by Alyson Chase
“Breathe with me and relax,” he told her. He took deep, slow breaths, and was satisfied when she eventually matched his rhythm. “That’s it.” They sat together, one of his legs going numb under her weight, and simply breathed.
The carriage rattled to a stop. “Keep your eyes closed.” Ignoring the pins and needles in his thigh, he lifted Amanda and climbed down the stairs when the footman opened the door. Like a well-oiled machine, the front door of the duke’s townhouse opened as he approached. For once, Julius was glad of his friend’s servants.
“Shall I send for a doctor, my lord?” Carter sniffed and trailed him to the staircase.
“Not yet.” Besides the scrape on her jaw, Julius didn’t think Amanda was injured. Not physically. “But stand by.”
He took the stairs two at a time, lungs burning, and strode to his room. Reggie scampered out of Amanda’s chamber and yipped at his heels. Julius started to close the door in his face, but the pup’s mournful whimper stopped him. “Fine. Get in here.” Reggie bounded across the room in two leaps and jumped onto the bed, tail wagging. Julius kicked the door closed behind him.
Gently, he lowered Amanda to the bed. She immediately turned onto her side, facing away from him. Reggie lay next to her and licked her face. Throwing her arm over the dog, she pulled him close to her chest.
Julius took a step back, flexing and clenching his fists. The immediate rush for action was over, and his body sagged with lethargy. She was safe. Secure in his care. Pressing his palms into the mattress, Julius slumped over. If anything had happened to her …
Well, that was something best not thought of. Marcus would have killed him, of course. Letting harm come to his sister-in-law after taking her to The Black Rose. Still might kill him just over taking her to their club. His friend saw the world through a practical lens, however, and knew that his sister-in-law was no untouched virgin. Still, there was no reason to announce the visit.
He placed a hand on her hip, hating the way she flinched. “Would you like some water? Tea?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Can you close the window, please?”
Circling the bed, Julius took one last look at the night sky and pulled the panes shut. He untied the sash around the curtains, letting them fall into place. Concealing his exit. He turned and faced Amanda, her body curled up into a neat ball, almost as small as Reggie’s.
He carried the pitcher of water on his dressing table to his nightstand and dipped his handkerchief in it. He cleaned the dried blood from her skin. “What happened out there? Why did you leave the club?” He waited, impatient for answers. She’d taken five years off his life from fright and she owed him that much.
She shook her head, her breaths shallow and quick.
Tossing the handkerchief down next to the pitcher, he crawled onto the bed, nudging Reggie out of the way. He rolled Amanda to her back and straddled her hips. Pinning her wrists to the bed, he bent down until they were nose to nose. “I repeat, why did you leave the club?”
She sighed, and the muscles beneath him relaxed. “Your suspect was getting away. There was no time to find you.”
Of course. That made perfect sense. “You little fool! Do you realize how reckless that was? Even for a woman without your complaint it would have been harebrained. Anyone could have taken you. Hurt you.” The image of that miscreant bending to pick Amanda up wouldn’t leave his head. He squeezed her wrists. “Women don’t go strolling through London alone at night.”
Her eyes were dark and unfathomable, but at least the fear was gone. “Am I to understand that you don’t want to know what I discovered?”
Julius growled and crawled off the bed. He paced around the room, seething with a swirl of emotions. The woman was so damned frustrating. A timid mouse one moment, a teasing minx the next. He fisted his hands. He needed a trip to Gentleman Jack’s. Something to do with his hands that didn’t involve throttling the woman lying on his bed. He wished he had the same predilection as Marcus. If any woman deserved a spanking, it was Miss Amanda Wilcox for her behavior that night.
He strode for his nightstand and removed his japanned chest, placing it on the bench at the foot of the bed. As soon as his fingers touched rope, the muscles in his shoulders unbunched. He tossed two shorter lengths onto the bed and pulled out the twenty-foot hemp. He dragged the cable through his hands, the movement as soothing as a glass of whiskey before bed.
Amanda raised to one elbow. “What are you doing?”
