That was all he’d wanted, a reaction. He used his palms to soothe her, stroking back and forth slowly, softly. Her skin beguiled him, the sleekness of it, the coolness; it was tempting to imagine that no one had touched her like this before.
But someone had.
“What did he do to you?” he asked as he pulled her arms, one at a time, out of the sleeves of her nightgown. Of course she didn’t answer. The gown slid down her hips and pooled on the floor at her feet, and he forgot the question.
Voluptuous, full-bodied women were his usual passion—if that was the word for the soulless, heartless couplings that had been his lot for the last few years. This woman was anything but voluptuous, and yet her lithe body pleased him. It was shapely, healthy, surprisingly youthful, not quite what he’d been expecting. More than ever, she made him think of a virgin.
She was staring straight ahead, but he didn’t think she was seeing him; she’d erected a kind of visual wall to keep him away from her. To test the wall’s thickness, he began to take his clothes off, boots first, then shirt, then trousers. Before he finished she turned her face away, gazing off toward the flickering candle flame. So much for her visual wall.
He put his hand on her shoulders, drawing her closer until her breasts touched his chest. Her skin was slightly damp; beneath his fingers he felt her start to shake. The charms of martyrdam were beginning to dim for him. He kissed her, opening her mouth wide with his, using his tongue roughly to force a response. He liked her taste, the sleekness of her mouth. She held still and bore it without a whimper.
“Relax, Mrs. Wade,” he whispered. “Don’t make it a rape.” He opened one of her closed hands and pressed it against his chest, slid it across his nipple.
“If I . . .”
It came out the barest sigh, possibly not words at all. “If you . . . ?” he prompted, brushing her hair with his lips. How could he ever have disliked her hair?
“If I begged you . . .”
“If you begged me to what?”
“Stop,” she gasped, at the moment he slid her rigid palm down to his stomach.
He soothed her by holding still, not moving her hand lower, where he wanted it. “There are many things I look forward to hearing you beg me for,” he murmured against her forehead. “But do you know, stopping isn’t one of them.”
He didn’t want her flat on her back on the leather sofa, because she would lie there like a corpse. Necrophilia wasn’t one of his depravities yet; he wanted her active, not passive. He urged her closer to the couch with a hand on the small of her back, and she went, still-kneed and full of trepidation. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he promised, but she gave no sign of hearing.
Keeping her hands, he sat down on the sofas edge. He put his knees together and pulled her toward him, making her open her legs around his. Her eyes went wide with shock; she pulled back with her hands, but he held them firmly. The sight of her pale, wide-apart thighs excited him. There was no point in telling her again to relax. “Lean forward. Put your hands on my shoulders.” Rather than touch him, she put them on the high sofa back. But he didn’t quibble; the movement brought her breasts closer to his mouth. He took advantage of it immediately, dipping his head and suckling her strongly. The high-pitched gasp she made sounded surprised, not pained. But when he slipped his hands between her legs to push them farther apart, she moaned.
“Don’t be afraid.”
Useless advice; the tendons in her thighs were vibrating like harp strings. Gently, gently, he cupped her soft mound, fluttering his fingers against her delicate flesh, fondling her. He licked her between her breasts, tasting the salt tang of her sweat. She couldn’t stop the trembling in her legs, so he pulled on her knees from behind until she was kneeling on the cushion, straddling his lap. He tongued her shallow navel while he kneaded the backs of her thighs, drawing her up hard against him, opening his mouth wide and using his teeth on the sleek skin over her ribs. She was panting now, but whether from fear or the beginnings of desire, he didn’t know. Fear, probably, but he was very nearly past caring. She cried out when he slipped his smallest finger inside her.
Best to get it over with; erotic preliminaries only tortured her more. He considered stopping everything and letting her go, but only for a split second, before the thought flew off to wherever bad ideas go. After that, there was nothing left but the need to possess her.
Murmuring soft, specious comfort, he coaxed her down, guiding himself into her gently, slowly, and when she stiffened and balked he let her pause, allowing her the illusion of control.
