A Wild Night's Bride (11 page)

Phoebe spoke first in a reluctant whisper. “Are they gone?”

“They must be,” he replied. “Or we would surely have been discovered.”

His big hands and strong arms dropped from her body, leaving her feeling bereft. Closest to the door, she gently turned the knob and opened it only enough to peer into the empty chamber. “I think we’re safe.” Slinking out first, Phoebe was acutely aware of her nakedness. “Please, I need something to cover me,” she said. “The sheet. Anything.”

With his color high and his gaze averted, he handed her the same sheet she had earlier wrapped about her. “Kitty,” he began, “About what just happened...I can’t begin to apologize.”

The breath exited her lungs in a painful gush. She snatched the sheet from his hands. “Apologize? You wish to apologize?” She had just experienced the indescribable at his hands, and he was regretting it? Her chest seized. The spell had not only broken but lay shattered at her feet.

“I can’t explain what came over me,” he said, looking helpless and agonizingly contrite. “I lost all self-possession, any sense of decorum, of restraint... Here I meant to save you from DeVere, and I have proven no better.”

“Don’t!” She choked down the lump in her throat. She had never felt more exposed or vulnerable. She had sworn never to be hurt again but had lost all good sense. With his open display of pain and grief, he had touched some deep recess of her heart. She would never have believed any man could love so deeply had she not seen the sorrow, the longing in his eyes. She had wondered what it would be like to be the center of someone’s world, to be essential to their happiness. Her inner soul, the part she thought locked safely away, had craved that, coveted it. Foolishly, she had given herself to him with a hopeless hunger for just a small crumb of what he had given another and was now at peril of losing her heart.

“I used you.” He groaned.

No.
She gave herself a brutal shake. She knew she meant nothing to him. It was his personal honor and conscience that nagged him. He had already demonstrated an overdeveloped sense of it with his self-imposed celibacy. She reminded herself that she had come here only for the money, to win DeVere’s wager, but now he was out cold. If they left this place now, everything she had risked would all be for naught.

While they had come under the guise of his wager, DeVere had revealed to her that he’d had something entirely different in mind all along, that his true intent was Ned’s seduction. Without guile, she had willingly done her part, but would DeVere still uphold his bargain? She wondered how much he would even remember in the morning. Would he require proof that she had seduced his best friend? Perhaps she needed the sheet after all. While he had lost himself to passion in a weak moment, he now seemed to have replaced his shield of gentlemanly reserve. How now to seduce a principled man who thought he had used and dishonored her?
What would Kitty do?

With hammering heart, Phoebe masked herself in an entirely new cloak, turning to face him with a shrill laugh. “You think
you
used
me?
But you have it all backward, my darling. Did it never occur to you that
I
might have used
you?
That this entire night might have been naught but an outlandish ploy to satisfy my own wanton whim?”

Ned’s face darkened. “What do you mean
ploy?
”

“I came alone to a brothel, after all. Perhaps I am the one no better than DeVere. I told quite a convincing story, did I not? One entirely crafted to engage your sympathy.”

He studied her in tight-lipped silence as she pressed on.

“I am a fashionable woman, after all, and women of fashion must have their intrigues. My husband is not only the biggest bore in London, you see, but a clumsy dullard in bed. No imagination at all. Thus, I am forced to seek my pleasure where I can in these delicious, little adventures. Given DeVere’s reputation, I had originally sought him out, but then you presented yourself, and your resistance only made for better sport. DeVere will plant his staff anywhere, after all. Hardly a conquest.”

He looked confused and suspicious. “Then explain this wager.”

“DeVere told you the idea was mine. Do you not recall?” She gave a bland lift of the brow. “He is so easily manipulated, you see.”

He looked fierce. “And you let me go and break his head for it?”

She averted her gaze from his accusing stare. “Heartless of me, wasn’t it?” she added blithely, “but you’ve already said he’ll recover.” She hid her tightly strung nerves behind a low, seductive chuckle. “Pray don’t be cross with me, darling. This part of my little escapade was not premeditated, I assure you. DeVere took it all further than I could have anticipated. But now, here we are.” She shrugged, dropping the sheet and sliding her hands to his chest, pressing her breasts to him, determined to follow through. While he still fought it, she could see his inner struggle in the tightness of his jaw, the pulse beating in his neck. Despite all, he was already hardening against her belly.

“This was all sport for you? Just some little sex game?”

“Yes,” she gushed. “A delightfully dangerous and erotic game. But now there is a new game I wish to play. It is a fantasy. Have you ever fantasized, dear Ned? Have you ever imagined wicked things you would never dare voice aloud?” She ground her pubis against his erection and could almost hear his armor of resolve cracking. “Look about you. You are in the King of England’s bedchamber. The most powerful men in the civilized world have cavorted in this very same bed. Charles alone had what, fifteen mistresses? What decadent and sinful things must have happened here. What wicked things we could do together.” She looked at him with a sultry smile. “Now I ask, my darling, do you wish to play?”

***

Who the devil was she? What was she up to? She was like two different women inhabiting a single body. Ned’s head, having never fully recovered from the kava or the brandy, was spinning.

Earlier that evening, she had touched him with candor and glimpses of vulnerability that had somehow triggered an irrational compulsion to protect her. Later, she had inspired his admiration with her spunk in going toe-to-toe with DeVere, a formidable antagonist. Then, only moments ago in their clandestine coupling, she had stirred him to sublime heights, stoking the flame of his lust until he was blind and deaf to all but burying his staff in her. In this moment of weakness, he had taken her with a bruising passion that she had eagerly matched. But though he tried to suppress it, that brief taste of her only made him desperately crave more.

