Seduced (17 page)

Letty could hardly contain her nerves as she followed Jack’s butler to the parlor.

“May I get you anything, my lady?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Nothing, thank you. What was your name?”

“Lawson, my lady,” he said with a nod.

“Thank you, Lawson.”

She smiled at him as he stepped from the room and then exhaled a long breath. Jack’s servants had to be buzzing below stairs about her being here not once but twice. She could only imagine the uproar would be caused amongst the staff by a long-missing master suddenly appearing, then engaging in what was quite obviously an affair with a lady. She supposed there was some danger in that fact. They could spread their tales outside these walls.

But right now, waiting for Jack to arrive, she didn’t really give a damn. If she came upon that bridge, she would cross it then.

Right now she wanted to focus on tonight. As ordered, she had brought
The Ladies Book of Pleasures
. It was tucked into her reticule even now. She set the bag on a chair and smiled as she tried to imagine what chapter Jack would want to read together. There were so many wicked things in that book. Now she found herself wanting to try them—at least some of them—before she surrendered to the staid life her parents had recently been insisting she pursue.

The door behind her opened and she turned, expecting to find Jack making an entrance. Although it
was
him who stepped into the chamber, she was surprised by his appearance. He was dressed nicely, but there was a smudge of dirt on his cheek. And his face looked drawn and haggard, circles shadowing his dark eyes.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t here to greet you, Letitia,” he said, shutting the door behind himself and going straight to the sideboard, where he poured a very tall glass of whiskey.

“It’s fine,” she said slowly, watching as he took a few long gulps. He set the half-drunk glass aside and approached her.

“God, you look beautiful,” he said, tilting his head. “Exactly what I’ve been waiting for.”

She smiled at his words, but even as he took her in his arms she saw the distraction in his eyes. Still, when he kissed her, her worries melted away. He tasted strong, like the liquor mixed with a flavor that was his and his alone. She wrapped her arms around his neck and opened to him, sliding her tongue across his and losing herself in his warmth.

He grunted beneath his breath and finally set her aside. “Oh yes,” he drawled. “
Exactly
what I need. Shall we go upstairs, Letitia?”

She was about to nod when his stomach made a great rumble. Her eyes went wide. “Jack, how long was it since you last ate?”

“What?” He shook his head. “Oh, it doesn’t matter.”

“It most certainly does matter,” she insisted, setting aside the flaming needs of her body to focus on him. “How long?”

“The lady is trying to run the show,” he said with a chuckle. “Very well. Er, let’s see…last night, I suppose. I grabbed a chunk of bread and a little cheese right before I collapsed into my bed for a few hours.”

She sucked in her breath. “So you have not eaten for almost twenty-four hours?”

He shrugged. “I won’t die, Letitia. And I’ve been…
busy
.”

The way he said the last word was dark and angry, and she stared at him.
There
was the dangerous man who made her so nervous. He had come to replace the one who made her knees weak. And yet, as she looked at him, she realized that was still just a part of Jack. And that part looked just as tired and run down as the rest.

He needed something tonight, and she was going to give it to him.

“Stand right there,” she ordered, pointing a finger at him.

“I’m sorry?” he said as she walked away.

She turned at the door and pointed again. “Right there,” she repeated before she opened the door and lifted her hand to the bell. Lawson swiftly appeared, and she smiled at him. “Your master requires food. Can some be sent up to his chamber?”

Lawson looked surprised for a moment, but he nodded. “Of course, my lady. I will have the cook prepare a plate and bring it up as soon as possible.”

“Thank you,” Letty called out as he turned to hustle toward the kitchen. That duty done, she turned to find Jack staring at her with wary interest.

“I am standing right here,” he offered, holding up his arms as if for inspection. And she did so want to do just that, explore him and taste him and give in to such pleasures.

She shook her head. “So you can follow direction,” she teased as she held a hand out to him. “Well, then follow this one. You are coming with me.”

