Captivated

by Bertrice Small

  "Untie me and I'll change your mind."

  His voice was like velvet, his husky promise tantalizing even while she resisted the urge to believe him.

  "How can it hurt? We're both here as captives, and if we must perform, why not at least attempt some semblance of politesse. I'd prefer holding you."

  She softly sighed. "Can I trust you?"

  "Hardly a word for you to use with me," he lightly remarked, lifting his arm the marginal distance allowed by his tight bond.

  "Touch é," she softly murmured.

  "Would it be too much to ask you to cover the peepholes?" he queried, his brows lifted faintly.

  "No, and I apologize once more for"she lifted her hand in a gesture of futility"for everything…"

  "We can argue degrees of blame later," he pleasantly said. "Right now I'd prefer not having an audience."

  He watched her cover the surveillance points, four in all, pulling drapes over two, sliding a picture into place over another, hanging a pillow sham over one beneath a hook on the door. And when she returned to the bed, she said, very low, "This is very difficult."

  "Just untie one of my hands and I'll do the rest. You can shut your eyes and pretend you're somewhere else."

  "Wouldn't that be nice," she sardonically murmured, reaching for the knot at his wrist. She struggled with the tie while he lay quiescent, trying to appear calm when his mind was racing with the options available to him once he was freed. "There," she said, the knot loosening, and she unwound the braided cord on his wrist.

  Half sitting up, he smiled at her and reached for the bonds on his left wrist. Swiftly he released the tie and then those on his ankles in quick succession. One floor to drop, he thought, the landscape outside his windows etched on his brain. Springing from the bed, he sprinted toward the windows. Reaching them, he lifted a heavy upholstered chair as though it were weightless and heaved it through the leaded glass. Following his juggernaut through the large opening in the glass, he leapt to the ground below.

  Of course he would have tried to escape, Sofia reflected, picking her way through the shattered glass on the carpet, moving to draw the drapes over the broken window. Next time, she sensibly decided, tugging on the crimson velvet, the sounds of a skirmish coming out of the darkness before she shut out the cool night breeze and the strident accents, she'd be sure to leave him tied. The guards under the windows should soon have him in custody once again.

  chapter 2

  When they next met a brief time later, the marquis was captive again, bound to the bed in another room. Nude.

  "I'll kill your husband for this," he snarled.

  "I hope you weren't hurt." It took effort to keep her voice temperate. He was magnificenthis musculature tautly defined, the sense of rampant power only barely leashed, riveting. The width of his shoulders was startling, the ridged muscles of his lean torso classically sculptured, the strength in his thighs evidence of years in the saddle. How could fashionable evening clothes have disguised such brute strength?

  Such striking virility. Even in repose, the length of his penis was formidable. Aroused, he would bea tiny flutter raced up her spinemonstrous. His legendary reputation was well deserved.

  "You're all fucking crazy," he growled. "And yes, jumping fifteen feet to the ground leaves a bruise or two, not to mention your guards who are none too gentle."

  "Why not agree to my proposal and be done with this?" She gestured at his bindings.

  "Because I'm not inclined to suffer capture docilely. Your deranged husband will rue the day he chose me as stud for his dynasty."

  "Then we might as well get on with this," she said with a repressed sigh.

  "You forget there are some things your husband can't control," he snapped. "I'm not in the mood for sex."

  "Then shut your eyes and pretend you're somewhere else," she noted, in parody of his earlier remark. "I'll take care of everything else."

  "Good luck," he curtly said.

  But when she unclasped the jeweled closures of her robe and slipped it from her shoulders, he found himself drawn to the glorious sight despite his raging anger, regardless of the bindings cutting into his wrists and ankles. Her husband must have had her vetted before marriage, he thought, for her sumptuous body was perfectionevery depiction of Venus from antiquity to the present outdone by the flaunting pride of womanhood before him.

  He swore under his breath, the term "compromising position" advancing front and center in his mind, and he wondered how long he'd be able to control himself. It would take an impotent saint to withstand such blatant sexuality. And sainthood had always eluded him.

