Pleasure was pulsing through her body, pushing her, swamping her, and when she opened her eyes, she saw the intent look in his, the male triumph, not part of her but distant, controlling. “No—oh, please, no, Knight—” She couldn’t allow this to happen, she couldn’t. Why was he doing this to her? “Please, Knight—”
“Please what, Lily?” he said into her mouth. He deliberately brought his hand back up and lightly laid it against her breast. He saw the disappointment in her eyes, felt her hips lifting, searching, and he smiled. “You’re very passionate, Lily, and now you’re mine. Don’t you like this?” His tongue stroked hers and at the same time his fingers lightly touched her breast. She cried out into his mouth. And felt his triumph, his immense male pleasure and satisfaction, and she hated herself and her body for its betrayal, but she’d never before imagined anything like this—when Tris had kissed her, she’d felt nothing, not a single stirring. But with Knight, she shivered even as the errant thoughts spun about in her head. His hand was firmer on her breast now, caressing her with skilled fingers, cupping her, lifting her, and suddenly his mouth left hers and closed over her nipple.
It was too much. Her back arched up and she moaned, deep in her throat. “That’s it, Lily. Yes, that’s it.” Had he truly been in control, he would have stopped at this point.
As he suckled with his mouth, his hand found her other breast. He felt her heartbeat, galloping more wildly now, and for a brief instant he raised his face to look at her. Her eyes were closed, her head arched back against the pillow, her expression one of nearly painful pleasure. God, she was so beautiful. No, he wouldn’t look at her again until he was certain he could handle it. It was a mistake. She was just another woman, another body, immensely desirable but nothing more. His hand went down to touch her waist, then flattened across her belly. She squirmed against him. He smiled, a cruel smile.
“Do you want me, Lily?”
She choked down a cry and he saw her hands in fists at her sides, wound around the bedcovers. “Touch me, Lily.”
He willed her to open her eyes, and when she did, he commanded again, “Touch me, Lily.”
Slowly she raised her hands and lightly touched them to his shoulders. Just that simple touch, not even on his naked body but on his bloody dressing gown, nearly did him in. He quickly encircled her wrists with his hands and pressed them back down to the bed.
“How do you feel, Lily?”
“I don’t know.” It was a wail, shrill, filled with frustration. She was breathing hard, her eyes wide and dilated, wild and frustrated.
His eyes still on her face, he moved his hand over her belly, then gently cupped his palm against her.
Her eyes narrowed as her body welcomed him. “Knight—”
“Don’t close your eyes.”
She opened them.
“Now, tell me what you want. Tell me what you feel.”
His fingers left her for just a moment. He ripped the nightgown a bit lower. “Tell me, Lily.” His fingers found her and lightly pressed. Such triumph he felt. God, it was the most powerful feeling in the world.
He was astounded at the depth and quickness of her response. She nearly spun away from him in that moment, after he’d touched her for only a few seconds. Quickly he lifted his fingers, watching her face, watching her slowly open her eyes again and gaze at him in confusion and in something like desperation. He waited a bit longer; then his fingers stroked over her again.
“Knight—”
“Yes, Lily? That pleases you, doesn’t it? You’re so soft, Lily, and swelled and damp for me, just for me. Here, see? This is you, Lily.” Lightly he touched his fingers to her cheek so she could feel her own dampness. She shuddered, and he felt his own body nearly explode in response.
He was very careful this time not to push her into her climax. He teased her, his skilled fingers stroked her, and knew that she was close, but he would be the one to decide what she received, and when.
Then, suddenly, her thighs parted and her hips pushed upward against his fingers, seeking, beyond pride, beyond anything, wanting only completion. He left her and just as quickly eased his middle finger into her. Oh, God. She was hot and tight and very small, and he groaned with the pleasure of it.
No, he couldn’t. He had to get hold of himself again. He wouldn’t let her affect him like this.
He brought his fingers down on her again and smiled painfully. Familiar territory, he thought, his movements rhythmic, light, then deep, teasing, then rough. He felt her climax building, reveled in the wild jerking of her hips, the stiffening of her legs, the uncontrollable cries tearing from her throat. At just the moment when she would have exploded in her climax, he left her.
