The Next Best Bride (23 page)

She decided to appeal to the amused portion of his emotions. "Why? Have you been a naughty boy?"

Before he could answer, she raised the brush to her own hair and began plying it slowly and thoroughly from her scalp to the ends which fell like silk nearly to her waist.

Amusement won the battle and his smile reached his eyes and the dimple appeared. "Do you intend to try to lull me into a safe sleep before you release me?"

Lifting the brush again, she exaggerated the arch of her back and her breasts as her arm rose and fell. She was rewarded for her efforts by seeing his jaw drop. When the sash of her dressing gown slipped loose, she let the gown fall open. Slide down one shoulder. She saw his throat work and felt a flush of triumph.

Slowly and thoroughly, she brushed her hair as he watched and responded involuntarily to the sight. The gown slipped further to reveal cleavage. Reveal one breast.

He shuddered convulsively and then closed his eyes. "You will not win."

She saw the progress she had made wilt before her eyes. Desperation made her ask softly, "What would you have done to me if I were lying there?"

He refused to answer. Refused to open his eyes and look at her. Stubborn man. Stubborn, dangerous man, now that she had tied him up.

Well, if he had closed his eyes to the sight of her, there was only one chance left. "Let me tell you, then, since you will not tell me." She would use her tongue in one of the ways he had taught her. "You would kiss me."

He did not respond. But the movement of his belly as he lay before her indicated his breath came shallow and rapid.

She closed her eyes, focusing on what she was saying. "Yes. You would certainly begin by kissing me." What had moved him yesterday? She could not remember. "Where would you kiss me first? My mouth. Yes. My shoulders. Yes. My breasts? Oh, especially my breasts. You would use your tongue. Your wicked tongue."

She opened her eyes when he let out a half-suppressed groan. To her pleasure, she saw that his interest had definitely burgeoned as she spoke. "I love your tongue my lord. When you talk, when you kiss, when you use me as your canvas."

He opened his eyes with a groan. "You will kill me."

"That is not my intent. I only want to please you. Why do you refuse to teach me? Have I not done well at my other lessons?"

She could see his desire still warring with the last of his anger. "Your teacher wishes he had taught you nothing."

She let her dressing gown slip to the floor and tossed the brush to the bed. "My teacher seems to have lost his courage. If only he would tell me what he wishes me to do. I will see it done."

He lay still, fighting the battle between his mind and his member again. His mind was losing at the moment, but for how much longer she could not guess.

Helena knew which side she wished to win this particular battle. And there was one more lesson of his that she could use against him. "Perhaps I appeal to the wrong part of you, my lord. I should make my case to the lord of pleasure, should I not?" She climbed onto the bed and reached out to stroke him. To wrap her hand —

He leaped at her touch and let out a gasp. "Don't." His voice held a plea. Even his gaze begged her to stop. But he did not fight her as he had before.

He watched her, his breath held. His eyes could not hide the truth from her now. His gaze revealed how her touch gave pleasure, so she stroked him again. Squeezed her fingers and saw the change in him as he surrendered to his desire.

She smiled and squeezed harder. "What do you like, my lord. Tell me and I shall see it done."

Having given in to his desire, his anger was quickly replaced by sensual awareness. He stretched under her hand, moving his hips as if to guide the rhythm of her hand. His dimple flashed deep in his cheek and he laughed raggedly. "I like riding you."

"You do." She leaned close to whisper in his ear and stretch herself long against him even as she kept up the stroking motion of her fingers. "But we are not speaking of how you please yourself, my lord. We are speaking of what I might do to please you."

His gaze was calculating, as if he wondered how far she might dare go. "There are so many ways."

She kissed him. "Tell me." A waterfall of daring seemed to rage inside her. She kissed him again, teasing his tongue with hers.

He turned his head, breaking the kiss gently to murmur against her ear, "I judge you have mastered that pleasure."

She squeezed him again. "Then what is another?"

"Your hand..." He blew out a harsh breath. "More."

