My Lady Gambled (24 page)

It was one thing to act like a pagan minx next to Brynmore, but alone it was an unnatural and nerve-wracking gamble. Abruptly, realization that her breasts were bare, but for some powder and stain on the nipples, shivered through her, until the desires seized her to cower and hide. She was practically naked in a room full of people! Kit began pulling up the end of her leash slowly as she slid glances around to see if anyone was noticing her standing on the edges of the dancing area like she was lost. She saw at once several men in different locations around her were very aware of her as her gaze leapt back anxiously to Brynmore’s retreating back.

Brynmore stopped nearer to Dame Baset, but did not approach so close that she would notice him quite yet. He did not lack confidence as a man in gaining and holding a woman’s attention and then turning it to interest. He had done it many times, usually through bantering humor. This was not a humorous situation. Nor did he believe that he could come close to gaining Dame Baset’s interest with frivolity.

Bloody hell, the fact was that he had never simply point-blank approached any woman that he had to have find him intriguing. Brynmore watched the man trying to gain Dame Baset’s attention. The man was young and although not close enough, Brynmore imagined hearing the youth begging. Dame Baset was bored. Her heavily rouged lips pursed with boredom and her blue painted eyelids drooped with it.

Brynmore knew she had to be experienced beyond even his masculine knowledge of sexual diversity. There was no hope for it, he just going to have to leap through his hesitations and try. However, at the last instant, inspiration struck him. Who was the most mysterious, hard to get along with, brooding, taciturn man he knew, and therefore piqued every one of the Archangel ladies interests? Ravenscar. All the Archangel men had chuckled together and remarked on their ladies trying to act causal, but being fascinated with the aloof Ravenscar.

Brynmore had an image of Ravenscar expertly wielding a whip, flicking it about the lady’s ankles, until she moved where he wanted her. Blimey! He could not do that, he was not a connoisseur of whips, but he could borrow some of Ravenscar’s sardonic methods.

Dame Baset’s gaze, filled with ennui, finally slid in his direction. Brynmore lowered his eyelids to restrained predatory glaring as he crossed his arms over his lower chest, pulling tight his upper chest muscles and expanding the sinew in his arms. Dame Baset’s gaze passed him, then returned. Brynmore did not move, he just stared at her, with a suppressed cauldron of passion filling his gaze, ah-la-Ravenscar.

Suddenly, he had the lady’s attention, so by the seat of his pants, with no planning, but in pure Ravenscar style he stalked toward Dame Baset. Luck was with him, because the music changed its throbbing beat to one with a tad more melody in it. He had to do something and the only thing he could think of to surprise Dame Baset was to tug her into a lewd dance without asking. Ravenscar would not dance, but he would remain chill-ing and intensely quiet with his aura focused intently on the object of his interest.

Dame Baset struggled, with weak attempts, as her callow admirer fell back with startled indignation, a question poised on his lips, then with pithy, but paltry orders that Brynmore should halt his abduction. 

Brynmore disdainfully ignored him, carrying Dame Baset along with him into the dancers, as she exclaimed, “You dare so much!”

Brynmore resolutely remained silent, as Ravenscar would do. Instead, he used his gaze and features to bore into Dame Baset. She was short to his height, but wore shoes with extremely high heels. His attempt at sexual ferocity met her eyes as he looked down on her face turned up to his, while her ponderous breasts piled into his rib cage. Unfortunately it left his prick, thankfully still hard from Kit’s attention, not poised directly across from Dame Baset’s mound, but more around her belly.

His intentions were to prod Dame Baset’s interest with it. Her belly would do, he decided as he unlatched his hands from her waist and lowered them to grab her abundant ass cheeks with his hands. He lifted, as she made an off-key rumble at him, but sniped no further words, keeping her gaze locked onto his as he rolled his hips gradually and pressured his prick with tempered prods to the primitive beat of the music. Her nails grazed down his upper arms and he let his gaze spike, gaining more barbarity as he growled low in his throat, undulating around with slow-pitching movements.

Dame Bastes indescribable irises flared. She had enough interest to be wondering about him. He shifted his hands, leaving just one to grab her ass, lifting the other to her nape beneath the curls of the blonde wig she wore. Aggressively, he grabbed her nape, between the stretch of his finger and thumb, pulling back to the side, arching her neck.