  "I have instructions to see that you come in me twice a day during this month-long hermitage," she murmured, walking toward the bed. "I hope it won't be too arduous for you," she went on, a half-smile forming on her mouth as his erection came to life. "Apparently not," she sardonically noted.

  Her demented husband understood lust at least, even though his other sensibilities were suspect, Hugh thought. He knew his nude wife would be irresistible. Now what the hell was he going to do?

  As if logic and reason had a chance against rapacious desire. As if deductive analysis would serve as a reliable restraint in the next few minutes.

  Squaring her resolve, the princess knew she must do what she must do. In sending her to England, her husband had taken added measures to see that she obeyed him; her mother was hostage at her husband's court. She must submit to his commands. "I'm as resentful as you," she said, moving onto the bed, kneeling beside him. "Neither of us wish to be here… so this should be"she exhaled softly"interesting."

  "Do you play the whore for him often?" the marquis maliciously drawled.

  She slapped him so hard, her fingers left red welts on his face.

  "Touchy, are we?" he sarcastically murmured, the taste of blood in his mouth.

  "You don't know anything, Crewe, about man's inhumanity to man. And until you do, I'd suggest you reserve judgment on others. Now I'm going to have intercourse with you and I expect you'll enjoy it whether you want to or not. Consider this your first lesson in the realities of life."

  Having spent three years in India, he'd seen misery on a grand scale, but he supposed the princess wasn't in the mood to compare life experiences. "Perhaps someday, I'll be able to return the favor," he coolly said, "in terms of showing you the realities of life."

  "I doubt that. At the end of a month, we'll never see each other again."

  "Don't count on it," he brusquely muttered, vengeance burning through his brain. "I don't plan on walking away from this, no matter what you and your crazy husband want. This won't be over in a month."

  "I'm not here to argue with you."

  "No, you're here to fuck whomever your husband tells you to fuck," he viciously replied.

  "You don't understand."

  "A slut is a slut."

  "While your libertine ways arewhatmasculine prerogatives? Why don't we see how virtuous you can be, how righteous and unsullied," she murmured, leaning forward to trace a gentle finger down his chest. "Will you resist temptation? Can the profligate Marquis of Crewe say no?"

  He twisted in his bonds, trying to avoid her touch, but her hands lay warm on his flesh, her plump breasts quivered before his eyes and when she purred, "Gossip says a night with you ruins women for other men. Why not show me that splendid… expertise?" she dulcetly breathed. Bending low, her breasts brushed his arm, seared his senses, the silken pressure of her pliant flesh reminding him that she was pliant… everywhere, and if not exactly willing, receptive. "You can refuse me, of course," she whispered, lightly cupping his testicles with one hand, the fingers of her other hand closing around his penis.

  He tried to recall every repugnant image, every gruesome picture in his memory, he tried counting in German, mentally recited the alphabet in Greek. But the pressure and rhythm of her fingers slowly increased, her scent accosted his senses, her warm body half covered his, and in brief moments, he was in heated rut, his erec
tion rock hard, lust pulsing through every nerve and muscle in his body.

  "I don't suppose you're saying no… with this," she whispered, tracing a delicate path around the swollen crimson crest of his penis. "You must set records."

  "Like you," he rudely retorted. "Have you found stripping naked has predictable results?"

  "It depends on the man," she flippantly replied. "Or do you prefer a single style of woman?" She knew better; the only thing Crewe preferred in a female was availability.

  "I'd prefer to be untied," he ground out.

  "But then I'm not witless. The only freedom you're allowed is with this deliciously rampant penis. Do you think you might be interested in putting this"she lightly squeezed the pulsing tip"inside me?"

  "No," he said through clenched teeth, his refusal taking every shred of willpower at his command.

  "Youseem interested," she murmured, dipping her head to brush a flickering caress over the distended head.

  He groaned, every muscle taut with restraint.

