by Thea Devine
home or even talking to her until tomorrow morning."
"What else can a good friend do?" Annesley agreed promptly. "And can you blame her? My dear, that dress is a scandal. No wonder everyone was applauding. But Nick—we'll miss you within. You had the devil's own luck tonight, and that side by side Dunstan's remarkable gains. It does make one wonder, doesn't it?"
He said a few more useless things while Charlotte fumed by his side, feeling as if she wanted to attack all three of them. And especially that smarmy bitch who just couldn't help that smug look on her painted bawd face. God, she hated the bitch, and she despised Nicholas for side-stepping a choice and taking Annesley's lead.
She would not be humiliated again. She would be bolder next time; after all, he had not pushed her away, or demeaned her with cruel words. All he had done was hang onto that breast-flashing harlot like she was his prisoner or something.
There was time. There was still time.
"Well then," Annesley said cheerfully, "come, Miss Emerlin, let me escort you back to the sanctum."
She looked up at him, startled. The sanctum? With Annesley? But why not? And possibly Nicholas would hear all about it, with that gossip Annesley throwing around the details like they were not supposed to be confidential. It might work very very well.
"Yes," Annesley said, smiling at her comprehension; after all, he had always liked a willing piece. What she looked like hardly mattered in the dim light and emotional heat of the card room. "Yes, perhaps we can uncover something of interest to occupy you. Perhaps you might sit in on a hand or two ..." he suggested, unobtrusively leading her away. "Perhaps, you might even find a willing partner."
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He ordered his carriage and the butler sent for their outer garments, which were brought promptly by a foot-boy who
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helped Nicholas on with his greatcoat and then handed over Jainee's blue silk-lined cape.
"How delightful, Diana," he murmured, swinging the cape around her shoulders and stroking the lustrous material of the lining. "So soft," he hooked the collar piece together. "So inviting to the touch , . ."
"And what would you touch, my lord?" Jainee asked caustically, watching the surety with which he fastened the hooks together. No clumsiness here, but something else, something burning deep behind his eyes as his large hands moved downward to the two edges that closed over her breasts.
The pretty little frill of material barely covered them; she knew it, she had done it deliberately; she had wanted to anger him and to tempt him at the same time. She saw his fingers tighten and she took a deep breath that swelled her upper torso and thrust her breasts forward.
"What you want me to touch," he growled, and he gave into the provocation of her bared chest, and under the cover of the all-enveloping cape, he reached for her and stripped the inch of covering material away from her nipples.
And then slowly he pulled the edges of the cape over her nakedness and fastened them together.
"I would like to think of you sitting tike that, naked beneath your cape, your nipples caressed by silk and the excitement of knowing that I know that your breasts are bare."
And she felt it, instantly, arousingly, the soft firm graze of the silk against her turgid nipples, and the firm hard glitter in his eyes as he imagined it.
They walked out onto the steps as the carriage drew up, and she had no thought in her mind about secret watchers, only the secret arousal of her secret self and his surrender to his secret sight of her nakedness.
He sat across from her in the carriage, not saying a word. Everything was mirrored in his eyes as his carriage swayed past this streetlamp and that, and the flaring light filtered through the curtains at the windows.
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Her excitement ran rampant as she felt what he was seeing in his mind's eye. Everytime she moved, the silk of her cape caressed the flush thrust of her breasts with the softness and tenderness of a lover's hand.
"Where are we going?" she whispered.
"Does it matter, Diana?"
It did not; she trembled with the need to have him touch her, but she knew he wouldn't, not yet, not now. She had nothing more powerful to wield than the thoughts running through his mind of how she had looked when he tore away the minuscule bodice of her dress. How potent was the imagination.
Even she, seated so sedately across from him, felt the stirrings of her imagination in the thought of his arousal at the knowledge that he had.
He would be thinking about those other times and the erotic pull and tug between them; and he would think about how she had looked the first time she wore the robe he had created just for her just to display her naked breasts. He would harden like a rock at the thought of her sitting across from him as prim as any virgin with her breasts bare beneath her staid black cloak. He would hate it that the silk could caress her and he could not.
And she would love it that he was aroused by the thought of her and could not act upon his need.
The carriage drew up before yet another townhouse but she was too focused on her excitement to notice it. The door opened; she moved automatically, feeling the sway of her breasts against thin silk as she debarked from the carriage.
She felt nothing but the tension of her arousal; she saw nothing but this tall austere figure leading the way into his house. She had no plans, no schemes, no plotted tactical diversions. She had fought for this moment and she had won, and she thought that her compliance was purely the nature of the conqueror parading her victory in triumph.
Nothing mattered but the moment: he had surrendered already by the very act of claiming her nakedness in public.
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She entered his home as regally as any queen. A footman appeared and took his coat, but he motioned him away from her and instead indicated that she should go up the steep staircase that bisected the entrance hall.