She squeezed him harder. "Like this?"

He moved beneath her hand, restless. "Harder."

Harder? Was he certain, or had he lost all sense? "I don't want to hurt you."

"Use your thumb." He ordered, his voice husky.

She squeezed harder with her thumb. "Like this?"

He nodded, his gaze fastened on her face intently. "In circles. Across the tip."

She watched for every nuance of expression as she followed his direction. He closed his eyes as a shudder ran through him. "Yes."

For a long moment she gave herself up to her caress, studying his face carefully to gauge the effects of her work. His breathing became rapid, though he did not close his eyes again.

His gaze unsettled her and she turned her own away to focus on giving him pleasure. In a moment she saw that two hands would be better than one. His lingering groan confirmed her decision. She glanced up to find him watching her with a dazed approval that lit a fire in her depths.

After a while, she kissed his navel as he had kissed her in the bower. His shocked intake of breath sent an answering shock of remembered pleasure through her groin. She pulled away for a moment, startled at her own reaction.

He watched her with knowing eyes. "Do you see the problem now? Pleasure given is pleasure received as well? Untie me and I can show you what I mean."

She shook her head. If she untied him, he could still be angry enough to seek revenge if she were within reach. A sensual revenge, but she greatly feared she would not survive it nonetheless. It would be wisest if she did not let him go until she had brought him to his climax, and he had succumbed to the drowsiness that overcame him then.

She bit his ear lightly. "What else?"

Frustration tinged his words. "Nothing you would dare."

"Try me."

His grin twisted and his eyes lit with challenge. "Use your mouth."

"My mouth?" She hesitated. Could he mean...? She almost refused, until she saw that he expected her refusal.

She bent low, brought her lips near his rigid member.

And then, just before she touched him, she turned her head, brushing the tip of his member lightly with her cheek, her hair.

She looked into his passion-hazed eyes. "Do you mean that I can kiss you here, as I kiss you elsewhere?"

"I do." Rand felt the silken brush of her hair and fought to retain what little measure of control he could, trussed like a Christmas goose. He didn't believe she would do it. Not proper little Helena. Of course, he hadn't thought she would keep him bound like this, either. Or touch him with the skill of a first class courtesan.

"I want to please my teacher." She smiled, the knowledge of what she was doing to him clear in her eyes.

He gave a half-hearted tug at his bonds. "Don't let me stop you."

She turned her attention back to her lesson. Her hair brushed over him once more in a silken torment. Her lips touched him light as butterfly wings.

She was killing him. He would be dead before morning, he knew it. He would wager on it if the room wasn't spinning so wildly.

Her tongue.

He was never more glad that he had taught her to use her tongue so well in other areas. She applied what she had learned from him before to this new lesson. He groaned.

Her mouth was hot and wet. Her breath blew against him as she asked again, "What else?"

Afraid she would bring his release before they joined, he urged her, "Ride me Helena, as I ride you."

"Ride you?" She looked curious at the suggestion.

He wanted more than curiosity to light her face, he realized. "Straddle me. Ride me. No side saddle here." He bucked his hips, making the delicious pressure of her hands nearly unbearable.

She climbed on, hesitant and then bold.

"Up and down," he coaxed. "As I would do if I were riding you."

She moved obediently, every move delicious to him. But there was no pleasure in her face, only concentration.

He didn't want her like this. He didn't want to be the only one caught up in the moment. He needed to convince her to free him. "I want to touch you. To please you. Undo the cords."

A wary shake of her head made him want to curse. "You would not keep your promise if I untied you. We both know that."

He did not argue. She was right. "If you will not untie me so that I can touch you, you must do it for me."

"What?" She blushed.

Could he push her past her willingness to explore? Would that convince her to release him? Did he even want her to release him any longer? "Touch yourself."

She ceased her rocking motions. He was not certain she still breathed until she let out a rush of breath. "No."

"No?" A certain disappointment shuddered through him, though he had not really expected her to be bold enough to follow his suggestion. He gave her a mocking smile meant to infuriate her. "You're not ruthless enough, my love."

