A Touch of Autumn (5 page)

“Rich. Alpha. And sexually submissive. Someone who likes to let off a little steam in the bedroom after a hard day in the board room.”

She smiled at him. It wasn’t exactly what she wanted to hear but at least he was talking to her. “You know me so well.”

Vadim pulled her closer, until she could feel his breath on her cheek.  His eyes were slightly glazed and the smell of his cologne mingled with a hint of brandy. “Let’s not play games. I want you tonight. Name your price.”

A dark shape closed in on them and Sinead was lifted bodily off her feet.

“I think the lady has danced enough,” Niall snapped.

The dance floor was a blur of costumes and laughter as he manhandled her from the room.  With his free hand, he pulled open a door and pushed her inside. The small, dimly lit space between the adjoining rooms was where the servants usually waited. Niall turned the key in both locks, sealing them in.

Sometime during the evening he had abandoned his frock coat.  The linen shirt stretched across his broad shoulders and his chest rose and fell rapidly. “I told you to stay away from
Vadim.”

“I was trying to find out about my sister.”

“Oh yeah? From every man in the place? I saw you, Sinead. Just how many business cards do you have tucked into your dress?”

She squealed as he reached into her décolletage and drew out the American’s card. “Stop that.”

“Or what? Have you any idea what it was like to watch you work the room tonight, flirting with every guy in the place?”

His chest rose and fell rapidly and a mixture of dread and excitement fluttered low in her belly.  She was trapped here with him. The space between the doors was only designed to provide an airlock effect to minimize drafts. It wasn’t designed for fights, particularly with someone of Niall’s size. 

She knew that he had been staring at her all night, but not how much her behaviour had provoked him. A dark, wicked thrill shot straight to her core. She had done this to him. For once, Niall wasn’t in total control. She had unleashed the real man, the one behind the iron-clad façade. She could almost see the moment when he gave up the fight to maintain his self control.

Then she was lost.

Niall knew he was losing it, but she had driven him crazy all evening and now he couldn’t hold out any longer.  He groaned as he hauled her against him and kissed him as if he were dying. Sinead smelled so good, and her skin was so warm and he felt he would go mad if he didn’t get her to himself. He tightened his arms around her, lifting her to his ravening mouth.

He wanted to bury himself in her warmth and had to content himself with plunging his tongue into her mouth, determined to dominate her and bend her to his will. But naturally, nothing with Sinead ever went according to plan.

She tasted like champagne and woman. Sinead was angry too, but when their lips met, her anger changed to desire.

She put her arms around his neck and met him kiss for kiss. Her tongue dueled with his, a tease and a challenge.  He pressed her up against the door, so he could tilt her head to the perfect angle to deepen the kiss. God, he could kiss this woman forever. Her mouth was so sweet. He didn’t care that half of what she said was a lie. Now, all that he cared about was bending her to his will. And fuck her until she couldn’t stand. 

The hoops beneath her dress had been designed to torture him.  Her costume hadn’t been made for an encounter like this. He fumbled with her dress, trying to push it back, dying to get closer to her. The urge to rip it off her was almost overwhelming but he doubted that Sinead would let him. He groaned. He should have insisted that she wore a wench costume, something that he could have torn off her. Instead, she was wearing the 18th century equivalent of a bomb disposal suit. He couldn’t wait until they got back to their room. He had to have her now otherwise he was in danger of having an explosion of his own. How did she do this to him?

He tried a different approach, lifting the layers of skirts and petticoats until he encountered the bare skin of her thighs. So smooth. So beautiful and she was wearing no underwear. His inner Viking roared in triumph.

Sinead gasped loudly when he pressed his finger against her clit. She was wet, eager wanting him.  Her pale breasts were too much of a temptation. They had ridden so high in the corset that her nipples were exposed. He fastened his mouth over one and sucked hard.

He pumped one finger slowly into her, pleased when her inner muscles clasped around him. Oh, yes. She might have been struggling when he carried her in here, but she wanted him  

“Niall, now, please.” Her words came in a breathless gasp.

