My Lady Gambled (16 page)

If he could …

Kit paced the bedchamber, bracketing forearm over forearm in front of herself, as the long blue chiffon nightgown she wore swished around her bare feet. Earlier today, in Drummond’s study it had been decided that she should move into Brynmore’s townhouse where she was now, still awake at midnight in one of the three bedchambers. The one right next to Brynmore’s master bedchamber suite.

Well, Drummond had decided, while both she and Brynmore had remained mute on the subject. What was there to say? They were going to portray that they were involved in an adulterous affair with each other. A kinky affair.

Lord, but she still could not stop thinking about the fetishes that Brynmore had so bluntly stated earlier today. Kit stopped her pacing when she reached the window and she slid the drape aside slightly, gazing out into the foggy darkness. Her eyes were immediately drawn to a patch of light reflecting against the misty fog. At first she thought it was light from her curtained window, then she realized her curtain would dispel that and her gaze turned. It was from Brynmore’s bedchamber beside hers. He was still awake.

“Am I surprised?” she asked.

After his first outbursts in the study Brynmore had closed inward and became the typical stoic male. His demeanor seemed to be that he could care less what sexual indecencies he might have to perform. He was more concerned with life and death issues.

While she agreed that staying alive was of the utmost importance, she also wondered if he could remain aloof about the sexual side of this without piercing his masculine armor. She wanted to believe that men were also sensitive about their sexual intimacies and inclinations. Oh, she knew men from working on a large ranch with rough and tumble frontier’s men, men who could be gregarious and outspoken about sex and women, the type of bravado only men seemed to acquire. She had always hoped it was just ego around other boasting males and not a fact. Nonetheless, men were thicker skinned about this and she had to admit it to herself and deal with it. What she was going to have to do was find large amounts of bravado herself, pretend that she did not care. It was either that or be the most consummate actress ever. 

“I can do that.” She expelled the words sharply, letting the curtain drop as she returned to her pacing. “To start with, I had better stop examining it right now and stop caring what my feelings are one way or the other.” Kit knew that she needed to care about results and maneuver-ing with intelligence and slyness, not care about what might happen to her personally and how she felt about it. What she needed to do was to try to remain numb to it.

“All right,” Kit nodded, agreeing with herself, as she continued to pace. “I will make a private deal, here and now. I will not let any of the difficult things affect me. I will force myself to brush them off and I will not allow myself to deal with it until this is over.”

Then you can pick up the pieces, rang in Kit’s mind, however she refused to acknowledge that thought. She was beginning from this moment forward and that meant she must shove those thoughts behind her and move forward to her next dilemma.

“No dilemma,” she chided. “No, this is just intelligent planning.”

She understood that she probably did not have an inkling about what type of things—sexual things, she made herself add the difficult word. Kit gritted her teeth, but continued her thoughts. She probably had no real understanding of what sexual deeds she might have to perform to become part of The Order. Even so, she did know that she was going to portray Brynmore’s lover, while entering a sexual hive with him by her side posing as her favored partner. She would have to act as if she were overly attracted and intimate with him. Not that she could see too much trouble with that. However, the whole of it dictated an intimacy and comfortable awareness of each other that she and Brynmore did not have.

Yet …

That was the whole point that she was half avoiding, while half strenuously convincing herself to accept. She had to have sex with Brynmore. Now! Before they went in. It was the only way that she would have a chance to convince the patrons of The Order about this act they intended to put on. And, if she were going to have bravado and pose as unaffected, then she needed to not dissect this but just do it!

Kit turned toward the door to her bedchamber. Then, when she reached the door to Brynmore’s bedchamber suite, she stopped with her hand raised to knock. She had no idea how she was suppose to act, how she was suppose to go about this or how to initiate sex. Be that as it may, that was the point! She needed to get a handle on what she needed to do.

“An … and, this will be like practice,” she muttered.

So she was just going to have to pretend. Also she had a feeling that it was past time to start because she could foresee large amounts of it in her future. Any other feelings she had she brushed aside, shutting the inner door on them for the interim. The conduct she was going to assemble was going to be the boldest action ever attempted in her life.

