Chapter 10
Portia’s mind was all spinning confusion. During the auction she’d been prepared for the worst. Bryght’s voice had unbalanced her so she had not known what to think, but when she’d realized Fort was there, she’d been sure of rescue.
But it had been Bryght who’d claimed her, and he had not freed her but brought her to this disgusting room.
Now they seemed to be involved in wagers. If she had it right, she’d get the ridiculous sum of twelve hundred guineas if she could act as if she wanted Bryght Malloren.
And she’d be free of him forever if she could do it by pure acting, without wanting him at all.
She tried to tell herself that would be easy, but she wasn’t in the habit of deceiving herself.
It was because he could stir desire in her that she needed so badly to escape London.
He’d stirred wild desire in her in broad daylight and fully clothed.
Now, half naked in the flickering lights he was a creature of her darkest dreams.
And surely more wicked, she reminded herself. After all, he was here in a brothel by choice. He clearly knew all sorts of lewd skills. And he was, of course, a gamester. He was here with her because of a wager.
She watched him warily. He was coming back toward the bed with a vial, tipping it onto his finger….
He smiled, and before she could avoid it, touched his finger just below her nose so that a tendril of perfume crept into her. She could not identify the smells in it but it was similar to the incense in the air, and it was wicked.
She scrubbed at the tainted spot, but the smell could not be banished.
Pretend, but don’t surrender, she reminded herself.
She watched his every move. She was beginning to understand what he meant when he said that she did not even know the rules of this game of chance, but surely she could control her own responses.
Bare-chested, his dark hair loose to his shoulders, his beauty enriched by the wildness of it, he smiled at her. “Don’t look so terrified, Hippolyta. You’re going to love every moment of this.”
She eased away from him. She didn’t want to love every moment of this. She wanted to pretend to surrender and have it over with.
As long as he did not accept that surrender.
What if it were a trick? What if when he persuaded her to say she wanted him, he took the permission she gave?
He said to trust him, but she didn’t.
Only a fool would trust a rake like Bryght Malloren.
She expected him to cover her again, using his size and heat to melt her senses, but he disconcerted her by sitting cross-legged on the bed by her feet. He grasped one ankle to pull her slightly closer. She let out an involuntary squeak and wriggled her skirts into decency.
He poured oil onto his hands, put down the vial, then began to work the oil into her right foot.
He stretched and stroked it, giving each toe special, delicate attention, running his thumbs up her instep so her foot arched to him all by itself.
A cloud of the spicy, sultry perfume crept up her body, accompanied by the softening pleasure of his touch.
Oh dear.
She tried to pull her foot away. “What are you doing?”
His grip was too tight. “Exploring you,” he said, resting her heel on his thigh, concentrating on her toes, his dark hair falling forward to conceal his face.
By heaven, but he was beautiful….
No, Portia!
He worked meticulously from one toe to the next. “Before we are finished, my , I intend to know every inch of you, and pleasure most of them.”
Portia shivered in earnest. “I don’t like this.”
He looked up, shadowed and mysterious, magnificent as the ceiling gods, and as powerful. “Liar.” His voice was soft and deep as the night sky. “With me you will find the pleasures from your most secret, heated dreams, and you will admit the truth—that you are mad for me.”
He wasn’t acting. “Never.”
He smiled with quiet confidence. “Soon.”
Portia again tried to escape but his grip tightened. She flung herself back, her arm over her eyes and sought complete control over her body. His clever fingers were having an effect, though. If he carried on this way he might make his words true.
He raised her leg a little and kissed her toes as he began to massage the oil into her heel, then up the sensitive tendon to her calf. He kissed his way to her instep, and her eyes drifted shut at the sweetness of it…but then she forced them open.
She would not give him any reaction. Not a trace.
Then the wetness of his tongue traveled along her foot and his teasing fingers reached the back of her knee.
She squirmed.
No, she wouldn’t!
But it was not just her foot and knee. Though he was not touching anywhere else, other parts of her body were heating, vibrating, desiring….
How could her body betray her so?
“How beautiful are thy feet,” he said, and it sounded like a quotation. “Delicate, arched, sensitive. Like the rest of you.” He was using his deep voice to cast a spell on her. “Sensitive, all of you, arching to my touch…”
Portia arched before she knew it. She sucked in a breath and prayed for strength.
