His hands came up to rub circles across her naked shoulders. “I’m supposed to be angry with you,” he muttered.
“I know, I know,” she purred as she pressed little kisses down the column of his throat. “But wouldn’t you rather be doing something else with me?” Where did this brazen hussy-self come from? she wondered, marveling. At the Society of Love Ball, she’d wanted to do intimate things to him, as she’d learned how the game of love worked and sought some sense of control in its play; now, she was ready to share intimacy with him. She’d never realized a woman could initiate lovemaking and enjoy it as did a man, but it was suddenly quite obvious to her: with the right partner, why not? There was so much women were told they couldn’t do, for no apparent good reason, but with this, as with the rest: why not? She liked this bold new self of hers, she realized.
“Callista, ahhh, Callista.” She could hear his desire in the sound of her name as he massaged her neck, but also the hesitation that held him back. “Are you sure?”
“Oh, yes, Dominick.” She rubbed up against him like a cat. “I am most definitely sure.”
He brought his hands up to cup her face in his palms. Gazing into those dark chocolate eyes up close was mesmerizing. She felt her attraction to him, stronger than ever before. It was not only physical—although she was sizzling with need—but was the strongest connection of minds she’d ever felt.
He understood her, and she him, in a way she’d never experienced with anyone else before. A shiver racked her body and made him pull her tighter to him, but it wasn’t from cold. Tomorrow or the next day, back in London, would be soon enough to sort it out, she assured herself. Today, now, is for us.
She took a step back and, with that strange new boldness leading her on, started to unwind the linen binding strips made from an old nightgown from around her breasts. She kept her eyes on Dominick and smiled in wicked pleasure at the slack-jawed look that came over his face. He was rapt and thick with desire—all over her! Her!
She turned her back right before the last of the bindings came free and coyly smiled at him over her shoulder. “Oh, that feels so much better.” She lifted her arms high over her head and arched her back into a long stretch. “Now to get out of these tight breeches.” She worked the fastenings and wiggled her hips to peel them slowly down. “However do you gentlemen get in and out of these things every day?” She leaned forward to pull them off, waving her behind at him through her thin ivory silk drawers. The drawers were another innovation of Marie’s, who swore they’d soon be the rage in women’s undergarments. They did work wonderfully under the breeches, not bunching up at all. When Dominick’s jaw dropped at the sight, she sent her friend silent thanks.
“Callista,” he growled again, all hesitation having fled from his voice. “Be careful with this game of yours. You’re playing with fire.”
“Oh, really?” She glanced back at him again as she shook free first one stocking and then the other. “Is that a promise?”
He was behind her so fast she squealed, grabbing her and pushing her up against the foot of the bed, soft with an eiderdown blanket folded high at its end. His hands reached around to cup her naked breasts, kneading hard as he bent across her to rain hot kisses and wet nips up the side of her neck. “What a temptress you are, beauty,” his voice rumbled in that deep brandy-throated way she loved.
“Dominick,” she moaned as fire shot through her.
He nudged her legs apart with a knee between her silk-clad thighs. “Will you let me pleasure you as I wish? Are you mine now, Callista?”
“Yes.” It was all she could do to gasp out the word. “Yes, please, Dominick, you’re mine.”
“That’s not quite what I asked, although it’s true enough,” he said wryly.
Still fully clothed, he pushed her firmly down across the end of bed with a large hand against her back. Her long red hair fanned out onto the white coverlet as he dragged a pillow under her hips. She arched her bottom up even higher and wiggled it at him.
A purr sounded deep in his throat as he slipped his hands up her ribs to play with her nipples. “What a picture you make, Callista. Do you know how beautiful you are, how much I want you? Edinburgh is populated with dolts if any one of them thought you a boy today.”
Words were becoming beyond her and her taste for coy teasing was gone. She craved further sensation at his hands. What it meant for tomorrow she did not know, but it was her last rational thought before he leaned his heavy weight onto her and ground his pelvis hard into the open crotch of her silk drawers.
