To Pleasure a Prince (11 page)

Any time you let your charge out of your sight, you invite the devil Mischief to wreak his willful havoc.

—Miss Cicely Tremaine,
The Ideal Chaperone

O
ut of the frying pan into the fire,
Regina thought, as Henry led her up the crowded stairs. She should have insisted that her other cousins come along, but she’d been in too much of a hurry to escape her so-called friends and their evisceration of Marcus. If only Henry hadn’t stepped in when she’d asked Richard to take her back to her box. Henry was the last person she wanted to be alone with.

Sure enough, at the top of the stairs, he tugged her toward the right.

She tugged him toward the left. “The box is this way.”

“I want to talk to you. Alone. Your brother’s box is empty at the moment, and you and I never got to finish our last discussion.”

She sighed. They
had
finished it. He simply refused to accept it, which was why she’d avoided him ever since. She needed to put an end to his assumptions once and for all.

She let him lead her into Simon’s spacious box, but stopped him when he started to close the door. “No need for that.” With the lights going down in the house, it would be very dark in here with the door closed. Too dark.

He faced her with a sullen expression. “You said you’d consider my offer.”

“No, I said I couldn’t marry a man whom I regard as a brother.”

“That’s ridiculous. It’s been years since we gamboled about in your family’s deer park like little savages. God knows I don’t think of you as a sister.”

“Perhaps it’s time that you do.”

“Why? I have everything you could require in a husband, including a substantial fortune. You have no sensible reason for refusing me.”

Except that she found him pretentious and boring. Henry’s idea of a riveting evening was to gossip about everyone in his acquaintance. He probably gossiped about
her
when she wasn’t around. “I’m sorry, Henry, I simply don’t bear those sorts of feelings for you. And I never shall.”

“You haven’t given me a chance, that’s all.” Taking her by surprise, he shut the box door and dragged her into his arms. “But if you’d let me show you—”

He kissed her before she could stop him. She didn’t resist, first stunned, then curious to see if his kiss would affect her as profoundly as Marcus’s. But like the few other men who’d dared to kiss her, he’d honed his skills on many a pretty woman, and his calculated talent left her cold.

She wrenched her mouth from his. “That’s enough, Henry. I am not interested in you that way.”

“Nonsense.” He gripped her so that she could not escape his embrace. “Give it a chance.”

Panic shook her when she couldn’t wrestle free. “Let go of me now, drat it!”

His face turned ugly. “They’re right about you,” he hissed in her ear, as she struggled against his hold. “You’re a cold little bitch, aren’t you? You tease and flirt, but when a man shows you any genuine affection—”

“Release her, or I’ll make you regret it,” a voice growled.

Marcus! The door was now open and his massive form filled the doorway. Henry let her go with a speed that would have been insulting if she hadn’t known what a coward he was. He faced Marcus warily. “This is none of your concern, sir, so if you will leave us—”

“Do you want me to leave, Lady Regina?” Marcus asked, without shifting his gaze from Henry.

Behold the dragon. His clenched fists, powerful bulk, and fiery face were the very picture of dragonly fury, a barely leashed force awaiting only her word to fly out and destroy everything in its path.

Other men had sworn to fight for her. This was the first man she believed might actually do it. A thrill shot down her spine. “Please stay, Lord Draker. Henry was just leaving.”

Henry whirled on her. “Regina, you can’t mean you prefer—”

“You heard her.” Marcus stepped into the box. “I believe your friends are looking for you downstairs.”

Henry hesitated. Fortunately, the idiot’s brain actually functioned once in a while. With a tight little bow, he exited the box, leaving Marcus and Regina alone.

Now that Henry was gone, she didn’t know whether to be delighted that Marcus had shown up or annoyed that he’d taken it upon himself to interfere. “How did you find me?”

“I followed you. I didn’t trust your cousins.”

“Or me, apparently. I could have handled Henry myself, you know.”

With a glance at the rest of the boxes in the house, he closed the door, then stepped closer. “I could see how well you were handling him.”

“You didn’t give me the chance. When you came in, I was about to use my ‘strong right arm’ on him. That would have stopped him.”

