Seductive as Flame

  Zelda raised her glass to Alec; their eyes met.

  A small heated silence fell.

  “I’m pleased to see you children are getting along,” Creiggy said into the incandescent pause. “Now, are we all ready for dessert?”

  As dessert was being served, a servant came in and whispered in James’s ear. He excused himself, and when he returned, spoke quietly to Dalgliesh, then handed him a telegram. The earl scanned it quickly, crumpled it in his hand, stuffed it in his pocket, and dismissed his secretary with a nod.

  Dinner resumed as if the interruption hadn’t occurred. Dalgliesh artfully brought up the matter of Chris’s jumping lessons, after which there was no end of childish chatter over a Bavarian cream, a pineapple soufflé, macaroons, and a plum tart still hot from the oven. The telegram, as intended, was forgotten.

  It wasn’t until the women and Chris were preceding the men into the drawing room where tea was being served, that Alec had an opportunity to speak quietly to James. “This situation bears watching. Keep me informed. Not that Knowles isn’t fully capable of dealing with their maneuvers. Still.”

  “Judge Felden has a price,” James said, flatly.

  “We just have to make sure ours is higher. See that Knowles understands that. Tell him no half measures. I’m not losing my mining claims for the price of a judge.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll see that Knowles is informed.”

  “Isn’t she lovely?” At his secretary’s blank look, the earl added, “Miss MacKenzie.”

  “Oh, yes, sir. Quite, sir. A stunning woman, sir.” James was stunned himself at the tenderness in Dalgliesh’s voice when he spoke of the lady. Especially since his lordship often didn’t know the exact name of the woman to whom James was supposed to send one of the earl’s customary gifts of appreciation.

  “If you could monitor Knowles for me, I’d be grateful. Miss MacKenzie and I will be busy for a few days.”

  “Certainly, sir.” A slender man of middle height, James hastened to keep up with the earl’s long stride.

  “If an emergency comes up, by all means inform me. Otherwise, take care of things yourself.”

  James Armitage, of the Yorkshire Armitages who’d lost the bulk of their estate two generations ago after a series of bad investments on the exchange, had been secretary to the Earl of Dalgliesh since the earl had come into his majority and his grandfather’s fortune at eighteen. Five years older than Dalgliesh, they’d first met when James had been suggested for the post by the Crosstrees steward. Even at eighteen, Dalgliesh had presence and no visible vulnerabilities. Because of his mother’s estrangement from his father, because he was his mother’s protector, he’d been educated by tutors at home. He was well-read, well educated, already linguistically agile in several languages. He was reticent at times—due to his experience of human nature observed at close hand in his family—but he was also disarming and eminently capable, and James had been warmly welcomed into the hospitable sphere of Alec’s company. Initially at the splendid Dower House where Alec and his mother lived, soon after in South Africa where Alec had gone to find some purpose to his life beyond resistance to his father. Now back in England again, and in all those ten years, James had never so much as seen the earl look at a woman with fondness—his family aside. Certainly, he’d never heard the earl speak of a woman in the tone of voice he reserved for Miss MacKenzie. And most startling, the earl who was normally obsessed with his businesses, mining and otherwise had said, I’ll be busy for a few days. It was such a departure from the norm, James momentarily questioned the earl’s soundness of mind or, at the very least, his sobriety.

  Tea and liquor was served in the drawing room, and the evening continued its agreeable course. Chris was entertained with a game of cards, Creiggy playing for blood like she did, Alec cheating so Chris won anyway. He was rewarded for his efforts by his son’s gleeful jubilation, Creiggy harrumphed in defeat, and James marveled at the earl’s deft of hand. Not that Dalgliesh hadn’t honed his already formidable skills in the mining camps, where drink and gambling were the major entertainments. Still, it took a practiced eye and amazing technical skill.

  Creiggy, grumbling, had her whiskey glass refilled.

  Alec grinned and spoke to her under his breath, “He’s only six. He has plenty of time to learn about losing.”

  She sniffed. “I’m not so sure some people have ever learned that lesson.”

  “Learned what lesson?” Chris chirped.