Her expression changed and he felt her body tense over him, felt her clench around him in some angry parody of orgasm. She left him then. Gone from his bed. Gone from his room in a space of time so short he thought he might have dreamed the whole encounter. Except that he was still bound. And he ached for release in more ways than one.

Chapter Eighteen

She returned and he ceased trying to free himself. She glared at him and he realized he had tapped a beast he had not perceived lurking beneath her sweet exterior. "I am ruthless enough for you, my lord." She was as angry as a goddess scorned. "And I am not your love."

"It is just an expression." An unfortunate expression, he realized belatedly. "I did not mean it."

"I am quite certain you did not mean it." She climbed back onto the bed with a silk wrapped bundle. "I know that I am not your love."

Apprehensively, he eyed the bundle, wondering what it held. Knives? Was his sweet Helena a torture master in disguise? He should not have let himself forget she was Ros's sister.

"You have convinced me that I will never be your love." She put her palm warm against his chest. "But I am your wife. Sworn to obedience, although you have released me from any such vow after I give you your son and heir. Am I correct?"

He nodded obediently, as he might have done for his governess. A feeling he had never had before in bed with a naked woman. And hoped fervently never to have again.

"You wish, beloved —" Her eyes lit with anger. "No. Let me begin again. You wish, husband, for me to touch myself so that you will have pleasure?"

"If you will not let me touch you, then you must do what I would do, if I were not bound." Despite the oddity of their situation, or perhaps because of it, he felt a dizzy rush of pleasure at the thought she might do as he asked.

"Tell me where." Using his bare chest as a worktable, she unrolled the silk to reveal several paintbrushes. She took one with a fat head of soft bristles and lifted it as if she would paint upon a canvas. Instead, she plied the brush lightly over her lips. "Here, my lord?"

She moved the brush to tickle her ear. "Or here?"

"Your breasts." His throat was dry and his interest had returned.

"Very well. Without warning, she straddled him, encompassed him slowly. Clung to him.

While he was still mastering the shocking pleasure, she waved the brush. "Here?" She skimmed the brush across the tops of her right breast, around the perimeter, down into her navel and back up over the left breast.

As if it were his own fingers, his own tongue that touched her, his breath came harshly in his throat. He forced one word from his tight throat. "Nipples."

She frowned. "This brush is not right for such a delicate task." She caressed his cheek with the fat bristled brush she held and dropped it to his chest.

She tested the bristles of another, more slender brush and then dropped it back as well.

"How is this, then?" She took a brush with what looked like only five or six long whip like bristles and grazed it across his lips.

"Perfect." His breath caused the bristles to tickle his chin.

"If you say so, my lord." That brush she teased across her nipples. Circling. Twirling.

Again, he could see that she took little pleasure in her actions. All because she clung to the hope that love was not a foolish myth and denied herself the pleasures of the flesh. "Bend down to me. My tongue is the best brush of all for your canvas."

She smiled and shook her head. "Not tonight. Tonight I use my brushes on you."

"And what do I do?" He had never felt this helpless surrender to pleasure before. Though it was undeniably enjoyable, it was frustrating as well. He wanted to please her, but he could not.

She smiled and clenched her muscles tightly around him as she arched her back. "Enjoy the ride." Her eyes were as dark as sin, and he thought she might have had more pleasure than she'd expected from the movement because they widened as if in surprise.

He moved himself against her, hoping to catch her unawares. "How can you look like an angel and turn into such a devil?"

She clenched tight around him again, this time he was certain she did so involuntarily in reaction to his movement. But instead of letting herself give in to pleasure, she grew angry with him. "Is that not what you mean for me to become?"

"You could never be a devil."

"No?" She dropped the brush which had been teasing her nipples and picked up another. Do you not teach me these lessons for your pleasure — and mine — and that of my future lovers?" Lightly, she ran the brush across her collarbone, down between her breasts and played it around the depression of her navel.