He hesitated but at last took the outstretched hand she offered. “Your wish, my lady, is my command. Especially since we are going exactly where I want to be. My bedroom where I intend to take back this control you think you have.”

She shivered at the words, spoken in a low, seductive tone that made her sex clench. He was going to test her, she could see that. It would take everything in her to pass that test. To get past his walls, his seductions, and give him what she could see he needed.

They reached his bedroom and she opened the door. He passed her to enter, but before she could close the door, he pressed her against the barrier, using their combined weights to slam it shut. She was wedged between the door and an unyielding, very handsome, very aroused man.

“What are you about, Letitia?” he asked, his warm breath stirring the tendrils of hair around her face.

She waged a battle against her body, which screamed at her to simply surrender to him. Somehow she managed to keep that heated desire at bay.

“I am
trying
to help you, Mr. Blackwood,” she said, placing a hand on his warm chest and pushing gently. “Please allow me to do that.”

“Help me?” he repeated, as though the words were foreign. He did step back, at last, and mercifully gave her space to breathe and move again. She dodged his embrace and moved into the center of the room. “What makes you think I need help?”

She sighed. “It is all over your face, Jack. The exhaustion, the tension, the worry. Whatever you’ve been doing since we last met here, it has given you no pleasure.”

His cocky grin faded. “How do you see that?”

She shifted beneath his suddenly focused stare. “I just do. Do you want to tell me what happened?”

“A battle in a war,” he said softly. “With causalities. Against an enemy I can’t see, so fighting him is almost impossible.”

“Jack,” she said, sucking in her breath as terror gripped her.

He shook his head as if clearing it. “There is one thing we can do that will help me forget all that, Letitia.”

“I agree,” she said, setting her jaw. “Now hold still.”

His brow wrinkled as she approached him, hands shaking. She had done what she was about to do before, but under very different circumstances. She wasn’t certain Jack would bend to her will, that he wouldn’t turn the tables.

But to help him, she was going to try.

She unfastened the buttons on his coat and slid her hands beneath, sucking in her breath at the body heat trapped there. He smiled as he realized what she was doing.

“Saucy little minx,” he growled. “Undressing me?”

“For what I have in mind, it will be much easier,” she whispered.

“Oh yes, it will,” he said.

He made no move to undress her, but let her unfasten and unhook, removing his shirt. She brushed her fingers along the toned muscles there with a sigh. God, he was so perfect. And normally this was as far as she would go with her plans, but not tonight.

Tonight she needed to go further. She traced her fingertips along his stomach until she reached the waist of his trousers. Her hands felt clumsy as she unfastened them and slid her hands along his toned hips to remove them. Now he was naked, and judging from the thick erection that stirred against his stomach, he was also ready for a far different activity than she had planned.

“L-lay on the bed on your stomach,” she ordered.

He laughed. “I know you are new at this, so let me tell you that me on my stomach won’t work.”

She shook her head, dodging him as he reached for her. “On your stomach,
please
.”

His eyebrows lifted, and he shrugged. “Well, I’ll try anything once. And you do have that wicked little book, don’t you? If you know some trick that will teach me something new, who I am to dissuade you?”

She frowned. That “wicked little book” was currently downstairs in her reticule. But let him think whatever it was he thought she was about to do to him. If it put him in the position she needed him in, that was good enough.

He placed himself face down on the bed, supporting his forehead with his arms. His backside was delectable as he lay there, distracting. She just wanted to touch it, to…to bite it.

Her eyes went wide at that thought, and just at that moment, there was a knock on the chamber door. She jumped, blushing, and rushed to cover Jack’s backside with a blanket before she moved to answer it. A servant stood there, holding a tray with cold meat, vegetables, cheese and bread, as well as a bottle of wine.

“Thank you,” she said, taking it. “That will be all.”

She could see the curiosity on the footman’s face, but she ignored it as she kicked the door shut and moved to the table by the window. She set her burden down and moved back to Jack.

“Is that my food?” he asked.