An inarticulate protest leapt from her as he dropped his head, with teeth bared to the side of her throat. He bit down just shy of drawing blood, increasing his hips heavy humping as she screeched a small sound. He lapped and bit, lapped and then bit again, his nostrils filling with her sickly sweet scent. Then abruptly, he pulled back and let her weight down fully onto her heels. One second to make sure she would not fall, and then he stepped back.

He glared at her. “You know where to find me,” he said, low and arrogantly. “For blood sex only, pretty cunt.”

Brynmore whipped around and stalked away. He dare not look back to see if she considered following. It would be a leap if she did and he prepared for it in case, when he did stop, he found her trailing him. His eyes darted, looking for Kit and he did not see her at once. He needed her to enact something when he arrived. Then he caught sight of a swatch of her short blonde hair, but in the next moment it disappeared again amid the dancers.

It appeared the crowd was becoming more enlivened and edgy as he glimpsed people beginning to have sex beneath the heavy beats of the music. More liquor, opium, and cannabis smoke, made for raised heartbeats. He knew it would reach a mass crescendo, becoming more openly hedonistic as the night progressed. The crowd parted and he saw Kit’s undulating dance, with the rest of the dancers. Men tried to crowd close, but she swayed away from any heavy contact, still hands  touched. It appeared to Brynmore several men were becoming close to aligning a combined effort to tame and seize the elusive temptress.

Brynmore found himself very proud of Kit—that she did not cower or shrink away from making her presence known in The Satyr Whip Club, at the same moment he wanted to solidly punch several men. It was a gigantic hurdle, for a respectable lady such as Kit, to find the courage and ability to do this. It was something so outside her upbringing and morality. But he was grateful his time with Dame Baset had not lasted one second longer.

“Pet!” he shouted above the music as he halted. “Here! Now!” he commanded.

Kit’s eyes leapt to him, and then she practically leaped again, breaking away from the inner circle of dancers surrounding her. Brynmore motioned, moving his hand straight out, then pushing it downward. He did it twice as she rushed to him and he hoped that she could decipher his meaning. In the mean time he glared, establishing his ownership with the men that might try to follow her.

Kit was nothing if not quickly intelligent and she landed on her knees at his feet, just where he had wanted her. He hated that she had to grovel, but she snaked around his upper thighs keeping his line of vision free to look back. Their reunion presented just that interesting sight that Brynmore hoped for. Kit petting and rubbing over his lower torso like an enamored pet seeking attention from her arrogant master.

Brynmore’s gaze collided with Dame Baset’s. She had followed, partially, but halted a good distance away to observe him. He sneered with his lips, while he gazed at her with sexual fire banked in his irises. To accomplish that fire he thought of making love to Kit, of licking her honey cleft. He watched as the hills of Dame Baset’s lax breasts heaved. She was affected and intrigued, but then abruptly Dame Baset turned, fading back into the crowd.

“Bloody hell,” Brynmore swore sharply.

“Good evening. I’m Madame Venus, proprietress of our wicked little club.”

Brynmore turned to the clear soprano voice as Kit rose from her groveling to slink against his side. The woman was nearly as tall as he and she was beautiful with startling copper hair. She wore more clothing than most and was gowned in a lovely dark red dress with spangles and a plunging neckline.

Brynmore nodded a light bow, gazing at the woman’s abnormally long false eyelashes. “Madame Venus, Lord Duneagan and my lover Miss Montoya,” Brynmore introduced. This was standard fare, the proprietor’s self-introduction. Never visiting a club like this before he relied on Nia’s acquaintance, Madame Lily who told him what to expect and who helped them gain the invitation to the club, also suggesting the amount of a gratuity they expected him to offer. The Archangels following discussions on the matter had boldly tripled that amount and they unanimously decided that Brynmore should use his real name and not bandy forth a theoretical one to this key person.

“Delicious,” Madame Venus said.

Brynmore reached into his inner cloak pocket and pulled out the ridiculously large stack of folded money, presenting it to Madame Venus, as he intoned, “I am pleased.”

Madame Venus’s eyelashes fluttered at the amount, obviously impressed. “Enchante,my lord, you and your lady are always welcome here.”

