She scrambled to a sitting position, her indignation as clear and loud as a yowl. “I beg your pardon?”
He had anticipated objections. Anna Winterslow Wallace Devaliant had not been fashioned in a mold of compliance. “We had an agreement.” His voice was marvelously, miraculously calm. It did not belong to the beast pulling at the chains inside him, inflamed by the feel and scent of her.
He had not kissed a woman since he’d last kissed this one. He’d not bedded a woman since she came into his life. He had wondered, once or twice since his return, if he should hire some demimondaine who could be paid to keep quiet, some compliant and willing woman to prove he was still a man.
But his interest never lasted long enough to act. What could his body prove, after all? It had been the instrument of his degradation. For the rest of his life, it would tell the story of how he’d been broken. Pleasure, bodily pleasure, no longer had a place.
Or so he’d thought. Only now did he realize the depth of his error. His appetite had not been killed. Rather, it had built in secret, in some subterranean chamber unknown to his conscious mind. The pent-up force of four years’ abstinence now roared through him. He was trembling with the effort to control it.
But, oh, how calm he looked to her. His voice, sweet honeyed deception, set her at ease, causing her to overlook how his muscles tensed, how his hands fisted on the urge to seize her. “You want a child,” he murmured. “I will give you one. But you will allow me to set the terms of how it is done.”
“I—” She looked between the cravat and his face. “I see no reason I must be blinded while you do it!”
Her robe was hanging open. She had forgotten to tie the sash. He would not remind her of it by staring. But his brain imprinted the sight in one flashing glance: the full, heavy sway of her breasts, the soft mound of her belly. His.
“There’s no harm in it.” Now his rough voice would not have convinced an ingenue, much less his thorny, self-possessed wife. “The choice is yours.”
“But—why?”
He cleared his throat. “I will also need to tie your hands to the headboard.”
Her eyes flew wide. In that moment, he felt deviant in truth. It would take a powerful evil to drive this woman to cower.
Then she scowled and lifted her chin. “You’re mad,” she said. “Do you know it? Utterly deranged.”
“Perhaps.” Better a madman than a spectacle. He knew what his body looked like now. The scars were extensive, and as distinct as braille.
Christ help him, if she did not put on this blindfold he was going to have to find some way to make himself stand and walk away. “You have full rein to stop the proceedings. Only say the word, and it will end.”
She snorted. “Tied up, blinded—why on earth should I believe you would stop?”
She was biting her lip now. It begged to be sucked. His entire body was a single pulse of need, and his brain was not functioning.
Her question—he forced himself to concentrate on it. He could hardly ask her to proceed on trust. In her view, he deserved none.
Schooling his breath, he turned to the small table by the bed. He kept a knife in the drawer there—also a pistol, and a set of cast-iron knuckle-dusters. But the knife would serve. She knew knives. “Keep this within reach.” He folded it into her hand, wrapping her slim fingers around the hilt. The pleasure of touching her felt drugging. He slowly let go. “If I fail to listen, cut yourself free. Stab me, if you like.”
She inspected the long, wicked blade. “Perhaps I should stab you right now,” she muttered. “A widow would be free to find another father for her children.”
His laugh startled him. It seemed astonishing that humor might break through this fierce grip of need.
But why not? From the moment she’d appeared in his salon last Sunday, he’d remembered instantly why he’d married her. What man could have resisted her? On the rare occasions she checked her thoughts before speaking them, it was a grave loss to the world, and a wasted opportunity to marvel at her.
“Have at it,” he said, and flopped down onto his back, tipping his head to bare his throat to her.
She came over him, her long red hair brushing his chest and tickling his chin, her expression contorted in disbelief. “You did run mad,” she muttered. “You know I’m not going to gut you.” Her hand went to the sash of his robe.
He caught it in a firm grip. He could feel the thrumming of her pulse. He lifted her wrist and licked it, tasting the salted cream of her skin. Christ God.
Her breath caught audibly. “Lockwood . . .”
