The Pleasures of Sin (20 page)

Undeterred he snapped the manacle back around her wrist.

She gasped. “What the bloody hell are you doing? I was not going to fight you.”

“I know.” His gaze was hot as the fires of Hades as his eyes raked over her body. Despite her awkward position, her nipples tightened.

He feathered his hands down her body. She quivered, the sensation intense and confusing.

She rattled her bonds against the bedpost, frustrated. “There is no reason to bind me thus,” she grumbled.

“No reason, save that I wish to,” he whispered, running his tongue softly across her earlobe.

“Oh.” She swallowed, uncertain at this new game. Ne’er before had he left her chained for their private time together. The sex between them had been a sacred time where their issues and strives melted away.

“Say my name again.”

“James.”

“Nay. Say it in that low, throaty voice that gives me permission to do whatever I want with you.”

Heat pricked her cheeks at her own wantonness. At the way she had wanted him earlier. At the wetness that still seeped from her quent.

He ran his thumb along her collarbone. His touch burned her skin, sending shivers down her spine. She should not enjoy his possession so much, yet she did.

“James,” she murmured, closing her eyes.

“Very good. Lift your legs into the air.”

Blushing, she obeyed.

“Open them.”

She complied, squeezing her eyes shut so she would not have to see him hovering over her. Her eyes flew open when he grasped her ankle with the same determination he had used on her wrists. The manacle clicked open. She tried to wiggle away, but he looped the chain upward, fastening it so that she was bound, legs open on the bed before him.

She felt her blush move from her face down her body, warming her. And that wicked betraying place betwixt her thighs cared not at all.

She wanted him. Still. Now. Here. This way. Anyway he wanted.

He traced one finger down her stomach and slid it between the slick folds of her secret parts.

Whimpering, she arched her back. Every move, every touch seemed heightened because of her inability to move around, as if parts of her were on fire. She wiggled her hips toward his hand, wanting his fingers on that special area where the sensations culminated.

He slid his hand aside, just out of reach of his fingers touching that one spot. She rocked further toward him, but he moved his finger down the side of her quim instead of upward where she wanted him.

“Prithee, my lord.”

“Shh.”

She quieted as he continued long, slow strokes touching and teasing and pressing and releasing her inner and outer lips. The sensation grew, burning, overwhelming. Liquid seeped down her hips; a pool of need.

She strained against the chains holding her arms and legs, wanting somehow to force him to touch that one place, her woman’s pearl. She bucked her hips. She whimpered.

Still, he moved away, obviously in no hurry to possess her as she desired. As she needed.

She nearly screamed in frustration as his fingertips brushed her pearl then moved aside. Knowing that moving her hips to follow his hand would do her no good, she tried pressing her legs together to stave off the assault on her woman parts. But the bonds kept her legs open, an easy target for his diddling fingers.

“Please, my lord.”

“Not yet.”

“But I’m ready,” she grumbled, her hips quivering.

He gave her a wicked grin. “That is for me to decide.”

“Prithee.”

In answer to her plea, he slipped his hands upward to tease her nipples in the same way he had done with the folds betwixt her legs. With a sigh, she gave herself over to the sensation, fully surrendering to his pleasure. To allowing him to lead. Wave after wave of ecstasy floated over her. Every touch burned her skin. She wanted him, longed for him.

He held her in ecstasy for what seemed like hours until she could think of naught but him. He kissed her eyelids and moved over her body.

At long last, she felt his cock at the entrance to her woman’s core, enlarged, throbbing, just as it had been in her painting. She let out a whimper as he slid into her, not slowly as he had done for the past nights of lovemaking, but quick and hard and animalistic. She breathed out a small gasp of pleasure that his need met hers. Finally!

She did not want him slow or easy. She wanted hard, quick strokes.

He pumped inside her and, at last, pleasure burst like a broken dam. Moaning, she soared in the sensation, lost in emotion as he too cried out his own pleasure.