He quickly rose to stand beside the bed. His chest heaved as he looked down at her. Her gown was split open to her thighs. He gazed at the expanse of smooth white flesh, her flat belly, and the beautiful dark blond hair. God, she was exquisite and so responsive.
She was twisting, arching upward, still beyond herself, and now she was crying, softly, helplessly. He tried to keep away from her. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t bear it.
“All right, damn you.” He didn’t stretch out beside her again, he couldn’t. He sat there, one hand pressed down on her belly, holding her still, the other finding her again. Then he looked at her face. She stared at him and went unseeing as he brought her to climax. She screamed and he quickly covered her mouth. God, it was nearly too much. She was heaving against his fingers, trembling wildly. Still she stared at him even as she reached the height of her pleasure, and he felt her then, became a part of her for a brief instant.
It seemed to him as if an eternity passed. Slowly, very slowly, she began to quiet. He felt ripples go through her, gentle spasms and aftershocks of now fading pleasure.
He saw her eyes gradually clear. She was looking up at him now, really seeing him this time. She was herself again, apart from him, apart from his control.
He smiled down at her, a cruel smile, a very satisfied smile. “Next time, Lily, next time I’ll have my mouth on you. Imagine my tongue stroking you instead of my fingers. You’ll go crazy for it, Lily, and you’ll beg me and beg me.”
She shuddered at his words and he knew she was very nearly feeling his mouth covering her, caressing her. In the next moment, he saw that her mind had cleared and she was now understanding what he’d done to her.
She said nothing. She simply stared at him, mute, unmoving.
“You won’t be a successful whore, my dear Lily.”
Still she just stared at him, her expression unreadable to him.
“No, as I told you earlier, a whore is cold, very cold. She needs to be so that she can control the man, gain her ends. But you, Lily, you are passionate, and a man would kill to claim your passion. But he wouldn’t make you rich, oh, no. You see, he wouldn’t have to. All he’d have to do is touch you and you’d go crazy wanting him to pleasure you. Everything would be free. Perhaps, Lily, if you are very kind to me, I will make you my mistress. Since I know who and what you are now, since there won’t ever again be lies between us, we shouldn’t have many difficulties. Would you like to be my mistress, Lily?”
Her lips moved, but there was no sound.
“Wouldn’t you like to feel my sex inside you, Lily? I’d fill you, you know that, since you touched me and held me in your hand, and I’d drive you to such pleasure, stronger than what you just experienced. And my mouth, Lily. I’ll give you more pleasure than Tris did. But then again, you’ve been several months without a man, haven’t you? I know Ugly Arnold didn’t count. You do have some standards, after all.
“You’ve become a mute? Haven’t you tamped down on your passion yet? Do you want more? Well, I’m still hard for a woman. Any woman would do, naturally. But I’ll give you more if you wish it, Lily. I’m a generous man.”
Very slowly, she sat up. She clutched her nightgown together over her breasts. She closed her eyes against the pain, the deadening humiliation. She heard him conti
nue in that hateful, sarcastic voice. “Well, now you’re beginning to bore me. I don’t care for too much conversation in a woman, but a little wouldn’t be remiss. Let me know in the morning, Lily. Perhaps I’ll still be interested. Perhaps next time I’ll even come inside you, though I would like to know how many men have preceded me before I do so.”
He turned to leave her bedchamber. In the next instant, a half-filled water carafe hit him hard between his shoulder blades. Knight stumbled, then whirled about.
He had no time to react, no time to think.
“You bastard!”
She was flying toward him, her shredded nightgown flowing like ghostly wrapping around her, her hair wild about her face. He saw her swing her arm, but everything was in a blur, a moment of disbelief, a fragment of a dream.
With all her strength, Lily smashed her fist into his jaw. Pain exploded through his head. He was off-balance and went careening backward. She smashed her fist into his belly, all the while yelling at him over and over. “Bastard! Unfeeling, damnable bastard!”