“First the blindfold,” he whispered.
Her brows drew together. “Are you shy, Lockwood?” Taking his strained smile as affirmation, she sat back in clear amazement. “But this is absurd. You, bashful! Come now, open your robe.”
He sat up. A blue vein wound down her throat, disappearing beneath the ruffled collar of her robe. It was his guide. A lure. “Lie back,” he murmured. He would trace that vein. He would rip that robe off her to reveal it. One sharp tug was all it would take.
His fists clenched. Not yet. Not until she could not see, could not reach out for him. “Lie back,” he repeated roughly.
She shook her head slightly in bewilderment. “I can’t . . .”
He took a hard breath through his nose. Another man would pretend not to hear. He was her husband, damn it.
But without choice, touch was naught but defilement.
“Very well.” It was better this way, no doubt. This was no normal need. He could remember the fumblings of his youth. His desire had not felt like this—like a savage bottomless starving need that might well rip apart his body and hers before he managed to sate it.
Stand up. Walk away.
She was staring at him. “Why?” she whispered. “Why must it be like this?”
He could not move. Could not retreat. He stared back at her. “You said you wanted a child.” Anna. Let me. Anna. “The choice is yours.”
Her lips flattened. “I am not letting go of this knife,” she said, and lay back.
His breath, his heart, stopped. For a moment, the wonder of her consent was so total that it blotted out everything.
Then he swallowed hard, schooling his expression. This bland mask he donned for her, the slight amused smile of a gentleman on a lark—he must not let it break, or she would see the truth and go flying.
And he might not let her go. That was what frightened him most.
“You need only tell me to stop,” he said, and reached for the cravat. Hands shaking, he fitted it over her eyes, knotting it gently.
“You’re depraved,” she whispered. Her lips—he leaned down and licked them, and she made a startled noise.
“Yes,” he said into her mouth. Ah God, the taste of her—he was so hard that it was painful. But so much remained to be done. “But so are sheep,” he continued unsteadily, “if you think on it. Now clutch the headboard.”
“Sheep?” She sounded distracted as he bound her wrists with the other cravat. “Sheep are animals, Lockwood; they are sensible creatures who get this business accomplished in a minute flat, without any nonsense about—”
He kissed her lips again, the better to stop her objections. She submitted, then began to kiss him back—a hesitant but willing kiss. His wife, his wife’s lips, and he poised over her, holding himself away, barely daring to breathe as he kissed her: this was real, this was happening, this was now.
Ambrosia, the flavor of her. Intoxicant. The more he tasted, the more frantic he felt. Slow. Slow, now. You can have her. She cannot see, touch. You will have her soon enough.
He tracked down her chin and throat, then forced himself to linger there, to sip her pulse, to persuade her to relax.
“Oh,” she said softly, as he nuzzled her. “That’s . . .”
Lightly, he warned himself. He skimmed his hand over her collarbone, delicate fragile architecture, never battered, never broken. How had he resisted having her before their wedding
? Fool. He parted the robe, exposing her—pale and curving, rounded full hips, a soft belly like a provocation, God help him. He watched his trembling hand brush over her breast. Her nipple was a blushing pink. Nothing else in nature matched the color.
A strange fear coursed through him. Such unblemished perfection. She had no idea who touched her. He did not deserve this.
She sighed. Her nipple, beneath his thumb, stiffened. “Go on,” she whispered.
Your wife.
He gritted his teeth hard against the urge to—
Bite her, crush her down into the mattress, hold her there, keep her there, do not let her move an inch.
He blew out his breath.
She doesn’t know, she cannot see, she is not leaving, this is yours.
No call to rush. He would not rush.
He took her nipple into his mouth, and she gasped.
Gentleness, yes: this was what she expected of her husband. Gentle touches. Gentle lips, soft flicks of the tongue. Here he was, working a deceit on her as he moved over her body, kissing her quivering belly now—he had forgotten to acknowledge her freckles. A gentleman would have done so.
