A yard from plunging into the cool shadows of the forest, she heard a boom—echoing in sharp time like a cannon fired in small room. The high shriek of the bear followed, then two more shots, and silence except for the stamp of human footsteps from the forest and the burble of the dying exhalation of the bear.
One of Theo’s house guards, rifle in hand, jogged from the trees near where the bear had burst forth. She strode to him, sharp time bleeding away—her steps slowing to normal. When she grabbed at a handful of lapel, his meaty hand intercepted hers and crushed her fingers, tried to twist her arm.
Another guard came up behind her. She ignored him. This one was the idiot.
“Why?” she asked him, attempting to shake him by the shirt despite the pain in her fingers. “You fool! I had it chasing me! Why’d you kill it?” She glanced away, saw Theo coming, and the bear’s bloody corpse on the ground.
“Stop.” The second guard reached under, taking advantage of her distraction to bend her wrist, aiming for an arm lock. “Let him go. Put down the gun.”
“Frick!” Dankyo. She knew that controlled voice and the arm pressing on her. Theo was fit, but Dankyo felt like he’d been packed with muscle under high pressure. She growled and thought hard about not doing something seriously painful to him.
Succeeded, just. Instead she spoke through her teeth. “Release me.”
He pushed and twisted; then her counter move was efficiently thwarted by his.
“Gah!” The pressure made her bend forward as her arm rode up her back. He levered the gun from her other hand. Absurdly, she felt pleased at the level of his training. Her own inattention had gotten her in this position—well, the bear had distracted her. A poor excuse, though.
Now, she suddenly became acutely aware, she was bent over naked in front of the guard and Dankyo. She shut her eyes, groaning in embarrassment when sounds from behind told her another two guards had arrived.
“Let her go, Dankyo!” Theo snapped. “Claire is not a threat!”
“She threatened Ericson, sir, and she had a gun in her other hand.”
“Understood. Her own actions were wrong, and I will be explaining that to her. But she is not a danger. At all. I expect you to remember that.”
“Yes, sir.”
Her arm released, Claire brought it to her front, grunting at the discomfort.
“Here.” Theo draped his coat around her, hugged her to his chest, soothing the ache in her shoulder with massaging fingers. “Now apologize to Ericson, please, Claire. And to Dankyo.”
She fumed and said nothing. He waited a few seconds, then directed the guards. “Thank you for your help, all of you, but now return to your posts. Ericson, I apologize on behalf of Claire. She’s a little ruffled right now.”
With the stabs in her shoulder muscles subsiding to dull throbs, Claire relaxed into Theo’s hold, snuggling up against him. She’d never tire of this, of his warmth and masculine aroma—even after the swim it remained to tantalize her. Her black mood was gone, burned away by the violence. She just wanted him. They stayed that way for a while, comforting each other.
His grip tightened. “Don’t you ever do that again! I know what you did, trying to draw the bear away from me. Why?”
She shrugged. “I didn’t want to kill it. I’m fast. I could have gotten it to chase me, then doubled back or climbed a tree.”
“It was foolhardy. Next time, if there is one, let me have the gun. I won’t hesitate. I doubt either of us wants to stay here with the bear. We’ll return to the manor.” He let her go.
She looked up at him. “You didn’t tell me you had a cordon around us. All that time. They might have been watching!” She shook her head. “Dankyo even. I would never have—”
“What? Made love like you did? I told them to not watch the clearing, though considering the attraction…” He reached under the jacket, curved his hand under her breast. “Some of them may have watched, or heard your rather loud screaming. At least they’ll know you’re not a danger to me.”
“Not Dankyo,” she said tersely, remembering the way he’d twisted her arm. He’d still thought her a danger. Screaming? Oh Lord, I did, didn’t I?
“Hmm, I don’t know.” Theo waggled his eyebrows. “You didn’t see the look on his face when he had you bent over with your ass up.”
“What! Oh!” She huffed. Dankyo had looked at her? At her bottom? She wished fervently she’d given the man a heart attack. “I’m getting my clothes on.”