He slipped on the carpet in front of the fireplace and fell, striking his head on the corner of the mantelpiece.
He went down like a stone.
Lily stood over him, breathing hard, shaking her fist as the pain intensified in her now raw knuckles. “I hate you, damn you, I hate you.” She dropped to her knees and placed the flat of her hand over his heart.
It was strong and steady. “Nothing would kill you, you miserable, obnoxious, half-witted—”
Lily drew in a deep breath. She rose and stared down at him. Then she smiled. She rolled and shoved until he was sprawled in the middle of a smaller carpet that lay in front of the wing chair. She tugged and pulled and heaved on the carpet. She dragged him from her bedchamber, stopping every few steps to regain her breath. By the time she’d gotten him outside his bedchamber, her arms were aching. She dropped the end of the carpet and stood straight.
The master suite, she thought, looking at the closed door. Some master. She left him lying there in the corridor, sprawled on his back, his dressing gown open to his hairy thighs, unconscious as the dead. She returned to her room, yanked two blankets from her bed, and went back to him. “You ought to die from nastiness, not from a stupid chill.” She flung the blankets over him, wiped her hands in what was a grand gesture for her own private audience, then gathered her torn nightgown about herself, strode back to her bedchamber, and locked the door.
She was asleep in ten minutes.
Fourteen
“My lord!”
Knight awoke with a start at the sound of the high, shocked voice.
He cocked open an eye and saw Stromsoe bending over him. Odd that he was over him. He realized suddenly that he was very stiff and cold and that he was stretched out on his back on the hard wooden floor. He sat up abruptly. A pain thudded heavily in his jaw, another pain sliced through his head, and he tentatively rubbed his fingertips over the back of his skull. He came away with some blood on his fingertips. The place over his temple where Boy’s bullet had grazed began to throb. He was a mess, a complete and utterly absurd mess.
“My lord. What are you doing here, in the corridor? I don’t understand—I—”
“Be still, Stromsoe. I’m dying, or at least considering it.” As he rubbed his aching jaw, then his aching head, every event of the previous evening trooped through his brain. The last troop he saw was the blur of Lily’s fist, and he said, “My God, what a superb uppercut she has.”
“What did you say, my lord? Superb what? Are your wits—well, my lord—”
“Stromsoe, shut your trap. Help me up. Lord, I’m stiff as a fat lady’s corset.”
“No wonder to that, my lord, if you slept all night on the floor. How did you get there? The blankets?”
“Interesting question, isn’t it? Well, no answers for you, Stromsoe. Indeed,” he added under his breath, “I don’t have all the answers either.” So Lily, in a spate of not wanting to see him frozen to death, threw blankets over him? He smiled, but it was painful. His jaw, his head, his back, all hurt like the very devil. If she’d wanted revenge—and only a long-suffering saint wouldn’t have—she’d gotten it.
“A hot bath,” he told Stromsoe as he walked slowly into his bedchamber, his valet flapping behind him. “A lot of very hot water to steam out all my evil humors.” He plowed his fingers through his messed hair, accidentally brushed against the bump, and winced. As he lowered his hand, he caught her scent. He closed his eyes, suddenly remembering the look in her eyes as her pleasure took her over, hearing her cry out, feeling her move against his fingers. “Oh, God.” He whirled about just as Stromsoe was leaving.
“Have you seen Mrs. Winthrop this morning?”
“No, my lord.”
“Ask Duckett.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Hurry, Stromsoe.”
Stromsoe raised a brow at that tone but quickly nodded and took his leave. When he returned to his master’s bedchamber not five minutes later, two footmen on his heels with the tub of hot water, he felt like the famed Greek messenger who’d delivered the bad news. That fellow had met a bad end, a very dead end.
“Well?”
“The hot water is right here, my lord, and very hot.”
“Don’t be such a damned nitwit, Stromsoe.”
“She’s gone—left an hour ago.”
