Regency Rogues Omnibus (23 page)

“Well, Rad, what was that all about?” Saxonhurst asked, strolling up to Radford.

“Are you losing your sweet charms, man?” Brynmore quipped, stopping his approach beside Saxonhurst.

Radford grimaced. “Well, gentlemen, it appears we have gotten entirely the wrong person to declare themselves.”

“What does that mean, ye one-eyed devil?” Brynmore asked. “I still say we are playing with fire to be prodding Harrison this way.”

“It means,” Radford sneered. “That our beautiful Lady Rosebud has declared herself quite vocally to Harrison’s side while our brooding stubborn pigheaded Harrison remains mute in voice and in action to our ploy. And you are right, Brynmore, I certainly hope Drummond knows what he is doing by ordering us to play this flirting game. Harrison certainly is no normal would be suitor!”

“He is likely to strangle our balls in the blackest of night,” Saxonhurst said. “And where is Wyndham? If my balls are at stake here, then he needs to take his chance also.”

“He will be here,” Radford replied. “It appears that he knows her, did you know? I believe that is somehow Drummond’s coup de grace.”

Chapter Twelve

Chloe sought a moment to herself in a long hallway just off the small ballroom that was filled with paintings and sculptures. It was a beautiful party and she had not been to such a gathering since she was a child attending at her diplomatic stepfather’s side. However, she knew that she needed to leave soon because her breasts were aching with milk and her head was nearly aching too. She could not believe that she had lost her temper that way. And to a duke! He had deserved it, but still he was Raven’s friend. They all were Raven’s friends, and she truly did not belong here, or with them.

Did they all know that Raven held her captive? Yet no longer against her will and that was the most confusing part because she craved his command of her. But love came in all shapes and disguises . . .
Love?
Chloe stopped to stare at a beautiful statue of Venus. Did she love Raven?

“My god it
is
you, Lia. Drummond, told me yet I could scarcely believe it!”

Chloe turned abruptly toward the masculine voice and found herself beneath the gaze of a tall blond-haired man who must be the Baron of Hawkenge, late to arrive. He was reaching for her hands.

“You lovely, wanton minx. I have never forgotten our too brief time together.” He lifted her gloved hands upward to his virile lips and turned the palms inward to kiss each.
Time together,
Chloe wondered in surprise. “You in my bed, my little love, is something I will never forget,” he murmured warmly against her palms.

Ohno! Chloe tried to pull away but Baron Hawkenge was a man, all strongly built man and he swung her into his arms. “Nn– ,” she garbled as his lips came down over her lips. She tried to pull away and did rap on his muscular chest with her fists.

But in the end Baron Hawkenge pulled away from her suddenly, staring down at her with intense and inquiring confusion in his deep blue eyes. “My god, you’re not . . . !”

Smack!
A fist came out of nowhere, right over Chloe’s shoulder, and clipped Baron Hawkenge sharply under the chin with one powerful jab. The baron went down like a piece of timber felled. And Chloe stumbled backward in confusion and surprise just as Raven stepped forward to watch the baron fall onto polished maple-wood flooring, unconscious. How had Raven done that? The Baron Hawkenge was a large man! And-and why had he done it?

“
Come
with me,” Raven rasped furiously. “Now!”

Raven grabbed her wrists and began to pull her down the hallway away from the ballroom. “Raven, you do not understand!” she cried, uselessly.

“Do not understand that he fucked you! That he twisted the bed linens before, naked with you,” Raven charged, as he continued to pull her out of a side door to the mansion into the chilly night air. “I understand that you were readying to fuck him again!”

“No!” Chloe cried as Raven pulled her toward his carriage where he tugged the door open savagely. “He thought I was Lia, Raven!”

“Damn you,” Raven swore fiercely. “Get into the carriage willingly or I will tie and gag you as before!”

Chloe gulped hard and scrambled ill-gracefully over the long skirts of her gown up into the carriage to sit stiffly in the furthest corner. Raven called directions to the driver and entered, slamming the carriage door closed behind him. Chloe thought desperately to try again. “Raven, please listen!”

“Quiet!” he hissed, and he reached upward to close the carriage curtains with two sharp tugs leaving only the inside lantern to light their features. “Undress,” he bit out harshly.

“No!” she exclaimed. “Not like this, Raven, please!”

“I
own
you,” he replied bitterly. “And you will undress as I command or I will tear the gown from your body. And when I am through with you, you will never again question who you belong to now or forever!”

