Lord Regret's Price: A Jane Austen Space Opera, Book 3

by Joely Sue Burkhart

  He didn’t answer, but she didn’t need words. She must have noted the way his heart beat faster beneath her palm, how rapidly his eyes blinked and how hard he was beneath her.

  Pulling the linen from his throat, she stood and moved around behind him, slowly enough that he could tell her to stop. Or he could simply rise and excuse himself with an exaggerated yawn. She was too polite and well mannered to even think of forcing anyone to do something to which they objected.

  Yet he didn’t move a muscle. He couldn’t. It’d been weeks since he’d been entirely helpless for her. Since she’d held his life in the palm of her hand and decided whether he would live or die. Now, that was feeling, the ultimate feeling. Nothing felt as good as tiptoeing that fine line between life and death with her.

  Wasn’t that what it came down to in the end? Each time he accepted a contract, he decided whether the person would walk away or never breathe again. That power was his. He could take the life—and the resulting money, although that didn’t provide motivation to him—or he could simply walk away. Unlike his spineless father who’d never walked away from his mother.

  Unfair, he knew, especially considering the price his father had paid to save him.

  He ought to walk away from her now, while he still could. He could save her from this. He could leave before he hurt her.

  What was it that Cixi had said before? Every man has his price. Charlie had always been afraid someone would offer him enough money that he’d be persuaded to assassinate her. What would she think if she suspected it wouldn’t take a contract? As she bound his wrists together behind him, he shook with the knowledge that someday he might go too far. His need went deeper than he’d ever suspected.

  I’m more damaged than I even feared.

  Untying her wrap, she moved back in front of him but didn’t sink back onto his lap. “Do you know why I think you like to be bound and helpless?”

  The silk wrap fell to the floor, revealing her luscious body. He’d kissed and stroked every inch of her, yet he’d never get his fill. His pulse thudded in his ears, reverberating through his skull in a deafening thunder that made it impossible to think or respond.

  “You say I don’t know you, Sigmund Regret, but I do. You think you’re so dangerous that it’s safer for me if you’re bound.”

  He flinched as if she’d struck him. “You’ve always been afraid of me.”

  “Not exactly. More wary and respectful, as if I’d encountered a dangerous predator or a poisonous viper.”

  Dear God. If only she knew exactly how poisonous he really was. His whole House was cursed with death, madness and cruelty, feared as much as any snake. “I am a predator.”

  Smiling, she opened a box on the table and took out delicate chains. The nipple clamps dangled on either end, the ones he’d used to punish her tender flesh. “My, what big teeth and claws you have, Lord Predator.”

  She pinched her own nipple and attached the clamp, tightening it until her eyes flickered with pain. Slowly, she did the same to the other breast, taking her time and making him watch while unable to touch her.

  “You know the guards never found all my weapons,” he warned. “Don’t be fooled into thinking I’m entirely helpless, Charlie.”

  She moved closer, letting him see the way her tortured nipples were swelling. They were already berry-red, plump and tempting. He couldn’t help twisting his wrists in his bonds, just to test her knot. Though she certainly knew by now how to tie him for maximum results.

  “I learned something the other night. I always wondered why you enjoyed pain and danger while we made love, but now I understand. A little pain is sweet indeed when you’re inside me.” She pushed his shirt up and worked it over his head, although it hung up between his bound arms and the chair. “Too bad you surrendered all your knives. I could certainly use a blade to cut away all this clothing.”

  He swallowed hard, trying to force his voice to work. There was no way in hell he’d bring a knife anywhere near her. “Don’t say such sacrilege. This shirt is edged with the finest Parisiian lace I could find.”

  She laughed huskily. “I’ll buy you a dozen silk shirts fit enough for the Emperor.” She smoothed her palms up his chest. “Do you feel this?”

  “Somewhat,” he admitted. “But it’s not enough, Charlie, even though I crave your touch. It’s like I’m empty, a bottomless pit of rage and need and agony. This is a drop against an ocean of darkness.”