“Ahhh, Dominick!” Before when they’d made love, the sensations had built gradually as he introduced her to the pleasures of her body, but now she felt swamped by the ripe passion of her yearning.
Standing behind her, he rocked into the uplifted V of her legs, hands gripping her hips.
“Take off your clothing, Dominick,” she begged. “I need more of you.”
He seemed to agree, for he backed up with a muffled curse. She lifted her head to watch over her shoulder as he shed garments willy-nilly, hard flesh emerging to come up behind her again, this time smooth and naked and hot.
She made to turn over and embrace him, but he stopped her with one hand splayed on her back and the other catching her arm. “Oh, no, my little trickster. You stay right where you are. I’m not done with you yet. You deserve more punishment for that stunt you pulled today.”
“Punishment? Whatever are you talking about?” A tickle of alarm—and anticipation—flickered through her.
When he bent to the floor to scoop something up, her question was answered by the trailing end of the linen binding. He had her hands tied to the headboard bedposts before she could frame a protest. Despite her vulnerable position, with her silk-covered bottom propped high in the air, it was too preposterous to think he’d actually try to spank her, wasn’t it?
She barely had time to think the question before his hand, large and strong, came down with a smack. She shrieked and squirmed, but the bonds held her in place as he delivered three quick slaps.
“I’m starting to feel better now—what about you?” he asked wickedly as he stepped back between her legs and ground against her again.
The sting had already faded into a tingling awareness, especially as she could now feel every naked inch of him. He rubbed against her heated flesh but held back from entering her. When she looked over her shoulder, she saw how her splayed legs pulled apart the silk of her slitted drawers to form an ivory frame around her core and his jutting length.
She’d never been more aroused in her life.
Still, there seemed a principle at stake. “I’m not sure I like being spanked as if a naughty child,” she managed to gasp out rather breathlessly.
“Oh, you’re no child. You’re a glorious, brilliant, daring, sensual woman.” He punctuated each word with a teasing shallow thrust. “Maybe you’d like it more if you tied and spanked me sometime.”
“What? I . . . you?” she sputtered, more lost to her passion with every moment. “I’m glorious and brilliant and daring?”
“Oh, yes—and don’t forget sensual. Very, very sensual,” he rasped out, apparently as lost to the moment as was she.
Suddenly even the silk seemed far too much clothing, and when he tore it quickly in two, she felt nothing but relief. She wanted that heavy weight rubbing against her to enter her now, but Dominick apparently had other ideas. He shifted the pillows higher under her hips and stretched her legs wider apart. She felt wantonly spread open but so on fire from his touch and words she felt no shame. Only pleasure and need and trust and delight in the way she and this man fit together, body and soul.
His strong hands kneaded her thighs and buttocks as he laid down a trail of wet kisses across her back and upper thighs, heading ever closer to her mound. His hot breath inflamed her, and she squirmed to be touched at the core of need pulsing between her legs.
“My eager kitten,” he teased in his deep brandy voice. “Would you like m
e to pet you?”
“Dominick, please!” she gasped. Her fingers fisted into the bed’s coverlet, her wrists straining against the linen bindings. When his thumb stroked lightly down her outer folds, she could feel her slick wetness. And when he finally pressed his hand firm against her mound, she thought she would die from the pleasure.
He took his time stroking her while he slipped his other hand under her hips to rub slow intoxicating circles around her tight nub. “So beautiful, so sweet,” he murmured appreciatively.
She felt caught in a current pulling her toward a gathering maelstrom of pleasure. But as she approached, he stilled his fingers to a maddeningly soft brush. She needed more—needed it right now, there!—and tried to push into his touch, but he only laughed and lifted his hand away.
“I don’t believe I’m quite through with your punishment,” he said. “I like seeing you squirm, tied up and hostage to the pleasure I give you.”
“But, I . . . I . . .”—she didn’t quite know how to put it—“want more.”