He reluctantly released the tender peak.  His cock was rigid, pressed hard against the front of his breeches. The urge to take her against the wall and fuck her until she screamed was riding him hard, but those damned hoops were still in the way. He would lift her, her decided.  Lift her and impale her. Niall fumbled at his buttons, desperate to be inside her.

The sound of a scream stopped him. He wanted to ignore it, but duty was too deeply ingrained.

Reluctantly, he raised his head. “Stay here. I’ll be back to finish this.”

He prised himself away from her, and unlocked the door. He hoped that if he ignored his raging erection, no one else would notice it.

Another scream came from outside. He rushed out, aware that Sinead had disobeyed him and was following close behind him, adjusting her clothing as she ran.

The crowd around the swimming pool was pointing to the water. A scarlet coated figure was floating face down in the centre of it. Niall had no trouble recognizing who it was.

Andy.

Without hesitation, Niall dived into the pool and swam towards the floating figure. He felt his breeches rip as he kicked out, but didn’t care.

Andy was a dead weight when he grabbed him, but Niall could feel a pulse. He hooked an arm around Andy, turning him and towing him towards the side of the pool.

Sinead was there, tears streaming down her face.  She reached down to help, but was immobilized by her corset. It didn’t matter, there were a group of other men there who helped him lift Andy out of the water.

Vadim
caught him under his arms and hauled him up while the pirate pulled his leg and helped him onto the tiles at the side of the pool.

Niall grabbed the edge and pushed himself out of the water. He checked, but Andy was still not breathing, so he tilted his head to the side to let some of the water out, and began CPR and rescue breathing.

It seemed like an eternity, but was only a couple of moments when Andy coughed, spluttered and breathed on his own. He pushed Niall away and puked up what looked like a gallon of water.

The audience, silent until now, clapped and cheered. Hermione patted Niall on the back. “Well done, that was remarkable.”

“I’ll look after him,” Niall said. Despite Andy’s protests, he picked him and carried him away from the pool.  He had no doubt that Sinead would be along behind him.

“What happened?” he asked Andy as soon as they were out of earshot of the crowd.

Andy’s voice was a hoarse rasp, but Niall could hear him. “I changed places with Killy. Bastards took me by surprise. Hit me from behind.”

“Did you see who it was?”

Andy shook his head. “No. But he was damn good.”

Niall reached his room, and put Andy down on the bed, uncaring that he was still soaking. “Stay there, I need to check on
Killy.”

Killy
was in his room, pacing anxiously up and down. He pounced on Niall as soon as he knocked on the door and slid in. “What’s happening? Something has gone wrong. I know it. Look what was just shoved under the door.”

He handed over a note. It was laid out the same way as the previous one, but said simply, “You disobeyed. Now you’ll pay. Tomorrow your photographs will be all over the newspapers.”

Sinead watched as the colour gradually return to Andy’s cheeks.  He was still a little out of it, but it could have been much worse. This whole evening had turned into a nightmare.  They had almost lost Andy.  She dreaded to think what would have happened if someone hadn’t seen him.

Thank god Niall had been there. And she had been no help at all. She had barely been able to run in these stupid clothes.

She pulled off her wig and put it on the stand on the dressing table. Tugging the merciless pins from her hair, she let it fall loose. The blood rushed to her scalp. Ouch. Reaching beneath her skirts, she unhooked the hoops and panniers and dropped them to the floor. The heavy brocade dress, she hung carefully on a hanger. Damned corset, she could hardly move in it.  She wanted out of it now.

“Wench.” Andy rasped the single word rasped from the bed.

She hurried to him. “You’re okay?”

“One of my
favourite fantasies,” Andy mumbled.

Sinead caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and giggled.  Wearing nothing but the shift and corset, she did look like a tavern wench.  Trust Andy to notice, but at least that meant he was returning to normal.

