Read My Lady Series Bundle Online
Authors: Shirl Anders
Tags: #regency spies, #Historical Romance, #Regency Romance, #Romance, #Regency, #Gothic, #gothic romance, #military, #Multicultural & Interracial, #Literature & Fiction
Their gazes collided as he thrust upward piercing her inner sheath with his hot thick mass as she screamed in passionate acceptance. "Yes," he hissed, lifting her buttocks upward, and then dropping her again roughly over his stabbing shaft. Her wail was sharp and excited. Wyndham suddenly dropped backward on his elbows just as he jerked his hip upward thrusting inside her so strongly it lifted her upward.
She squealed her encouragement as he did it again, while she braced her hands on his sweaty chest, rolling her hips to each of his heavy thrusts. "God, Orelan," Wyndham groaned in appreciation of this as he bounced her body more quickly with his thrusts. It was though she rode a powerful stallion and instead of rolling her hips, she began to swing them from front to back. Her pleasure over this was so intense that she cried out, scratching her fingernails down Wyndham's chest. Wyndham was powerful and he used his strong body to buck her body on top of him with dizzying speed. Each rapid thrust seared deep inside her with a spearing hot pleasure that built to an explosive crescendo, making her scream. Her climax flashed over her as Wyndham stabbed his shaft upward rapidly and she rode him, barely hanging on as her sex convulsed along the length of his thickness.
"Orelan," Wyndham groaned sharply with his hips lifting, followed by the jolting of her body. "Orelan!" Wyndham's hips bucked again. "Orelan!" he bellowed and Orelan felt his hot seed filling her with the beating of massive throbs as Wyndham's hips stilled, while they were arched upward. The thickness of him swelled inside of her, throbbed, then swelled again as Wyndham groaned harshly.
"Wyndham!" she gasped as she fell to his sweaty chest, while her body trembled in the aftermath.
Wyndham took long moments to catch his breath, and then he rolled Orelan beneath him as he leaned over her, brushing back strands of hair away from her damp face. Her body was languid and her eyes were closed as he dipped his head to place a soft kiss on her lips. Instantly her lips lifted into a smile beneath his mouth. "I love you," he murmured, touching his tongue to the corner of her mouth.
Orelan's eyelids popped open and she looked at him with warm happiness in her golden irises. "Wyndham," she exclaimed softly. "And I love you too."
"You fucking cunt!" Alexei's voiced suddenly shouted from the foot of the bed. "You are a cunt!" Alexei yelled.
Wyndham held Orelan tightly as she gasped a stifled scream at Alexei's sudden appearance.
"And you, Khrisinan, are a liar!" Alexei hissed, snapping the bed covers off the end of the bed. Wyndham muffled Orelan's next scream in his shoulder as he heard Alexei order, "Guards! Take them to the dungeon! Now!"
T
here had been a secret entrance to his bedroom suite. A dozen of them more likely. Wyndham gritted his teeth, he'd been a fool not to think of it. Of course his mind had been in the clouds, wrapped up in a beautiful intriguing woman. He'd even lost sight of the peepholes, places where anyone could have spied on Orelan and his conversations. They were in love, damn it! They were allowed their transgressions.
Wyndham grasped the iron bars in front of him, curling his fingers tightly around them. The fact that Alexei was jealous was his problem. Not Orelan's. She should not have to pay for that, but he had lied to Alexei about his feelings for Orelan. Now, he was afraid that Orelan would pay the price and there might be little or nothing he could do about it. He looked over to the cell directly across from his in the circular stone dungeon. It was thirty feet from where he stood to the other side of the circle where Orelan's cell was. Where she was being held a prisoner as naked as he was.
The wooden doors to the dungeon screeched on rusted hinges as they opened, turning his gaze. It had been an hour or more since they had been forced down into the bowels of Valcourt, into this dungeon and these cells, and now, Alexei had arrived. Next to Alexei was a small Asian man and behind them were two of Alexei's Russian guards.
"It is me you want, Alexei!" Wyndham shouted. "Then take me! I will not fight you any longer."
"No!" Orelan cried from her cell, but Wyndham could not see her, as she cowered against the sidewall of her cell.
"Silence!" Alexei shouted. "I will not have your sickening displays of love!" Wyndham watched Alexei turn to him at the same moment he waved the guards to Orelan's cell, while he said, "It is not time, Khrisinan, for you to surrender to me yet."