Madame Venus grasped the money, curtsied slightly, beginning her turn to leave. “One favor,” Brynmore added, stepping closer to Madame Venus. “The lady’s husband,” Brynmore nodded to Kit, “Nick Ralston, an American, it would upset me to see him here and we intend to visit here regularly.”

Madame Venus’s hand lifted to touch Brynmore’s arm, the money gone from her fingers in a slight-of-hand movement. “Of course, my lord, you have my word. You will not be bothered.” Madame Venus nodded slightly. “Enjoy your evening.” Then she moved tactfully away, onto further collection rounds.

“That went well,” Brynmore said under his breath as he turned partially toward Kit so only she would hear him.

“Yes,” Kit replied lowly, using the same method of glancing around as they spoke. “What of Dame Baset?”

Brynmore clasped the end of the leash from Kit’s hand. “I caught her interest. Time will tell.”

“Excellent. What now?” Kit asked, beginning to rub against him. “Things are becoming heated here.”

That was an understatement, Brynmore thought. People were beginning to do all styles of unique dance fucking as the music became wilder and heavy. Just the effects of the smoke in the room, was making him feel as if his skin was pounding. “We’ll cavort through the rest of the chamber, seeing what there is to see, pet.”

Kit nodded, sliding up his body and licking his ear lobe. He slid an arm around her back with his hand clasping over one of her supple buttocks. He leaned in close swaying with her to the thrum of the music. “Bare your throat,” he ordered.

Kit arched her neck and he dropped his mouth to her jugular vein. The pulse beat wildly against his tongue as he arched her spine back and made a great show of sucking there. So sweet, warm, and satiny against his tongue. They continued on swaying and rolling against each other as they moved, many times leaning up to suck each other’s neck. Kit made a great show of laughing on and off, as if they were caught in the thrill of a grand time. All this, while they kept glancing around seeing what they could see, while fighting the effects of the smoke, and while trying to restrain the sexual tensions they kept enticing in each other.

Kit was the first to see him in the midst of one man sucking another man’s cock on one side of them, two women laying on the floor licking each other’s sex on another side, and a woman being mated from the rear on the third side. Through the mess of gyrating bodies, Kit glimpsed startling white. She pressured Brynmore that way with her own oscillat-ing body, sticky with perspiration against Brynmore.

“It’s him,” Kit hissed, rocking against Brynmore and nipping his ear as she spoke. Kit was not certain what she might feel first laying her eyes on an evil mass murderer and one that had killed her brother. What happened was the daze she had been in, of sexual upheaval, half-altered mind state because of narcotic smoke, and the undulating furnace of bodies around her—vanished with a sharp jolt.

Aghast, she found tears of fury in her eyes. She hadn’t realized she could hate so fiercely. She clutched Brynmore, gazing furious, tear-stained daggers at the gaunt, hoary visage of Hellion. He was half-reclined using large low-slung red velvet pillows as a backdrop. It made his head-to-toe sterling white appearance more jolting. He was reclining in leisure with one leg bent, one straight, an opulent bejeweled silver chalice in one hand that he sipped from. The entire scene was as if he had set up court to observe the throng a bit below him. One very young nude man groveled at Hellion’s side, feeding Hellion pieces of fruit when Hellion bid him.

Hellion’s gaze slid from those speaking close around him out into the center of the club with regular interest. His pink eyes filled Kit with sickly aversion and she wondered how anyone could gaze at him in close proximity without revulsion. He wore white robes lined with white fur, folded open, showing beneath white britches and a shirt with a large medallion hanging in the center of his chest.

Kit grappled with compulsions to let loose the dagger strapped to her inner forearm and rush forward to plunge it above the medallion into Hellion’s heart. She literally snarled with the overpowering urge to do it, and she started to jerk away from Brynmore, driven by the intense emotions that were completely unknown to her. 

“No!” Brynmore hissed, grasping her, then wresting her back into the savagely upbeat sounds of numerous drums and sharp organ music. “Use it,” Brynmore uttered, shaking her, making her gaze leap upward to his. “Use it on me,” he snarled at her with as much fierceness as she felt.

Did he know that she could not think coherently as she fought against his restraint? They were twirling in a slow tumbling circle as she scratched his chest and shoved against him. “Let me go! Let me be done with it! Let me kill him now and leave all this useless devising!”