Having dried themselves with towels from the basket, they dressed quickly, packed the picnic gear, and hauled it back to the gyrocopter.
The bear lay where he’d fallen. A male. Unusually aggressive or maybe wounded after encountering one of the house guards? What did it matter now? He was dead, crumpled like a big furry toy. Flies had arrived, buzzing in a sociable crowd near the wound. Blood leaked onto the grass at his chest. Hell and damnation. She’d never have made a good assassin anyway.
After stuffing the last cushion in the gyrocopter, she turned to find Theo observing her with arms folded.
“Yes?”
“I haven’t forgotten. There are two issues of disobedience to be dealt with when we get back. And this time, there’s no excuse.” That said, he climbed into the pilot’s seat, leaving her puzzling over what, exactly, he’d meant.
Chapter Fourteen
The ride back seemed swifter, but she made sure to mark the distance and direction of the crash site when they passed to the south of it. Soon the manor lay beneath them. From above it was clearly U-shaped with two equal wings attached to the main section—the landing pad sticking out from the upper story like a gigantic tongue. The red armored balloon of the Final Rebuttal challenged the manor for size—equal in width if not in length.
Shadowing them from a half mile away was another gyrocopter. She eyed it sourly. Dankyo would be on that one. Maybe it could crash. She was going to have to have it out with him sometime. She’d get it through his head that she wasn’t to be messed with.
On the flat rooftop of the manor, multibarrel cannon emplacements covered the approaches to the mansion. If war broke out, the property could be defended long enough to pose difficulties for the enemy. She noted where a small copse of trees would block off the overlapping arcs of fire. Perhaps Dankyo wasn’t as infallible as he seemed to be.
Theo steered toward the landing pad. The thwop-thwop of the blades had barely dwindled to silence before Theo had hopped down and loped halfway to the doorway. A senior house guard stood there, and the two of them continued on together, discussing something. She thought better of intruding, instead pulling out the basket and carrying it inside. Theo waited in the bedroom.
“Theo?”
“I’ll arrange for brunch in the inner study. Meet me in half an hour. There’s an array of dresses ready for you in there.” He indicated the long Gallic carved wardrobe on the far wall, then tipped her chin up with his fingers.
“Pick a nice short one. No leather this time.”
Claire smiled nervously back. Something about his searching gaze bothered her. A little knot twisted in her stomach. Had he been serious about this punishment? She guessed she had agreed to follow his orders, but common sense should prevail. She’d been right. The other—Ericson—oh, heck, that was it, wasn’t it? Frick.
One of the guards at Theo’s door insisted on escorting her to the inner study. As she went through the outer study, that same jagged memory returned—tied hand and foot, scared and miserable. So different now, yet that could be her in a moment if she stepped wrong.
Ah, what am I to do? Every time Theo questioned her the urge to confess grew more terrible, as did the dread that he would discover her falsehood. Slowly, surely, he was picking apart her past. She should never have told him about Inkline.
She ran a hand through her hair. It had dried on the flight back. While she waited for the guard, who fumbled to unlock the inner study’s door, she pulled her hair back into a rough chignon, sorted the hairpi
ns she’d brought. On the dresser next to Theo’s bed had been a bowl with four hairpins. One end was an enameled black and gold bee; the other end was pointed. Weapons, really. She weighed the last one in her hand before reaching back and thrusting it through her hair.
The door swung open, and she strolled through at the ushering of the guard. Left alone in the room, with the door shut softly behind her, Claire stood there amazed.
Books—more than she’d ever thought possible in one place. Timber shelves rose on the walls to her left, all the way to a high ceiling. On her right was a glassed wall that looked out onto a conservatorium awash with greenery and flowers. The sweet perfume of pollen invaded this inner study.
On the wall opposite the door, behind a long sofa, black-and-white lithographs hung in a row. More art? She walked across the white tiled floor, threading past a low table and two ochre sofas. The figures resolved into naked women. My God. She gaped. Even alone as she was, the sight drew warmth to her cheeks. She stared.
