Lord Regret's Price: A Jane Austen Space Opera, Book 3 (17 page)

Oh the irony. All those years on Americus while she’d hid her identity, she’d feared that someday someone would pay him more than she could offer and he’d assassinate her. The price on her head had to be repulsively extravagant, especially with Majel’s determination to see her extinguished. Every time he’d come to her at the Solstice to make sure her nanobots were functioning correctly, she’d wondered if it’d be her last holiday. If someone had gotten to him at last.

But he’d erased all her doubts once and for all when he sent the nanobots keeping him alive to save her. He’d nearly died—intended to die, in fact, if it meant she would live. How could she not trust that kind of love? He would never kill her, not when he’d almost sacrificed himself to keep her alive.

I know it…but he doesn’t. He doesn’t have that surety that I’m safe from him.

“Do you want to be bound or free?” she asked gently, not pushing him too far. This was something he’d have to learn on his own. He’d have to know it deep in his soul, as she knew her love for him would never fail. “Not that I believe I can keep you helpless for long. I didn’t purchase any silken ropes and you’ve already said Gil’s handcuffs are useless against you.”

Unable to meet her gaze, he sat on the edge of the very Britannian-looking bed, with its four pillars and heavy velvet canopy, so he could remove his boots and strip off his trousers. “I’d prefer to be completely incapacitated if you’re going to take me very far, but you’re right. There’s not a lot that could keep me bound for long.” Nude, he stood and met her gaze just a moment. His eyes were raw and wild with emotion, hunger and fear and desperate shadows. Stiffly, he turned around and wrapped his hands around the post at the foot of the bed, gripping the wood like he was determined to strangle a mark with his bare hands. “Let me see what you can do, Charlie. Let me see how it’ll feel. If you can make me feel anything at all.”

Oh, I’ll make you feel all right.
Grimly, she strode closer, shifting to the side so she could get a better aim.
I’m going to make you feel our love so deep in your bones that you’ll never doubt it again.

Using the flail on herself had been titillating. Turning it on Sig…

Lifting her arm for the strike made her heart pound and heat unfurled deep in her abdomen. Bringing the leather down on his back, even lightly, almost made her moan out loud. The slapping thud on his skin made her shiver. The way his muscles tensed and flowed in his back and shoulders made her want to stroke and lick every inch. He might tend to dress like a dandy with his fine lace and tight breeches, but tight power coiled in his body. He was lean and sleek like a tiger, and surely just as dangerous.

Heady power filled her. She controlled the tiger. He’d curbed his energy and strength to allow her to do this to him. She’d wager no other woman had ever convinced him to try this. To trust her enough to let her tie him up, take away his control and, now, warm his back with stripes.

“Harder,” he growled. “Make me feel. Something. Anything. Harder!”

She complied, gaining confidence with each strike. Even hitting him with force didn’t make him flinch or scream. His skin reddened, but he groaned and twisted his grip on the post. He braced his forehead against the wood and widened his stance, as if begging her to explore his entire body with the flail.

Dropping the blows in a slow dance down his back, buttocks and the backs of his thighs, she concentrated on bringing that same lovely pink everywhere. Sweat broke out on her skin and her breathing was heavy, her arm and shoulders beginning to ache. She’d definitely have to work to increase her stamina.

Assuming he let her do it again.

Heavens above, I hope he will.

Her insides were coiled so tightly her muscles ached. If he strained to keep his hands on the post, then she fought to keep from slinging herself against him and moaning out her desire. Heat pulsed in her groin, need slicked her thighs. Every cell in her body demanded release, to be filled by him. Every breath, every thud of her heart—agony because he wasn’t inside her. A live wire connected her breasts, lighting up her entire body with thousands of volts of electricity. She was surprised her hair wasn’t standing on end, that her muscles weren’t convulsing with the force of energy building inside her.