Chloe stilled as Raven’s words reverberated through her mind. He was jealous. And that meant that he loved her! Only he was haunted and a little drunk and very vulnerable. She reminded herself that he had not hurt her. Not once. And she knew with all her heart that he never would. He was angry . . .yes, but this was their way together. He commanded her and she obeyed. Willingly, because she wanted to. Because she craved to be his loving slave to passion and perhaps that was the only way he could truly love her . . . or trust her.

“As you wish, my lord,” she murmured. “Always as you wish.”

Raven appeared startled as she slowly began to remove her white evening gloves. His deep chest labored with a few harsh breaths from his exertion and his strong angular features firmed with instant sexual awareness. The power and the raw masculinity of him made her shiver.

“You will have to unhook the back of my gown.”

“Come here,” he whispered, pulling his gloves off.

Someday, they would be close enough to each other so that she could tell him how much she loved his rough-skinned hands on her skin, holding her body. She moved against the jostling of the carriage to sit beside him and she felt his hands on the back of her gown. Then he completely surprised her. He ripped the back of her gown open with a jerk!

Gasping, she clutched the bodice, but Raven tugged it relentlessly away from her hands. Small sounds of dismay escaped her throat as he continued to rip more of the silk from her body. His muscled forearm bracketed her bare waist as he pulled her spine to his chest and persisted to tear the silk skirts from her hips and legs. She did not wear a corset but merely stockings and in moments he had her stripped nude before him.

“Say you are
mine
,” he rasped. Biting and nibbling her neck, her ear, and her shoulder as he held her back to his chest. He lifted her until her bottom was on his lap with her legs squeezed together as her hands foolishly tried to cover her sex. That woman’s heat which he wanted access to, but she felt so vulnerable. Stripped naked to his clothed, as he commanded her in the back of his jostling carriage.

“Move your hands,” he muttered through a hot moist kiss to the nape of her neck, and when she hesitated he pried her hands away, holding her wrists beneath his strong grip. “Open your thighs. Spread your legs for me,” he ordered.

“Raven,” she denied, and he bit her earlobe holding the lobe in his teeth and making her whimper at the pleasure-pain he caused. Until she lifted her legs, splaying them open over his thighs. He held her wrists tight, pulling them downward behind her back to arch her spine and thrust her naked breast high in the shivering night air. Abruptly his free hand stroked down between her thighs as he roughly prodded one finger deep inside of her, making her cry out in pleasure.

“You are wet,” he accused. “You liked me ripping the gown from your body. Stripping you naked. It made you hot and wet for me.”

“Yes, Raven,” she whimpered with his finger prodding her again as she arched upward mounting his invading finger more.

“Say your pussy is mine,” he ordered, keeping his finger embedded inside her yet cupping her fullness with the heel of his hand.

“My p-pussy is yours,” she cried as he thrust his finger in and out of her again.

“Jesus, baby girl, you arouse me like no other woman ever has,” he rasped. “I want your ass, Rosebud. I want to feel your ass so tight around my cock.”

Chloe squirmed on his finger, incoherent with passion, as she moaned senselessly, “Yes, Raven, yes. Make me come!”

“Always,” he promised in a gruff rasp. “Now get on your knees, baby girl, and bend over the carriage seat on the other side.”

She mewled, mindless at Raven’s hot and erotic words, at his arousing sexual commands. And then he had her on her knees, bent over the carriage seat in the midst of the torn silk pieces from her gown. He was down on his knees behind her and his wide hand held her down by the nape of her neck as the silk beneath her slithered over her swollen breasts. His free hand reached between her thighs and pushed each one apart until she was supplicated at an impossibly wide angle. Positioned as he would take her, poised to his command, while her body swayed forward to back in a rocking motion with the movement of the carriage.

“Say you are mine,” he ordered.

“I am yours,” she uttered, ending on a cry of pleasure as he caught and rubbed her clitoris between two of his fingers. “Oh! Oh!” she cried. Back and forth, back and forth he rubbed, nearly pinching her, he held her clitoris so tight. “Raven,
Raven
,” she mewled and if she tried to move he held her down. Pinching and rubbing her until she screamed in pleasure.

“Tell me you are
mine
,” he hissed.

“I-I’m y-your-rs,” she choked, as her buttocks bucked upward with each blinding spark of pleasure he wrought over her.

It was then Chloe felt the broad-head of Raven’s penis pushing at her anus and she yielded beneath the pressure of his hard thrust.
“Oh!”
she squealed. He had her pinned to the seat he was so thick and hard inside her, embedded to the hilt of his rigid cock. “I am yours! Yours! Yours!” she panted harshly as she climaxed in a convulsion and she could feel her inner wall’s spasm around the mass of Raven’s rigid cock, and then she began to climax again.

