When She Said I Do (31 page)

Ren stiffened slightly. Callie felt the muscles of his arm tighten. “Three years ago … and yes, you are the first.”

Henry’s open features begged for an explanation, but Callie knew none would be forthcoming.

She cleared her throat. “Sir Lawrence, I believe the quartet is awaiting our taking the floor for the opening waltz.”

With a curt nod to Henry, Ren handed off his stick to a fellow in livery and swept Callie onto the floor in a manner befitting a prince and princess. Then he bowed deeply to her and she to him. On cue, the music began as he took her hand and she flowed into his arms.

There was a long pause. Callie awaited his lead. Then Ren bowed his head toward hers. “Callie?”

“Yes?”

“You not only forgot to ask me if I wished for a ball, but you forgot to ask me if I could dance.”

Oh, hell. Oh, damn. Oh, Great George’s Balls!

Then he laughed in her ear and swept her into an effortless waltz, even using his limp in time with the rise and fall of the steps.

Callie threw back her head and laughed out loud. After a moment of stunned attention upon the dark, imposing master and his luminous bride, the rest of the guests joined in the dance.

Ren looked down at her, his evening sky-blue eyes twinkling. “Don’t forget you owe me a pearl.”

*   *   *

When Ren found Button after the first waltz, the dapper little man was deep in conversation with a lithe young woman in a housemaid’s livery. At first glance Ren dismissed her as a plain sort. When she dipped a quick curtsy and left the two men alone, Ren’s attention was caught by her athletic grace. If she were a man, he would think she moved like a fighter, a dangerous one.

Which was ridiculous, of course.

He shook the odd thought from his mind and pinned Button with a sour gaze. “What were you thinking, putting Callie in such a gown?”

Button blinked at him blandly. “You don’t care for it? I thought the color most becoming.”

Ren narrowed his gaze. “It’s lovely—what there is of it. Did you perhaps run short of fabric … oh, say, in the bodice area?”

Button made no effort to hide his pleased smirk. “Her ladyship’s natural assets make you the envy of all the men here.”

Ren crossed his arms and loomed, his gleaming new cane in his fist. One talent he’d not lost, looming. “And if I don’t care to have all the men here laying their bloody eyeballs on my—on her ladyship’s assets?”

“I brought something along in case of textile failure,” Button admitted reluctantly, as he slid his gaze aside. “But it will simply ruin the curve of the neckline.”

Ren, whose gut went cold with horror as he imagined Callie in the midst of “textile failure,” snatched the length of fine lace that Button pulled from his pocket and went in search of his bride.

He didn’t see Button watching him go with great satisfaction on his puckish features.

Callie was, rather unsurprisingly, to be found surrounded by a tight circle of male admirers. Since what he really wanted to do was to snatch Callie off the floor and throw her over his shoulder in a territorial display, he forced himself to bow before his bride. “If her ladyship will excuse the interruption, there is something of pressing importance I must discuss.”

Callie, who knew perfectly well that he was never so polite to her, nodded warily and sent her admirers onward with urges to draw their ladies and sisters and mothers into the next dance.

Then she lifted her chin. “What have I done now?”

Ren’s reply was to grab her by the hand and tow her off to the side of the ballroom, where a curtained alcove awaited ladies in the midst of a faint, or lovers in the midst of a tryst.

It was luckily unoccupied, although Ren felt fully able to evict any and everyone who stepped in his path. Pulling her within the curtain, he turned and glared at Callie.

“I can’t believe you would wear that in public!”

She made no pretense at not understanding him. Instead, she crossed her arms beneath her bosom and glared back. “I can’t believe it took you so long to notice!”

“I noticed,” he growled. “First I had business with that rag-peddling procurer! How could you allow him to dress you like a high-priced demirep?”

“So you do like it.” Callie smiled and inhaled a taunting breath. Ren saw the barest pink edge of areole rise above the neckline and nearly swallowed his tongue. Textile failure!

He yanked the length of lace from his pocket. “Put this on!”

She glanced dismissively at it. “I will not. It will ruin the line of the bodice.”