“Trying my confounded best not to punish you.” With a mind of their own, his fingers knotted the rope in even intervals. After each knot, he tugged on the cable, feeling the tension and the give.
“Was that an option?” Amanda tilted her head to the side and narrowed her eyes.
He sighed. “Not for you. Not really.” He eyed her form and doubled one of the knots. “But I do need some answers, and I think we’ll both be happier if I work while you talk. Take off the rest of your clothes.”
Her mouth dropped open. “I just—”
“Scared the life out of me? Yes, I know.”
She huffed. “Now is hardly the time—”
He squeezed the rope until the fibers cut into his flesh. “How do you feel when I bind you?”
She blinked and shook her head.
“I can tell you what I see.” He leaned over and combed his fingers through her hair. “Your body becomes pliant and your emotions quiet. It brings you peace. For me, it does the same.” Laying rope over a woman’s body, creating patterns and beauty, bringing pleasure, it all wove together to bring him almost to a state of bliss. “I think if ever we needed this, it would be tonight.”
She held his gaze, her dark eyes seeming to hold the answers to every question he didn’t know he had. Slowly, she rolled to her knees. She slid the strap of her thin gown off one shoulder, then the other, before pushing it down until it puddled on the counterpane. She wore no chemise beneath it, and her small breasts peaked under his gaze. Rolling to her bottom, she swept the gown down and over her feet. She toed off her slippers and slowly drew her stockings down her legs, tossing them in his direction.
Everything in Julius tightened, and he snapped the rope taut between two hands. Definitely a minx.
“What about your clothes?” she asked.
“They stay on. For now.”
She pursed her lips. “How disappointing.”
Biting back a smile, he scooped Reggie up with one arm and put him outside the room. The pup yapped, indignant. Julius squatted down and scratched his head. “I don’t like to be watched. Not even by dogs. Find your own bed.” He shut the door and strode back to Amanda, crawling onto the mattress beside her.
Amanda took his hand and squeezed. He squeezed back, and a world of communication passed between their palms.
Taking his first deep breath since he’d found her in the street, Julius ran the tail end of the rope over her skin. He trailed it over the crease where thigh met abdomen, around her navel, and up between her breasts.
The delicate skin of her chest flushed, and her dusky nipples puckered into hard peaks. Unable to resist, Julius leaned down and kissed her neck, feeling the pounding of her heartbeat beneath his lips. “You frightened me,” he whispered.
“Me, too.” She threaded her fingers through his hair, the caress making the base of his spine tingle.
Capturing her hand, he kissed her fingertips before wrapping one of the shorter lengths of rope around her wrist. He hauled her hand above her head and attached the cord to one of the spindles of the headboard. He’d have to remember to compliment Marcus on his choice of beds. For a man like Julius, the four thick posters and slotted headboard were a playground.
Straddling her waist, he sat back on her stomach and gave her a wicked smile. “Now that you can’t escape, I have a few questions.”
***
Each revolution of the rope around her wrist was a tether. A link to the earth that allowed her to float free without the fear of flying away. Her bod
y sank into the feather mattress, and it felt like she was reclining on a cloud. The past hour drifted from memory like a bad dream.
She was safe, at home, with Julius. It had been rare in her life, those moments when she’d felt secure. Her father had robbed her of that when she’d turned thirteen. Newgate had been better. Most days she’d been snug in her little cell, separated from the world. But when the door opened …
No, she’d never been safe. So many took that feeling for granted. She never would.
He stretched her other arm to another post. No escape now. A tingle started at the base of her skull and shivered down her spine.
Julius misinterpreted its source. Rolling off the bed, he stalked to the fireplace and stacked more coal on the andiron. He prodded the mound with the poker. “There. That should keep you warm. Either that, or I will.” His smile was dark and dirty, and she definitely felt the heat.
Julius knelt on the bed and picked up the long length of rope. The purple-dyed hemp scraped across his palms. Amanda loved his hands. Large, with long, tapered fingers. More importantly, she loved the way he used them on her.