She floated up the stairs. This was his home, his sanctum; this was the place, the time inseparable from him and divorced from any outside considerations. Here there were no threats, no ultimatums, no promises, no lies.
There was only the sense of being enveloped by all that he was and all, she realized with a brief little shock, that he might mean to her.
He paused before a door in the center of a long balcony which overlooked the reception room and opened it, and stood aside so that she could enter.
She stepped over the threshold into a huge room which occupied at least half of that side of the house and overlooked the gardens. On the far wall, a fire burned in the Fireplace under a gracefully ornamented mantel. A richly colored landscape framed in gold hung above this, and beside the fireplace were two upholstered chairs with a table between them.
On the other side of the room, there was a clothes press and a wash stand with a pier mirror beside and in the center of the room, angled out from the wall and facing the fireplace, a huge four-posted bed dominated the rest of the room, sitting on a subtle-hued fitted carpet that felt plush and rich beneath her feet.
He closed the door and she could see various pieces of art either hung on the walls or statuary on the floor, and convenient sconces near the area where he dressed and washed.
Not an ascetic's room, she thought interestedly, but still the place of a man who had great restraint and still wanted to make a statement.
The size of the bed and its height, fairly overwhelmed her. The mattress was at least as high as her waist, and there was a three step stair pushed up against the siderail.
It was warm here, as if the fire had been going all day and
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the heat had built up to the same fever pitch as the blood pounding in her veins.
"And now, Diana . . ." he murmured, coming around behind her and putting his hands over her shoulders so that he could unfasten her cape.
"And now . . . ?" she whispered, watching his capable hands uncouple each hook with unhurried studiousness.
The edges of the cape fell away from her naked breast
s, and he whisked the cape away from her shoulders.
She reveled in the heaviness of her breasts and the tautness of her nipples. She could feel his eyes on her, she could feel the heat enveloping her, and the languid yearning for something • more.
And he wanted it too, by the evidence of the granite length of him poking forcefully against the obstructing material of his trousers.
"And now, Diana—we play cards."
"What?" She felt as if he had doused her with cold water.
"Come by the fire, Diana, and sit across from me, and do not assume the evening is yours to command. / wish to play cards."
"But why?"
"Because you did not expect it, of course. Sit and let me admire your beautiful breasts by firelight, Diana. Surely I deserve that much reward for my restraint."
"I would not reward it now," she muttered, throwing herself into the chair farthest from the door. "Am I to suppose that this was the mode of entertainment you would have provided that milkfish woman if you had chosen to be with her tonight?"
He removed a deck of cards from a drawer in the center of I his side of the table. "But I would not have been with her, Diana. If a man has been with a goddess, how could he settle for a mere mortal?"
"What humbug," she said, but without heat. But now that the vibrant sensuality between them had diminished, she felt
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like covering herself up and donning her cape and just huddling by the fire.
"We will play Quinze," he said meaningfully, "which is a game that has a certain resonance for me." He began shuffling the cards.
"It was your choice, my lord," she reminded him gently.
"It was a game in which the chooser became a beggar. But the rules have reversed here. The loser will be the beggar. One round, one article of clothing removed by the loser."
"My lord," she breathed, every nerve in her body leaping to attention, "You already have the advantage of me, and over all that, you presuppose that you will come away the winner."
"No, no, Diana. It is merely a means to challenge the goddess who feels she must forever be in control. Cut the deck."
She leaned forward and took the cards and the firelight molded a sensual shadow between her breasts. She separated the deck into two stacks and put one over the other and handed it back to him.
He looked at her once before he began dealing the cards and he felt a fierce rush of possessiveness at the sight of her in his fireside chair, her arms draped gracefully over the sides, her head back, her glittering eyes appraising him as forthrightly as he did her.
One round, one article of clothing removed . . .
One goddess, already stripped naked for his delectation, just waiting for the final subjugation.
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She supposed he had thought it would be easy. Or perhaps he had also chosen not to remember just how skillfully she had outwitted him in Brighton. Or, barring that, it might have been that he had just wanted to add a certain provocation to the proceedings.
Whatever his reasons, he, by the end of the fourth round, had discarded more clothing than she and he was becoming testy as a bear.
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"But my lord, you do forget I am schooled in these games," she pointed out reasonably. "And I am in no hurry to undress myself. In fact, I have felt that things had gone far enough as it was. But there—my turn to deal, is it not?"
She took the cards and laid them down before him, once, twice, three times until he held at twelve. She then placed a card face down in front of her and two more face up, set aside the deck, and overturned the hidden card.
"Ah!" She displayed for him to see her final score: fourteen—nine, three, two. "And so what will it be now, my Lord?" She enumerated what lay on the floor: "You have lost your stock, your jacket, and your waistcoat while I have only had to remove ... a shoe. Well, your decision, my lord."
He removed a shoe, and reached for the cards.
One two three—stand: ten.
One two three: win at fifteen.
"Here is my other shoe," she said lightly and bent over to remove it, her breasts moving enticingly with the angle of her body.