Wyndham's jaw tightened, Alexei appeared disheveled and distraught. He looked edgy, as though he were cornered with no escape. Yet, that made no sense and Wyndham had a hard time believing Alexei's behavior was strictly over jealousy.
"I will consider it," Alexei continued, turning to watch Orelan, who was being forced naked from her cell between the guards. "But my revenge first! I will have my revenge!"
"No!" Wyndham shouted, even as the guards lifted Orelan, who struggled against their strength, up onto a wooden circular slab raised in the center of the room. She never cried out as she fought them, but she did fight them, with terrified whimpers when the guards began to tie her spread eagle onto her back.
"I will come to you willingly!" Wyndham shouted with desperation. "If you do this to her, I will
fight
you to my last breath!" Wyndham watched Alexei turn his fevered gaze to him as Orelan screamed a muffled sound of denial through the gag that the guards had put over her mouth.
"We will see what you might do when I am finished," Alexei said, eerily calm. "The final game has just begun," he finished.
Alexei was not making any sense,
Wyndham thought, trying to quell his rising panic as he watched the small Asian man move to stand at Orelan's feet.
"Shave the slut, Quay," Alexei ordered in a sickeningly soft voice as Orelan whimpered. Wyndham sucked in a tight breath as Alexei turned his gaze to him, and he hissed, "One half a marker for this, Khrisinan."
Wyndham could not help the hatred unmasked from his gaze as he glared at Alexei, and he spat. "I will
never
forgive you for this!"
"We will see," Alexei whispered, then in a sharper voice he said, "You have lied to me about this slut, Khrisinan, yet I am still being fair. Two and one half markers, you still owe me."
Wyndham clenched the bars as he watched the Asian, named Quay, unrolling a leather pouch of instruments between Orelan's feet. Wyndham squinted his eyes to see, as Quay chose a straight razor, lifting it from the pouch. It was then Wyndham realized that the rest of the instruments he saw were for skin tattooing.
Christ,
he nearly fell to his knees in relief, but he clutched the bars holding himself upright. Alexei was going to brand Orelan, but he was
not
going to kill her.
Orelan looked fearfully at the small Asian man Alexei had called Quay, as Quay brought forward a bowl of water, a sponge, and a cake of soap to set beside her hip. Quay, lathered the sponge with the soap as he looked down at her exposed sex, and it was then, she finally realized what he meant to do, at Alexei's command. She struggled then, against the ropes holding her ankles and wrists splayed wide across the wooden slab, as Quay lifted the wetly lathered sponge toward her pubic curls.
"Lay still," Wyndham ordered her from his cell, and she heard Alexei laugh harshly as Wyndham continued to say, "He will cut you, if you do not lay still."
Orelan sucked in a terrified breath as Quay touched her sex with the wet sponge. The position she was tied in was debased and she squirmed in humiliation as Quay scrubbed her sex with the soapy sponge.
"Look her nipples are hard," Alexei quipped, and the guards laughed.
Orelan moaned in shame, and then she heard Wyndham shout, "I love you, Orelan! Do you hear me? I love you!"
"Silence!" Alexei shouted as Orelan closed her eyes to the sound of Wyndham's words. Love was their strength and power, she realized. She must be brave for Wyndham. She had to be brave for their love, and she was able to stop her struggling then as she opened her eyes and saw Quay bringing the straight razor forward. Quay touched her as only one man had ever done as he began to shave her pubic hair away, while tears she could not stop leaked from her eyes. But she did not struggle again she only trembled and prayed for it to be over.
"Bravo!" Alexei exclaimed when the shaving was finished, and then, Orelan saw Alexei clamping his hand onto Quay's shoulder as he said, "Now tattoo her the way I told you."
The word tattoo raced through Orelan's mind like a fiery blaze.
No, madre dios, no!
She tried desperately to turn her head to see Wyndham, but she could not from where she was tied.
"You are a sick bastard!" Wyndham shouted.
"Oh, Khrisinan, you do not approve of my method of revenge for your slut?" Alexei asked snidely. "I thought it was inspirational. Just wait to see what Quay is going to brand on your bitch, Lord Hawkenge."
Orelan felt Quay's fingers touching the slit of her sex and she gasped, jerking her body. Then she screamed silently at herself to lay still. She had to lay still! Quay's finger lifted one lip as she quivered, trying to lie still, but then a sharp striking pain came in the tenderest place on her body. She screamed. She could not lay still! The pain struck again, and she gasped another involuntary scream beneath the gag. But the gag was cloying and she could not get enough air into her lungs as the pain of the tattooing relentlessly continued.
