Her Master's Touch (16 page)

Damon looked steadily at her. “I’m not sure I
believe you.”

Elizabeth eyed him with contempt. “What? That
I’d stick a knife in your heart, or that I’d find pleasure in
seeing you swing by the neck?”

“Neither. I’m not sure you wish me dead. When
your hand was over my heart, I didn’t see in your eyes, or on your
face, what I’d expected to find.”

Feeling a renewed sense of bravado, Elizabeth
tossed him a saucy smile, and said, “Good. I haven’t lost all of my
gypsy ways.”

The muscles in Damon's jaw tightened. “Then
the floor won’t seem so unwelcome, if you’re still determined to
sleep there.”

“I’d sleep on a bed of nails before sleeping
with you,” Elizabeth said. “You also gave my father your word that
you’d treat me well, which means with respect.”

“The only word I gave your father was that I
wouldn't lay a cruel hand on you or consummate the marriage for
three months. Everything else was implied.” Damon's eyes bore into
her. “If this marriage is consummated before then, it will be
because you choose to.”

Elizabeth turned her back to him and the
sight of his broad naked chest. “I will never willingly let you bed
me,” she said, feeling his breath against her head, knowing he'd
moved closer and she had no place to run.

He placed his hands on her shoulders and
kissed her neck. “Like I said, never is a word I don’t accept. You
will
in time beg me to bed you, gypsy girl. That day will
come.”

Elizabeth shoved his hands away and crossed
her arms. “I will never be a wife to you!”

Damon turned her around abruptly and grasped
her chin. When she struggled to turn her face from him, his fingers
tightened on her jaw, forcing her to look at him, as he said,
“You’re right. A wife is someone to love and cherish and respect. A
mistress is someone who satisfies a man’s needs in return for food,
shelter and a few baubles. And a whore is someone any man can have,
but no man wants. When you come to my bed, gypsy girl, you’ll come
as my mistress, or my whore, never as my wife.”

Elizabeth raised her hand to slap his face,
but he caught her wrist and held it in a vise-like grip while
clasping her other hand behind her back. He kissed her lips and
down the curve of her neck and nuzzled the swell of her breasts,
and she made no move to stop him. She couldn’t. She could barely
catch her breath. Then he stopped his sensual assault, looked at
her and said, “Yes, gypsy girl. You’ll eventually come willingly to
my bed." He released her and turned away.

While she stood staring at him in stunned
silence, Damon shed his breeches, stretched out on the bunk in his
drawers, and watched her with fiery eyes, his upper body propped on
one elbow, like a maharajah waiting for his concubine.

Her heart pounding painfully, Elizabeth
stared at the man she was legally wed to. She hated him, hated him
even more than she’d hated Januz the gypsy. Yet, as she stared at
his virile male body, with its hard contours sculpted by golden
lamplight, and saw the fire burning in his eyes, she wanted to
touch him. She hated him. Yet she wanted him.

He gestured with his hand while saying. “Take
off your dress, gypsy girl. I want to make sure you haven’t stashed
any weapons where I haven't searched.”

Elizabeth glared at him. “You know I haven’t.
Why are you doing this?”

“Because you stole something from me that set
my life back years and left my gateman dead, and I want payment for
that. Watching your discomfort when you undress will give me
pleasure, along with some sense of repayment, while also assuring
me that, during the night, I won’t meet the same fate as my
gateman.”

“I’m not responsible for the death of your
gateman," Elizabeth said. "You admitted I had nothing to do with
that.”

“If you hadn’t invaded my home to steal my
opal, my gateman would still be alive. Now, remove your dress.”
When Elizabeth made no move, Damon said, “You know how. Give me one
of your provocative smiles and let your dress slip off your
shoulder so I can see your breast, like you did at the horse fair.
Show me. Make my blood boil and my cock grow rigid. It should give
you some satisfaction to know that I’d be hard and hurting like
hell with desire for you while honoring my word to your
father.”

“My father would have this marriage annulled
right now if he knew what you were doing,” Elizabeth said, ignoring
his request to undress in front of him.