Crawling to her feet, Julius raised her ankle and rested it on his thigh. “In the East, I learned the human body is connected by a series of meridian lines. Applying pressure to certain points can cause either great pain or”—he pressed his thumb into the skin below the ball of her foot—“intense pleasure.”
Amanda arched her back, swallowing a whimper. Lightning raced up her leg and settled in her core before he eased his grip.
His large hands enveloped her foot, kneading the skin, soothing away tension she didn’t even know she’d had. She was putty in his hands. His to mold. Julius hit another spot, one that sent fire racing through her veins, and he smirked. If she wasn’t so boneless, she’d want to kick the smug right off of him.
He kissed the pad of her big toe and moved to her other foot. “You can learn the most interesting things, even in the worst of situations. When I was first taken prisoner, my captors delighted in causing me pain.” He lifted a shoulder. “That first month, I believe I received first-hand knowledge of every meridian point on my body.”
And his captors weren’t giving him lovely foot rubs, of that Amanda was sure. She’d known that he’d been tortured and wondered at it. His body was nearly without marks. But his gaolers hadn’t needed a blade or a club to break his bones. Her heart broke for the pain he’d endured. No one deserved it, but the kind, determined man in front of her less so than most.
“As time wore on, the daimyo learned of my elevated status in British society. For some reason, that mattered to him.” Julius twisted his lips, but his hands never stopped moving. “In their eyes, I became worthier of respect because I was the son of a nobleman. They shared their knowledge with me, and the ropes holding me became looser, the pain ended. Until finally the knot around my wrists was purely a formality.”
“Weren’t they afraid you’d escape?”
“They followed their own code of honor. As a nobleman, I wasn’t supposed to try to escape. My honor was supposed to forbid it.” Placing her ankle by his thigh, he slithered up her body and took her mouth. His kiss was bruising, possessive. Amanda couldn’t get enough.
“They were idiots.” He cradled the side of her neck, his eyes darkening to wet moss. “When it comes to survival, there is no honor. Only choosing life or giving up. And there’s nothing wrong with choosing life. Do you understand?”
She understood he was trying to reconcile her actions to his personal code. The back of her throat burned, and she swallowed down her pain. There was no comparison between the two of them. Her life hadn’t been in danger from her father; only her sanity, and that of her sister’s.
“I’m glad you chose life,” she whispered. Their faces were so close she felt her breath rebound off his lips and feather across hers. Wrapping her legs around his lean hips, she rocked her pelvis against the hardness trapped behind his trousers. “Most glad.”
He groaned. “I’m supposed to be sapping your will, seducing information from you. Not the other way around.”
She rolled her eyes. “You know I will tell you everything. That was the entire point of why I chased after the man. To tell you.”
One edge of his mouth slid up. “I know. But where would be the entertainment in that?” With one last kiss, he sat back on his haunches and reached for the rope. Her legs were splayed around him, her body open and aching. He gripped her behind the knee, adjusted the position of her leg. He wound the hemp around her upper thigh, one of the knots digging into her flesh.
“Arch your back,” he told her. She complied, and he ran the cable across her stomach and around her back before running it down around her other thigh.
Amanda bit the inside of her cheek. This was all very nice. Anytime Julius wound rope about her would be enjoyable. But the ropes at her thighs and waist didn’t immobilize her, didn’t provide any restraints. Her other experiences, she’d been cradled, her movement, and all responsibility, taken from her. The rope at her hips merely provided a nice scrape.
Scooting down the bed until he lay on his stomach, Julius settled her knees over his shoulders. “Now, for every answer you give me, you’ll receive a small reward. If you leave anything out …”
“What happens then?” Amanda forced her body to remain still. His face was so close to her most intimate parts, his focus completely centered on her body, it was difficult not to be discomfited.
But if she was going to feel abashed, she should darn well yield some benefit, at least. He was so close, his breath stirred her thatch of curls. She lifted her hips, wordlessly trying to demand his attentions.
