School For Heiresses 3- Beware A Scot's Revenge (33 page)

“Roarke downed most of it. Besides, I’ve been drinking whisky since I was a lad. I should hope that by now I can hold my liquor.”

He bent forward to pick up a chair.

“Don’t move!” she commanded as she flew to his side.

But he’d already righted the chair and fallen heavily into it. “I only need a moment to get my bearings.”

Before I take my wife to bed and make love to her.
But he couldn’t do that without admitting what he’d done. And this probably wasn’t the best time for such a confession. “Let me just sit here a bit.”

“Good idea. We don’t need you falling into any lochs on your way back to the cottage.”

His eyes narrowed. “I’m not going back to the cottage.”

“Why not?” she said in a suspiciously sweet voice. “That’s where you sleep.”

Damn. “I…um…well, there’s no reason I can’t sleep here for one night, is there?”

“For one night,” she repeated, her tone cold.

She started to move away, but he caught her hand, then tugged her close. “You could put me to bed, lassie.”

“Why should I want to do that? I’m not your wife yet, you know.”

He ought to tell her the truth. But he just couldn’t. No, what he needed was to seduce her again. Then, when she was sated and feeling tender toward him, he’d tell her they were married. Aye, that was a good plan.

He hauled her onto his lap. “But you can still put me to bed, seeing as how we’re courting.” He slid his arm about her waist.

“Courting?” she said dryly.

“They say you’re sweet on me.” He brushed a kiss over her hair. “They say I’m sweet on you, too.”

When that didn’t soften her temper, he slipped his hand inside her robe to caress her belly. “Do you remember the last time you sat on my lap?”

She tipped up her chin. “The only time I remember being on your lap was when I had my hands and feet tied for hours.”

Testy wench. “That’s not when I meant, and you know it. Mayhap you just need a little reminder.”

Pulling her head close, he sealed his lips to hers.

Holy Christ, she tasted good, of whisky and woman, both tart and sweet. For a moment she responded like a woman ought, opening her mouth and drawing him into her silky softness. Her tongue danced with his, and her body relaxed beneath the strokes of his fingers.

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Until his hand covered her breast.

“Lachlan,” she whispered, tearing her mouth from his, “are you trying to seduce me?”

“If I can.” He fondled her brazenly.

“Even though we’re not actually married yet?”

He ignored a stab of guilt. “That didn’t stop us before,” he said evasively.

“Only because you took advantage of me in a weak moment.”

“So why don’t you take advantage of
me
when I’m foxed and can’t protest? Tit for tat, turnabout is fair play.”

She snorted. “A real tit for tat would be me tossing you into a carriage, tying you hand and foot, and hauling you about Scotland. Though I daresay you’re not foxed enough to allow
that.
”

Guilt skewered him again. “If it’ll make you happy, I swear that when this is over, you can tie me up and haul me about as much as you please.”

The sudden gleam in her eyes gave him pause. Then she shifted on his lap, slipping her arms up about his neck with a sultry smile, and he forgot about everything except the feel of her in his arms.

“That does sound intriguing,” she said in a husky voice, “especially the part about tying you up. In fact, I rather fancy doing it right now. Then I could ‘take advantage of you’ as much as I wanted.”

Just like that, his blood began to thunder. “You fancy that, do you?”

“Oh yes.” With a seductive glance, she bent forward to kiss his chest through the open V of his shirt, then ran her tongue up along his collarbone. “It’s a pity that you want to wait until ‘after this is all over.’ ”

His heart started pounding something fierce. “I don’t suppose we’d have to…wait. If you don’t want.”

She pressed her mouth to his ear. “What I want is to have you at my mercy, Lachlan Ross. You’re so masterful and overwhelming that I can’t entirely relax with you. Especially since we’re not married.”

Her arch tone made him jerk his head around to stare at her, but she’d already dropped her head and had begun to suck and lick her way down his neck. “But if you were bound so I could be free to touch you all over, kiss you all over”—she slid her hand between them to cup his stiffening cock—“run my tongue over every part of you…I know I’d feel much more comfortable.”