  "Such self-control, Crewe. Your vicar would be proud. Perhaps I'll have to exert myself more. Can you feel this?" Her closed fingers slid downward again, her grip tightening, the pulsing veins of his erection graphic in high relief as his penis reared higher. His breath caught in his throat and he arched his back against the exquisite sensation. "Damn you," he grunted.

  "And damn you, Lord Crewe. But then, this isn't an amorous interlude," she murmured, her fingers sliding up his erection, "so we needn't like each other at allonly procreate. Something you're very good at." She watched his arousal swell larger, disturbed by her own flaring desires, irritated that she could be aroused, that the throbbing between her legs was immune to his venom.

  She should thank him, she supposed, for making it so easy, for being so virile and male, for exciting some sordidly voracious need she didn't realize existed. Such pulsing anticipation was reminiscent of her youth when the first, tremulous stirrings of carnal urgency, inexplicable and illicit, had overwhelmed her senses. She hadn't felt like that for a very long time, the men in her life no more than idle distractions.

  "When this is over, I'm going to find you both," he panted. "Keep that in mind." Anger pulsed through him with as much vehemence as the lust bombarding his senses, revenge a powerful craving.

  "If a child comes of this," she said, suddenly wanting to expedite the proceedings, uncomfortable with her feelings, with feeling anything at all in this hideous drama, "it won't matter what you do. Because it'll be too late," she grimly added, moving to straddle his thighs.

  "I'll take the child away," he brusquely muttered, his pulse pounding in his ears.

  "Why?" Shocked, she sat motionless on his hard thighs, her green gaze on him. "You never have before."

  "Who knows if any of the children are mine with married women?"

  "How is this different?"

  "You said yourself your husband wasn't interested in women."

  She shrugged. "I have many lovers. Does that put your mind at ease?"

  He struggled against his bonds, his frustration monumental. "Fuck you," he whispered, his body twisting against the silken cords.

  "At last we agree," she murmured, rising on her knees enough to position the crest of his erection on her throbbing labia. "Tell me how this feels," she insolently murmured, taking note his breathing had stopped, her own breath momentarily in abeyance, the exquisite wash of pleasure rippling up her vagina so intoxicating, a moment of pure personal pleasure overrode the repellent coercion.

  He suddenly heaved his hips upward and drove into her, his body's responses automatic, necessity, blind instinct operating.

  She cried out as he rammed into her, stretched her, thrust so deeply inside, it felt as though he were in her throat. "Oh, God," she breathed, impaled, his enormous erection buried to the hilt, her tissue taut, pulsing, a dizzying delirium burning through her brain.

  "And now I'm going to fuck you," he growled, embittered, an unreasoning need for retaliation driving his lower body deeper and deeper, the drumming urgency of both vengeance and orgasmic release a heedless tumult in his brain, the powerful rhythm of his carnal lust forcing her wider and wider until she was gasping, panting, hysterical, frenzied, meeting each surging thrust with a passion as rapacious as his.

  It was a mating, pure and simple.

  When she first climaxed, he swore, and when she climaxed again he called her whore, slut, wanton, but he lived in a world of double standards, and when his orgasm came rushing down, filling her sleek interior with a white-hot river of semen, he forgot deviations of morality, overlooked impropriety and self-denial and ejaculated the blue-blooded sperm so coveted by the lady's husband.

  The Marquis of Crewe had performed as required.

  But then, Prince Marko had counted on the young lord's well-developed sexual drive.

  When it was over, he called her every vile name in his extensive repertoire, and after extricating herself from his still-rigid erection, she coolly said, "Your cooperation was greatly appreciated." Then she leaned forward and carved a bloody path down his cheek with the nail of her forefinger. "I understand retaliation, too, my lord," she murmured. "And if cursing would help, I'd add mine to yours." Sliding from the bed, she picked up her robe and slipped it on. "Your next scheduled orgasm is after breakfast," she remarked. "Pleasant dreams."