“It didn’t stop me from kissing you on your doorstep last night,” he murmured into the darkness. He was much closer now.

She shivered deliciously, but didn’t move. She had two choices. The wise one was to rebuff him as swiftly as she’d rebuffed Henry. The foolish one was to see where this led.

Earlier this evening, she would have made the wise choice. But Henry’s pathetic kiss had shown her one basic truth. She’d never been attracted to any man as powerfully as she was to this one. Despite his grousing. Despite the beard and rude manners and the way he always kept her unsettled.

Or perhaps the unsettled part was what attracted her. “I could have stopped you last night if I’d wanted to,” she admitted.

“So why didn’t you?”

“I didn’t want to.”

His eyes glittered dangerously in the semidarkness. “But tonight you wanted to stop me. Tonight you wouldn’t even let me hold your hand.”

“Because I-I wanted to teach you some manners,” she lied.

“I’m rather thickheaded sometimes.” Suddenly his hands were on her waist, drawing her behind the curtains at the back of the box, giving her a chance to resist. “Perhaps we should repeat the lesson.”

The husky words sent a thrill of anticipation coursing through her rapidly heating blood. Breathless, she slid her hands up the mighty arms that engulfed her. “Perhaps we should.”

That was all it took to have him kissing her. And it was every bit as wonderful as she remembered, hot and sweet and silky. His mouth consumed hers, taking everything with that amazing boldness he showed in all that he did. But where Henry’s boldness had appalled her, Marcus’s only made her want more.

She clutched eagerly at his brawny shoulders. How nice to be out of control for a change. And this was so very out of control. They were alone in the dark; no one could see them behind the curtains. Certainly no one could hear them, with the noisy patrons conversing over the performers. If anyone did hear, they would probably assume some doxy and her companion were making use of an empty box.

At times like this she wished she were his doxy, especially when he plundered her mouth like a marauder, possessing it so thoroughly that she felt melded to him like wax to a wick, the two of them erupting into flames together.

His mouth left hers to burn a path of fire along her jaw. “You defended me to them downstairs. Why?”

“You heard us?” she whispered, cursing her friends for their snide tongues.

“I heard them behaving like asses. I heard you defending me.”

“They don’t even know you,” she choked out, though it was hard to speak when he was nibbling her earlobe and laving her ear with his heated tongue.

“I don’t know you, either,” he whispered against her ear. “I thought I had you figured out. I thought it was only the public nature of our association that bothered you. I thought that was why you acted as if you disliked me. But then you defended me to your friends.”

“I don’t dislike you. I never disliked you.”

He nuzzled her neck, his beard tickling her sensitive flesh. “Then why have you been so cool to me tonight?”

“Because this is unwise…you…and me.”

“Of course it’s unwise—what difference does that make?” His open mouth caressed her exposed shoulder, and a shiver ran through her.

“It makes a difference to me. I always try to act wisely.”
Most of the time.

“I don’t. I never have.”

She smiled against his hair. “I know. You’d much rather thrash about, insulting people.”

He froze. “You mean I don’t behave as you’d like. Is that why you think it unwise for me to kiss you? And want you?”

Her heart began to pound. “You don’t really want me.”
You would despise me if you knew I can’t read your precious books.
“That’s why it’s unwise.”

Drawing back, he fixed her with a gaze so intensely black it seemed to swallow her up. “I suppose this is how you get all the men to grovel at your feet—by pretending not to know what you do to them.” His gaze scoured her throat and shoulders and breasts. “Because you have to know that men want you.”

Her temper flared. He was just like the rest of them. “My body, you mean. Yes, I do know that men want my body. So what does it matter if I’ve got one more to ‘grovel’ at my feet?”

Shoving him away, she whirled and headed for the door, but he caught her around the waist and dragged her roughly back against the hard wall of his chest. A shiver swept her as her bottom pressed against his muscular thighs.

“Do you expect me not to want your body?” he murmured against her ear. “Because I don’t think that’s possible. And if that’s why you’re angry…”

The hint of amusement in his tone only fired her temper further. “I’m angry because you want
only
my body. You’ve made it clear time and again that you think me shallow and frivolous, so you couldn’t possibly want me for my good temper or my common sense or my character.”