Brynmore turned his head to the knock on his door. He was sprawled, shirtless on top of the bed linens, with his hands propped behind his head. 

He had been thinking about his plans, brooding and too restless with introspection to sleep. He still had his boots on with half an idea to take an early morning wander outside go anywhere to clear out and center his thoughts. Aye, he had been brooding and restless, half the time fighting the persistent knowledge that Kit was in the bedchamber next to his. His quietly intense planning in the undercurrents of his mind had yielded a few answers. Too little for the amount needed, but it was a start.

Startled at the sound from the knock on his door, it blanked everything from his mind, except for the fact that it could only be one person who was knocking. Kit. Then, the facts of that knowledge flashed visions of Kit, wholly nude, right to his groin. “Bloody hell!” he swore under his breath, banishing the image to Hades as he stopped his body from instinctually lifting upright. Nay, he forced himself to lie still and play impervious male to this new and unexpected turn of events. He could not imagine what the lass could want past midnight, while the devilish male lust inside provided a thought. She wants you.

Brynmore grimaced at his inevitable baser side, as he called, “Come in, whoever you be.”

Through slitted eyes, Brynmore watched the door open. His gaze first caught wisps of gossamer blue, until his sight took in the whole of what entered his bedchamber on bare feet. His cock instantly thumped and he felt his entire muscular structure tense with an explosion of lust, quickly followed by reins of restraint. He fought to remain lying unaffected on the bed, while his belly muscles rippled and his breath hooked for one long second. Only his eyes would not obey his restraint as he devoured the sight of Kit swaying softly into the room, wearing a seductive see-through fluffy night gown. It was see-through when she moved further into the room, stopping between the bed and the door putting the light from the flames in the fireplace behind her. He could see the distinction of her legs leading upward to the succulent promise of the sultry cove between her thighs. His gaze traced the shadowy thatch between, following the slender curve of her hips, up to the bottom of her breasts etched in half circles. Her breasts showing soft, but firmly shaped conical mounds, clinging outwardly in the see-through light blue material. Brynmore crossed his heavy knee-high booted feet at the ankles with a flummoxing of nonchalance as his gaze halted on dusky nipple circles and tips taunt and jutting.

In his peripheral vision he picked up soft buttercup-colored waves of short blonde hair framing Kit’s comely oval face. He knew her lips were lush, her eyes smoky colored, but anxious and the desires that made him a man shouted that she was here for sex.

He was lust-stung, but also stunned. Caught off guard by this advance. Perhaps, if he had one chance of thinking forthrightly, he could comprehend the reasons for Kit’s barely clad presence in his bedchamber past midnight. But, his mind was latched onto dark, sweaty, and vigorous couplings. He was bloody lucky to still be lying on the bed and not leaping forward to consume Kit right on the floor.

“We …we have to talk,” Kit said, with a voice that sounded half-whispered huskiness to him.

Talk! Right, he thought. “Do ye often want to talk to men while yer fairly nude in their bedchamber, lass?” Brynmore watched Kit’s right hand jerk, lift, then press, palm down over her lower belly near the top of her mound. His upper lip curled as his inner thighs twitched with one heated tremor.

“I … I,” Kit hesitated, then she seemed to find a firmer voice. “Yes, for this I do,” she finished.

Well hell, Brynmore thought. All that left him with was a hard prick, still wondering what the bloody hell she was up to. Brynmore muttered a curse under his breath as he lifted upright and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He was amazed he managed to stop there with his boot heels making a soft thud on the plush rug laid out on the wooden flooring. As he moved, he watched Kit falter, stepping backward.

The chest of a bull rider or a weighty wrestler was all Kit could think. She had never seen a man’s bared chest as magnificent or appealing to her senses. Her gaze skittered from the molded mounds of sinew, covered like a pelt of fur with dark brown hair, up to Brynmore’s eyes of green-edged potency. Kit felt her body flush as if an internal moan of desire swept through her at the bridled lust shimmering in Brynmore’s eyes. She tried to catch her bearings. No man had ever looked at her like this before and she had never gazed upon a man’s physique, his presence, that she wanted so much.