“Yes,” she whispered, taking a place perched beside him and pressing her hands against the curve of his shoulders. She began to knead the tight muscles there, first gently, but then harder. “Would you like to eat first?”

“A moment ago, I would have said yes,” he groaned. “But that is magical. This first. That later.”

She bit back a laugh and continued to massage his shoulders. As she did so, she examined his broad, muscular back. Like on his arm, she saw scars there. A few larger ones that looked like slashes, but some smaller, as if they had come from burns. She traced them each with a finger as she moved her massage down his back, smoothing the muscles and warming the flesh.

“Ouch!” he grunted as she dug in a little harder on a knot in his muscles.

She laughed. “The great Captain Jack, complaining about the hands of a woman?”

“Not complaining,” he said. “Just thinking I should hire her to torture anyone I capture who has information they don’t want to willingly share.”

“It hurts a little now, but it will help later,” she promised.

“Ah, ah.” His voice grew more relaxed. “Oh, I see. Yes, that’s much better. How did you learn to do that?”

She frowned. “Noah taught me,” she whispered.

He was silent for a moment and his muscles tensed a fraction before they relaxed again. “Noah.”

“We couldn’t connect in the way…the way you and I did a few days ago,” she said. “But we did share some intimacies. He would do this for me from time to time, through my gown, of course. Eventually, he taught me to do the same for him. I think he hoped that perhaps my touch would eventually inspire a reaction.”

“I should not be troubled with jealousies over a man who couldn’t even bring himself to touch you as a husband should,” Jack said, his voice muffled by the bedclothes. “But I will admit to you that I am.”

She bit her lip at that admission. “You have no cause to be. After all, you know I could never rouse his interest. But if learning this from him helps you now, then I am not sorry to have the talent.”

He let out a low moan as she worked her fingers against his lower back, just above the blanket she had draped over him. “You have the talent all right.”

She moved her hands back upward, reworking the muscles, gentle when she needed to be, hard when a knot required it. Jack lay still, allowing her to attend to him.

“One of my men lost a leg this week. He may yet die,” he said after the silence had stretched between them.

She hesitated a fraction of a moment to let that horrible image sink in, then continued to massage him. “I’m sorry. Does he have a family?”

“Just us,” he said. “Most of my men only have each other as family. We’re a lost lot.”

She looked again at the pattern of scars that flicked and flared its way across his skin. Scars gained through violence and near-death experiences of his own. She shivered at the thought of Jack in such danger.

“How did you become who and what you are?” she asked.

He stiffened. “You are too fine a lady to want to know that answer.”

“I asked the question,” she said, pressing her fingers into his skin. “I want to know. Because judging from what I’ve seen and experienced when I’m with you, it is difficult for me to picture you ruthlessly running an underground enterprise.”

“Hmmm,” Jack murmured. “You don’t know me, though, do you, Letitia? You don’t know how I grew up.”

“Then tell me,” she insisted, watching in fascination as his muscles contracted beneath her hands. How were there so many of them?

“I grew up on the street, my dear. My mother was a whore. Due to that fact, I never knew my real father. She flitted from man to man, letting them sell her wares and drinking away most of what it brought them. Her last lover was a bastard who beat me and my younger brother. He nearly killed War. I knew that day that I had to get him out of there, no matter what the cost of such an action.”

She flinched. She was all too familiar with the drive to take care of a younger sibling, even if their circumstances were almost polar opposites. “Where did you go?”

“I’d been pickpocketing two years at that point. Since I was eight. And I’d gotten the attention of a man called Longfellow. He was a low-level thief, but to me he was a god amongst men. He taught War and me the trade and let us sleep on his floor, out of the cold and rain.”

Tears stung her eyes as he told the story. “So you were only ten?”

He nodded. “Old enough to make a living. And I did. It didn’t take long to move up the ranks of the criminals in the underground. When I was sixteen, War and I went out on our own. Started our gang. We’d taken over the underground before I was twenty.”

“You sound so matter-of-fact,” Letty said with a shake of her head. “As if it was easy. Like it didn’t affect you.”