“Your father gave me permission to rein you
in as I see fit," Damon said, holding her venomous gaze, "and I see
fit to make sure you don’t stick a knife in my heart. Now, remove
your dress. I’m an honorable man. I won’t force you to copulate
with me.”

Elizabeth looked at the door, prepared to
flee, but before she could make a move, Damon said, "You could
leave, but where would you go? To another man’s bed? I’m sure you’d
be welcome; you’re a desirable woman. But then you’d have to
copulate with him. At least you're legally wed to me. That makes it
respectable. Now, undress gypsy girl. Pay me back for stealing my
opal and condemning me to live in that hellhole called India until
I can clear my name and claim my birthright.”

“It was not your opal. It belonged to the
gypsies.”

“Only because they stole it in the first
place. But I paid a king’s ransom for it, everything I’d saved to
clear my name. I was within a month of returning to England when
you took it from me. Now remove your dress or I’ll rip it from you
and it won’t be worth wearing when I’m through. If you don’t
believe me, stand there and do nothing and you’ll learn early on in
our sham of a marriage that I do what I say.”

Elizabeth drew in a sharp breath through
flared nostrils and stared him down. When she made no move to
undress, he started to rise. She quickly turned her back to him and
began unfastening her dress. Slipping it off her shoulders, she let
it drop to the floor, then she pulled on the silk ties of her
corset, letting it slip away. She stood in her camisole and
drawers—lacy garments so sheer, she knew they'd hide nothing should
she turn around. She'd been mortified when she'd discovered the
filmy undergarments that had been packed in her trousseau,
undergarments she was certain her father had instructed her
step-mother to include as a means of getting her to submit to her
wifely duty. But the only way she'd submit to Damon would be if he
held her down and took his pleasure against her protests.

“Turn around," Damon demanded. "I want to see
if you’re armed.”

"I am not," Elizabeth said. "And you know
it."

"I know you lie and steal when it suits your
needs. Now turn around or I'll rip those clothes from you. It
wouldn't take much."

Elizabeth turned, and when she looked at
Damon, his eyes darkened with the kind of desire that had nothing
to do with love. His chest began rising and falling with his heavy
breaths, and the bulge in his drawers rose up, leaving no doubt as
to the urgency of his need. But as she gazed at him, she too became
aware of a pressing need low in her belly, a raw, potent desire she
couldn’t justify, knowing it was caused by a man she detested.

Damon stood and walked over to stand in front
of her, then loosened the tiny silk ribbons holding together the
front of her camisole. The garment gaped open. He pushed it off her
shoulders and it slid down her body and lay in a puddle at her
feet. Like a slave master inspecting his property, he walked around
her, moving so close she could feel his heated breath wafting
against her bare breasts, and fanning over her shoulder, and
tickling the back of her neck as he slowly came around. He stopped
in front of her and his eyes fastened on one puckered nipple then
moved to the other. She hated how her breasts reacted to his heated
gaze, swelling and tingling and puckering at the tips as if
beckoning him to touch them. She hated her body for betraying her.
And she hated him for causing it.

She lifted her chin. “Are you convinced that
I’m not armed?” she said scornfully, determined to take her mind
off hedonistic thoughts of a time when she'd welcomed his touch,
and the wildly erotic sensations it brought.

“I’m convinced of a lot of things,” Damon
said, slowly tracing a finger down the curve of her neck and along
her collarbone, “one being that I want you in my bed.” His finger
moved down her breast to brush a puckered nipple. “You make my
blood boil, gypsy girl.”

She shoved his hand away. “Don’t touch
me.”

He grasped her wrist and held it. “I have a
legal right. I gave your father my word I would not consummate this
marriage for three months, but until that time I will touch the
woman I’m legally wed to, where I want, when I want. Now put on
your night dress and go to sleep.” He stripped the blanket from the
bed and tossed it at her feet, followed by the pillow, then
stretched out on the mattress, turned his back to her and said
nothing more.

Totally humiliated, Elizabeth slipped into
her night dress, made up a pad on the floor and spent a restless,
fitful night listening to Damon’s easy breathing, furious that he
was sleeping, while images of his intense gaze, and the path of his
finger left her feeling an urgency, low and deep, that she couldn’t
ignore anymore than she could quit breathing or stop the erratic
beating of her heart. And still, she wished the man who was her
legal husband would die a slow, agonizing death, while she had the
pleasure of watching.