  “Then I’ll have to work harder at filling you up.”

  He shuddered, each thought raw and jagged, tearing him up inside. She could call her nanobots out and leave his damaged heart to stutter and die. But he couldn’t bear to leave her. Not yet. Even though he feared she might turn him away. He didn’t know whom to kill yet, so the usual rush of adrenaline when he took his mark wouldn’t help.

  His stomach twisted, churning with anxiety and, yes, need. Need for the forbidden, the thing he’d avoided because he couldn’t face the truth.

  His greatest fear. Pain. Would she drive him to kill her, as his mother had done to his father? Am I as sadistic as she was? “Get the flail.”

  She paused, searching his face with those big, dark eyes that haunted him everywhere he went. “I don’t think—”

  “I won’t know until you try. Make me feel, Charlie. Give me something other than death tonight.”

  She still hesitated, troubled, no doubt, by the harsh tone of his voice and the memory of his reaction at the shop. At least he was bound now. She’d be safe enough to try and push him over the edge.

  “Make. Me. Feel. Even if it’s pain. Especially pain. Get it!”

  Chapter Twelve

  Inside, she was weeping. Poor Sig. Who’d hurt him so badly long ago that he could only be hurt to feel anything now? How could she hurt him when she loved him so? How could she not…if that was what he needed the most?

  What I need?

  She knelt down and opened the chest where she’d stashed the flail, still discreetly wrapped in brown paper. Her hands trembled as she unwrapped the leather. She’d intended to practice with it before ever approaching either man. She wanted to see how it felt on her own skin when wielded by her hand. How hard or soft to strike. How much it would really hurt.

  With her nipples aching in the decorative clamps, she’d learned not to be afraid of pain. The trick would be giving him the same kind of delicious pain that wasn’t horrifying. She tried to put her mind at ease. Experimentation. Her very favorite thing.

  Her stomach fluttered with nerves as she returned to him. The leather-wrapped hilt felt good in her hand. The strips dangled beside her, tickling her thigh, which gave her an idea. She could still practice on herself, and torment him at the same time.

  More confident, she pushed the table out of her way so she could take up position in front of him. His chest heaved with each breath, sweat slicked his hair, making it darker than its usual sun-kissed gold. He stared at the weapon in her hand and his eyes went cold and blank. She imagined he looked exactly that way right before he killed someone.

  No regret, no emotion, just death.

  She flicked the flail against her thigh, just a playful strike that made the leather flutter against her skin. “Hmm, I didn’t expect it to tickle. I don’t think that’s what you’re looking for, is it?”

  He dragged his gaze away from the flail to search her face, his eyes narrowing. “Do you honestly think to make a joke at a time like this?”

  She shrugged. “Why not?” She flicked the leather again, just a bit harder. It still felt nice against her skin. “I have to know all the various parameters before I can begin to execute a battery of tests on my subject.”

  “So you injected yourself with nanobots before you ever put them inside me?”

  “That was different,” she said primly, using a firmer strike to distract him. The sound of leather hitting her thigh made them both jump, although it still didn’t exactly hurt. She didn’t want him to think too much about who might carry
her nanobots inside them. Who her initial test subject might have been. “Although I did use them carefully indeed until I was assured of their potential.”

  “Harder,” he growled out in a low, ragged voice. “I want to hear it. I want to know when it begins to hurt. I want to see it on your face.”

  She complied, hitting her thigh hard enough the leather made a loud smack. It wasn’t a cutting blow, though. Her skin warmed and pinkened, but it didn’t hurt. It was more heat than anything. A delicious heat that made her skin come alive. The brush of leather made her shiver. Even the air seemed to dance on her skin.

  She swung the flail to the other side, heating that thigh too. Back and forth, she heated both sides of her hips, watching the way his eyes darkened. Not so cold and empty now. No. His eyes blazed, his nostrils flaring with each breath. His face was granite hard, carved and chiseled with grim control. To keep himself from begging her to turn that flail on him? Or something else? She couldn’t be sure, although the nanobots seemed to sing within her. “Are you feeling anything now?”

