribbling out of his hard cock and he saw the thin seat and spindly legs of the chair beneath him. The small chair did feel precarious.

She bent over and her breasts swayed forward, bumping his face. His tongue slid out, on instinct, and touched the tip of her left nipple. Directly in line to her heart.

“Oh!”

He swirled his tongue around the soft, delicious nipple, teasing it to harden, to get big and plump and aroused.

She leaned in more to reach his hand, pushing her breasts against him. He opened his mouth as wide as he could to take a big mouthful of breast. He suckled hard on her skin and heard her desperate whimper of pleasure.

The linen slid around his wrists, which he held together behind his back for her convenience. He moaned at the sensation, the sound muffled by the breast filling his mouth. Her hands worked, brushing his skin. He couldn’t see what she was doing; he could only feel it, and that sensation had him tense and coiled on the seat. It was as though he could explode like gunpowder on the spot.

Her body swayed as she worked, her breasts pushing forward and pulling back. He sucked hungrily at her skin. The fabric went tight around his wrists. Her knee bumped his hard cock and rested on his thigh. She had to be getting leverage to tie him tight.

Damn, he was so aroused.

Her knee kept smacking his cock and he grimaced, fighting for control. He couldn’t come at just the brush of her knee, could he?

“There.” She wriggled on him, moving sensuously, teasing his face with her tits. Then she moved back and he had to let her breast go.

With her teeth nibbling her lower lip, she gazed down at him. A lovely, curvaceous goddess limned by firelight.

“It’s so arousing to see you with your hands bound,” she whispered. “That’s terrible, isn’t it?”

Sweet Grace, revealing her fantasies and so uncertain and shy about them.

“It’s not terrible. It’s natural. We all have fantasies and our most private fantasies can be dark, shocking ones. And sometimes we have ones that are just damned odd.”

Her shy smile made him catch his breath. “After all,” he said, “I’m revealing mine to you.”

“Why would you, a swash-buckling pirate, want to be tied up by a woman?”

“I want to be wanted by a woman that much.”

He heard her soft, surprised gasp, and he watched the deliciously fetching confusion on her face. Then she gave a coquettish smile. “What do I do now, then, Captain? You have a rather upright mast.”

He hadn’t expected that and his laugh rumbled, making him tug at his bonds. A suggestion leapt to his lips, but she beamed at him. “I can do whatever I wish, can’t I? For you are tied up.”

She paced around him, her full breasts swaying, her hips undulating with sultry and seductive promise. He held his breath as she laid her hands on his knees and bumped her breasts toward his face, but as he arched forward to catch her nipple with his lips, she pulled back.

“Bring your juicy cunny to my mouth,” he urged, voice strained.

She did, but just as his tongue slid out and touched her moist skin, she pulled back again.

“Sweetheart, you might just be torturing yourself more than me.”

“Very possibly,” she agreed, “But that is the risk I will have to take.”

“Turn around and let me give your round little rear a kiss.”

She giggled and her brows went up, but she did as he asked. He kissed her, bit gently into her soft, smooth skin. Let his tongue slick through the valley between them, to the curling blond hairs that softly surrounded her anus. He teased there, tasting her erotically rich flavor, breathing in her intimate scents.

“Ooh,” she gasped.

But she pulled away again and he growled in frustration. His hips arched up of their own accord; his body worked against the chair, rattling the legs.

“I want you, Grace. You’re going to have to fuck me now, before I explode.”

She lifted her bare foot and he flinched as it neared his cock. But then she played with his length and the swollen head with her soft foot.

God, that was good.

Her toes slid down, getting moist with his fluid. She could barely keep her balance and he winced, waiting for the pain to go with the pleasure.

She trailed her toes down to his ballocks. Her big toe pushed his balls around, moving them in the sac, and the sensation had him groaning.

Begging. Begging her to take his cock inside, into her heat. Begging her to pound on him hard. Hell, he’d never even begged for his life, not even with a pistol against his head or a noose around his neck.

But he was begging Grace.

Excitement, astonishment, glowed like a flame within her green eyes. “But I don’t want to ride you yet,” she playfully argued. “I want to touch you.”

She let the backs of her nails, long and slightly sharp, brush his neck. Closing his eyes, he let his head drop back to give her the length of his neck to caress. “You could sit on my lap to do this,” he suggested.

“I could,” she agreed.

But she didn’t.

Even with eyes closed, he knew she had paced around him to his back, knew it by the whisper of her soft feet on the floor and the way her vanilla and lavender scent floated past him.

She stroked the back of his neck and he shuddered at the thrill that shot down his spine.

“I want to touch your shoulders,” she promised. “Your chest.” Her fingers spanned his shoulders, then moved down to his nipples. Gently she pinched both.

He let his lashes sweep up as she bent close and her loose hair fell around him. Her hands skimmed down toward his abdomen as her sweet-scented hair brushed his skin, setting it on fire. He was drunk with sensation. Lips on his neck, hands grasping his cock, she gave breathy moans as she pleasured him. He loved the sight of his cock held by her small, graceful hands.

