The Earl's Mistress (33 page)

Something like joy surged. She was waiting for him.

“Turn up the lamp,” he ordered.

He turned to lock the door, then shot the extra bolt he’d added when he’d bought Greenwood. He expected he might need it now.

With Isabella’s gaze following him, he crossed the room, unfastening the tie of his drawers as he went. They hung loose about his hips as he settled one knee on her bed and dragged her hard against him, burying his face in the turn of her neck.

“I apologize,” he said hoarsely, one hand plunging into the hair at the back of her head. “I apologize for suggesting that I ever owned you. I let my hurt and temper best me, and it was vile.”

He felt her swallow hard. “But it was not untrue, was it?” she said. “I sold myself. It is always the truth which most hurts us.”

He opened his mouth against her neck and drew in her warm, soapy scent. “No one will ever own you, Isabella,” he said. “Your price is so far above rubies, no man could pay it. But you are
mine,
Isabella, and always will be. You were meant for me, God help you.”

“I . . . I don’t know what that means,” she said.

“It means there’s something dark and hard and sweet between us,” he said, “and I will not give it up. Not ever. Not unless you look me in the eyes and tell me you no longer desire me or what I can give you. Do you understand?”

She shook her head, her hair scrubbing his shoulder. “I don’t understand anything,” she whispered. “Least of all these . . . these things I want.”

He lifted his head to look at her and held her a little away. “That’s my job, Isabella,” he said. “And I do understand you. I understand what you need.”

“And what’s my job?” she asked, her gaze falling.

“To submit to me,” he whispered, tipping up her chin, “when we’re like this. Together, in bed. At least for tonight.”

He felt a shudder run through her. “We aren’t supposed to be
like this
at all,” she said, her voice a strident whisper. “I keep telling myself, Anthony, that I’ll give you up. That I’ll say no. That I’ll stop wanting . . . what you do to me. If I’m so bloody strong, why can’t I do those things?”

“Because you are mine,” he said again, tightening his grip, “and your heart knows it—as my heart knows what you need. Isabella, do you trust me?”

She almost nodded.

He brushed his lips over hers. “I know, love, that I’m riddled with faults,” he said, “but have I ever lied to you? Failed to keep a promise? Failed to make you shudder until you were lost to the pleasure? Or even remotely misled you in any way?”

“No,” she said. “But I wish I . . . I understood you—
us
—better.”

“That aside, do you trust me to take care of you?” he pressed. “To have your interests—and the girls’ interests—at heart?”

This time her nod was stronger. “I do. And I’m sorry I struck you, but . . .”

“But I asked for it?” He smiled. “You need to make it up to me, love.”

Her face was growing pink. “How?”

“By telling me what you need,” he said, stroking the back of his hand over her cheek, “and letting me give it to you. And by doing everything I ask.”

“I . . . I need you, apparently,” she said.

He shook his head, then kissed her deep, pushing her back into the bank of pillows. He thrust slowly inside her mouth, pressing her hands into the bed, forcing her to hold still. After a moment, she sighed into his mouth, lifting herself against him.

Ah, sweet surrender—or the beginnings of it.

He tore his lips from hers and let his grip slide to her wrists. “Tell me,” he rasped, “what you need.”

“You,” she said again, “inside me.
Hard
.”

“And?”

She swallowed and looked away. He released one wrist and forced her face back into his. “Isabella, look at me,” he said. “Talk to me. What did you mean in the kitchen just now? When you called me cruel? I’m not, you know.”

“Open the chest,” she said, closing her eyes. “Just . . . open it.
Please.
”

“There’s no going back, love, if I open that secret drawer,” he said. “You will be mine to do with as I please. Unless you tell me to
stop
. And if you do, I will.
Completely
. And then I will walk out that door.”

Her eyes flew open. “And . . . never come back?”

He shook his head. “I will always come back to you,” he rasped, “until you tell me you don’t want me. Until you tell me you don’t need . . . this. But not tonight. No, I will not come back tonight.”

She shut her eyes again and swallowed hard. “You are the devil,” she choked. “Open the box.”

“No, I have a slightly different plan, my love.”