But not for long. He wanted all of her, now, and he wanted it quite badly. His own control was slipping, which was new. He made himself hold still inside her, embracing her with all the tenderness of a real lover, and she quieted, as if she had given up. She let him hold her, let him feel the pounding of her pulse deep inside.
Even now her husband obsessed him. He lifted his face from the hot hollow between her neck and shoulder to ask, “Did he hurt you, always? Was there never any pleasure for you?”
She wouldn’t answer.
He studied her tense face, so close to his. The wall was back, but as ineffective as before. She had the look of a saint enduring unspeakable tortures rather than betray her religious faith. He cupped the sides of her face and pressed slow kisses to her lovely, lovely mouth. She wouldn’t close her eyes. He thought her lips began to soften, but just then she turned her head aside; her hands, which had been resting on his shoulders, fisted against his chest.
“A martyr to the end,” he murmured in her ear, making her quiver. “I think you would find a way to hate this no matter who your lover was.”
“Let me go, then,” she whispered unexpectedly, into the air over his shoulder.
“Don’t be childish,” he admonished her gently. “Now I would like you to rise up on your, knees, like this. And down now. Again, and don’t stop.” But she wouldn’t continue unless he made her, his hands holding her hips steady, guiding her. He reached out and patted the fat round arm of the couch. “Would you rather I bent you over the sofa, Mrs. Wade, and took you from behind?”
No response; he might as well have made his intriguing threat to a mannequin.
“Very well. It’s immaterial to me, and we have all night.”
She brought her hands to her face as if to hide it, but she kept pushing her fingers back into her hair, folding in on herself, hunching over, trying to wrap her body up in a ball. It was worse than weeping, worse than screaming. She was grinding the top of her head into his breastbone, growing smaller, tighter, doing her best to disappear, and still not making a sound.
“Don’t do that,” he whispered, aghast. “Stop it. Stop now.” He lifted her off his lap and turned her, made her unwind and lie flat on the sofa. She didn’t even try to close her legs, and he covered her and slipped back inside her with an unexplainable sense of relief. Not possession—relief. Her eyes were shut tight, but she wasn’t crying. “Now you’re all right,” he murmured. “Shh, Rachel, you’re all right.” He kissed her until she sighed, until he couldn’t take any more, and he slid his hands underneath her body and began to move in her.
She was so hot, so tight, and there was no sense in trying to make her like it but he did anyway, courting her with his body, harking to the soft clues of her breathing. Hopeless—he would only end up hurting her if he continued. “Hold on to me,” he told her, and she did that at least, clutching his sides with stiff, loveless fingers. He took her as gently as he could, and until the last second it was a cool, controlled act of sexual release. Then he lost his head. He saw the light around him dim and recede, objects disappear. In absolute blackness, he drove and drove into her, conscious of nothing but pure sensation, impossible pleasure, storming and raging in him, until he surrendered and let it take him over the blinding white edge.
IX
LORD D’AUBREY HAD lit a fire
in his bedroom, even though it wasn’t cold. “Come here, please,” he said. “Come.”
Rachel moved toward the marble hearth and stood in front of the sparking grate, careful not to let any part of her touch him, not even her clothes. She felt his eyes on her as he went to a side table and poured something into a glass. She hated his peremptory tone, the same one he’d used a few minutes ago in the library. Only then he’d asked, “Where are you going?” while he lounged, still nude on the floor, his back against the sofa where they’d lain when he . . . raped her? Not exactly. Seduced her? Not that either, although she thought that had probably been his intent. “To my room,” she’d answered in a careful monotone. But she hadn’t been able to keep the gruff edge from her voice when she’d added, “You’ve finished with me, haven’t you?”
He’d stared at her while he rose to his feet, slowly, gracefully, unembarrassed by his nakedness. He’d smiled at her. “By no means.” And while she watched, he’d begun to dress.