Knight knew he paled. He shouldn’t have, for it wasn’t a surprise, not really. What had he expected? To see her smiling at him across the breakfast table and saying, Why, good morning, Knight. I trust you slept well on the corridor floor after I smashed my fist into your jaw. Oh, yes, the pleasure you gave me, it was quite adequate, and yes, I’ve decided to become your mistress, but you must be careful, for I’m just liable to kill you because you’re such a bastard.
He laughed and his valet stared at him. Knight waved a distracted hand. “Don’t mind me. Ah, there is steam rising off the water. Excellent. Get out now, Stromsoe. I want a little peace for my aching parts.”
“Yes, my lord,” Stromsoe said, heading for the door as fast as he could manage it.
“Send me Duckett.”
“Yes, my lord.”
He was naked and stepping into the tub of steaming hot water when Duckett slipped into his bedchamber not more than fifteen seconds later.
“My lord, you wished to speak to me?”
“You’re slowing down in your old age. Close the damned door. It’s bloody freezing and I’m bareassed, as you can well see.”
Duckett, made from a different bolt of cloth than Stromsoe, merely turned, no aplomb lost, and closed the door. Then he just stood there, his arms crossed, and waited. He knew what his lordship wanted, but he wasn’t about to volunteer anything, not in his lordship’s present mood. He wondered what had happened the previous evening. The servants were buzzing with the tidbit of the viscount’s doubtless drunken carousing. Why else would he be lying on the floor? Why else indeed? Duckett thought. He himself didn’t know the answer to that, but he did know that the viscount hadn’t been drunk. He knew the viscount drank only in moderation and never was out of control.
Knight sank into the hot water and heaved a deep sigh of pleasure. “This is better than a harp. Do you think they give out hot baths in heaven, Duckett?” He cupped a hand of water and poured it over his head, winced as it hit the open cut, then sighed again with pleasure.
“That is a theological question, my lord, fit doubtless for the archbishop.”
“All that, huh? No, don’t answer that. Now, Duckett, what time is it?”
“Nearly eight o’clock in the morning.”
“Ah. When did Mrs. Winthrop leave?”
“At seven o’clock in the morning.”
“How?”
“She was quite insistent upon riding back, my lord.” Duckett saw the viscount jerk up, his face paling, and added in his most laconic voice, “I, of course, insisted that Charlie ride back to Castle Rosse with her.”
At
least she was returning to Castle Rosse. But for how long? He wasn’t worried about their two jewel thieves. Monk would be laid up for a while longer yet, and Knight doubted that Boy would ever leave his side.
“I should have been quite against her leaving had it not been for the weather, my lord. It is unusual to be so warm this time of year.”
“Why didn’t a servant awaken me before Stromsoe? What did they do, crawl over me?”
“No servant noticed you, my lord. Only Stromsoe goes to your bedchamber in the mornings.”
Knight muttered something rather graphic and obscene, but Duckett, not at all moved, said nothing.
“When will you be traveling to Castle Rosse?” Duckett asked finally, seeing the viscount begin to carefully wash his hair. Boy had shot him over the temple. Could he possibly have yet another wound?
“Go to Castle Rosse? Why should I?”
This was all very interesting. Duckett didn’t flick an eyelid. “I really haven’t the foggiest notion, my lord. Ah, here’s Stromsoe. Will there be anything else, my lord?”
Knight opened his eyes and promptly got soap in them. “Go away. Keep Stromsoe away as well.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Two days later, Lily was alone, staring up at the near life-size painting of the fifteen-year-old Knight. She spoke to it quite seriously. “What you did to me was not a nice thing. That is, it was nice, more than nice, actually, but you didn’t touch me because you wanted me or cared for me. No, Knight, you wanted to punish me and humiliate me and you did it quite well.” She paused for a moment, realizing full well that it could be considered strange of her to be caught speaking to a portrait. However, she was alone, and it did allow her to vent her anger at him, and her embarrassment at her own unrestrained passion.
“You didn’t win, my lord. I might not have forced you to my will, but I did give you a great headache—at least I hope I did. I also hope you felt some humiliation at being found on the floor of the corridor by your servants. I wonder if you will count us even.” She shook her head. “No, you won’t. I’m a fool to think for an instant that you will.
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