He rose onto his knees, drawers hanging seductively off his hip bones, and reached high above his head for the hook he kept hidden, tucked into the pleats of the canopy. It fell some eighteen inches, the shiny metal chain dancing a little wickedly in the moonlight.

Her eyes flew open, luminous saucers. “Th-that is
not
the box,” she said.

“No, that’s payback,” he said, swiveling around to sit on the edge of the bed.

He stood and shucked his drawers, his cock already hard. Isabella was watching him, her eyes both greedy and uneasy. He stroked a hand down his length and watched her eyes warm.

“If you are very good, my love, you can have this,” he whispered. “Where would you like it?”

“I . . . I don’t know,” she said, her innocent gaze coming up to catch his.

“Liar, Isabella,” he said, turning the chest on its axis without breaking their gaze.

“Between my legs,” she whispered, licking her lips.

“Wrong answer,” he said, leaning sideways an inch. He clicked the latch and slid out the deep, hidden drawer. He took out the little crop and his length of braided white silk—a rope of sorts, but a gentle one.

“What is the right answer?” she asked, scooting up in bed anxiously.

He tossed the rope into her lap. “Wherever I want it,” he said with a muted smile. “Say it, love, please?
I want your cock inside me, Tony—and I’ll take it wherever you choose to put it
.”

“And wh-what if I don’t?” she said. “Don’t want it in . . . a particular place?”

He shrugged. “Then I shall have to punish you,” he said evenly, “for being disobedient. Are you disobedient, Isabella? Certainly you are willful—a trait I find wildly erotic, by the way.”

“I won’t be disobedient,” she said, “—I don’t
think
.”

He laughed and took the matched set of ivory dildos from their velvet slots. “You may choose to be obedient or disobedient,” he reminded her, tossing them onto her pillows. “And you may tell me to stop. But what happens then?”

“You . . . stop?” she said.

“And leave,” he said firmly. “I won’t even let you keep my ivory pretties for comfort. And let me remind you, my love, that I am stone-cold sober. My defenses are not down. You’ll not get another easy fuck out of me tonight. Another night? Yes, no doubt. But not this one. Are we in agreement?”

She cast her gaze up at the canopy. “Are you going to . . . to chain me?”

“For a little while,” he confessed, “unless you say . . . what, love?”

“
Stop,
” she said.

“Good.” He managed to smile at her, but this was getting deadly serious. He bent down and stripped the covers back off the bed. She was still in her drawers, he realized.

“Oh, love.” He shook his head with a
tsk-tsk
. “That is
not
naked. Quite a blot on your copybook, my girl. A lesser man might crop your arse just for that.”

He was nearly certain it was disappointment he saw flicker in her eyes.

He cleared his throat a little roughly. “Actually, I feel suddenly quite . . .
lesser,
” he added. “Yes, I’d better make my point right now.”

“M-make your point?”

“That this is about you, love, giving in to me,” he said. “About remembering who is in charge. Get up, Isabella, and take those off this instant.”

She did so, scooting swiftly off the bed and untying them with fingers that were awkward beneath his gaze. The knot caught, and with it her breath, but she worked it loose, and the fine lawn whispered down her legs.

Long, slender legs that made his mouth water, and between them lay heaven’s gate.

“Come here,” he said gruffly, “and bend over my thighs.”

“Are you going to crop me?”

“Unless you say
stop,
” he said, “yes, I very much think I must. Because you were disobedient, my love. And I think you did it deliberately. Did you?”

She did not answer but instead bent dutifully over his knees and set her forehead to the coverlet almost submissively. “You
are
cruel,” she whispered.

He chuckled and picked up the crop in his right hand. “No, I am
in control,
” he said, “and that’s precisely what you need.”

Then, ever so gently, he drew the length of the black leather through the sweet cleft of her cheeks, drawing it deep enough to make her twitch.

She made a sound, the faintest moan.

“Oh, Isabella.” He withdrew the crop and gave her a stinging snap. She jumped and gave a muted cry. He tossed it back on the bed and bent low, pressing his lips to the faint pink stripe. Then he tenderly slipped his finger into her cleft, drew it down and around to give her moist nub a grazing stroke.

