Chapter 19 #3
“Small.” She looked up. “Vulnerable. If my lord were a different man, I would not like it. If I did not know you so well too. As it is, the fear is not real fear, because—”
“Because it excites you?”
She nodded.
On her own, she took his cock in her hands. He watched, thoughts deserting him, while she stroked him.
“Do you know what I want now?”
“I am not sure.”
He told her.
Her fingertips circled the tip of his cock. He all but heard her mind working. “My lord said I could say no if I want.”
“That is true.” Her lord might die if she did.
She contemplated the demand for an excruciating minute. He thought his body would split open.
Tentatively, she stuck out her tongue and tested. She thought some more. “You do this for me, and it is wonderful. If you would know something similar—it is only fair to try.” She looked up. “You will tell me what to do?”
He told her. She kissed, then she licked, then she used her mouth fully. Keen bolts of feral pleasure prodded him to spectacular erotic heights. She did not retreat, not even at the end.
He lifted her up and dropped on the bed with her in his arms. For a long count he lost himself in a dark mist of an encompassing pleasure that spun out of his climax.
Later, he did not know if it was one minute or twenty, Padua moved. She raised up on her elbows. “Are we done, my lord?”
He opened his eyes and looked at her. “Hardly.”
* * *
Padua had always known that her submission aroused Ives. She had not called it that, but it had been there, from that first night when he held her hands together during the first kisses. She had sensed it in the ways he handled her. Even in his possessive caresses.
She supposed all men liked it. They were not far from the animals in such things. Nor, she was learning, were women.
She lay on the bed, waiting for Ives to finish preparations for the next wicked game. He had stacked two pillows and told her to lie facedown with them under her hips. She now spread naked on the bed.
The waiting aroused her terribly. Again the vulnerability. Again the fear that was not fear because it excited. Her arms angled out toward the bed corners, to which they were loosely bound. Behind her Ives did the same with one of her feet.
He moved to the other foot. Her legs spread now, like her arms. Her bottom rose high, exposed. Waiting.
She could not believe what it did to her. She had never been in such a state without being touched before.
“How do you feel, Padua?”
He stood behind her, next to the bed near her leg. Even with her face turned on the mattress, she could not see him.
“I am comfortable enough.”
A small slap smacked her bottom. “That is not what I meant and you know it.”
That smack had not hurt. It had been too gentle for that. But it had— She blocked her mind against the fantasy that he might do it again. She would not like that, she was sure, but the thought of it, the waiting—
“I am surprised, my lord. I do not feel the way I expected. I am already half-mad.”
A caress fluttered up her leg in a feathery touch he had first used in Langley House. “Do you like how you feel?”
“It is intense. I grow impatient, however.”
The mattress depressed as his weight joined hers. She looked over her shoulder. He knelt high between her legs. Low, deep throbs began torturing her. She set her head down again. He caressed her bottom and she throbbed more. “And you? How do you feel?”
He warmed her back as he came over her. Braced on his arms, he dipped his head low so he spoke right into her ear.
“I feel in possession, when I know I really am not. I feel as if you are mine, and I will make sure you never leave, when I know that is not true. I can want you without reservation, as I have never wanted another woman before, and make you admit your own passion, and pretend I am indeed your lord.” His lips brushed her cheek.
“And I like that I can make you ache with desire, and totally surrender to the pleasure I give you.”
He moved back. “Tell me what you want, Padua.” He caressed her bottom firmly, taunting her.
“You,” she whispered. “Everything.”
He entered her slowly. She caught her breath. She closed her eyes so she might feel it all as intensely as possible. He filled her. Completed her.
He took her then. Restrained as she was, she could only accept whatever he gave, both the tenderness and the fury.
* * *
“What are you doing out here?”
Padua turned to the door. Ives stood there. He had thrown on trousers and shirt.
She hitched the blanket in which she cocooned her own nakedness. She held her finger to her lips, then pointed to the long carriage house. “Look low. Near the ground, halfway along. There is a deep shadow there. I think it is a small window.”
He peered through the night. “There may be a cellar underneath.”
“I think there is. I have spent a long time looking at that building over the last few days.” She opened the door and returned to her chamber. She climbed onto the bed and drew up her legs. He lay beside her, resting on his elbow.
“I told you I had a plan. I let everyone know I was taking my father’s place, because I think whoever coerced him to take that trunk is connected to this house.
If so, perhaps they will now approach me as they did him.
Then I will know who else is involved, and can use that information to help him.
They sought to catch a whale, you said. Well, I intend to find the whale, or someone who knows where he swims.”
She expected praise for her cleverness. Instead his gaze pierced her. “If you are correct, you have put yourself in harm’s way, Padua.”
“I do not think anyone will hurt me here.”
“You do not know they will not. Men facing a noose will do desperate things.”
“I will be very careful.”
His severity did not dim one bit on her reassurance. He sat up on the edge of the bed. “You will move out tomorrow. I will bring you to Langley House.”
“I cannot leave. I have things I need to do tomorrow.”
His head snapped around. “What things?”
“A walk in the garden, for example.”
He captured her face in his hand. “A walk very close to that carriage house, is my guess.”
“I only want to see if there is a cellar like it appeared tonight.”
“I should have smacked your bottom much harder, and more often. I still may. I forbid you to go within fifteen feet of that building.”
She rose on her knees and wrapped her arms around him from the back. She nuzzled his neck. She thought it charming, and very male, that he did not understand that even if he were her lord, which he was not, she would not always obey him.
“Do not try to work your wiles on me, woman. You are not to—” She nibbled his ear. “Stop that, I am serious. You are not to leave this—” She ran her hands down his chest. “I will not tolerate—” She slid her hands lower yet.
He caught them, turned around, and threw her down.
“I will do it,” he said. “Tomorrow night, I will see if there is a cellar and what it might contain. Nothing more than rusting carriage parts, is my guess. I will check if you want. You do not go near it or show the slightest interest, however. Do you understand?”
She nodded, and tried to look meek.
He pushed her over, unswaddled her from the blanket, lay down beside her, and unfurled the blanket over them both.
“As for the rest of your plan, I will be here every night. If you are correct, you will not face or meet such men alone if I am alive to prevent it. Since you set things in motion on your own—” He gave her one more glare.
“There is no choice but to await developments.”
“Every night?”
“Until it is clear you are wrong, or until it is proven you are right.”
“You plan to sleep here?”
“I’m not going to sit awake in a chair, Padua.”
“It is a fairly small bed.”
He turned, and pulled her close. “We will manage. You do not take up much space.”
It would be like Merrywood again, his lying with her. Her sleeping with his presence around her and in her soul. She might not regret the passion, but this—
Her heart swelled with poignant emotion as the intimacy descended, claiming her. But she trembled too. She would endure the worst of the heartache again, raw like a fresh cut.
“Does anyone come here in the morning?” he asked in a drowsy voice. “One of the servants?”
“I must go and get one. Mrs. Lavender will do nothing to aid my comfort.”
He settled himself deeper on the pillow, and rested an arm over her. “That is because she suspected you were troublesome baggage at first sight.” He yawned. “As did I, God help me.”