The harder she hit him, the more she ached for him. The more he groaned and sweated, the more her thighs slipped together. Her nipples throbbed, her breasts so full and tight, and they ached deliciously as they swung with her arm movements, each slight shift tugging on the chain and the clamp.

Now it was a duel of endurance. Which one of them would beg first? Would she sling the flail aside and throw herself against him so hard they both collapsed upon the bed? Or would he snarl like a beast and whirl to drag her down beneath him to the floor? Both options appealed.

She moved to his side so she could see his arousal. So thick and swollen, his erection jerked with her every stroke of the lash. The sight made her redouble her efforts, to see if she could drive him to release with the flail alone. He had to be close. Sweat dripped down his chest, shudders racking his body as he fought to keep control. Her arm felt like it weighed as much as
HMS Dreadnought
, but she managed another hard strike to his upper thigh.

One that finally made his eyes flare open. He jerked his hands away from the pillar as though it’d electrocuted him, and whirled toward her. Eyes blazing, he slammed into her, pressing her back to the wall. She met his attack with open mouth and hungry hands, clawing at his shoulders to lift herself high enough to get him inside her. Something crashed to the floor but neither of them paused to see what priceless Imperial artifact they might have destroyed.

He thrust deep, driving her into the wall, over and over, grinding so hard and deep into her that she had the distant thought of bruises. Not that she cared in the slightest.

Even though Gil had managed to avoid most of the alcohol and certainly all of the carnal activities at the brothel, he still staggered into their guest quarters at dawn. He’d practically carried the Emperor back to his ship, still shocked that the young man had managed to leave Xuanyuan without any guards or at least an acquaintance—other than himself—to make sure he got home.

Did no one care if the young Emperor made it home alive? Why hire the infamous Lord Regret to assassinate the Emperor when it’d be easy enough to shoot him as he stumbled out of the brothel?

I can’t wait to hear Charlotte’s take on all this. Their politics just don’t make any sense to me.

However, it might be quite some time before he could discuss the matter with her, he decided, looking about the room with a little awe and a lot of jealousy. A vase had shattered on the floor, another was tumbled over with flowers strew about the room. Pictures hung askew. The massive and surprisingly very proper bed was so torn apart with blankets tangled and dangling from the mattress that it looked like an orgy had happened without him.

Here he’d been trapped at a brothel and had come home untouched, while she’d remained in their room and had had quite the wild encounter. It hardly seemed fair.

The new flail she’d purchased lay at the foot of the bed, and it all suddenly made sense to him. However, another search through the tangled bedclothes revealed only the luscious curves of Charlotte.

Regret was already gone.

Gil sat down long enough to strip off his boots, and then he straightened enough of the bedding so he could lie down comfortably and draw her into his arms. She nuzzled deep into his embrace, shivering enough that he pulled a blanket up over her shoulders and tucked her close. She made a low, pleased hum that made his cock stir despite his tiredness.

“You smell like smoke. Not tobacco smoke, though. Different. What is it?”

“There was an opium den next door.” He sighed, already starting to sit up so he could change and bathe, but she clung to him tighter. “I probably got a contact high from the smoke.”

“Later,” she whispered. “Next door to what?”

Despite his innocence in the matter, he still tensed until he could hear her reaction. “The Emperor took me to a brothel back in Bei-Jing.”

She smothered a laugh against his neck. “Oh, poor Gil. Does he go there very often?”

“Evidently,” he grumbled, relieved that she wasn’t upset. “He went there alone, outside of Xuanyuan. No guards. He was so drunk I had to carry him back to the ship. Does that make sense to you?”

She leaned up so she could look into his face, bracing an elbow on his chest. “You mean, why hire an expensive assassin to kill him when it’d be so easy to not only kill him but embarrass the entire Imperial family by having him assassinated at a brothel?”

Gil nodded, reaching up to push some of her heavy hair out of her face. She preferred to braid her hair most nights so that it didn’t take an hour to brush it out in the morning, but he always relished the nights she forgot so he could play with the tumbled locks. He loved her silken tresses spread out across his pillow so he could bury his nose in the sweet scent.