  He snarled beneath his breath. “Use that bloody thing on me and I’ll tell you.”

  Lifting her arm over her head, she let the flail strike against her upper back and shoulders. It was trickier to get any kind of blow that way, but she could imagine the slow burn spreading across her skin. “Oh, not yet. I’m enjoying this experiment too much to give up so quickly.”

  He twisted his wrists hard enough that the tendons stood out in his neck and shoulders. “You’re supposed to be helping me hang on to my sanity, not lose it.”

  “I thought I was helping.” She fluttered her eyelashes innocently and gave herself another blow from the side. This time one of the leather straps wound around her rib cage and stung the underside of her breast. She sucked in a deep breath, surprised at how that tiny blow made her nipple throb in sympathy. Even more shocking, her clitoris seemed to catch fire until her whole core ached. I’m not going to be able to tease him much longer.

  The low sound of surprise only fueled his efforts to get free. His breath sawed in and out of his chest like he’d run a marathon. “Why the fuck didn’t you use Masters’s handcuffs? I can deal with metal but evidently linen is harder to dissolve.”

  Glee filled her because she’d driven him to curse. Thanks to his genteel breeding, he only rarely ever used such coarse language in her presence. But then his words penetrated the sensual fog dimming her brain. “What did you say? What does metal have to do with anything?”

  “Forget it,” he growled beneath his breath. “God help me, don’t get sidetracked on some other experiment or I’ll die from lack of blood flow to my skull.”

  “You said dissolve metal. You can do that? But how? Oh…” Sudden realization crashed through her mind like lightning. Dumbfounded, she could only stare at him. “My nanobots. Some of them are dissemblers.” Offhand, she couldn’t remember what percentage of her original injection had been dissemblers versus assemblers—one created to tear things apart and the other to put things, like his heart, back together again. And, of course, some of them had been what she called warriorbots, built to attack viruses and foreign bodies invading his system.

  “Charlie, please!” He struggled harder against the bonds, to the point she feared he might actually break the skin on his wrists. In all the other times they’d played with bondage, he’d never really struggled or worked so hard to free himself until they were both near climax. By the redness of his cheeks and the fire blazing in his eyes, he especially didn’t like that she’d driven him to beg.

  So many questions. Did the nanobots leave his body somehow to accomplish tasks, and then return to keep his heart functioning properly? How did he control them? The nanobots weren’t sentient and she hadn’t programmed them to do anything other than keep his body working. Could she accomplish a similar feat with the ones still living inside her?

  If Sig was changing over time because of the technology living inside him…how was she changing? Worse, what kind of mutations had her first subject gone through after all these years?

  A roar broke through her reverie. Startled, she jumped back as Sig burst up out of the chair with the sound of cracking wood and tearing cloth. It was reflexive and not true fear, but it drew him up short with hurt darkening his eyes like a bruised nightmare. To make it up to him, she darted closer and slapped the flail across his chest, hard enough his eyes flared wide with shock, and then she raced for the adjoining bedchamber.

  Chest heaving, she paused a moment, straining to hear if he’d followed. All she could hear was the pounding of her heart and her own rapid breathing. She started to turn her head, but a low voice vibrating with menace came at her ear.

  “Don’t turn around. Don’t look at me.”

  She froze, waiting for the poke of his knife to her rib cage or her throat, his favorite points of attack. Yet the threat didn’t come, only his voice, all the more menacing because of its lack of warmth and affection. This was the voice he used when he was stalking a mark. When he intended to kill.

  “You shouldn’t have teased me, Charlie. Not about this.”

  She held in a long breath to help calm her nerves, so that when she spoke her voice didn’t tremble or betray any fear. She wasn’t afraid of him. Not really. All right, perhaps just a smidgen, but she also knew this man better than he thought. Better than anyone. He would never hurt her.

  “At the shop, you gave me the distinct impression that you were extremely alarmed at the idea. In fact, you swore you found it repugnant. Since I have that desire, then perhaps you find me repugnant as well.”