Except for the abundance of hair on his face and hanging loose just above his shoulders. That part of him between his incredible eyes and his brawny fit chest, looked like a bristly bear. Her ardor did not really care, as images of rubbing naked all over him flashed through her mind. Kit shoved that aside, trying to retain control. She had to be strong, confident, and in control. Not a besotted fool in Brynmore’s hands. So she latched onto that bush of hair Brynmore had on his face to gain control, even as she was secretly amazed that she was able to pull off her words and manner.

“You need to shave,” Kit asserted, tilting her head in what she hoped was a seductive manner as she let one sleeve of her nightgown fall off her shoulder giving it a slight undulation, until it hung above her elbow.

“I do?” Brynmore smirked at her.

“If we are to have sex you do!” Kit blurted out. She could not believe that she was doing this.

Brynmore laughed once, outright and sharply, moving the mounded muscles on his chest. Kit’s temper flared instantly. “Sex?” Brynmore said. “If anything, we will naught but fuck, lass.”

The word Brynmore used struck like lightening in Kit’s mind and then sizzled down through her body straight into her sex. Oh lord! This man would fuck. And, a woman would feel it to her core, she thought. Instead, she struggled to act brazen and confident, running the tip of her tongue slowly over her lips, even though they trembled. Kit imagined only she was aware of the trembling and that Brynmore could not see it. However, something did affect him as she saw his gaze riveted to her lips.

“So you have realized that to fool The Order, we have to fuck now to gain some pretense of intimacy?” Kit wished that she had a glass of water to gulp. Nevertheless she said the whole without a hitch, especially that one prurient word, while her hand slid caressingly over one hip.

“No,” Brynmore said, cutting the word sharply like the edge of a knife. Then he stood, walking toward her. It took every ounce of willpower Kit possessed not to retreat, but she stood firm, until Brynmore’s presence shrouded her with his heat and male scent. He stopped so close in front of her that Kit had to tilt her chin upward to look at him. Her mouth opened to argue, but Brynmore’s voice continued, stopping her.

“We’ll have to fuck like rabbits from now until then to fool anyone that ye are anything but a shy—nay, sweet wife!”

Kit’s hand leaped upward and back gathering strength, then began to swing before she realized that she could be capable of striking anyone. It was pure, furious instinct! A flash reaction and Brynmore caught her hand before she could come in contact with his face. Yet her voice was not halted, as she angrily exclaimed, “How dare you insinuate anything about me! You … you barbarous bear!”

Brynmore tugged her hand captured beneath his large paw and she toppled forward to land against his chest. “I’ll dare anything, lass and ye’ll let me! That is the point. And, this fire you are showing, that is what we need. Tis more seasoned and worldly.”

Kit wanted to stomp on Brynmore’s foot—or punch him in the gut. How dare he call her attitude sexually inexperienced and unsophisticated? Only other sensations were snatching her attention, like her sheerly veiled breasts rolling against Brynmore’s chest. The heat radiating off him was incredible as his free hand landed on her bottom. A big hand with fingers splayed, some right over the crease as he grabbed hold and lifted her lower body against him. Her mound pressed vividly over a hard ridge beneath his britches.

Kit wanted to fight Brynmore, to push away, as her confused mind asked anxiously, where were the kisses and the long romantic buildup that any woman deserved and desired? Yet she banished those feelings. She had to show Brynmore that she was made of tougher spirit than he imagined. She could masquerade worldly attitudes, with the cold-hearted best of them. Besides, she was uncommonly furious. It was like a challenge that she had to beat Brynmore. More—she wanted to dominate Brynmore and take control and show the handsome, brawny oaf he had met his match!

So Kit ignored the fire in her loins, the biting pleasure in her nipple tips and the aches in her firming breasts. If she yielded to those sensations too much, it would make her weak and pliable beneath Brynmore’s hands. And, it seemed as if he understood her intention of coming here without further explanation. It seemed he agreed wordlessly to the idea, but also he envisioned much more. Well, she would not shy away or back down. She could do this.