“You’re right. That doesn’t make sense at all. Unless it’s someone in the royal family who doesn’t want the embarrassment. It might be much better to have it done quietly where they can control the exposure. Or the Emperor isn’t Sig’s target at all.”

“Has he heard who the mark is?”

She frowned. “Not that he mentioned.” But then her lips quirked with heated remembrance. “Not that he had much of an opportunity to discuss it with me. I haven’t pushed for details for fear he’ll leap to the conclusion I’ll try to keep him from it.”

“So he wasn’t as opposed to the flail as you first feared?”

Her eyes clouded, losing some of that sultry heat. “Oh, he definitely feared it, but it was like the shopkeeper told me. Not because he was truly afraid he would hate it, but because he was afraid he’d like it too well. That, and his other fear that he might hurt me.”

Gil spared a glance around the disheveled room. “It does look as though things got a little…wild.”

A slow heat pinkened her cheeks and began to flood down her neck and breasts. Many things might be said of Charlotte, but she wasn’t shy or prudish. No, the color in her cheeks was the flush of passion.

All of Gil’s weariness leaked away, but he couldn’t even think about making love to her with the stink of the evening clinging to his skin and hair. He sat up, ignoring her clinging hands. “Come join me in a bath, then.”

Grumbling, she let him assist her upright. “It is a very nice bath, though I regret only having a few hours of sleep.”

“At least you had
some
sleep. I’ve had to endure the agonizing moaning of an overgrown teenage boy who’s never had a life of his own.”

“Ah yes, I remember hating that age well, and I didn’t even have a mother like Cixi trying to control every aspect of my life.”

“Did she tell you that he’s ill?”

Charlotte paused in the middle of pulling her wrap on. He thought it was concern for the young man, until he saw that she was staring at something in the pottery shards. Reaching down, she pulled out a small black circle, no bigger than a pea. “They bugged our room. Good thing I set up a disruptor, though each evening we ought to ensure no one’s tampered with my device before we talk too much.”

“Who would care what the foreigners were talking about? Perhaps no one was actually listening and the bug was planted when the room was created.”

“They were trying to listen,” she replied grimly, shaking her head. “The question is who. Who tried to kill me? Who contracted Sig? How much time do I have to unravel the secrets, discover the connection between the dragon and the Emperor, and get the hell out of here before Majel arrives with a dozen warships?”

“So you think there is a connection between the Emperor’s illness and the dragon?”

She blew out a frustrated breath. “Let me think things through. I’ll take my handy-dandy disruptor so we can talk freely without concern for who’s listening. Perhaps the heated water will release a few thoughts that aren’t quite making sense.”

Now that was quite the admission for the brilliant Lady Doctor to make. If she was confused and off track, then they had no hope of escaping alive.

Gil followed her into the next room. Tiles covered the floors and walls in a soft jade. The room was warm and humid, so much that he immediately broke a sweat. It felt like a jungle. Potted ferns and orchids added to the lushness of the room, making it feel like they’d stumbled into a secluded island retreat.

In the floor, a pool ran the length of the room, deep and wide enough he could swim laps if so inclined. Steam rose from the rose-petaled water.

“Wow,” he finally said, “too bad Regret doesn’t have one of these on his ship.”

“Definitely a perk to planetside—or this time, space-station palace—living.” Charlotte set the small box she called a disruptor on a convenient bench, slipped off her wrap and slowly worked her way into the water using a set of stairs.

Gil moved to join her, too quickly. Damn, the water was hot, almost to the point of the unpleasant feeling of being cooked alive. He slowed down, working his way up to his waist. He followed her to the side where benches had been built along the wall. It took a few tries for him to get fully seated, bringing the scalding water nearly up to his chin, but it was worth it when she began washing his hair. Her fingers kneaded his scalp and he sagged deeper into the water.