With a great effort, he forced himself to move up her body, back to her face. He kissed her again, licking that sunspot between the peaks of her lip. She kissed him back, arching against him, soft and warm, so soft.
Who did she see, in the darkness behind her blindfold? The other Liam—young and callow and self-assured—would not have braced his hand against the headboard to stop its trembling. That Liam had been no virgin. He had known how to kiss a woman, to grasp her breast and palm her hip, without fearing that his own release would come on him without warning, before the deed had even been done. But the man he was now . . .
He kissed her savagely, plundering her mouth. She made a raw noise, and kissed him back with teeth and tongue, rolling her hips against his. Too much, too much. He went rigid against her, breathing hard into her mouth. Gentle. Here was his deceit, to be worked on her like a spell: he was harmless. He was the man she had known.
Her body was beginning to believe it. She lay relaxed and accommodating beneath him, and her arms, which he glanced at every few seconds to gauge their comfort, sagged into the mounded pillows.
As he settled back against her, he heard her long ragged breath. Her hips canted into his, and his breath hissed out before he could catch it. Not yet. He twisted his pelvis away, inwardly cursing. Even as a virgin, he had not felt so clumsy, so unsure of his own body. So close to the edge, so ready to spill.
She twisted restlessly, her small noises like demands. But he could not yet press against her again. Not until she had been readied to take him.
A fine deceit, then, a pretense at control, restraint; at patience, gentility, goodness. He sipped his way down her body once more, suckling her breasts until she groaned.
But the deceit was its own punishment: a thousand nights or more he had rehearsed this in his dreams, those dreams that had taken him from the nightmares of his waking hours. No terrors in his sleep at Elland—those had come later. In Elland, in crippling heat, in agonizing pain, he had dreamed only of her, and of that make-believe hour of their wedding night—an hour forever denied them. That other Liam had planned to seduce her—slowly, coaxingly, persuading her to realize the promise that had always leapt between them: the rapport of their bodies, the desire like electricity on Ben Nevis, on Rawsey, in Edinburgh. He had planned nothing else, for the charge upon him had felt grave and weighty. The raw current between their bodies was rare—the other Liam had known it. It could be ruined if he did not take care. On his wedding night, he’d vowed, he would be the most careful man alive. They would have years, decades, all the time in the world, to explore and sate and inflame each other, but on their wedding night, she would be educated into anticipating it as he did. He would show her the way. He would be the best husband alive.
Now, dreams collapsed into reality. The hair on her mound was exactly as he had imagined—wiry and red, glinting in the dim firelight, soft beneath his combing fingers. Her breath stuttered audibly in her throat—there was curiosity in the syllable she whispered, yes, and he gripped his cock to hold it away from the plump sweetness of her thigh, desperation singing along his nerves, torturous little pricks as she pushed her body against his, ah God, she was wet. He stroked between her lips and found the spot that would bring her joy. He was shaking now, violently. Gentleness was no longer his native skill. But all she would feel was the steady rhythm of his fingers, their gentle probing against her, the coaxing, insistent stroke.
This was not his wedding night. He was not that other man. His wife was blindfolded and tied so she could not touch or see him. There was some weird grief that wanted to fill him—desperation could tip so easily into despair—but when he bent his head to taste her, all else washed away. He licked into her and she groaned. She groaned and it was music. His ravaged body could do this. It did not betray him.
He licked and suckled her, increasingly confident as she bucked beneath him. Another way, then—different from what he’d rehearsed as a cocksure boy prepared for happiness. A woman did not only wish to be wooed. Sometimes, God be praised, she wanted to be taken.
He coaxed her with his tongue until her hips twisted violently—but no, she would not break free of him. He gripped her to hold her still, and her thighs clamped around his ears, her scent enfolding him.
“Oh—wait—” She struggled more fiercely. The flash of the knife pulled up his head.
He pressed the length of his palm against her quim to remind her what she was missing, and reached up with his other hand to grip her hand that held the knife.