“How do you feel, Mrs. Wade?” he asked her now.
She had to force herself to look at him. His boyish hair, tousled from his recent exertions, looked incongruous with his big, dangerous body. He hadn’t bothered to button his shirt; she could see his chest and the flat ridges of muscle across his belly. Before she could shut out the thought, she remembered exactly how the hair on his thighs had felt, that rough-soft brush against her legs when he’d pressed them apart. Her stomach fluttered—but she wasn’t sure what she was feeling. Randolph’s cruelties were hopelessly mixed up in her memory with the things this man had done to her. Need and revulsion, pleasure and pain, desire and disgust—neither her mind nor her body could be relied on tonight to sort them out accurately.
He was holding out a glass to her. She thought of refusing it. It looked like brandy, though; maybe it would steady her nerves. She took it and answered his question. “What difference does it make to you?”
His eyes narrowed; his lips thinned. Once that look would have daunted her, but she didn’t care about his anger anymore. The worst was over, and this false concern came too late. She wouldn’t salve his conscience by giving his spurious question a second’s thought.
And yet, here she was, intact, not hurt, sipping brandy and conversing with him with only a little more stiffness than was usual between them. It was probably too soon to say that her fear of him was over—and besides, she wasn’t naive enough to believe he was through with her—but her physical terror of him, of what his body could do to hers, seemed to be gone. At least for now. In a way it was a relief that the thing she’d been dreading for weeks had finally happened, was now finished. And she had lived through it. She had one odd regret: that she could never be Anne Morrell’s friend. Because now she truly was Lord D’Aubrey’s whore.
He came closer. “I asked you a question. I expect you to answer me.”
They had a brief staring contest while she noticed something new about him: his eyes were blue at the tops of his irises and green at the bottom, below the dark pupils. “How do I feel?” She pretended to think about it. “I feel used.”
He frowned. “Did I hurt you? Answer me.”
He had the lapel of her robe pinched between his fingers to keep her from moving away. “You want to know if you hurt me,” she said in a disbelieving whisper.
“Your body,” he specified, and for a moment she saw doubt in his eyes. Self-doubt, guilt’s unsavory neighbor.
“My body survived, my lord, and seems to be functioning normally. If you were worried, you can set your mind at rest on that score.”
When he smiled unpleasantly, she felt a prickle of the fear she’d just told herself she’d conquered. “I’m much relieved,” he said softly. “Take off your clothes, Mrs. Wade, and get in my bed.”
Hot blood rushed to her cheeks. “I don’t want to,” she said, aghast.
“Yes, I know. It adds a certain piquancy to the situation that I find I can’t resist.”
“Monster.”
“I think we can dispense with name-calling.” Me turned away to light two more candles from the single low taper he’d brought up from the library. He folded his arms. “I’m waiting.”
“Damn you. You can’t hurt me.”
“I sincerely hope not.”
“Why do you want me?” she burst out in desperation.
He seemed to ponder. “I’ve been asking myself that question since the day we met. I’m still not sure of the answer. Come, undress for me, Mrs. Wade. I want to look at you. Surely you and I are beyond coyness now.”
How she hated the sound of “Mrs. Wade” on his lips. It made the things he did to her cruder, colder. She stood still, in an agony of indecision. Everything in her rebelled against doing what he wanted, but the consequences of refusing would probably be just as unpleasant.
“Tell me this—did your husband make you strip for him?”
She stared back, unable to answer.
“Tell me. If he did, I won’t ask it of you. Did he?”
She couldn’t even nod, and it took all her willpower not to look away in shame.
Instead he was the one who looked away. He ran a hand through his hair, taking a sudden breath. His savoir faire slipped for an instant; she caught a glimpse of the man beneath the veneer of coolness and sophistication. But only for a second. He swung back to her with a determined air and said, “Turn around.” When she hesitated, he turned her himself, by the shoulders.
