Iron Dominance (6 page)

The contrast of the circlets of metal against a woman’s skin never failed to get his blood humming. A delectable woman, restrained at his breakfast table, one of his favorite scenarios. He imagined clearing the balcony of staff, stripping her, laying her naked across the table. Those pretty white wrists lashed above her head, legs spread wide for him. His member pressed hard against his pants.

Yes. A breathtaking thought to start the day with. Now all he had to do was get her to agree to such arrangements. He had a feeling that would be difficult—she had a ton of feistiness and anguish all bundled up inside her. No wonder, though. Spiro’s voice brought him back to reality.

“Sir? Will that be all?”

“Yes. You may go, Spiro. You also, Dankyo.” He gestured in dismissal. “And the four guards, please.”

“That may not be wise, sir.” Dankyo flicked a look at Claire, his eyebrows scrunching together. “You don’t know what she is capable of.”

“True, but she’s at the other end of this table, and she’s cuffed. I think that is sufficient, don’t you?”

“Ah—” Dankyo’s mouth writhed as if he struggled for words.

“Go. That’s an order.”

When the balcony was clear, he rubbed his brow. Damn. Why was he so tongue-tied? What was there to converse about with someone who had no family? What would it be like to be her? Lonely, surely?

The senate report on frankenstructs detailed their assembly from cloned parts—a deliberate ploy so the PME could say they weren’t human and thus use them like any other piece of manufactured equipment. They credited a Dr. Frankenstein with the breakthrough. A straight clone would be irrefutably human. Such a clever technicality with such sad results for someone like Claire.

Something should be done, but what exactly?

He had access to higher echelons of power. Dammit, he
was
a higher power, if he chose to get involved. Politics meant doing. This would be a fitting first foray.
Note to self: fix this ASAP.

A small portion of egg flew from her plate and landed on the table next to a little vase of peonies. She put down the cutlery, her hands disappearing beneath the table, and stared fiercely at the plate as if it held something poisonous.

When he cleared his throat, she glanced up at him, and just for a second he saw the smallest line of watery reflection at the corner of one of her eyes.
A tear. Lord.

Dankyo might think him mad. Common sense said to keep his distance. Yet the memory of her body under his on the bed called to him far more than any sensible decision. He’d already pushed this further than he should have. Common sense could go hang.

He cleared his throat again, put his hands to the edge of the table, and shoved back his chair. As he walked up, bearing his plate, her amber eyes grew rounder and darker until he thought he might fall into them and never emerge.

“May I?”

He indicated the cane chair at the corner, next to her. When she nodded he lowered his plate and sat, so close that if he put his elbow down and laid his forearm flat, he’d have his hand in her meal.

Nicely close. If it bothers her, all to the better
. He might not want to hurt her, but a bit of anxiety added spice.

“You’ve not told your man, Dankyo, have you? That you’re courting me?” She scowled, then held up her wrists and shook them, jangling the metal. “And why these, here? Is it so you can laugh at the way I cut up my food?”

“As to your first question, no, I’ve not told him yet. I will. As for those, I don’t trust you enough to take them off.” He settled his shoulders in a comfortable spot against the chair.

The aroma of sausages reminded him why he’d moved. He took up his knife and fork and eyed her plate. You didn’t cut up someone’s food without asking. Not in polite company.

“Would it help if I cut up your food?”

She pulled back, eyeing him. “Perhaps. Where is this colonel? I was told he’d be here.”

That was sufficient for him. He started cutting. “I am the colonel. It was my Air Corps rank. Some of my staff like to use it still.”

“I see.”

She watched while he sliced, as if she’d catch him doing something wrong. He kept going until her entire plate of food was in smallish pieces, then speared a piece of sausage with her fork and held it up.

“Here.”

Hesitantly, she brought her hands up and took hold of the fork, her fingertips brushing against his where they wrapped about the utensil. The touch blazed a path to his groin. Her fingers were so slender and delicate. He didn’t let go completely, curling one of his over the top of hers and trapping them there.

He held his breath, fascinated to watch the shift of emotion across her face. Her nostrils widened, a blush crept onto her cheeks, and those gorgeous plump lips separated slightly in arousal…and from something so simple.

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 bodice 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.