The Courtesan's Bed (20 page)

She gave him her best wide-eyed innocent look. “Since turnabout is fair play, if I agree to submit to you now, will you later allow me to make love to you in any manner I choose?”

Her request must've caught him off guard, for her frank suggestion startled him. Then those warm gray eyes held hers as he nuzzled the sensitive skin inside her elbow. “I don't doubt that you know more ways to excite a man than I have ever dreamed of, and I will gladly agree to your terms.”

She held out her wrists. “Since we have an agreement, I am willing.”

He took her hands and kissed the pulse on the inside of one wrist, then the other. “I promise you won't regret this.”

He swung his long legs over the side of the bed and rose, striding across the room. Even though she still had reservations about being bound like a helpless slave, she never tired of feasting on him and admired the sleek firmness of his buttocks and the elegant way he moved. He picked up the coat he'd flung on the floor, reached into one pocket and walked back to the bed while unfolding several lengths of narrow black silk.

Her bonds. Régine's heartbeat quickened and her mouth turned as dry as autumn leaves. “So, you've been contemplating this scenario and came prepared.”

A faint sheepish blush crept across his high cheekbones. “Ever since last night when I suspected that the rings were not just decorative, I've thought of nothing else.” He sat on the edge of the bed. “But the choice had to be yours, and if you hadn't agreed, I would've discarded these and never mentioned them again.”

Régine reclined on her back, her arms stretched above her head and extended toward the bedposts. “Then let's play.”

Darius took one of the bands of silk, ran his tongue along the side of her breast first, and then wrapped the soft fabric several times around her limp, accepting wrist. He knotted it with all the skill of a yachtsman. “Is that too tight?”

“No, it's quite comfortable.”

He looped the silk through the ring and tugged it. Once again, he asked Régine if the bond was too tight, and she answered that it wasn't. He ran his hand down her body possessively and kissed her pubic thatch before tying her right ankle to the bedpost at the foot of the bed, then he rose and walked over to the other side, his erect prick bobbing with every step.

When Régine's left arm and ankle were secured and she lay spread across the sheets, her most private parts exposed, she felt a brief frisson of panic, but she took a deep breath and willed away the fear. She trusted Darius with her life.

Then she noticed he had one length of silk left. That made five.

“What is that for?” she asked. “I believe I possess only four limbs, monsieur.”

“Four limbs and a pair of beautiful eyes.” He tenderly brushed a stray lock of hair away from her cheek. “If you are willing, I would like to blindfold you.”

Like a sightless person, she wouldn't be able to see how he intended to caress her. She would be forced to wait and imagine. Would her lack of sight intensify her other senses? Would her skin be more sensitive to his gentle, arousing touch? How would it feel when his caresses became more insistent? Would she hear every movement of his body magnified, his heavy breathing, the creak of the bed and the rustle of the scented sheets? A rising excitement caused her vagina to pulse expectantly with a life of its own.

She felt as though she were on horseback in the hunting field, galloping too fast toward a very high wall that she wasn't sure her mount could clear. She gathered her courage to sail over the final hurdle. “You may.”

She lifted her head, and once the band of silk was across her eyes and knotted securely behind her head, she looked upon a chasm of darkness.

“No peeking,” Darius said sternly.

She smiled. “That would spoil the game.”

“Always remember that I am your adoring slave, Régine, and it is you who control me. If at any time you wish for our game to stop, say ‘Blackwall', and I shall comply at once.”

Clever Darius. He knew that in love play, sometimes
no
meant
yes
,
and
stop
meant the exact opposite.

She waited for him to begin.

The seconds ticked by.

She heard nothing, not the soft creaking of the mattress, not his quickened breathing. She felt nothing, not the shifting of his weight or his touch.

She itched for him to begin. “Well?”

He placed one finger lightly against her lips. “Patience.”

She bit her lip in frustration and waited, wondering what he would do first. Kiss her? Squeeze her breasts? Tickle her swollen, straining clit until she screamed?