  She disappeared through the door into an adjoining room, and, minutes later, Pierce entered through a door on the opposite wall. "Were you a spectator, too?" the marquis heatedly inquired.

  "Not likely, sair. Such piquant sights are raffled off in the barracks. There's only so many observation points and the lady closed most o' them."

  "Like slaves in a breeding shed," Hugh disgustedly spat, although he'd performed for spectators in the occasional orgy common to young, hot-blooded London bucks. "Get these bindings off so I can punch a hole in the wall."

  "I wouldn't recommend it, sair," his batman gently responded. "Seein' as how you might need that there hand"his voice lowered to a whisper"for riding or shooting later, if you know what I mean."

  At which point, the men's conversation continued in tones pitched too low for those listening outside the room.

  The Princess Sofia dismissed her maids immediately as she entered her rooms and, lying on her bed, mentally checked off the first of sixty required encounters with the Marquis of Crewe. There was no point in bursting into tears, although she was very close to losing her composure. But her family depended on her, her mother in the most dire peril at the moment under her husband's guard, so she must see that this month with the marquis ended successfully.

  Conception was a requirement. Once it was certain, her mother would be freed, and after that, there was always the hope in the following eight months she herself might find a way to escape. She had no intention of leaving a child under Marko's supervision, and she desperately hoped the world was large enough for refuge once that time came.

  Morning arrived too early; she begrudged the sun shining into her room, and no matter the glory of the spring day, her mood was dismal. She slowly dressed herself, unable to face the necessity of talking to the servants. And she wondered what would happen if she didn't appear in the breakfast room as scheduled. But her mother was a pawn in this dangerous game, so she did what was expected of her.

  The marquis was in a glowering mood, the wound on his face prominent even against his tanned skin.

  "You'd think in this pile of rooms, we wouldn't be required to eat together," he growled as she entered the sunny chamber.

  "Take your complaints up with my husband. He has a droll sense of humor."

  "He's a sadist, you mean."

  "How astute, my lord. You noticed. Although I see, your sullen mood hasn't affected your appetite," she insolently added. His plate was piled high with bacon, kippers, ham, eggs scrambled with mushrooms and tomato. He was buttering a croissant, not his first apparently from the debris of crumbs at his plate.

  He looked up from his
buttering, his mouth set in a grimace. "Let's hope you start puking soon and this charade can come to an end."

  "One can but hope," she sardonically replied, the sight of food curiously unpalatable. It was impossible, of course, that she could be pregnant after a single encounter with the marquis, but when the first sip of her morning coffee turned her nauseous, she wondered if all his rumored bastards were indeed the result of a remarkable virility. They ate together in silence, or rather he ate and she picked at a piece of dried toast, her lack of appetite eventually coming to his attention.

  "If you don't eat," he nastily said, "you'll faint when next you climax."

  "I may not," she coolly replied.

  His brow lifted in loathsome irony. "Faint?"

  Her own brows delicately rose. "Does it bother you if I have an orgasm?"

  He debated his answer for a moment, not sure why he was offended beyond his captive status. "Yes. Don't ask me why," he honestly added.

  "It seems to me I should get some pleasure from this ordeal."

  "Ordeal?" he skeptically repeated. "You could have fooled me."

  "Would you like me to compliment you on your physical prowess? I didn't realize you were so vain."

  He wasn't, and another niggling second passed while he wondered at his indignant response to the princess's passion. "How many lovers have you had?" The impulsive question surprised him, but he didn't retract it.

  "Not as many as you. There are records and there are records," she gently noted. "I'm very much outclassed by your repute."

  "And you've never become pregnant?"

  "I wouldn't have dared. Marko has very strong feelings about pure bloodlines."

  "And yours are pure?"

  "How rude you are."

  "You're much too beautiful." It was his first civil remark.

  "You mean only chorus girls and actresses look like this."

  "Generally, yes."

  "And you should know."

  "And I should know."

  "My family is Hungarian on my mother's side and noted for their favorable matches."

  "If they all look like you, I can see why. So Marko has money."