“
Ohh,
” she whispered.

Something carnal and untamed surged suddenly through him. “Tonight, love, you are mine,” he said, brushing the sweet, sweet spot again. “This is mine. You are mine, to take as I please. Are we agreed?”

“Y-yes,” she whispered, writhing a little.

Gently, he pushed her knees apart.

“You will taste so sweet, love,” he said, gently easing a finger into her silky passage. “I must have more of that—eventually. But for now, up with you. I need a little something.”

She lifted herself up with what felt like reluctance. “You may have whatever you please,” she said, her voice thick.

“Good girl,” he said. “I think that now I would like . . . yes, that wonderful talent of yours.” He took her hand and drew it down his length, now hard as the bedpost, and throbbing. “Yes, on your knees, my girl.”

She nodded, then almost sunk into the floor.

“Now that is a lovely sight,” he said admiringly, drawing her back up again. “Are you not going to be remotely disobedient, my love? I confess to some slight disappointment. I should very much like to sting those pale, pretty cheeks of yours again. Just enough, perhaps, to make you squirm?”

“Oh,” she said throatily.

He smiled and tugged her onto the bed. “Are you squirming, Isabella?” he asked, his voice low. “Certainly you aren’t saying
stop
yet.”

“I am not saying stop,” she agreed, her breasts wobbling seductively as she crawled onto the bed.

“Then between my legs, wench, and on your knees.”

He turned and propped himself like some grand pasha against her pillows, one arm behind his head, looking down his chest at her. She came up the mattress on hands and knees, and settled between his legs, her curtain of silken hair teasing over his thigh. Taking him into her warm, capable hands, she sucked his head into her mouth.

His whole body jerked, causing him to hiss between his teeth.

For an instant, she flicked her gaze up, eyes wide.

“Don’t stop,” he moaned, thrusting his fingers into her hair to still her from pulling back. “Oh, Isabella. So, oh . . . just . . .
don’t
stop.”

Good it was—and yet still artless. But she didn’t stop. For long moments, Isabella stroked him, wrapping her fingers around his shaft and letting her lips slide over his head, gently raking her teeth across his heated flesh.

Dear God,
he thought.
It could feel no better than this.

It was so bloody easy, he knew, for a chap to fancy himself in headlong love when a woman was on her knees with his cock buried deep in her mouth. But Hepplewood was not such a fool as all that; he’d had countless lovers doing precisely this—and nearly all of them better at it.

And yet not as good. No, not nearly. And as Isabella drew him deep with her sweet and unpracticed strokes, and he felt release edging nearer and nearer until it was all but thrumming through him, he
knew
that he was in love. Truly and deeply so.

And he knew it was no misjudgment; that it had nothing to do with gratitude for some fleeting, physical pleasure. No, it was real—desperately so—and he knew, too, that he would take her on whatever terms she laid out. That the moment of cold fear he’d felt in the kitchen was probably going to pale to what would happen to him in the end.

Yes, in the end, he would be the one on his knees.

He would be the one begging. For her.
For this.

He fisted one hand in the sheets and let Isabella suck the sweet release right through him, his loins jerking with it, his abdomen seizing tight as a washboard as he felt his seed flood forth, his bollocks spasming.

When he returned from the heights of sensual bliss, it was to find her cheek resting on his stomach and her hand set to his heart.

“You feel so strong,” she murmured, turning her head to kiss the trail of dark hair down his belly. “You feel so . . . blatantly
male,
Anthony.”

He managed to laugh. “I think you like that, Isabella,” he said. “Get up, love. I want to look at you—for to my mind, there was never a woman more blatantly female.”

She pushed back up onto her knees, her fingers splayed upon his chest. He felt blindly beside him and found the white silk rope. “Yes, let’s put you on display, my love,” he managed, tossing it to her. “Kindly tie one end of that rope to each of your wrists.”

She curled her legs under her and sat up. “I . . . don’t think I can,” she said.

“Are you saying
stop
?” he asked very quietly. “Or are you being disobedient?”

Something dark glittered in her gaze. “Not stop,” she managed, “but I don’t know how to tie both . . .”