Dear heavens. It seemed she was floating, hovering over the mattress instead of lying upon it. For long moments, she was unable to move, or even to think clearly. Her body felt languid and detached from her mind.

After a time, he kissed her cheek in the most tender of gestures, then moved to unlock the manacle and collar. He tossed them onto the floor planks.

The loud clank as they landed reverberated through her brain, crashing in on the luxurious sensations that she had just experienced. How could she have enjoyed such things so freely?

She shuddered, suddenly chilled and confused. She had just been tied with the very bonds she hated and she had not hated them at all. A maddening despair welled inside her and her eyes prickled with hot tears. How could she have? How could she? Shivers started at her toes and worked their way up her body in unartful jerks.

Drawing the bedcovers over her nude form, he hugged her tightly.

Thank the saints he didn’t talk, didn’t try to tell her it was all right.

It wasn’t all right. How could such things be all right?

She squeezed him back, snuggling into his warmth and hanging on for the sake of her sanity. Would she ever be a puppet in his hand?

As the moments passed, so did the odd, overwhelming despair and disgust with herself that she had surrendered to him so thoroughly. That she’d begged him for release and indeed would have begged for much more if he had required it of her.

He kissed the top of her head and she relaxed, wanting naught more in life than to lay right here and forget the world existed.

He rearranged their positions so that he laid on his back and her head was cradled in a comfortable little spot between his shoulder and his chest. She snuggled into his warmth and inhaled the scent of his body, content now in this new languid state.

Her hand trailed over his torso, making circles on his skin. He was so beautiful. Magnificent. A woman would ne’er tire of lying in his arms.

His eyes closed and his breathing became soft and regular, punctuated from time to time with soft snores.

Her fingers snagged on the leather cord holding the locket. Remembering how possessive he’d been with it, she wound it around one of her fingers wondering if she dared ease open the latch. Curiosity grew in her mind. Was it from an old lover? Did it contain a lock of hair? A portrait?

Licking her lips, she eased upward on one elbow. The locket rested atop his wide chest, delicate, shiny, and silver. Beckoning her with its secrets. Usually he took it off afore they copulated.

She slid her palm toward it.

Montgomery shifted, turning onto his side.

Biting back a small gasp, she jerked back.

A soft snore escaped Montgomery’s throat. Relieved, she reached her hand slowly across him. Her fingers closed on the prize and she flipped it open.

She caught a glimpse of a portrait of a sleeping baby girl with delicate lace bows in her dark, curly hair.

Then Montgomery’s hand clamped down on her wrist.

“I explained already that you were not to touch the locket.” James felt his wife’s pulse throb against his palm as he held her wrist. Annoyance slid through him, both for the intrusion of his privacy and for the breaking of the peace that had come between them.

“Forgive me, my lord.” She wiggled her fingers.

Her bones seemed delicate as a bird’s leg as they danced beneath his fingers. They had shared a passionate time together—each one giving as much as the other—and he was reluctant to smash their new-formed truce. His hand loosened, and he released her.

They laid in silence for a moment.

“Who is she, my lord?”

Irritated at her impertinence, he heaved a breath. “’Tis not your concern.”

The bed ropes creaked as she sat up and traced a finger down his shoulder. Her touch reminded him of a gentle spring rain, soft and intoxicating. She kissed him on the arm. “Prithee, my lord. Do not force me out.”

He growled at her.

Undeterred, she rubbed her cheek against his bicep. The gesture was so gentle, so loving, it felt foreign.

“’Twas a long time ago,” he said, not wanting to examine the memories that still burned inside him. His child. The daughter he had lost. Her tiny body had gasped out its dying breath before it sagged in his palm, dead and lifeless as his wife who had just birthed her.

Guilt welled inside him.

If only he’d arrived moments sooner. If only, months earlier, he had not shown mercy to the man responsible for her death. Compassion was a weakness he could not afford. People died.

“What was her name?” Brenna whispered, sprinkling little kisses on his cheek and down his jaw.