Words were almost beyond him. He forced them out in a growl. “Do you want to stop?” He ground his palm against her wetness and she shuddered.
“I—want to see—”
“Pick one. Sight or”—he rolled his palm again—“this.”
Her whisper sounded like a defeat: “This.” Her grip opened. The blade fell from the bed.
He lowered his head again. No gentleness now. She tightened beneath him, and then cried out. He pushed his fingers inside her, and she moaned.
Now.
A red haze settled over him. As much blinded now as she, he groped up her body, feeling his way by instinct as he fitted his cock to her. Ah God, anything had been worth this, even the worst nights—it was true, all the fevered dreams had saved his life, but none had come close to how this felt. He pushed into her and felt her full-bodied flinch, and then heard her small noise, surprise and perhaps, perhaps wonder.
It did not take long. So many years alone. This was not love but an exorcism. One stroke—two—she was taking him, he was inside her, her body was hot and wet and soft and her legs wrapped around him to draw him closer and he was, for one moment outside time, no longer himself, twisted and scarred, but the man she had wanted, who had known he could please her—
The orgasm overtook him.
He collapsed atop her. Powerless, emptied. Oblivion: what no drug had ever given him. Breathing her, his hand planted in her hair, he felt . . . at rest. Not an exorcism, after all.
A homecoming.
After a long minute, she stirred beneath him. Fretted at the restraints.
He could not stay.
A strange grief leached through him, more violent and horrible than the numbness—full of feelings he could not name. Too much feeling. God save him, he had to move.
“Untie me,” she whispered.
On a hard, deep breath, he shoved himself off her body and threw on his robe. His body felt strange to him, heavy and clumsy, his reflexes blunted, his skin still hungering for hers. The air too sharp, her skin the only cure.
As he unknotted the restraints at her wrists, her blindfolded face tipped up toward his, silent, patient. Trusting. The gesture sank some sweet deadly arrow through his heart. Her trust was so much more than he deserved. Hadn’t she learned not to trust him?
Dizziness rocked him. He
sat down heavily on the mattress. The blindfold emphasized the strong bones of her face, a sturdy square frame for her pretty mouth and bold nose. But her eyes were marvels. With a shaking hand, he pushed the blindfold over her head. She blinked at him, her glorious hair spilling in fiery disorder over her bare shoulders, her mouth bruised looking.
She blushed as she smiled at him. “Well,” she said. “That was . . . overdue.”
He was home. But she smiled at a stranger, and she did not even realize it.
He leaned back against the headboard for balance, breathing deeply. Her glance dropped down his body, and her smile dimmed. He was dressed, and she found it odd. She had questions. She had hopes he could not fulfill.
“You’re shaking,” she said.
“No.” The denial was automatic. A request for her to disbelieve her own eyes. What else was the blindfold but that request made into an order? Do not look at me. Or, more accurately: do not see me.
See him, the man I once was.
The thought nauseated him. He would not invite such a charade. But what else was it when he showed her the bland, smiling face that best comforted her?
“Are you all right?” she asked, frowning now.
Had he rued his own ability to feel? It was turning on him in spades. Tenderness, gratitude, bottomless grief—this violent tumult of feelings was causing the room to spin. “I’m perfectly well.” He could not quite breathe. The tightness in his throat would not be swallowed. “You’ll want to sleep in your own bed. Shall I escort you back to your rooms?”
She stared up at him for an interminable moment, her puzzlement plain. Then she slipped to her feet. “No,” she said, then knotted her robe before walking away.
She wanted an heir from him. That was her right, and his duty. The rest of it—ugliness, all ugliness—he would rather cut his own throat than reveal to her. He watched her walk away, tall and slim, her shoulders thrown back in a dignified posture. His hand wrapped around the bedpost, tightened, to keep himself steady. Ten seconds, nine . . . Once she was gone, then he could confront this.
At the door, she turned back. Just go, he willed her, but she studied him another moment before saying something.