“If I wanted only your body,” he growled, “I wouldn’t be here, putting up with your sharp tongue. I can purchase a complacent beauty in any high-priced brothel in London.”

She stiffened. “If you think such a crude statement will do for an apology—”

“I’m not apologizing. I won’t apologize for wanting any part of you. I know I’m crude and uncivilized and not fit to kiss your hand. I just don’t care.”

He splayed his hand over her belly, bunching the satin as he fit her more firmly in the shelter of his chest and waist and thighs, every inch of him as rigid and unyielding as his words. She ought to fight him. She ought to dig her fingernails into his arm, kick back at his shin…do anything to make him let go of her. She shouldn’t even listen to his words.

Because they affected her. And because even though he was crude and uncivilized and all those things she thought she hated…she didn’t mind it in him. Oh, what perversity was that?

He pressed his lips to her ear, then went on in a voice tinged with anger. “Do you think I like desiring the sister of the very man I despise? A woman who only tolerates my kisses because she needs an adventure to liven her life?”

“That’s not true,” she whispered.

“Isn’t it? I’ve gone over and over it in my head, and I can think of no other reason for your letting me hold you. Or do this.” He scattered kisses along her jaw. “And this.” He sucked her neck, an action she found oddly sensuous. “And even this…” His hand slid up to cover her breast.

She was so shocked at first she couldn’t speak. No man had ever dared or even attempted…Did he think she would allow…

She reached for his hand, but then it began to move beneath her fingers, slowly, carnally, fondling her through her gown as if she were some…some…

Doxy.

Her head fell back against his chest. Oh, Lord, perhaps he was right; perhaps she did want adventure. Or perhaps she’d just gone so long without letting any man near her that she was tired of holding men at arm’s length.

No, not all men. Just him. He was the only one she wanted close. But why? Because he was outside of society? Or because she’d simply lost her mind?

“If it’s adventure you want, dearling,” he murmured, “I’m happy to oblige.”

“No…I mean…I don’t know why I let you…do this to me.”

“I’m not complaining.” He nipped at her earlobe, which sent an erotic thrill humming along her flesh. “I’m only praying I don’t wake up too soon.”

“You’re not asleep.” Or else she was, too.

“I might be. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve dreamed of you.” Still holding her with her backside pressed into his groin, he drew her farther behind the curtains into the blackest depths of the box.

She went willingly, tantalized by the idea of his dreaming about her. When he continued fondling her breast, she choked out, “What sort of dreams?”

He caressed her other breast, wringing a long sigh from her lips. “Last night I dreamed I heard you singing. I went through Castlemaine following that siren’s voice of yours and found you in my dungeon. All your talk of chaining women in it must have brought that on. Because despite what the gossips say, I only go in my dungeon when I’m in too foul a mood to be around people, and I need to vent my temper.”

“Was I…chained?”

“No. But I was. After I entered.”

“So what was
I
doing there?”

“You don’t want to know.”

The growled whisper only made her breath quicken. “I do.”

“You were sitting with a harp cradled between your legs. And you were naked from head to toe, with only the harp to shield you.”

She gasped at the shockingly provocative image that leaped into her mind.

“The second I entered, chains wrapped themselves around my wrists, jerking me back, keeping me from touching you,” he went on in a guttural voice. “I stood there helpless, envying that damned harp for getting to lie between your thighs and brush the very places I wanted to touch…like your breasts…” He slid his hand inside her bodice to caress her bare flesh. “Your silky breasts.”

When he plucked at her nipple as if it were a harp string, pleasure resonated through her. He played her deftly, soothing and provoking her by turns. She groaned as his fondling grew bolder, more outrageous, but she could not bring herself to stop him. Sweet heaven, was this what it was like to have a man touch you intimately? This was what she’d be giving up if she never married?

“I wanted to stroke your belly…” Slipping his free hand down, he splayed his fingers over her abdomen, then dragged them lower and lower until—“And this.” He cupped her between the legs, right on the spot where she felt suddenly tight and tender. “God, how I wanted to touch this.”