He didn’t want to tell her. He didn’t want to say anything. He didn’t want to open that gateway to the painful memories. He didn’t want—

“Aislin.” The sound of his own voice shocked him. It was more of a rasp, the sound of the past being torn open.

“Your daughter?”

“Dead.”

“Oh.” She did not press him further for explanation, as if understanding that he needed some privacy in his thoughts.

Instead, she hugged him tightly, as he had done her when he had unchained her after their intense coupling. She fluttered light, butterfly kisses on him that seemed to want to reach inside of him and heal the broken parts, as a mother would comfort a child.

A welling of emotion rose inside him, stinging the backs of his eyes. He’d never told anyone about the baby. Not even his brother or sister-in-law knew about her. The feelings seemed too raw, too burning, too sacred to share. Whenever he’d felt any manner of compassion toward one of the criminals he punished, he’d remembered the pain mercy had brought him.

“I was betrayed,” he said at last. “I showed compassion for a man and did not kill him as he deserved. In return, he paid me back by tracking down my wife and murdering her. She was pregnant.”

As if she could soak up his raw emotion like a paint spill, Brenna patted him on the chest. She did not pry, but he knew her ears were open if he wished to speak of it. The sensation of floating in a sea of comfort engulfed him, allowing him to open his mind to the harsh memories of the past.

“The baby lived for a short while.” He could still smell the blood, still feel the delicate movements she’d made, still hear her gasp. His child had been strong, but too small. The birth had been too early.

“I washed her body and packed her in linens. The next day we landed in a port of a bustling city. I found an artist and forced him to paint her.” A lump formed in his chest, nearly crushing him. Ne’er before had he spoken of such intimate events. “I did not want to forget the importance of returning measure for measure.”

Brenna paused in her kisses and moved so that she could stare down at him. Her hair formed soft curls around her face that bounced when she cocked her head to one side. “Why did you spare
my
life, my lord?”

The fouled beheading had been an unspoken thing between them. Even now, he was not quite sure why he had stayed his hand on that day.

Reaching upward, he thumbed her cheek. “You are too lovely to slay, my captive wife. And much too interesting in bed.”

A flush of good spirits spread through him as a pretty blush pinkened her cheeks. It was much more pleasant to dwell on his beautiful wife than events of the past.

Her fingers traced down his chest and caught the silver heart.

He drew in a breath, but did not stop her.

She flicked open the locket.

“Brazen wench. I said I will not kill you so you begin already to test your boundaries,” he grumbled, but it was without heat even to his own ears.

Compassion shone in her eyes as she gazed at the portrait of Aislin. “She’s lovely. Her hair is thick and dark like yours.”

Closing his hand around hers, James lifted and kissed Brenna on the lips. She melted against him as she had when she had been bound to the bed, only this time the emotion between them was seeped with something deeper than the sheer, hot passion they shared.

“The gossips are wrong; you didn’t murder your wife,” Brenna said. It wasn’t a question. That she understood the unspoken burden he bore caused another lump in his throat. She touched him gently, running soothing hands over his shoulders.

James brushed his fingers over her cheek, humbled by the concern gleaming from her eyes. “I cared for her—but I was reckless and selfish. She was a peasant and our marriage was doomed from the start. We were not supposed to marry, but she became pregnant and I could not allow our child to be labeled a bastard. She was young. Pretty in an unusual way, much like you. I forced her to marry me. Forced her to go to the continent with me. She hated the ships. She hated the cold. She hated traveling. I left her in one port with friends while I completed the voyage. She should have been safe, but she wouldn’t stay.” His voice broke. “A man I had released years earlier found her. He dragged her further north and held her hostage, torturing her until I arrived.”

Anger curled inside him as he remembered the bastard who had held his pregnant wife, cold and naked in a dungeon, raping her at will.

He’d killed the man with his bare hands, taking joy in the act and then dragged the body through the streets and fed it to the dogs. “I should have secured her, locked her in a chamber until I finished my business and could travel home with her.”