Drawn with an artist’s hand, the pictures showed women intricately bound with ropes, in all manner of positions, some joined by men lording over them with whips and more ropes in their hands. In the last two lithographs, the man had the woman tied hand to ankle while he, as clear as day, made love to her. That someone would draw such a thing—
She leaned over to examine the detail and heard the sound of the doorknob turning.
By the time she’d spun on her heel, the door had closed. The skirt of her white broderie anglaise dress swirled and settled light as rain on her upper thighs.
In fresh brown linen shirt and black trousers, Theo walked over. His gaze went from her to the lithographs and back. “Which one is your favorite?”
As if I’d have a favorite! She couldn’t meet the intensity in his eyes, shook her head the smallest amount. “I—” Frowning, she gestured at the artworks. “Why would anyone—I mean—” Unsure as to what she did mean, she fell silent.
He tossed something onto the sofa, then wrapped his arms around her as he leaned against the back of the sofa. His chin rested atop her head.
“Why would anyone do this? Because they enjoy it greatly. The women as well as the men.”
“Hmph.” She couldn’t help seeing the details—the way the ropes emphasized anatomy, the rapt expression on the face of the woman being made love to—couldn’t help imagining herself in that position with Theo. A tremor ran through her. She felt the warmth of his breath through her hair. Confused—she didn’t want to do this sort of thing, surely? It was too close to real life, to what Inkline had done. He’d kept her bound in that chair for the whole day while he inflicted pain on her, and there’d been nothing she could do about it.
Getting her head around the fact that these women had wanted this… So strange.
“Not so different from what I did to you earlier,” he murmured and kissed her hair.
The hardness of him against her buttocks and the sensual warmth creeping up on her confused her even more. Was she wanting this? To be tied up? She swallowed.
“No. It’s different. I doubt I’d like it. These drawings are a fantasy. Looking at them—”
“They’re all drawn from life. The artist is well-known to me.” Theo’s hand glided up her thigh and under the skirt of her dress, found the edge of her underwear, and a moment later, his blunt finger drew along her wet cleft. “Looking at them seems to make you wet. Perhaps you’re lying, love?”
If she admitted anything, he’d want to do this. Quelling the need to take quicker breaths, she said, “No, I’m being truthful. It’s just you, next to me.”
“Really? I doubt that. I’m going to deal with the other matters I spoke of, and then, you are going to tell me the truth.”
She made to rise from his lap but found he still held his arm tight beneath her breasts. “What other matters?”
“One. You walked away from me at the river. You attacked Ericson without cause. He was doing his job, and one or both of you could have been injured seriously. You refused to apologize to him or to Dankyo when I asked you. I will never allow that behavior again. Both are examples of rudeness and require punishment. Two. You denied a direct order from Dankyo, my second in command.”
“Punishment?” This was sounding more and more like Inkline. “Let me go!”
Theo chuckled, snagged both her wrists, and drew them behind her. She froze in place, her chest heaving. Sharp time would get her free—let her read every single one of his reactions. If she wriggled her wrists the right way, microsecond by microsecond, she’d get free. But did she want to go that route? No. An awful idea. It would destroy everything. He’d never trust her again.
“Claire, do you agree you were rude, impulsive, endangered yourself and Ericson?”
The switch of tactic made her think. He wasn’t going on about Dankyo. Thank God. He’d been plain nasty, and she’d not budge on that one. Her body betrayed her, as she recalled the way she’d been held while they made love at the river. That made it difficult to think. She licked her lips, tried not to be conscious of his erection.
“Was I rude? And, everything else?” Her words came out squeaky. She cleared her throat, hung her head. “Yes, I suppose I was. A bit. I’m sorry. There. Is that what you wanted? I’m sorry.”
“It’s a start,” he said in a mellow baritone. “You have a choice.” He released her, and she moved away, wide-eyed, her wrists stinging. “See this?” He reached over the back of the sofa and brought up what he’d dropped there—a round leather paddle with holes in it and the black corset.