Ren took a step toward her. Then another. He wasn’t feeling territorial any longer. Now he wanted to wrest her down onto the fainting couch behind her and kiss that knowing smile from her lips. Or possibly erase the teasing tone of her tongue by filling her mouth with his cock, which was even now straining at the front of his trousers.

Callie didn’t back down.

Not until he reached into his weskit pocket and pulled out the pearl she’d given him for the first waltz. “Open your mouth.”

Chapter 26

Callie glared into Ren’s eyes. “You wouldn’t dare.”

He put the pearl lightly to her lips. “Open your mouth.”

She licked her lips nervously and sent an anxious glance toward the ballroom on the other side of the thin curtain. Ren wondered if he were indeed going too far. She didn’t want to—

Then her gaze flicked back up to meet his and he saw the heat smoldering in her eyes. Oh, yes, she did want to. A smile quirked his lips.

She opened her mouth.

He laid the pearl upon her tongue and bent to whisper into her ear. “Do not move, nor make a sound, no matter what. You must not respond in any way.”

She closed her lips over the pearl but she did not nod. Instead, her gaze fixed in midair. She might as well have been carved of marble, a perfect statue of the Goddess of Spring.

Perfect. Ren dropped his walking stick to the carpet and pulled the length of lace out long between his fingers and raised it to her bodice. He’d truly only meant to shut her up long enough to make her decent—but her heated compliance made his blood burn, just as it always did.

Slowly, he tucked the lace into the edge of her neckline. It was so sheer and gauzy a pattern that even when neatly arranged, it barely kept her nipples from peeking above the fabric. He tucked those nipples down inside, allowing his fingertips to roll them gently back and forth as he did so.

They tightened at his touch, hardening for him even as he hardened for her. Rebellious little pink tips, pouting outward as if begging for his mouth. It took only the slightest tug to release them wholly into view. Bending, he sucked first one between his lips, tugging and rolling his tongue over it. Then he teased the pert, wet little thing with his fingers while he sucked the other into happy hardness.

Lifting his head, he watched Callie’s face while he tugged and tweaked at her nipples. She allowed no expression to cross her features, but she could do nothing about the quickening of her breath. He pinched gently, plucking and twisting the tender bits of lustful flesh.

“There are a hundred people on the other side of that curtain, Lady Porter, all of them wondering where you are. At any moment, one of them could sweep it aside and discover you in this shameless condition.” He pinched harder, gazing into her stony face, then harder still. She inhaled sharply, but her gaze never left some point over his left shoulder.

He drew out the length of fine lace from her neckline and dragged it slowly across her rigid, sensitized nipples. Her eyelids shivered slightly and he felt a shudder of lust pass through her. “Put your hands behind your back.”

She did nothing. No response, just as he’d commanded. So he moved behind her, drawing her hands back to cross at her wrists. Then he wrapped the lace about them. For a moment, he contemplated a simple playful wrapping, one that could be shaken off in a moment.

Then the dark tide of desire and possession rose within him and he found himself pulling a snug knot about her hands. She was truly bound, helpless and half naked at her own ball. The wickedness turned his desire into a sudden harsh wave of black lust. She was his.

His.

The lonely years, the hiding, the bleak betrayal had turned his normal male desires into something seething and deep. He didn’t simply want her—he
required
her. He needed to have her, keep her, own her, and make her know herself owned.

So he tied her up and pulled her breasts entirely free of the snug bodice and pushed her hard against the wall of the alcove while he devoured her nipples. Hard hands squeezed her soft flesh until he heard her breath catch. He sucked her deep into his mouth, grazing the rigid tips with his teeth in his urgency, eating her alive, consuming her.

It wasn’t enough. He wanted more, so much more. If he could have drawn her right into his own body and trapped her there forever, it would not have been enough.

And what of her?

He drew back to gaze into her face, still closed and distant—but her cheeks were flushed and her eyes bright and her breath panted quick and broken. She was as aroused as he.

Should he roger her right here, splay her out right on the sofa, to hell with her gown, to hell with the ball, and make her come screaming ten steps away from their guests?

Yes.