“This wager,” he said, wrapping his large hands about her tiny wrists and pulling her arms behind her back. “The danger. It excites you.”

Her pink tongue darted over her lips, giving him confirmation. She had confessed to playing a game, using him for her own pleasure, but he knew she lied. He could read the deception in her guileless, blue eyes, but her quickening breath and hardening nipples bore witness that her desire was assuredly real.

She was aroused, irresistibly so. In the dark confines of the closet, he had explored the curves of her body, had smelled her desire, but had been denied the visual treat. His restraint was slipping. Fast
.
Thinking to intimidate her, to get the truth out of her, he loomed over her with a tightened grip.

“You truly wish to play this out?” He backed her slowly toward the bed, but to his consternation, she refused to back down.

She met him with a brazen gaze. “Yes.”

Her reply shot a bolt of carnal hunger straight to his groin.
Damn her for taking it this far!
But if she truly wished to play the wanton with him, as all signs indicated—why the devil should he continue to resist? With agonizing awareness, he sensed the wetness pooling between her thighs, while he stubbornly grappled with the remaining shreds of his conscience. “Do you understand what you’re doing?” he asked, his need growing rampant, uncontainable.

“I’ve been celibate three years. The closet was one thing. Taking you into this bed is quite another. I
won’t
be gentle. I’m more than likely to fuck you senseless.”

“Yes,” she whispered. “I know what I’m doing. And I know what you need.”

She gazed into his eyes and ran her tongue over luscious, pink lips. He was instantly stiff as a spike. He closed his eyes, yet her voice filled his ears with dark and illicit promise.
Bloody hell, but this is too much!
Far more than any mortal man could be expected to resist.

“I will do anything you want,” she said. “
Anything at all.
You will be the king, Ned...and I will be your whore.”

***

Phoebe told herself she was only playing the role of seductress, that she could detach her mind from her rebellious body which seemed to act on its own volition. He had tried to intimidate her, but his ferocious look, his brusque and daunting manner had had quite the opposite effect, inspiring something dark and wild within her.

She watched his face, harsh in the predawn shadows, as she spoke, gauging his raw reaction to her illicit suggestions, her own breath quickening and pulse skittering as the air grew thick with mutual desire.

His breathing was short, his grip on her wrists tightened to a painful intensity. His pupils flared, the warmth of his hazel eyes becoming a blaze of desire. She watched as piece by piece, his control shattered.

Ned’s mouth came down on hers, taking and plundering. She closed her eyes with a low moan, taking him in with all her senses—deeply inhaling the sweetly heady essence of musky male, drinking in the rich taste of him in her mouth, eagerly meeting him in the decadent dance of tongues. He yanked her head back and plunged deeper into her mouth, sucking her tongue, biting her lips, like a man desperately ravaged by hunger and just as she imagined his hot, hard sex would pillage her eager body.

He disengaged only long enough to rip the bedcovers back and tear the shirt over his head, but the seconds apart had her aching with want. His naked torso was a work of sculpted muscle. Her eyes devoured the hard plain of his stomach, the erotic trail of dark hair tracking it to where he fumbled with his breeches. She was mesmerized when his cock sprang eagerly into his hand. Unable to resist the sight of his blatant arousal, she reached out and grasped him, relishing the hot hardness, her inner walls contracting in eager anticipation of the wondrous pulsing sensation in her hand.

She stared into his face. He stared back, his hazel eyes hooded. His body was still but for the erratic rise and fall of his chest. She squeezed lightly, noting the catch of his breath, and her heart raced. His fierce reaction to her slightest touch filled her with a dark and decadent yearning to take him into her mouth. Would he be repulsed by her boldness?

You are Kitty playing the king’s whore.
The reminder lifted the shroud of inhibition. He watched with an incredulous expression as she lowered herself to her knees. She heard his sharp intake of breath as she brushed her lips against the silky smooth crown of flesh. She smiled in satisfaction. “You have an impressive scepter, my liege.” She looked up to see his eyes flutter shut as she slowly circled him with her tongue, his pleasure inciting her to greater boldness. “Do you wish me to pay full and proper obeisance to my king?”

He reached for her with a moan. “Dear God, yes.”

She ran her tongue the length of him, paying reverent homage to his kingly scepter with her mouth, kissing and licking the underside and coming back up with long wet strokes and teasing darts. She flicked across the head, delving gently into the small slit, relishing the salty tang of him that made her channel clench in want. His fingers trembled in her hair when she, at last, took the length of him greedily into her mouth.

***

Hot, wet, mind-melting heat encompassed him, making his legs weak and obliterating everything beyond her wondrous lips wrapped about his cock, sliding up and down, her tongue working his length, her hands gently caressing his sac. His heart slammed against his chest in rhythm with the ebb and flow of her mouth, the sultry sucking sounds as she worked him, taking him deeper, swallowing him to the hilt. Though she was the one on her knees, he had never felt more humbled, weak, and vulnerable. The intensity of sensation and emotion was almost terrifying.
How the devil had the tables turned?

Yet it was nothing less than paradise, and he thought he would die from the pleasure of it. Tension coiled deep in his belly, and his bollocks tightened. Though he never wanted it to end, he knew he couldn’t last much longer. “Enough.” He groaned, sliding himself from her mouth and pulling her to her feet.

She regarded him with a look of bewildered disappointment. “But you didn’t—did I not please you?”

He answered her with a kiss, passionate, deep, and long. “I don’t wish to end it that way,” he said. “I am humbled by your generosity in doing for me what no other woman has done for a
very
long time.”

“It was what I wanted to do,” she said. “I wanted to feel you in my mouth. I wanted to fill you with so much pleasure you would burst. It is, after all, my fantasy as well as yours.”