“Uh-huh.” She went round the other side of the sofa. One of the lithographs featured a woman being hit by one of those.
“Choose.” Theo said grimly. “This, or you get to wear the corset all day under that dress.” Now his eyes were twinkling.
“This amuses you?” She said it slowly.
“Oh yes.” He came round the end of the sofa, paddle still in hand. Warily, she backed away. “Why not? Spanking your little bottom while I bend you over the sofa…” His mouth curved in a wicked half smile. She took another step back. “Stand still, Claire, while we talk. If you make me chase you, I will make this public, and that, I guarantee, will not please either of us.”
She stopped, let him come up to her.
“So. Which is it to be? Ten strokes of this?” He jiggled the paddle. “Or wear the corset? You’re accompanying me on a tour of the remaining outlying buildings after brunch.” He cocked his head, raised an eyebrow.
How was the corset punishment? And then she recalled how it had affected her, wondered what she’d do in public, wearing it. She blushed. It was entirely possible, after ten or twenty minutes of that friction between her legs…that she’d come. A mortifying thought.
Theo stretched out, ran his finger lightly over her lips, brushed back some straying hair. “Having second thoughts? Perhaps, you’d like to see what one stroke feels like and then decide?”
Clearly, he wasn’t going to budge on this. It couldn’t be that bad. She’d had a knife slash in training, bruising from sparring. Though she had an inkling Theo would make the ten strokes take ages if she volunteered.
“No permanent injury?” she asked nervously.
“No. Of course not. Pain, yes. Well?”
“One then. Only, then I’ll…see.”
He nodded. “Pull down your underwear, bend over, and grab your ankles. Keep your knees a little bent to help you balance. Do not move, or I’ll have to repeat the stroke.”
“I thought—” She gestured at the sofa.
“No. I think this way is better. I get to see more of your pretty ass.”
She looked at him, then down at her feet. Why was she obeying him in this? Couldn’t she just walk away? She sighed. No. She couldn’t, didn’t want to really. Because he’d made it clear if she wanted to stay, she had to obey his rules. So, she’d bent a couple of them, and this was the result. Damnation, she wanted to stay.
Slowly she edged down her
underwear, let them slip to the floor, then bent and grasped her ankles, staring at the brown pumps on her feet, waiting, biting her lip, wondering when he would—
The paddle slammed into her, hard enough to make her teeth slide and chatter. The vibration shot through her body as if she’d been shaken by a storm. A fraction of a second later, in its aftermath, her bottom stung like all hell, and heat flared, her lower body throbbing. She gasped and almost straightened. He’d said not to move. She glanced back at him, past her legs, her bottom up in the air.
Theo said nothing. Only watched and waited.
This, she suddenly realized, was as sexually arousing as anything could be without actually touching. The throb from her bottom heightened the pleasure. For a man to be watching while she did this… If she said nothing, would he paddle her again? Her mouth went dry. Fear awakened. No, she didn’t want to go this route. Not pain. Besides, she felt sure Theo enjoyed wielding that paddle, and she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction.
“The corset,” she muttered, her head feeling like an inflating balloon from all the blood pooling in it. “I’d rather that.”
At least this way she’d be the only one feeling pleasure, and she could limit her reaction to a piece of clothing. With the paddle, Theo controlled her.
Theo nodded. He tossed the paddle onto the sofa.
Not a surprise that she’d chosen the corset. He hadn’t thought Claire ready to find enjoyment in pain. The potential was there, though. She’d liked it to a degree, despite her fear. The main aim of this was to impress on her his seriousness regarding her attitude to him and everyone around him, and one smack had achieved that aim—though the sight of her white posterior raised up high would never grow tiring. He stopped himself smiling.
He thought back to the reason for this. The sight of her attempting to shake Ericson, as if a man almost twice her weight were shakable, had been an eye-opener.
By only wounding that bear, she’d risked her life, and all because she didn’t want to kill. They’d made her murder someone…and for what? Accustoming her to death? Mind-boggling. If he could have erased that awful memory, he would have.
Iron Dominance Page 14