“God,” Raven groaned. “God!” Then he began to mate her bottom in long hard stabbing thrusts that pushed her into the carriage seat and back again as she continued to climax. Her moans were shrill and abrupt with each rapid thrust that Raven took. He was branding her his, driving her forward with each pumping of his hips. Faster. Faster. Faster!

“Raven!” she screamed and he took and took and took.

Chapter Thirteen

Harrison fell forward over Rosebud’s back gripping the squabs with his hands to keep from crushing her with his weight, just as the carriage halted its motion. He was nearly senseless beneath the last raw edges of his overwhelming ejaculation. Yet he was trained beyond normal men and he knew instantly . . . But it was still too late! Too late for his lax body to respond to the fact that his driver would never open the carriage door. His gaze turned to see the barrel of a French-made dueling pistol placed to his temple.

“Get out slowly, Scar,” ordered a rough French accented voice behind the pistol.

Harrison knew at that moment without any more doubts. Yet god help him, he
knew
it too late. Chloe!
Oh god, Chloe,
his mind screamed. She was nearly unconscious beneath him. Naked. Vulnerable.

“Now!” The pistol clicked into the cocked position and Harrison slowly moved off Chloe. His sluggish mind trying to force his instincts into motion.

“Eoo, my little sister, has tamed the venomous beast!” Lia Delconte exclaimed. “Thees is too delicious, Pigot! Our, Scar, is too fucked to move more quickly than the humped beast!” Lia’s laughter rang sharp and nasty in the night air. “Did you think, Scar, that you were fucking me?” she asked, laughing crassly as he stepped from the carriage with the large Monsieur Pigot holding a pistol to his temple.

Lia stepped up to the open carriage door and tossed her cape inside. “Get out of there, little Chloe! I have need of you now.”

“No!” Chloe cried and Harrison winced at the terror in her voice.

“You have no choice!” Lia spat. “Or I will kill your lover here, and then go inside his fancy townhouse and kill Sebastian!”

“No-no,” Chloe whimpered, as she slowly made her way out of the carriage with the dark cloak wrapped tight around her.

Harrison watched Lia turn to him, a vision of Chloe yet callused and more used looking. He could never mistake them.

“Did you think I would not know that you would seek your revenge on me?” Lia asked him. “You are the only one of thees Archangels with enough balls to care that little Lia made a small mistake. But I gave you my sister, yes? Is this not sweet revenge for you, don’t you think? Perhaps we are even now?”

“We will never be even, Lia,” Harrison uttered, turning his gaze to Chloe. “Not unless you leave her with me.”

“Uo!” Lia exclaimed sharply. “You ask too much. I need her now!”

“Let me kill him,” Pigot spat.

“Non!” Lia exclaimed. “As much as I would like to, then we would have all thees Archangels down on us. And I have too much trouble like this already.”

“Please don’t take, Sebastian,” Chloe whispered.

“Oh non, little sister. I cannot take that troublesome babe. It is only you that I need now.”

Lia nodded to Pigot and without warning he butted the pistol sharply against Harrison’s temple, and the last thing Harrison heard was Chloe screaming his name.

***

Harrison held Sebastian tightly to his chest, he could not seem to let go of him. Yet he had to move quickly or he would never get Chloe back.
Oh god, Chloe.
As god as his witness, he did not deserve her. He never deserved her. Yet none of that mattered now. Now he had to move! He would take Sebastian to Gabriella and that would free his movements to do what he must. He just prayed that he could sidestep Drummond because Chloe’s only hope now was if he went out on his own. But he had a clue. One small clue.

It was something that Lia had said concerning not needing any more trouble equivalent to the troubles she already had. That signified that someone else was seeking her for revenge, and they were getting too close. Why else would Lia need Chloe, unless she intended to pass Chloe off again as herself? He had to assume another person wanted revenge against Lia, and Chloe was going to pay again. Unless he could find her quickly.

He only knew of two people, through all his research on Lia, who would go that far. People that would need revenge just as he had to the exclusion of all else. And he was betting on the German named Kant. It had been Kant’s team that Lia killed in Prague. Yet what was not widely known was that Kant survived, but minus a few fingers, and if the rumors were correct he also no longer sported a functioning dick. What would a man like that do to Chloe?

Harrison jerked his head in denial. He could not think of that now. He had to set that aside. So instead he descended the stairs two at a time, barely allowing his butler the time to pull open the front door for him. He warmly bundled Sebastian inside of his cloak as he ordered his driver to make all haste to Drummond’s London mansion. Then he entered the carriage to sit and stare at the torn pieces of silk on the opposite seat.