He shifted and she was relieved, but it was only to begin the same onslaught on her other foot.
“Your limbs are slender but strong,” he murmured.
“Your skin is smooth as finest Chinese silk. When I stroke the silk you feel it everywhere, even in your most secret places. Places where you ache to be touched. You are supple as a willow, graceful as a doe as you move in your desire. Fighting with you, little warrior, was pure pleasure. Victory and sweet surrender will be heaven on earth. For both of us…”
Touch, perfume, voice, words—they were gradually melting Portia’s bones, her muscles, and her resistance. She tried to remind herself that this was all clever tricks and acting, but even so, she ached, she moved.
His hand slid firmly up her calf and down again, and she took a sobbing breath. He rolled her onto her front and stroked the back of her legs, light behind the knees, harder on the calves but always over her skirts, never under.
Portia buried her head in her hands and tried to remember why it was so important to both deny that this was pleasant, and pretend that this was pleasant.
His hands moved up, over her buttocks, and onto the small of her back, to massage there with deep strength.
“You can feel it into the bones and beyond, can’t you, little cat? Stretch like a cat. Purr for me….”
And Portia did stretch—she couldn’t help it—but she stopped herself from purring. “Enough!” she gasped. “My lord, please…”
“Not yet, not quite yet, but almost, yes?”
He turned her again in a tangle of black hair and skirts and his clever hands brushed her breasts.
Portia wriggled away at that, but even as she did so, her body moved in a way of its own, and he laughed. “Yes, your body wants me, but do you?”
Thinking only of their personal wager, Portia cried, “No!”
He pulled a face at her, and then she didn’t know the truth. Was he trying to seduce her, or was this all pure acting? If anything, that made it worse. Here she was, wax melting to a puddle in his hands, and he still had his wits about him.
Well, she could keep her wits, too. She draped her arms around his naked shoulders. “Oh, my lord, I lied. I want you. Take me! But if you do,” she muttered into his ear, “I swear I will kill you.”
“Trust me,” he whispered and twisted her for a kiss.
It was a kiss such as she had never imagined—an assault on her senses and her will involving far more than their mouths. His naked arms held her close, and her arms and hands had only his skin to contact—silky skin, warm over muscle and bone. Portia had never before experienced so much body.
The sultry perfume was all over both of them, blending with the smell of his skin and the taste of his mouth so that she couldn’t cling on to sanity.
She was on her back now, with him on top—heavy, hot. He was touching her breasts and creating a mad yearning.
She couldn’t remember why this was wrong, why they shouldn’t…
When he released her mouth to trail hot kisses around her cheeks, her ears, her neck, her shoulders, she kissed him back, kissed and tasted every piece of delicious skin that passed her lips.
He nibbled her ear lobe. “Your hips. Move your hips.”
Portia was about to say she didn’t know how, when he stroked swiftly over her breasts and her hips moved of their own accord. She exaggerated it, telling herself that it was acting, but she knew it wasn’t.
She ached inside and her body sought relief of that ache like a flower seeking the sun.
She who had never known a man, knew what could be, what should be. If it hadn’t been for the watchers, she would have demanded it here, now, with no regard for virtue or morality.
“Yes, my beautiful one. Dance for me, show me that you want the gift of Venus….”
And Portia danced. Her whole body moved to the rhythm of his touch. Her heart thundered, and she breathed as in the wildest, whirling jig….
“You want me, little one. Yes?”
“Yes!” she gasped. “Oh, yes!”
“Bravo,” he murmured, and then was gone.
Portia came suddenly to sanity and watched in despairing astonishment as he paraded around the bed, bowing to the unseen audience. Dimly, she even heard applause.
Her body was still in ferment, stirred almost to madness by his skills, but her emotion was pure rage. She’d be damned if she’d let Bryght Malloren have it all his own way.
She sat up and putting on a girlish voice, cried, “My lord! Please! Do not desert me! Give me all of you!”
He turned, surprised admiration flickering in his eyes. “You’re too young, sweeting. Come back in a year or two and I’ll give you the next lesson.”
“No!” she wailed, getting well into her part. “You cannot be so cruel! You’ve set a fire burning in me and it must be quenched!”
With alarm, she discovered that she no longer knew what was acting and what was true.