“Today’s lesson is patience, beauty, and submitting to the will and punishment of your master,” he drawled, with arched brow and roguish grin.
It was so over-the-top, she couldn’t work up too great an outrage. But still—what words! To her surprise, they stirred an answering thrill within her.
“If I were to consent to this game, what would be your will?” she asked, curious.
He teased her slick flesh again with the lightest brush of a finger. “It’s rather sweet revenge to bring you close to your peak but delay your release. To make you writhe and pant in a most gratifying manner.”
She considered this. “You don’t plan to refuse release, though, do you?”
“Oh, there’s no fun in that. Not when you arch and scream so deliciously at a moment like that.”
“I do not scream,” she said, blushing. “But I suppose I can survive such punishment. You may try your worst.” She tried for a flippant and worldly tone, as if she played bedroom games with gentlemen like a hand of whist with her evening tea, but she feared her breathy gasp gave away how moved she was by his erotic words.
By the end of his revenge, Callista was no longer sure she’d survive. Sweat drenched her body, and her muscles ached from the clench of tension and hovering release. His own control never wavered as he used fingers and hand and the teasing tip of his magnificent shaft to bring her within inches of climax more times than she could count. He read her responses unerringly, even when she tried to deliberately hold herself still and fool him about how close she was to her peak.
“Never lie to me with your body, Callista,” he commanded. “You can’t hide from me.” And then he spanked her again. But each swat ended with a caress across her pinkened buttocks that had her squirming anew. The whole of her private parts glowed with heat and crying need and pulsating pleasure.
“Dominick,” she moaned his name, lost to time and place, lost to all but him. “Please, I’m sorry, please,” she entreated, “enough, come to me, let me come to you.” She craved her release, thought she would die from need of it, but craved with it him, needed to dig her fingers into him and to drink in his male glory.
He finally seemed to have enough. “At your command, beauty.” He tugged loose her bindings, flipped her over, and pulled her up higher on the bed, then prowled toward her on all fours like the lion she always imagined him to be.
When he settled his weight over her, she sighed out her bliss. She looped her arms over his shoulders and her legs around his thighs and nudged at him with her hips. How did one get that thing inside one? Was it too bold to simply reach down and guide it in? She urgently, desperately, wanted to draw him inside her, to take and claim him for her own, and to claim her pleasure with him. With one hand fisted in his curls—that thick golden silk!—her other hand slipped between their bodies and took hold of his length. Pleasure rumbled deep in his throat. He pushed himself into her thigh, and she edged her hips to the side, trying to capture his motion. As he eased up, she guided him to her curls, determined to sheath him with his next thrust. But, to her frustration, he held himself still and raised his head to smile down at her.
“I’ve never made love to you in a bed, Callista. It’s a novel experience—quite intoxicating.”
“Could we make it a little more intoxicating, perhaps?” She moved in need beneath him.
“So impatient,” he teased. “What’s your rush?”
“Well, it’s just that . . . We are going to, aren’t we?
His gaze suddenly turned serious. “Do you plan to toy with me forever, Callista, using me for your pleasure whenever the inclination takes you?”
“Dominick . . .” She didn’t know how to answer him, wasn’t even sure what he wanted from her. Was this more of his flirtatious teasing? “Dominick, I . . . I lo—”
She almost bit her tongue when she realized, to her horror, the only thing she could think to answer—the words that rose unbidden and naturally to her lips—were “I love you.” Sweet Jesus, she loved him? When had that happened?
She ducked her head into the crook of his neck and raised her hips to him on a whimper, taking refuge in the simpler world of bed play. Thankfully, he took mercy on her and finally glided inside in one smooth motion.
The breath caught in her throat on a deep gasp of pleasure, and she arched up to meet him with her own answering thrust. Yes, yes—he, this, they, felt so right. Her last coherent thought before the swirl of passion rose up to claim her was the sure and terrifying knowledge that she did indeed love this man. She was his. Like the roses in her back garden, she had opened to full glorious bloom under his hand. She was a different woman now—more knowing, more confident, aware of new contours of power and possibility. Her fledgling self was liberated and on the wing, and there was no going back.