“With you,” she whispered, “I never have to worry about who I am, who I should be. With you I feel as though I belong.” Her hand squeezed and his juice dribbled out, soaking her palms.

“You belong with me, Grace. It’s only the ton who don’t see that. It’s only who I am that makes that so damned impossible.”

She twined a graceful leg around him, sliding it up around his waist, skimming her pretty hand across his chest. Heat surrounded him along with her compelling, excited laugh.

He regretted having his hands bound. He wished he could hold her. All he could do was rock the chair about to aim his cock at her sweet cunny.

“Oh goodness,” she gasped as she lowered on him. Without using her hands. She was so wet he was slick with fluid.

She rode him slowly, drawing each stroke with exquisite beauty. He couldn’t touch, but he could use his tongue. He strained to kiss her cheek, her neck. To tease her ear with his tongue.

She searched for her pleasure, riding him harder and faster, grinding forward to rub her clit to his groin, squeezing her cunny tight around him. She slid her hand down to play with her nub while she rocked on him.

Her nails grazed his cock, a sharp, sudden, surprising pain that had his blood boiling.

“Yes,” he groaned. “Please yourself.”

Her breaths came fast, her moans desperate and hoarse.

“God—God!” she cried.

Her hair flew around him as she flung herself wildly on him. Sweat glistened on her cheeks, on her shoulders, on her breasts. They were both soaked. Sex surrounded them—the rich scent of it, their restrained cries, the thumping of the chair on the floor.

“Devlin, yes!”

She came and he had one moment of sheer relief—he’d needed to bring her to climax first—then his control slipped and his orgasm slammed into him.

He fell back against the chair and she slumped on him. Their hearts beat frantically, their chests pressed together, and Devlin nuzzled her neck, his way of caressing Grace in the aftermath.

Her little cries of pleasure continued and she wriggled on him, sending intense sensation shooting through him. Finally, she lifted her head and he smiled, coaxing one of sheer contentment from her.

He groaned. “Would you untie me now, quick? I’m starting to feel…a little vulnerable like this. Like I’ve exposed a bit too much of what makes me tick.”

He saw her surprise—she hadn’t expected him to be so honest, perhaps.

“Ooh, I’m a bit too shaky to do the knots,” she murmured as she fiddled with the bonds at his wrists. “I tied them too tight.”

“It felt good though, sweetie,” he reassured. But he wondered if he was going to have to coax Grace to cut him free.

His hands were numb and he clenched his fingers, trying to bring feeling back. “Get my dagger from the inside pocket in my coat, love.”

She did so, withdrawing it from the leather sheath and holding it carefully by the handle. From behind him, blade poised on the fabric—he felt it by the tension on his wrists—she asked, “Are you certain?”

“Don’t slip.”

She sawed at the ropes; they bit into his skin as she worked. What did she think? Had she enjoyed the game? She’d seemed to delight in the play, but what did she think now, now that desire was sated and reality was creeping in once more? Was she frightened by it, disturbed by it?

The fabric fell away from his wrist.

“What now, Mr. Sharpe?” she whispered.

He couldn’t ask her if she’d enjoyed it. He didn’t want to face the truth. Ruefully, he brought his numbed arms around to his waist, giving his wrists a quick rub to circulate the blood. Was this only more proof that he wasn’t a gentleman? After all, what gentleman would play bondage games with a gently bred woman?

And damnation, he’d forgotten to have her put a sheath on him.

What if he got her pregnant?

He led her to the bed. With a kittenish squeal, she flopped back on top of her tousled bed linens.

“Just to warn you, love, I plan to come down to breakfast tomorrow morning.”

“Devlin, please don’t do anything to Lord Wesley. Or say anything.”

Did she ask that because she feared scandal? Or because she still cared about Wesley? Yes, she’d intended to knee his half brother in the groin, but a woman in love could act fiercely. But he didn’t want to push her for the truth. Not now. He didn’t want to hear it.

“Who’s here, love?” he asked. “Who was at dinner?”

“It’s not a large group. Lord Avermere is to arrive soon. There are Lady Prudence and Lord Wesley, of course. Introductions were made, but Prudence thrust her nose in the air and ignored me.”

“And Wesley?” Devlin growled.

“He leered in a most bold and revolting way. I longed to throw the soup at him.”

God, she made him laugh. “I wish you had. And I’ll know not to miss a meal if that’s what you’re going to do.”

She laughed, too, the sound soft, pretty, and light. “Lady Horton was there, of course. And her companion, who I had not noticed at all while we waited for the boat. Her name is Miss Crayle. And showy Mrs. Montgomery was there. And the rest were men.”

“Which men?” he demanded sharply.

“Rakish Lord Sinclair and Mr. Nelling, the playwright, as you know. And the famous portraitist, Mr. Strandherd.”

“Hmm. Three rakes with only Mrs. Montgomery to tryst with? The lady will be exhausted.”

“Devlin,” Grace chided. “I hardly think she’ll entertain three men.”

“She might.” He winked and smiled at the blush on Grace’s cheeks. She was experienced, knowledgeable, but still shy.