The sudden movement of the mattress told her he was moving to the foot of the bed. First came the velvet touch of his lips against her left foot's instep, trailing past the silken tether to her ankle, and then up the inside of her calf. He paused to kiss each knee.

“Where shall my caresses wander next?” he said softly. “Up the inside of your parted ivory thighs?”

His light, exciting touch caused her to gasp in delight as his fingers marched toward her mound of Venus. When he cupped her hot flesh, she raised her hips and tried to press herself against his hand for more, but the bonds restrained her with mocking efficiency.

“So wet and ready to be taken,” he said with a dark chuckle, as he pulled his hand away, “but perhaps I should tongue you there instead.”

The thought of his warm, wet tongue flicking against her inner lips and burrowing inside her tightness quickened her breathing and made her dizzy. “You're such a wicked rogue to torment me so, Darius Granger.”

He rained feather-light kisses across her belly instead. “Oh, I'm just starting your torment, my sweet.”

From the shifting of his weight she could tell he'd moved up the bed, so he was now lying next to her but not touching.

“Your beautiful breasts haunt me every hour of the day.” His warm breath teased the side of her left one. “When they're hidden from my gaze, no matter where we are—riding in your carriage, sitting at your table in Maxim's—I just want to pull your gown down to your waist and bare them for my pleasure.”

His arousing scenario made her nipples pucker as they strained for the attention of his skillful fingers and tongue. “But then other men like Blackwall and Dragomilov would see what is for your eyes alone.”

“And want to touch what only I should touch.”

She smiled. “I desire only your touch
.
”

“Then you shall have it.” He ran his hand lightly over both breasts, jiggling them playfully. “Do you like this?”

She gasped. “You know I do.”

He must've sat up because he grasped each breast and relentlessly abraded the erect nubbins with his thumbs, causing erotic sensations to shoot down her body to pool hotly between her legs.

“And what about this?” He suddenly caught the sensitive buds between thumb and forefinger and, squeezing, gradually increased the pressure as he tugged at them.

In spite of her bonds, Régine arched her back in a silent plea for more. She barely had time to catch her breath before Darius put his mouth to first one breast, then the other, sucking gently, then harder and harder, until Régine felt delirious with the fathomless craving. Soon her deep groans grew into sharp, frequent whimpers, and she strained against her implacable shackles, begging him over and over to release her, needing to kiss and caress him all over, from his sculpted mouth to the length of his rampant shaft.

Just when Régine thought she'd faint from the unbearable onslaught of pleasure, Darius pulled back. “I think my poor mistress has suffered enough.”

He moved down and deftly straddled her hips. He positioned himself between her spread legs, guided his penis to her body's welcoming portal and slid effortlessly into her heat.

Régine moaned and sought to bring her legs together so she could lock them around him, but the silk bonds restrained her. At least they couldn't stop her from moving her hips in harmony with his every long, deliberate stroke. He thrust his hips back and forth, in and out, faster and faster, deeper and deeper, filling her to bursting until Régine thought he'd split her in two.

The incessant, rhythmic friction against her tight, slick walls sent her careening out of control. Her high-pitched cries demanded release from this rising, unbearable heat that caused her heart to pound violently and the sweat to rise on her skin.

“Release me!” she cried. “I must touch you!”

But Darius was beyond listening, beyond reason. He pounded away like a man possessed by the pagan god of lust, and just when Régine began weeping with helplessness and frustration, he pressed his thumb to her clit and gave her quite another kind of release. She screamed and thrashed like a trapped animal as contraction after strong, sweet contraction mercilessly wracked her shuddering body.

Just at the moment of his own orgasm, Darius cried out and pulled away, scattering his seed onto the sheets. When his prick ceased its relentless pounding, he quickly untied Régine, who pulled off the blindfold herself so she could devour her lover with the hunger of one starving.

They lay together quietly in love's afterglow, letting their sated bodies relax.