Julius ran his thumbs down her folds, peeled back her layers. He ducked his head and blew.
Amanda jerked, the ropes tightening on her wrists. She licked her lips. “That feels quite nice. I don’t believe that creates a sufficient deterrent.”
“Not now,” Julius agreed. He blew again, a long, steady stream, his exhalation hot and teasing. “But if that’s all that I give you? No more of a touch than that? People have been known to go mad from less.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
He lowered his head until all she could see were the tops of his tousled locks. Little puffs of air, each one a gossamer kiss, assailed her body. She tried to bring her legs together, supply her own pressure, but was blocked by his broad shoulders.
For the first time in her life, she said a word she’d only heard from the coarsest of men. And from Julius. It felt good rolling off her tongue. Satisfying. So she said it again.
Julius tutted. He lifted his head and threaded one hand under the rope at her waist, tugging her arching hips back to the bed. “Are you certain I wouldn’t dare?” He dipped his head.
Wriggling her bottom into the coverlet, Amanda considered. “I don’t believe it’s possible for you to continue for long. No one can spend all their time merely blowing.”
He chuckled, and the late-evening scruff on his jaw tickled the inside of her thigh. “I can breathe for quite some time. Besides, you have no idea what I can endure. The patience I have. I have spent over thirty-six hours hanging from a rafter. I think I have it in me to blow.”
And he would. Jerking her head off the pillow, she glared down at him. “Ask your bloody questions already! I said I’d answer.”
“Language. You really are becoming quite the gutter-mouth.” Shaking his head, he casually slapped his hand down on her folds. The clap of skin striking skin startled her before the sting made itself known. He gusted a breath over the abused flesh. “Just because you are surrounded by barbarians doesn’t mean you need speak like one of them.”
Amanda squirmed, the heat at her core spreading to the rest of her body until her skin prickled in a low burn. “I saw the man while you were upstairs with Sutton and Madame Sable. I figured it must be the man you wanted. How many tall, skinny, mustached men would be at that club?”
Julius smiled and swiped the ti
p of his tongue up the seam of her sex. “That’s my girl. As long as you continue talking, you’ll receive better treatment.”
Her thighs fell open, trying to expose as much of her body to him as possible. She’d expose her beating heart if it would bring her more of the same pleasure. He circled her nub and flicked it with his tongue. Her legs quaked. “And, uh … I followed …” Coherent thought was dissolving. Her mouth didn’t want to form the words. He was a wizard, and his tongue an enchantment.
“Why did you follow?” Julius asked, his voice sharp.
She blinked. Why had she followed? The delicious pressure disappeared, replaced by a weak stream of air. “No, please!” She jerked hard against her ropes, and the headboard smacked back against the wall. “I need—”
“Then explain to me why you would do something so foolish as to follow a suspect in criminal wrongdoing.” He rested his head against her thigh. “I’ll keep blowing until I hear an answer I like. And that might take a while.”
She twisted her wrist, hoping to slide her hand out of the loop. “I started to go upstairs to tell you, but he was leaving. There wasn’t time.” She shifted her hips, but Julius was a heavy weight. “You wanted to find him, and I wanted to help you.”
He grunted, but Amanda ignored his discontent. He put his mouth back on her and that was all that mattered. She sagged into the mattress. Tracing a figure eight, Julius circled her opening and looped up around her clitoris in one continuous slide. It was exquisite torture, one she wanted repeated every night. Her hips pitched against his mouth, beyond her command. Her body became weightless. The only things that connected her to this earth was the hemp around her wrists and Julius’s tongue at her center.
Julius flattened that tongue and increased the pressure. He slid two fingers into her channel.
“Oh, God, yes,” she moaned. She swore she could feel his lips curve against her flesh. Clenching her fists, she waited. Waited for the dam to fill, gallon by gallon, until the wall couldn’t take the pressure anymore and burst. She was so close to bursting …
Julius pushed to his knees and slid his cravat off his neck. He licked his lips, his eyes never leaving hers, and wiped the rest of the moisture off his chin with the silk.