Lord have mercy—he held her heart. She loved him: completely, passionately, foolishly.
And then her body clenched, and she thought no more.
Chapter 19
Dom let her sleep into the afternoon.
Once he made his arrangements with the innkeeper, he sat in the chamber’s lone chair and watched her. To his surprise, he didn’t mind that his great secret was out. It was a relief, actually, not to hide anymore who he was. Nor would he miss his act of lover extraordinaire, scandalously flirting his way through the ballrooms and drawing rooms of polite London—God, was he ready to give that false face up as well. Come what may, starting now, he was shedding the mask of Master of Love and stepping out from behind the pen name Amator Philosophiae. He was simply who he was: Dominick Avery.
The man who loved Callista.
It was all because of her. She gave him the reason and the courage to be his true self, so he could offer that self to her, with the same brave honesty she presented to the world.
He didn’t even mind that she’d betrayed his secret to the scholars from whom he’d kept it so long. His anger was spent—although as he watched her slumber naked, wantonly spread out across his bed, her fire still smoldering, his passion did begin to stir again. No doubt she thought she was protecting someone, perhaps even him somehow, with her harebrained scheme. No matter; she’d tell him eventually. It was typical of her, fiercely loyal and protective of those she cared about, always rushing in to save them, but leaving herself so dangerously vulnerable and exposed. The woman needed someone to act as a keeper to ensure she stayed safe and out of trouble.
Whether she was ready to admit it or not, that someone was him.
When she stirred and opened a bleary eye, he walked over to brush that flaming hair off her face. “There’s fresh water in the basin; cold roast chicken, bread, and cheese on the table. That dress”—he pointed to the serviceable blue woolen with chemise, petticoats, and bonnet provided by the innkeeper’s wife—“should get you home. We’ve got tickets on a late-afternoon train to Carlisle and then back to London.”
“My boy’s clothing is perfectly fine,” she muttered, pushing hers
elf up.
He was ready for a fight. He flipped her onto her back and pressed a kiss to her mouth. “My reputation has suffered enough because of you. I will not be branded a pederast coming out of my room from an afternoon romp with a street boy. And they don’t let ruffians into the first-class coaches.”
A smile twitched the corners of her mouth. “All right—you needn’t be so bossy about it.”
He’d been prepared to wait until their return to London to broach again the issue of marriage, but, as it turned out, fate intervened most fortuitously. Just as he was bundling Callista out of his room after checking that the hallway was clear, none other than Mr. Claremont and Mr. Plumptre came up the narrow inn stairs. There was no way to avoid them; the two men saw them right away.
Thinking fast, Dom seized on the only possible way to save Callista’s reputation—and achieve his goal.
“Gentlemen, you may congratulate me,” he boomed, waving them over. “Miss Higginbotham has just done me the great honor of consenting to become my wife.”
At the speechless look of both Callista and the two men, he plunged on. “I’ve been courting her for quite some time. The dear sweet thing missed me so much”—he ignored the murderous look she shot at him—“she came up to Edinburgh to surprise me. I’ve finally convinced her I’ll make her a worthy husband.”
Mr. Claremont recovered his power of speech first. “I wish you every happiness, my lord, Miss Higginbotham!” He shook their hands heartily. “And may I add how proud we are to have as patron of the Philosophical Society a scholar of your status. I always thought there was more to you”—he waggled a finger at Dom—“than you let on! Everyone at the conference is talking about you as the next great British philosopher—well, except for Professor Jamieson,” he added with a grin.
“Congratulations, and very best wishes on your upcoming nuptials,” said Mr. Plumptre, shaking their hands in turn. “Lord Rexton, did you find out from the newsboy how the London reporters discovered the truth?”
Master of Love Page 27