And again. His ten to her eleven. He removed the other shoe.
Once more: his twelve to her eleven. She lifted her dress and slowly, slowly slid down the sheer silky stocking from her left leg.
Once more: her fifteen to his eighteen: he ripped off his shirt and the firelight and sultry shadows played all over his muscular naked chest.
She led: her twelve to his nine. He angrily pulled off a sock.
His turn: her fifteen to his twenty. He yanked off the other sock.
She took the cards, smiling that elusive cat-sure smile. Her thirteen to his fourteen. She lifted her dress once again and removed her other stocking, sliding it downward inch by agonizing inch until her foot was bared.
He dealt. His twelve to her seven. She smiled again and slowly unwound the satin tie from around her right gloved wrist and tossed it toward him.
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It grazed his hairy chest and slithered downward to nest invitingly between his legs, and she smiled again and picked up the cards.
His ten to her nineteen. She unwrapped the satin tie from around her left wrist and let it slide to the floor.
"My lord?"
"A run of bad luck, Diana?"
"But I am still in my dress, my Lord, while you have only to lose your trousers. You had best beware."
He dealt. His fifteen to her twenty. Again, that knowing smile wafted across her lips and she began unwinding the satin tie which encircled her neck, and let it drift gently downward to caress her breasts and fall onto her lap.
"I make it even, my lord."
"How so, goddess?"
"I wager you are naked beneath your breeches."
"I know you are naked beneath your dress."
She felt that spewing excitement rush through her veins at the thought of it: that all she wanted was but a footstep away from her. She could lift her foot and touch it. She could ... she stretched out her leg and groped for his foot, and reared back as she touched skin, hot naked skin that moved as tenuously as she.
She worked her foot forward again and this time, as she impassively shuffled the cards, she slid her foot against the living warmth of his, and then daringly, upward against the sinew and muscle of his hairy leg to the cushion of the chair.
The air between them became sultry, ripe with possibilities, She pushed her foot further, seeking the vee between his legs; she dealt the cards and she delved for it, snaking her toes inward, against the flat hard muscle of his knees and thighs until he gave into her and parted his legs to ease her way.
She wriggled her foot inward just a little further, and then she found the throbbing projection of his manhood and she sighed and rested the flat of her foot against his hot hard length and she dealt the next hand.
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"I like the thought of imagining your nakedness beneath these clothes," she murmured seductively, as she turned over his cards. "Ten, ah, twenty, my lord. And I—make it . . . fourteen." She set down the cards. "My lord?"
He felt as tightly wound as a bowstring; somehow, she had vanquished him again—or had he conquered her? He would never be sure, and he was not a little piqued that she could have done it right under his nose.
But he couldn't even make a judgment about it; that erotic foot pressing against his erection drove everything crashing from his mind but his powerful need to possess her.
"I await the final disposition, my lord," she said somewhat petulantly. And why should she wait? She had played the game in strict accordance with the rules. It was now his turn to comply, to strip off the last vestige of the civilized gentleman and reveal his nakedness to her.
"Do give your imagination full play, Diane," he invited her, closing his hands over her foot and pressing it tighter against his hard heat.
"Oh no, my lord, our bargain is that I am to have something else with w
hich to play." Oh, but his hands were so hot and she was sure she could still feel him elongating against the flat of her foot. That pulsating rush of excitement enveloped her as she waited, and heightened every sense to a fever pitch. "It was not I who made the rules."
No, it had been he in all his folly, pitting his wits against the cunning of the huntress. Slowly he relinquished her foot and moved back his chair. Still, she would pay for the grinding humiliation of having bested him once again.
He ought to have loved undressing in front of her, and he supposed he would have, were it not for the smile, the enigmatic smile that made him want to shake her, that made her bold and brazen and somehow able to turn things upside down in her favor. If it weren't for that, if she were more docile, compliant, if she were less blatant and flashy . . .
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He shucked his breeches with one furious yank and kicked them aside.
Now he was fully naked before her, his rampaging manhood reaching for her while she sat there, arrogantly, a queen on her throne assessing him.
He was beautiful to her eyes, so perfect, symmetrical, so stone hard in all the places where she was soft, and soft in all the places where he needed to be tender. And the muscle and the strength of him: she marveled at the elegance of him and the knowledge that she possessed of his potency and his ability to pleasure her.
She wanted to reach for him, take hold of him, know the thing about him which was the least knowable. No tactile exploration of the thick hard length of him would provide the key to the virility of him. It just was and she openly worshipped him with her eyes and with all her capacity to feel.
But all he perceived was the insolence of the goddess who had thwarted him once again. And he didn't understand it, because the end result was exactly what he had planned, except that it was to have been her standing before him in abject nakedness and trembling with the excitement of what was to come.
He pushed aside the table and reached out and took her hand and pulled her to her feet. Yes, she was trembling; yes, her blazing eyes glittered with a kind of malicious knowledge. Yes, they were both aware of what they had come for.