She cupped his damp cheek. “That was splendid, my wicked, wicked rogue.”

He grinned with a boyish shyness that she found charming in such a sophisticated man.

“Thank you for being such a good sport and indulging me, my sweet,” he murmured drowsily.

She laughed at his very English reference. “It was my pleasure.” She pulled his damp body to her and pillowed his head on her breast, smiling diabolically as she plotted her own sweet, sensual revenge.

Chapter Sixteen

Darius's father sat across from him in a quiet corner of the nearly deserted café.

“You can't marry her, you know,” Blackwall said.

Darius sipped his coffee, faking a calmness he was far from feeling. “I'm the Earl of Clarridge. I can do as I please. If I want to marry Régine, I will.”

“It's precisely because you are the Earl of Clarridge and my heir that you can't. When it comes to choosing a wife, she must possess an impeccable pedigree and, like Caesar's wife, be above reproach, not a whore who's spread her legs for half the men in Paris.”

Darius leaned forward in his chair, his voice deceptively soft but laced with an undercurrent of unmistakable menace. “Have you forgotten what it feels like to be grabbed by the throat and slammed against the nearest wall, old man?” He studied the poster-covered wall to his right. “This one will do nicely if you insult Régine again.”

The marquess's aristocratic face turned pale. “No need to threaten me, dear boy. I'm merely stating fact. What else would you call a woman who sells her body?”

“Régine has more goodness in her than many of the eligible young ladies who routinely scheme to drag me to the altar,” he replied. Certainly more goodness than his own implacable, vengeful stepmother.

“Scheming or not, it's high time you married one of them and gave me a grandson. An heir and a spare. Someone to carry on the Granger name.”

Darius leaned back in his chair and folded his arms, trying not to let his father rile him. “So that's your game. Marry me off and move in on Régine.”

“Don't be absurd,” Blackwall scoffed. “Despite our differences of opinion, I have only your best interests at heart. You're my son.”

Just one look at the way his father's gaze slid away confirmed Darius's suspicions. “How do you know I wouldn't keep Régine as my mistress, even after I married some sweet young innocent?”

The marquess smiled like a hunter watching his prey step into the trap. “You'd never be so heartless.”

Darius looked away in irritation. His father knew him too well. While many married men of his class did have mistresses discreetly tucked away, his sense of honor would keep him from hurting and insulting his new bride by joining their ranks, even if that mistress was Régine.

“I would only marry for love,” he said, “and since I don't foresee myself falling in love with any of the London misses who have been setting their caps for my title and fortune…”

His father looked as though Darius had just announced he'd renounced that very title. “Dear God! You're in love with her, aren't you?”

“And what if I am?”

His father uttered a dismissive grunt. “Bah! Love has nothing to do with making a suitable marriage, and you know it. Do you think I was in love with your mother when I married her? Of course not. She was beautiful, so it was no hardship to share her bed, but more importantly, she was the daughter of a marquess and a very wealthy heiress who had a dowry of three estates. I came to love her later, after you were born.”

“Oh, don't play the sanctimonious husband with me, Father. It doesn't become you. Everyone knew you kept a string of mistresses when you were married to my mother.”

“And she had her own lovers as well.” He stared at Darius out of narrowed eyes, looking for a reaction, and smiled in triumph. “Ah, I can tell from that look of surprise that you didn't know your dear mother was far from a saint. Well, she had her own collection of men, several of them younger than she, but she was always the soul of discretion. She never embarrassed me, and she never presented me with some other man's bastard.”

Darius stared into his coffee cup. “If Mother had to take lovers, obviously you weren't able to make her happy.”

His father raised his chin. “I am not going to dignify that comment with a response.”

Because it's true.

Darius shook his head. He couldn't see himself ever being unfaithful to Régine.

The marquess stared at him. “You have a responsibility to future generations of our family.”

“I've heard that particular lecture before, and it's growing as stale as week-old bread.”