  “It’s more blessed to give than receive,” Alec mildly said. “Isn’t that right, Creiggy?” He glanced at her, mischief in his eyes.

  “Indeed. Listen to your father. He’s a right religious man.”

  After another game that Chris won, thanks to his father, Alec and Zelda accompanied the boy up to the nursery, tucked him into bed, read him a story, and sat with him until he fell asleep.

  Traversing the maze of corridors from the nursery to Alec’s apartments, the swish of her skirts an accompanying whisper of sound, Zelda glanced up at Dalgliesh with a quizzical lift of her brows. “How old were you before you won a hand of cards against Creiggy?” She’d watched the interplay between the nanny and her former charge with interest.

  “Five. But then I had an Italian tutor who’d sharpened his German with a year at the casino in Baden.” He smiled. “And Creiggy annoyed him—as you can see she might.”

  “Your mother didn’t mind you gambling at so young an age?”

  “She probably didn’t know. She was busy matching wits with my father at the time. Later she chose to ignore him. But it was early days in their marriage, and she still labored under the illusion he might be redeemable. So Creiggy and my tutors were given free rein. You’ll have to meet Maman someday. She’d like you.”

  “She’s better then? Fitz said she’d been ill.”

  He glanced at her, a sudden sharpness in his gaze. “Ill? I suppose you might say that,” he said, sarcasm soft in his words. “She almost died.”

  “I’m sorry. Fitz didn’t mentioned that.”

  “He wouldn’t have known. Here we are.” Not about to discuss his mother’s ailment, he opened the door to his suite, bowed her in, and shut the door behind them. Neither had slept much the night before, the day had been busy as well, carnally and otherwise; Zelda had almost fallen asleep twice in the nursery. As they walked through the sitting room to his bedchamber, he graciously said, “If you’re tired, darling, I won’t bother you.”

  She stopped and turned. “I’m not that tired. Are you tired?” Oh God, he was bored already and she was acting like every other infatuated woman he knew.

  “I’m never that tired,” he said, taking her hands and drawing her into his arms. “In fact, I want you every hour of the day and night. It’s amazing and mystifying, but altogether delightful.”

  Her world having righted itself again, she gazed up at him with open adoration. “I find it terrifying, wanting you the way I do.”

  “No, darling. It’s heaven on earth.” His smile warmed his eyes. “And I’m the least religious man in the world.”

  She laughed. “So I’ve wrought some miracle.”

  “Or I’m in favor with the gods for the first time in my life. Either way, I’m pleased. More than pleased. We’ll cancel Fontainebleau, stay at Crosstrees, and enjoy these celestial pleasures.”

  “We?” A playful arch of her brows.

  “You can’t go.”

  She wasn’t so foolish as to believe him. “I have to, of course.”

  He smiled. “You can try.”

  “I won’t tonight, at least.”

  “Then I must endeavor to entertain you so you won’t go at all.”

  “How nice,” she murmured, sliding her hands up the lapels of his evening coat, then higher, cupping his face in her palms. “How exactly does this entertainment begin?”

  It began with Alec making sure Zelda had what she wanted, along with her choice of a thousand variants on pleasure he’d learned and knew and executed with ea
se. In time, he undressed her and then himself while she lay sprawled in bed, trying to catch her breath, watching him with avidity and affection, with her perpetual impatience. “I don’t suppose it would help to say don’t scream so loudly,” he said, grinning as he approached the bed once again.

  “I’m so sorry.” She didn’t sound sorry at all; she was smiling. “Am I embarrassing you? Would you like to gag me?”

  A wicked gleam entered his gaze. “Would you like to be tied up? Is that what you’re saying?”

  So the devil would have looked in the Garden of Eden, she thought, offering sweet temptation. “I’m not sure.”

  “Should I decide?” He had already.

  She shook her head.

  “No, I shouldn’t decide, or no, you don’t wish to be bound?” He was stripping a braided tieback from the bed curtains.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I thought it was obvious,” he said, moving to the next corner of the bed.

  “Alec, don’t. I don’t think so.”