The very thought of her tongue laving his cock and ballocks turned him stiff as a pike. For that alone, he’d let her tie him up.

All right, so this knowing temptress on his lap wasn’t quite the Venetia he knew. But he liked this Venetia. He liked her a lot. And he’d go mad if he had to wait much longer to have her again. He reached for the tie of her robe, but she caught his hand. “First, I bind you,” she said. “Then the clothes come off.”

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Her persistence about tying him up gave him pause. “Ye’re not planning to bind me and leave me here for the maids to find in the morning, are you?”

“Lachlan!” she said with a pretty pout. “I could never do such a thing!” She rose from his lap with a disappointed sigh. “You don’t trust me, that’s what it is. I only wanted to have a bit of fun, but—”

“I do trust you, lass, I do!” He grabbed her hand before she could walk away, then pulled her to stand between his legs. “If tying me up is what you want, then I’m willing to oblige.” Especially if that was the only way to share her bed tonight.

“And you’ll let me do as I please with you once I’ve got you tied up?” she said with a kittenish glance.

“Anything I want, no matter how wicked?”

God help him, yes. “Whatever you want.”

Her blazing smile sucked the breath right out of him. “Good,” she said, then untied her robe and dangled the tie in front of him. “I’ll use this.”

As she circled behind him, he quickly shed his waistcoat and shirt, leaving him naked from the waist up, then tugged off his boots. He would let her do the rest. A smile touched his lips. He wouldn’t mind that a bit.

The smile vanished when he felt her tying his hands. She was tying them tighter than he’d expect of a lass who’d never tied anybody up before. When she then secured them to the chair, he felt a twinge of unease. He’d counted on being able to leave the chair if he wanted. By the time she returned to stand before him with a dark, sly smile, his heart was thumping madly in his chest. Her robe gapped open just enough to show her translucent shift and the curves it teasingly hid. But to his annoyance, she didn’t remove it.

She just stood there surveying him—her eyes scouring his shoulders and chest and belly until they fixed upon his splayed legs with the bulge between them. The bulge that swelled beneath her gaze.

“Your robe,” he rasped, so aroused he thought he might explode. “Take it off. You promised.”

She planted her hands on her waist and cast him a glance that was right devilish. “All in good time, husband, all in good time.”

He’d already opened his mouth to protest when the word “husband” registered. “Husband?”

Her laugh was most wicked. “Come now, Lachlan, you know perfectly well that we spoke our marriage vows earlier this evening. In Gaelic, no less. How could you forget, after you worked so hard to trick me into saying them?”

Holy Christ, she knew the truth. And he was done for, if he didn’t play this very carefully. “Trick you?”

he said, trying to sound innocent when he felt oh-so-guilty. “How did I trick you? You said you knew Gaelic.”

“And you knew I was lying.”

“I didn’t—”

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“You didn’t correct me a while ago when I said we weren’t married, did you?” Her eyes glittered at him.

“I said it three times.”

She’d set a trap for him, and he’d stumbled right into it. “How did you…”

“Your mother told me. Imagine my shock upon hearing that we were married without my realizing it.”

She sidled up close, then leaned down to whisper in his ear, “And without my having the opportunity to refuse, either.”

With a light nip of his earlobe, she drew back again, and he groaned.
Mo chreach,
he was in trouble now. He tried to rise, but she’d not only tied his hands to the chair, she’d tied the chair to the table.

“Don’t bother to get up, husband,” she said in a silky voice. “You’re going to be sitting there a while yet. At least until I have what I want from you.”

He fell back into the chair, cursing himself for not seeing the trap until it was sprung. “And what might that be, lassie?” he rasped, though he feared he knew.

“Everything, my dear.” She bent to run one long finger up his inner thigh, slowly, sensuously, rising to just short of his ballocks before she took her hand back, leaving him hard and heavy and aching. “I mean to have you offering me everything I want.”