Reaching around her, he untied the belt of her wrapper with quick, efficient movements, pulled the robe off and threw it across a chair. Immediately he returned to her and began to unfasten the buttons of her nightgown. This was meant to be a kindness, she supposed, him doing the undressing for her, with her back turned to him. And it was, after a fashion. But if he expected gratitude for it, she couldn’t oblige him. She bowed her head to watch his long, nimble fingers, remembering the way they had touched her before. A feeling in the pit of her stomach couldn’t be explained. It was like dizziness, like anticipation.
The slow slide of the gown over her shoulders and down her back made her tremble in spite of herself. She covered her breasts with her crossed arms, but for once no memories from the past surged up and tried to drown her. She stood still, feeling Sebastian’s eyes on her back, and now his fingers, tracing down the bones of her spine. He caressed her buttocks, and she could feel her skin quiver under his hand, feel goose bumps erupt everywhere he touched her.
Then the lightness disappeared; he tightened his grip, holding her by her hips. She tried to turn, but he prevented it by force. She looked at him over her shoulder. His face was strange. “Don’t move,” he commanded, and reached behind him for one of the candles. She felt its heat on her back, then her thighs. When he swore in a violent undertone, she knew what he’d seen.
It surprised her; she thought he’d noticed the scars before, in the library. It must have been too dark there, and somehow he’d missed the faint ridge of flesh at the top of her left thigh, the only one that could still be felt with the fingers.
“Who did this to you?”
She almost laughed. How could he not know who?
“The prison guards,” he guessed grimly. He turned her to face him. He’d gone pale; he looked dangerous.
“Men are flogged in prison, not women. It’s against the rules. They found other ways to discipline us.”
“My God.” Now he knew. He searched her face, looking for something. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry this happened to you.”
“I’m not. My scars saved my life. No one would have believed me without them. The things he did, the—things you want to hear me say—they were too beastly for the judges to credit. Not without proof.”
He couldn’t seem to speak. There was a new expression in his eyes, and if she didn’t know better she’d have called it compassion. What a nerve-wracking thought: pity from the Viscount D’Aubrey. It
confounded her so thoroughly, she turned her back on him again.
She heard him blow out the candles he’d just lit. Carrying only one, he took her arm with his other hand, his clasp unwontedly gentle, and led her to the bed. He even pulled back the counterpane, the blanket, and the sheet for her. She was cynically amused. All the solicitousness in the world couldn’t mitigate the baseness of his motives, and the gentlest manner couldn’t transform ravishment into something more palatable.
But she didn’t resist him this time. She was weary and she wanted it over with.
The sheets were silk—of course. She pulled the top one up to her collarbone, resting her shoulders against a soft mound of pillows. He sat beside her, and watched her in silence for a minute or two before he began taking off his shirt. There was no cruelty or teasing in his thoughtful face while he did it; in fact, he didn’t look at her at all. So she looked at him. Because his physical manner was nearly always languid and effortless, it was a surprise to find that his body was muscular and fit. Powerful-looking, the opposite of decadent. She could find no fault with his form; with all the objectivity she could muster, she had to admit that he was handsome. Very handsome. Odd; Randolph had been comely, had had an attractive physique for a man his age. And yet the sight of his body after their first night together had made her sick. Literally, ill.
Sebastian stood up to remove his trousers, and then she did look away. A second later the mattress dipped as he got in bed beside her. He hadn’t spoken in a long time; she found she was curious about what he was thinking. Why did he still interest her at all? Why didn’t she loathe him more for what he’d done, what he was going to do again?
No answer to that question. She understood why her fear of him had diminished, though. It was because she’d discovered from the most intimate experience that, unlike her husband, he was not thoroughly corrupt. He spoke of the “piquancy” of her unwillingness, and she didn’t doubt that he found it so, but he had never hurt her, not really, and she knew with a bone-deep certainty that he never would. His methods of coercion were subtler, and maybe it was sophistry to say that therefore they were kinder. But she had been used by men in both ways now, brutally and gently, and she could say without equivocation that she much preferred Sebastian’s.
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