  “You like me to take charge, darling.” A third tie came free in his hand. “Or at least your hot little clit does, as I recall. Why don’t you show me I’m wrong if I am. It’ll put the matter to rest.”

  “No.”

  He’d heard that kind of no before, from women who meant the opposite. From teasing women and women who found repudiation arousing. Or in this case, from a woman who liked to think she was in charge. “Why don’t I look for myself?” he said, with extreme urbanity, turning to her with three silk ties looped over his hand.

  “Alec! No!” She shoved herself upward on the bed as he reached for her.

  But she was smiling, so he said, “Yes,” grabbed her foot, and dragged her back. Although it wouldn’t have mattered if she wasn’t smiling. He knew how to bring a smile to a woman’s face.

  “Now mind your manners and you’ll be rewarded,” he said in a low tantalizing murmur. “I promise.” Quickly seizing her pummeling hands, he smoothly trussed her wrists. “That’s better.” He tested the knot, then smiled faintly. “I prefer a little more obedience.”

  It suddenly occurred to her that a good number of obedient women had proceeded her. “I didn’t know you were looking for obedience,” she said in an unmistakably pettish tone.

  He grinned. “Now you know.” He slipped his fingers under her back. “Lift up a little.” She didn’t, of course, nor had he expected her to after hearing the umbrage in her voice. But he had done this a few times before—instructed originally by his little duchess next door to Munro Park. He knew Zelda would enjoy it. As would he, for the usual reasons and for other less benign reasons. Those having to do with Zelda’s unbridled sexuality and his continuing struggle with her past exercise thereof. At which unpleasant thought, he took the slack out of the cord he was wrapping around her waist and jerked it taut.

  In the grip of her own resentments, Zelda only saw a dégagé man tying an intricate knot at her waist, managing this little sexual performance as effortlessly as he dealt with every other aspect of carnal play. It shouldn’t matter; if she was sensible, it wouldn’t. She’d ultimately profit from his expertise. But the manner in which he’d acquired his professional skills, all the women he’d pleased and who’d pleased him, brought her temper up. “Even with my hands tied, I could still kick you,” she said, sulky and sullen, green-eyed with jealousy.

  “Give me a minute and you won’t want to.” He was forming a more complicated knot in the third tie and didn’t look up.

  “So sure, Dalgliesh?”

  He smiled faintly and looked up. “Pretty damned sure.”

  “You’re really irritating me.”

  “Not for long, unless I’ve lost my touch,” he murmured, intent on his task, his long slender fingers deftly manipulating the braided silk.

  “Have I mentioned how I dislike arrogant men?”

  “Actually, you have.”

  “Well, perhaps it bears repeating. Damn you, look at me!”

  “There now,” he said as if she’d not spoken. He lifted his head and deigning at last to give her his attention, met her heated gaze with an agreeable one of his own. “Let’s see how this fits.” He held up an intricate, sinuous, oval design of blue silk cord like that used as ornament on regimentals, the decorative knot work set midway down the length of the tie. Without waiting for an answer, indeed, already preoccupied, he slid one end of the tie through the bowline loop at her waist, and handily brushing aside her flailing fists, fastened it to her wrist bonds.

  “Stop this, Alec!” She wrenched her hands upward and the end of the cord he was holding slipped from his grasp.

  “Hush, darling. You don’t mean it,” he said, calmly retrieving the braided strand left dangling.

  “I can’t imagine how you know whether I mean it or not!”

  Surely not a comment he cared to answer. “Just give me a few minutes of your time, sweetheart,” he affably said.

  “Do they all say yes when you ask them like that?”

  Again, a question best not answered when she was glaring. “Darling, your jealousy is misplaced,” he said, instead, and holding her wrists in a firm grip, ran the length of the silk braid down her stomach with his other hand.

  “Allow me to disagree,” she said with a sniff, damn his smooth penitence. “Now untie me. Alec, do you hear!”

  He agilely sidestepped her kick and stood breathing softly, the loose end of the silk tie draped over one finger. “You’re being childish.”

  “I am not!” Even as she said it, she realized how juvenile she sounded. But she jerked on the cord tied to her wrists anyway.