Brenna blinked, as if understanding something for the first time. “Did you chain me so that I would not escape and venture out alone?”

“’Tis dangerous times for a woman to travel without escort, Brenna. Whate’er our issues, you are my charge now.”

“I thought you only wanted to humiliate me, that you hated me.”

“I do not hate you, Brenna. I—” He didn’t have words to complete the sentence.
Like you? Love you?

Nay, he did not love her. He was not ready for love, not when the memory of his wife and child still burned in his chest, leaving a hole where his heart should have been. But Brenna was fascinating. Interesting.

“I have known many noble ladies, my captive wife, and for the most part they are obsessed with gossip and clothing and naught much else. I am a wealthy man, oft gone on the king’s business so I assumed it would not be difficult to make an amicable match with whomever I married.” He smiled at the word “amicable.” Their relationship had been anything but.

He slid his arms around her, rolling her until she was pinned beneath him on the mattress and the locket was caught between their bodies.

She gazed up at him with soft eyes, as if bringing all of him inside herself to warm the cold corners of his soul. Cherished. He felt cherished.

This woman was not like other noblewomen. She was passionate. Intense. She saw things others did not see.

Where others accused him of murder, she had looked at the locket and seen through the gossip’s fodder. She wasn’t interested in gossip—she was interested in art. While she seemed to love the expensive new clothing he’d bought her, she’d been even more delighted when he’d opened her painting trunk.

Her sisters and father had mistreated her, but she’d bargained for their lives. He’d embarrassed her by forcing her to walk the castle bound like a prisoner, but still, she responded to him, giving herself to their passion.

“’Twas my recklessness that killed my wife and child. I went a little insane for a time afterwards, giving myself over to all manners of passion and drink. My brother and sister-in-law saved me from myself and since that time I’ve lived a life of contained duty.”

And right now she looked at him with such trust in her eyes that it made him feel dirty for the things he’d done to her.

If he wasn’t careful, he could begin to feel for her.

Feelings are for ninnies
, he heard his father begin, but Brenna’s voice sliced through the taunt as if she wielded the dagger.

“Do you regret sparing my life?” she teased.

He gazed down on her, taking in the way her lids half closed and her mouth was yielding and wet. “Not at the moment.”

Her lips curved into a slight smile and her fingers threaded into his hair pulling his face closer to hers. Their mouths touched, and he felt her soften and surrender to him, a look of complete trust on her face.

It tore at his heart. Another woman had trusted him like that and he’d let her down. Brenna had plenty of reason not only to mistrust him, but to hate him, yet there was no mistaking the look in her eyes.

“Make love to me, my lord,” she murmured against his lips.

He drew back, almost shocked. Not at her passion, but at her choice of words.
Make love.

“You don’t hate me either,” he stated, mystified by the realization. He’d nearly beheaded her. Whipped her. Humiliated her. How could one woman contain such an amount of passion that even such deeds did not diminish it? That amount of passion both baffled and intrigued him. When he had been so passionate, he’d been reckless, selfish, and it was only by supreme containment that he’d reined himself in. Yet, her passion was neither reckless nor selfish. She gave up her freedoms for her sisters. She gave of herself to him.

He feared what going back to that sort of passion would bring to him, but, silently, he vowed to never let this one down. In an easy motion, he rocked his hips, pushing his already-hardened member inside her.

Her queynt was warm, wet, ready for him.

He kissed her eyelids. “Forgive me, Brenna, I cannot love you. I do not have a heart left.”

She did not defy his claim but wrapped her legs around his waist, giving herself to him. Before, she’d been chained and could not have stopped him even if she had wanted to—which, he had been sure she didn’t—but this time, she controlled her willingness. She controlled how much she lifted her legs and how much she drew him into herself.

He felt shattered by the simple act of passion. He did not deserve such.

Their lovemaking was slow and luxurious, a far cry from the frenzied pace they had set earlier that night. The locket felt warm between them, and he felt his own heart beat against it. A heart he thought incapable of ever feeling anything again.