He struggled to sit up.  “I’m wetting your bed.  I better—”

“
Feck the bed.  I’m just glad you’re alive.”

The door opened and Niall returned, carrying Andy’s hold-all which he tossed onto the floor. “We have a problem.
Killy got another note.  We have to find out who is behind this before the ball is over or he can kiss his career goodbye.”

Andy sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. “I wish I could remember more, but I was struck from behind.”

Sinead frowned. “And you’re certain that it wasn’t Vadim?”

“I was watching him all night,” Niall said.  “And the men who were at the stables with him earlier both work for Hermione.  He promised them a couple of hundred each. They thought we were fighting about winning the champagne.”

Sinead watched as Niall paced the room thinking.  His linen shirt was damp and rumpled and the seam on his pants was torn, revealing a length of hard muscle.  

He looked like a hot, dissolute, dangerous pirate from her darkest fantasies.  Concentrate Sinead. Concentrate.

He rounded on Andy.  “Tell me exactly what you were doing before you were struck. Every detail.”

“Well, I changed places with
Killy.  He and Mimi were getting it on when…”

“You can leave out that bit,” Niall snapped.  “Go on.  What happened when you went into the garden?”

Andy rubbed his forehead tiredly. “I walked around the rose garden for a while and waited for someone to approach me, but the alcoves were full of couples and there were a few scenes going on, so I returned to the pool.”

“It was empty.  I was just about to go back to the house when I heard something behind me.  I half turned, but he walloped me. It felt like a night stick.”

“And?” Niall urged him on.  “You said he.  How do you know that it was a man? Did you hear anything? Were there voices? Think, man. Think.”

Sinead stood up to protest.  She had never seen Niall behave like this.  He was standing over his friend as if he was interrogating him. Andy was injured. How could he push him like this?

“From the angle, I guess.”  Andy screwed his eyes up in concentration. “He was taller than me, maybe 6’2 or 6’3.   And I caught a glimpse of something  as I went into the pool.  A shoe that looked like something from an Ali Baba movie.  Sorry, boss.  That’s about it. I—“

“Fuck,” Niall said.  “It’s the princess. It has to be her.”

When he said it, everything made perfect sense.  Samara didn’t want Killy’s research. Her kingdom enough oil for decades. She wanted to make sure that no one else was able to use it.  Samara didn’t care if Killy died or not. No matter what happened, she would win and the scientist would be dead or in disgrace.

“We have to stop her.”

But how were they going to get near her?  The bodyguard never left her side for an instant.

Niall stopped pacing and straightened his shoulders before turning to face her.  Sinead could tell by the tension around his mouth that something bad was coming.

“I want you to sell me to her.”

“What?”  Sinead struggled to overcome her disbelief.  Samara was a devious sadist and she was just supposed to hand Niall over to her?  Worse still was the gnawing sense of jealousy that grew stronger by the moment.  Niall would spend the night with Samara. In her bed.  That horrible woman would touch him, hurt him, make love to him.  “Over my dead—“

“It’s not your choice, Sinead.”

The rebuke in his voice made her stop.  Niall was right.  Whatever this thing was between them, this incendiary attraction would end when they found her sister and got the Fire of Autumn back.  Niall was employed by her uncle to make sure that she turned up for her trial.

Sinead swallowed and tried to blink back the threatening tears.  She was just being foolish.   She was a job to him. Nothing more than that.

She shrugged. “You’re right.  Do whatever you want.”

“I think there’s something that you need to—” Andy started to speak.

“Shut up, Andy,” they both chorused.

Without saying another word, Sinead turned and hurried to the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.  Niall Moore could sleep with a million women for all she cared.  She didn’t give a damn.

She sat on the edge of the bath and pulled off her stockings, flinging them at the door in temper. She turned on the shower and reached behind her for the cords of her corset to discover that he had tied it in some complicated fashion that she couldn’t open.  Didn’t the man know how to tie a bloody quick release knot?  Sinead tugged on the loops with tearful frustration for several minutes before giving up.