"It is done!" Alexei exclaimed and Orelan jerked.
She must have passed out?
"Another half a marker," Alexei continued, "And that makes one marker, Khrisinan. So now you only owe me two!"
Orelan moaned as she felt her ankles being untied. Her sex throbbed unbearably, then the gag was pulled from her mouth and more hands were at her wrists untying those also.
Wyndham watched Alexei turn toward him, Alexei's light blue eyes had a feverish quality, but there was an unexpected sadness in them. "I will give her to the guards for the last two markers," Alexei said.
"No!" Wyndham shouted. "No, Alexei, my God, I am begging you!"
Alexei hissed a sharp intake of breath. "You see, Khrisinan, I knew you would come to me willingly in the end!"
"Yes!" Wyndham exclaimed tightly, at the same moment Orelan cried out her denial
"No, Wyndham! No, you must not do this! No, I will not let you!"
"Take her away from here!" Alexei shouted angrily. "Take her-," Alexei turned to Wyndham.
"To the Royal Hotel," Wyndham expelled. "To Lord Sutherlin."
"No! No!" Orelan cried as the guards dragged her from the room.
"You see, Khrisinan," Alexei whispered. "I always knew that you had an escape plan. Ever the consummate spy, my handsome man."
I
t was a macabre position,
Wyndham thought, he could not be absolutely certain that Alexei had freed Orelan. Yet, in some twisted fashion Alexei was honorable in his own way. For that, and the gut feeling he had that Alexei was done with Orelan, he believed him. Now, he wondered, how noble he should remain. The two guards still held him as a prisoner with their rifles, forcing him to follow Alexei, in the direction of Alexei's suite.
At least Alexei had ordered the guards to give him a pair of pants. It was so unexpectedly chivalrous of Alexei, Wyndham thought, with his head bowed and his jaw clenched into square hardness. He was seething as he walked between the guards and it was taking every ounce of his willpower not to grapple with the guards, in an attempt to gain an opening to fall upon Alexei with his bare hands. He might never have realized how wholly possessive he was, he thought, if not for what had been perpetrated on Orelan.
Suddenly, half a dozen sharp explosions sounded in the distance. Wyndham's head lifted as he recognized the sound of gunfire, while his gaze found Alexei's back, just as Alexei was opening the door to his suite. Alexei never turned at the sound of the gunfire, his head cocked to the side, but he continued into the suite. "Bring him inside!" Alexei ordered.
"What is happening?" Wyndham asked, as the guards roughly shoved him into the suite.
More gunfire sounded, this time closer, as Alexei ignored his question and ordered, "Guards, leave him here, and take up your posts outside the doors!"
Wyndham was surprised to be released alone into Alexei's company, as both guards, appearing suddenly nervous and furtive, fairly bolted to the doors. The doors slammed shut and the distinct sound of booted feet running away could be heard.
"It is impossible to bribe truly loyal help these days," Alexei snapped, as he continued to walk further into the suite.
Wyndham looked at the door hearing more gunfire, closer still, perhaps only one floor down from where he stood, then he turned his gaze to Alexei's retreating back. His mind was working quickly as he gauged all the possibilities of what could be happening, of whether he should just walk out, away from Alexei without the guards' presence, when Alexei spoke.
"Two markers, Khrisinan. You begged me, Wyndham, remember this? How noble are you?"
Wyndham's tightly held anger exploded then, and all constructive thought about his situation dissolved. "Do you want me to fuck you in the ass, Tropov, you sick bastard?" he challenged senselessly.
"Yes,"
Alexei hissed, turning toward him. "You owe me two markers and your woman's life!"
Alexei appeared nearly wild-eyed as Wyndham clenched his fists at his side and he spat. "Fuck your markers, Tropov!" He turned toward the door. "And fuck you!" he finished crassly.
"No!" Alexei wailed behind him. "You owe me, Wyndham! You owe me!"
Wyndham's hand closed around the doorknob, but before he could open it, the door was shoved open forcefully, toppling him backward. His bad knee could not hold to this and it collapsed, taking him bodily to the floor onto his side.
"Alexei Tropov!" a voice heavily accented in Russian, shouted above Wyndham's head. "You are under arrest for treasonous acts! To be beheaded by the Czar's court! Take him!"