  “Not you,” he breathed against her ear. “Me.”

  “I don’t find you repugnant in the slightest, Sigmund Regret.”

  “You would if you knew the truth. If you knew who I really am.”

  Ignoring his earlier order, she turned to face him. His eyes shimmered in the soft light, shadows chasing across his face. He’d shrugged his shirt off entirely and even in the dim light cast by a single candle near the bed she could see the faint mark across his skin where she’d struck him. Lightly, she traced her finger over that reddened skin, watching him shiver. “I—”

  He cut her off. “You don’t have any idea who or what I am.”

  Tipping her head slightly, she studied his face. “Do you honestly believe that I’d love you any less if I knew your real name?” He didn’t answer, staring back at her with an increasingly bleak, stark look in his eyes. Loneliness, the surety that he would lose her, grief and, most of all, shame. She cupped his face and leaned up to press her lips lightly against his, letting her words caress him. “I love you, whoever you are. Nothing will change that. Even if you are Queen Majel’s illegitimate son. I don’t care.”

  “I care,” he whispered raggedly, forcing each word out as though it pained him. “Help me forget. Help me not care who I am.”

  She’d always suspected that he killed in some futile attempt to escape his past. She’d never thought he did it to try and escape his own identity. He’d become a killer to hide from himself. As if he could kill his past. Each time he eliminated another mark, it bought him time to live again, as if he’d killed a portion of himself that he didn’t like.

  Or that he feared.

  “I’m not going to tie you up for this,” she whispered soothingly. “If you don’t like it—”

  “I’ll like it,” he ground out, dropping his hands to begin removing his trousers. “Just don’t let me hurt you, Charlie.”

  “Why on earth would you say that?”

  He closed his eyes, trying to hide from her again. Hiding from himself. But she didn’t need his words. Now his extreme reaction in the shop made more sense. He was afraid that pain—even while he enjoyed it—might push him into trying to harm her. At heart, he was a killer. Lord Regret, the infamous assassin who’d killed a thousand marks and more. He must fear that I’ll be next.

  Oh the irony. All those years on Americus while she’d hid her identity, she�
�d feared that someday someone would pay him more than she could offer and he’d assassinate her. The price on her head had to be repulsively extravagant, especially with Majel’s determination to see her extinguished. Every time he’d come to her at the Solstice to make sure her nanobots were functioning correctly, she’d wondered if it’d be her last holiday. If someone had gotten to him at last.

  But he’d erased all her doubts once and for all when he sent the nanobots keeping him alive to save her. He’d nearly died—intended to die, in fact, if it meant she would live. How could she not trust that kind of love? He would never kill her, not when he’d almost sacrificed himself to keep her alive.

  I know it…but he doesn’t. He doesn’t have that surety that I’m safe from him.

  “Do you want to be bound or free?” she asked gently, not pushing him too far. This was something he’d have to learn on his own. He’d have to know it deep in his soul, as she knew her love for him would never fail. “Not that I believe I can keep you helpless for long. I didn’t purchase any silken ropes and you’ve already said Gil’s handcuffs are useless against you.”

  Unable to meet her gaze, he sat on the edge of the very Britannian-looking bed, with its four pillars and heavy velvet canopy, so he could remove his boots and strip off his trousers. “I’d prefer to be completely incapacitated if you’re going to take me very far, but you’re right. There’s not a lot that could keep me bound for long.” Nude, he stood and met her gaze just a moment. His eyes were raw and wild with emotion, hunger and fear and desperate shadows. Stiffly, he turned around and wrapped his hands around the post at the foot of the bed, gripping the wood like he was determined to strangle a mark with his bare hands. “Let me see what you can do, Charlie. Let me see how it’ll feel. If you can make me feel anything at all.”

  Oh, I’ll make you feel all right. Grimly, she strode closer, shifting to the side so she could get a better aim. I’m going to make you feel our love so deep in your bones that you’ll never doubt it again.