***

The following morning, Elizabeth opened her
eyes to the sight of Damon standing at the wash stand, bare-chested
and in his drawers, peering into the mirror while shaving off his
whiskers. He’d cut off his beard with scissors and was scraping
away the stubble. How she’d managed to slip into a sleep so deep
she hadn't heard him get up was beyond her. But then, she'd spent a
fitful night, twisting and turning against the thin blanket palette
she'd prepared on the bare wood floor, all the while pondering
Damon's impassioned gaze as he'd slowly circled her, and his finger
brushing her nipple after he came around . So disturbed had she
been by her unwanted reaction to his touch that by the time she’d
drifted to sleep, dawn was breaking.

Seeing Damon's near-naked body in the close
confines of the stateroom brought the same unwanted reaction below
her belly that had come the night before. But this time, the
lustful thoughts invading her mind and awakening her body were
tempered by rage, resentment, and a deep seething hatred for the
man she’d wed, a man she wanted out of her life. As soon as she
recovered the opal, he would be. It seemed that day would never
come.

She sat up, pulling the blanket with her, and
stared at the beardless face that was again familiar to her. It
bothered her that she found his face attractive, handsome in fact,
and that she enjoyed looking at it. And it riled her that she
wanted to run her palms down the sleek solid length of his muscular
body and push him down on the bed and press the length of her naked
body to the length of his, even knowing she wanted him out of her
life.

He caught her looking at him in the mirror,
and said without preamble, “When was the last time you had a man,
Elizabeth?” His question took her by surprise, and for the span of
several seconds she stared at him, wondering if he'd read her
thoughts. His eyes holding hers, he said, “It’s a simple enough
question, gypsy girl. When did you last spend the night with a man
between your thighs?" He went back to shaving while waiting for her
response.

Elizabeth edged her way backwards, pressing
the blanket tighter against her chest. “I’ve never been with a man
at all, in the way you mean," she said, wondering how long he'd
continue to humiliate her, dreading the kind of unconsummated acts
he'd demand of her for his prurient gratification. She would,
however, continue to defend her virtue, compromised though it was.
"You are the first and last man who ever kissed me or touched me
the way you do," she replied.

“You must take me for a cretin," Damon said,
turning from the mirror to glance over his shoulder. "You know your
way around a man's body, how to tease and excite him, how to send
all the right signals. When you kissed me in my bedchamber it was
not the kiss of a virgin. It was the kiss of an experienced woman
skilled in the art of seducing a man. You had your legs wrapped
around me, knowing I was aroused and ready for a woman, any woman
would have done. If my housekeeper hadn't happened by, you would
have been that woman. You were as ready as I was. The only thing
stopping us was the barrier of clothing between us, and even that
didn't keep you from moving and twisting and thrusting yourself
against my cock until you'd satisfied your own need.”

Elizabeth felt her face grow hot, not from
embarrassment, but from the raw fury brought on by his coarse
description of something she'd revered over the years, a kind of
initiation into womanhood that he'd given her. It had been her
naïve innocence that allowed it to happen. She'd been fascinated by
the sight of his lips, so fascinated she'd attacked his mouth and
practically devoured it. And when his tongue began sparring with
hers, and she found her legs wrapped around him, and felt something
hard against her privates, everything became a blur of hidden
delights and sensual pleasures that culminated in a rush of
sensations coursing through her. The lure of it had haunted her
ever since. “I didn’t know what I was doing," she said. "It was an
impulsive move on my part that I can't explain, even to myself,
other than I was a stupid, idiotic, naive fool who was beginning to
care for you, and who had idealistic notions of being your—”

“Mistress?” He stopped shaving and looked
directly at her. "If you'd stayed around longer you would have
been. I was so consumed with passion for you I would have given you
anything you wanted, your own bungalow, a buggy and a pair of fine
horses, priceless jewels, anything a prized mistress would demand
to keep her warming my bed."