Or up against the wall, her thighs wrapped around his hips, her bound hands behind his neck, her soft bottom squeezed bruisingly hard in his hands while he plunged into her?

Yes.

No.

She was caught up in the moment, she was awash with lust. She would allow it. She would likely even enjoy it—in the moment. But after, when she would have to face the scandalized occupants of the ballroom wearing the evidence of her ravagement?

He dropped his face into her soft, delicious bosom and tried to wrest his lust under control. She wanted him. Her heart pounded in his ear. He could detect the warm, sea-salt scent of her lust rising up through her gown.

The perfume of her drove him to the edge of sanity, calling to mind the taste of her and the hot, soft, wet feel of her.

She stood so still, willing and waiting.

Just one taste …

He dropped to his knees before the object of his desire and lifted her skirts.

*   *   *

Callie pressed her bared shoulders into the cool plaster of the wall behind her back and wound her fingers tightly together in secret, but it was all she could do to suppress the shudders of hunger that swept her like waves on a shore. Her exposed nipples throbbed from his rough treatment, crinkling in the chilly air, jutting reddened and naked above the crumpled silk of her bodice.

He was wicked to bind her thus, to take her to this dark plane of temptation and submission—and during her very first ball, too!

Yet the pull she felt to him—more than simply the twisted ropes of domination and submission—and the need she felt emanating from his very skin kept her there, kept her still, kept her at his mercy yet again.

Her eyes were fixed on a speck of light shining through a flaw in the curtain, but she’d become blind to it long before. Her bound wrists were truly quite immovable, for this was no game he played in this dark little room.

No, for all his teasing, there was something that he wanted from her, something that he needed.

He was not the only one. She stood completely still. Her hair was not even mussed! Yet she ached for him, for his touch, for his cock within her. Her thighs were slick with her wanting and when his hot hands slid up her legs to discover this, she nearly wept with relief.

He pushed gently on the inside of her knees to part them, but she did not respond. She made him force her thighs apart with hard hands and shivered inwardly with delight when he spread her feet far apart and knelt between them, exposing her for his delectation.

Her gown he pushed high, tucking the hem into her fallen bodice, keeping the silk far away from his wicked intentions. Then he slid the fingers of one hand between her swollen, slippery labia, seeking and finding.

She didn’t make a sound, but she was quite certain her tongue would be sore for days from the biting.

His fingers pushed into her, first one long middle finger, thrusting deep into her slick readiness. Then two long fingers, pressed together, opening her, spreading her. His thumb joined in, rubbing slow circles over her clitoris. She felt his mouth then, his lips kissing down her exposed belly even as his fingers began a rhythmic slow pace, invading deep and then withdrawing, spreading her wetness.

His hot mouth descended upon her then, his tongue taking the place of his hard thumb. Hot, slick circles broken by quick sweeps from side to side, all while his hard, insistent fingers violated her as she stood bound, helpless, and exposed, just seconds from discovery.

It was marvelous. She loved losing herself in the heat and need, that moment of time slowing until she could hear her breath panting in and out, could feel the slight calluses on his fingers. This closed, dark, rich place, here in his hands …

If she’d been allowed, she would have driven herself into his hand thrusting and grinding upon it whilst keening like a banshee.

She was not permitted such a release. Instead, she remained his statue, his creation to be sculpted by his hand alone. The teasing was exquisite.

She needed more. She ached for him, ached to be impaled upon him, riding the waves of his lust. She needed her sweet, painful craving filled.

To hell with her dress. Damn the ball! She needed to be taken, right now in the dark, in this secret wicked world he’d drawn her into!

His hand withdrew from inside her and she wanted to scream her frustration aloud—but he’d commanded her silence and she obeyed. Her submission had taken on a life of its own somehow, as if he’d slowly built a vibrating sentient cage about her will, a cage she had no wish to leave.

Not even when the cold, metal knob of his cane pressed against her hot, slippery labia.

Though icy shock flooded her body, she did not so much as flinch. She was not on this journey alone. If he wished to see how far she would go, to know how much her loyalty would accept, to learn when it would be that she would reject him, well, the idiot man had a long row to hoe.