Then she flashed him a merciless smile. “Because you won’t get what
you
want until you do.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Dear Cousin Michael,

If you have a wife, I feel vastly sorry for her. In my experience, men only prefer their privacy
when they want to use it for devious purposes.

Sincerely,

Charlotte Harris

N
ow
this
was more like it, Venetia thought, savoring the moment. It was thrilling to have the arrogant wretch bound and at her mercy. Trick
her
into marriage, would he? She’d make sure he never tried anything like that again.

Though Lord knew he looked too delicious for words like this—the well-crafted chest with its smattering of curls, the lean waist whose scars appeared markedly improved…the strong thighs parted just enough to display a very obvious arousal beneath his trousers. She could barely resist the urge to smooth her fingers over those finely hewn shoulders, gleaming in the firelight. But she dared not do so yet, or she might find herself sucked into the sensual pull he exerted on her whenever they were alone. As it was, the longer she stared at him, the more he lost his alarm and regained his arrogance.

“Can I assume from what you just said that I will eventually get what I want out of this?” he asked with a taunting lift of his eyebrow.

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“Depends on what you want.”

A scowl darkened his brow. “You
know
what I want, damn it.” He scoured her body with a hungry gaze that told her exactly what he meant to do to her if she ever got close enough for it. “I want you in my bed. I want my wedding night.”

“Then you’ll have to meet my demands.”

She slid off her robe, delighting in how his eyes drank her up. Dangling the threadbare cotton wrap from one finger, she strolled over to trail it up between his legs, right over the aroused flesh swelling his trousers to breaking point. Thank heaven for those harem tales and her friend Amelia’s descriptive letters about houri dances in Morocco, where she lived with her American husband.

“It appears you were right about me,” she said in a throaty murmur as he moaned. “I do have a wicked bent.”

He swore foully. “I won’t be tied up forever, ye ken?” His gaze burned into her. “Once I’m free, there’s naught to stop me from taking my wife over my knee.”

“I wouldn’t be making cocky threats just now, if I were you.” She dragged the flimsy fabric of her wrap up and down over his arousal, knowing it couldn’t possibly be enough to satisfy him. “Besides, all it would take is for me to explain that I don’t understand Gaelic, and you won’t have a wife.”

His eyes narrowed. “My clan will protest that you claimed to know exactly what we were saying.”

“And I will protest otherwise. Then there will be a nasty dispute in court.” She threaded her fingers through his hair and drew his head back until he was glaring up at her. “Tell me, Lachlan, who do you think the magistrate will believe? An earl’s daughter? Or the rough Highlander who kidnapped that earl’s daughter? After pretending to be dead for six months?”

He closed his eyes with a groan. “Very well, lassie, ye’ve made yer point. So what are yer demands?”

Releasing him, she started with a small one to lower his guard. “First, I want a real wedding, one performed in the church before a minister and witnesses. I shan’t risk anyone disputing our marriage once our children are born.”

His eyes lit up at her mention of children. “Of course, a real wedding. Yer father and aunt will want the same, anyway. I have no quarrel with that.”

“Good.” Now came the important things. “Second, I want information that no one else seems willing to tell me.”

“About what?”

“What McKinley was talking about today, what you referred to once before. That Papa had you punished years ago for something. I want to know why and how and for what.”

A flush touched his cheeks as he squirmed in the chair. “I can’t imagine why you’d need to know such a thing.”

“Because once Papa arrives and I go to speak to him, I need to have all the facts before me. I need to
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know what I’m dealing with.”

He glowered at her. “I already told you I’m not letting you speak to yer father for me, so if you’re thinking to keep me tied up until I promise—”

“I’m thinking that by the time I’m through with you, Lachlan Ross, you’ll promise me anything,” she said, feeling a wild surge of power at being in control of
him
for once. She pulled loose the ties of her chemise, then opened it just enough to expose the swells of her breasts and the dark valley between. His gaze shot there like an arrow to a target.
“Mo chreach,”
he said hoarsely.

“Tell me what McKinley meant, and I’ll not only remove the chemise, but I’ll let you taste what’s underneath.”