  He laughed. “Brat. You don’t know what you want.” This time the cord was firmly trapped between his fingers. “I’m offering you unlimited orgasms,” he said expansively. “I don’t see the problem.”

  “The problem is the countless women you’ve offered them to before me.”

  He was smiling faintly. “Am I questioning your orgasms with other men?” He was, of course, but he was making a point, and to admit to jealousy was unthinkable. “Now don’t be obstinate. You’ll like this.” Either reading her hesitancy as consistent with female behavior or perhaps simply indifferent to her reply, he took advantage of her momentary stillness and moving a step closer, swiftly slid the braided cord between her legs, eased her pouty flesh open with his fingertips, properly positioned the ornamental knot, and at her small gasp, quickly rolled her on her side and nimbly attached the other end of the tie to the one circling her waist in back.

  Seconds elapsed—five.

  His satisfaction—immeasurable.

  Returning Zelda to her former position, he serenely surveyed his handiwork. “Now, how does that feel?” He was pleased to see her breathing had changed, a slight flush was rising up her throat.

  “I might ask the same of you,” she said, giving nothing away, her glance on his upthrust erection lying hard against his stomach, the distended veins visibly pulsing.

  “As you see.” Amusement warmed his gaze.

  “Then at least one of us is enjoying ourselves. For your information, I don’t like this game. I don’t like that you’ve probably done this a thousand times before. I particularly dislike the fact that—” She sucked in her breath, stunned at the hammer blow of lurid sensation that imploded outward from the targeted knot crushed against her clitoris.

  Alec, smiling, was holding her wrists immobile in order to maintain the pressure on the knot. “Perhaps two of us are enjoying ourselves now,” he softly said, making a small adjustment with his free hand to the ornamental knot. “Or do you find this more pleasant?” He tugged on her wrists, lifting them a fraction higher.

  Her wild, frenzied scream exploded, echoing in shimmering waves up the walls, flaring across the ceiling as hotspur, rampaging delirium shuddered unchecked through her body, seared every sexual receptor and nerve in passing. Left her a moment later, half dazed, without breath, gasping for air.

  “You seemed to like that,
” the earl mildly said, a modicum of his unwonted jealousy assuaged, the matter of supremacy clarified. “Try this.” Leaning over slightly, he placed his palm over the knot and exerted a precise, masterful pressure learned in his youthful apprenticeship under the tender tutelage of the charming duchess. “What do you think?”

  She’d gone tense under his hand, so close to orgasm she couldn’t force her brain to deliver the required response.

  “Answer me, darling, or I might take away my hand.” He began lifting the weight of his hand.

  “No, no—don’t!” A breathless rush of words, impassioned, humbling.

  And particularly gratifying to a man who, personal vanity aside, wouldn’t have cared three days ago what a woman liked. Nor that he have dominion over her.

  With the ultimate pleasure trembling on the brink, Zelda had long since abandoned herself to the passion-filled fervor of glorious sensation. Reality had been replaced by soul-stirring ardor, and softly moaning, she sought orgasmic surcease. Restless, impatient, she moved her hips to magnify the erotic pressure of Alec’s hand, eagerly lifted her pelvis into his palm, frantically reaching for the blissful curative to her lust.

  The silk knot was soaked through. Zelda’s liquid arousal was drenching his palm and fingers, his skin slippery, slick—like her cunt. The bitch was unforgivably carnal, he indignantly thought, ravenous, lustful—qualities that in any other woman would have been welcome.

  Qualities that never would have provoked his resentment.

  Or jealousy.

  With the inconceivable word finally emergent, he sucked in an incredulous breath, immediately dismissed such aberrant thoughts, and swiftly brought Zelda to orgasm. As though to underscore the ordinariness of the transaction. The casualness. The fact that this was sex and only sex.

  But the wanton hussy didn’t just come once but twice more in rapid succession before he irritably removed his hand. Then, when she finally opened her eyes and lazily gazed up at him from under the lacy fringe of her lashes like some sumptuous courtesan, she had the audacity to murmur in an outrageously sultry purr, “Damn you, Dalgliesh, I should hate you for your boorish ways. And if it didn’t feel so good, I would.”