Once Upon a Pillow Page 20

  White hot, the suspicion she’d once more played him for a rutting dog was born and as quickly died. Because as soon as he fell back, she rolled her leg over his hips, and rose, straddling his thighs.

  For one intense moment she paused. Then, with a sigh of abandonment? Of distress? she lowered her head and placed her lips on his stomach.

  Chapter Seven

  Allowing Ned to catch her had seemed her only possible choice if she was to get away. And she had to get away. She had to find John and warn him. At least, she had to try.

  The only way that she could do that was to escape this room. And the only way Ned was going to let that happen was if he had no choice in the matter. If both his wrists were manacled.

  But the moment he’d goaded her into striking him, all the frustrations and pain of the last months had overtaken her in a torrent of anguish that could only be expressed in violence. From that moment she’d been lost. And yet, when he’d kissed her, her body and her heart, already sensitized to his touch, had betrayed her all over again.

  She wanted him. It was that easy, that simple, that horrifying. Her body sang to him, strained and flushed and swelled toward him.

  She rubbed her cheek across his flat belly, the dark hairs silky beneath her cheeks. His belly dished in, leaving hard ridges beneath her lips. She nuzzled him. He smelled of soap and faintly of wood smoke and of masculine arousal, musky and warm.

  She felt his hand hover above her head but he didn’t touch her, didn’t cradle her head with the destroying gentleness he once had shown her. She wanted that. She wanted too much and from this man and this man alone. Deftly developing expertise, her fingers worked the buttons of his trousers free. She heard him suck in a deep breath.

  He’d never asked anything of her, never demanded anything. And she suddenly wanted to give him pleasure as much as she wanted it for herself. More. And she would have if…

  If things had been different. If he hadn’t been intent on arresting her brother and ruining their lives. If there had been a future for them.

  A lady did not do this with a gentleman with whom she had no intention of continuing a relationship. She hesitated. Of course, she thought desperately, a lady would not have done any of the things she and Ned had already done.

  “No,” she heard him say. “Never with misgiving.”

  He gripped her beneath her arms and hauled her up his body. He’d misunderstood her hesitation, thought she had been persuading herself to commit an act she found repellant. She tried to tell him differently, but in dragging her up, her gown was dragged down.

  Her breasts fell free of the small bodice. He cupped her shoulders and lifted her up, looking down at her naked breast with a smoldering gaze.

  “You have the most beautiful breasts in the world,” he said.

  “Small.” She seemed to have been rendered near mute by the expression in his face, for that was all she could manage.

  “Perfect. Made for a man’s—” He shifted her forward as easily as if she was a mannequin and held her suspended there. Slowly he eased her down until his mouth was an inch from one puckering nipple, “— mouth.”

  The word sloughed over her breast in a warm rush and she shivered.

  Tenderly, he touched his lips to her. She jerked in reaction and he laughed, a pleased masculine sound. She scowled, glaring at him, her breath coming too rapidly, well past the point of schemes and plans.

  Fine. She admitted it. He’d been right. She wanted him to dictate this. She wanted to relinquish control.

  She’d always been strong, independent and proud of it. But strength and independence are bought only by keeping one’s heart whole and unassailable, by being answerable to no one. And by never letting another close enough to threaten one’s invulnerability.

  She’d never wanted anyone to conquer her before, to claim complete control over her body. But she wanted Ned to. Because he would take her places she only dimly imagined, as both guardian and guide. And she trusted him.

  How perverse her heart must be, how convoluted her soul, if the only man she trusted was the only man she feared.

  “I want you to want me, Philippa. I want you to feel some small measure of what you do to me, what I crave from you. Do you want me to touch you?” He already knew the answer.

  “Yes.”

  “Like so?” He fastened his lips about the silky aureole and sucked. Hard and sudden. She jerked back again, gasping, and the inadvertent pull caused its own delicious sting of pleasure.

  He smiled against her breast. “Or so?”

  His tongue came out and performed a slow, languid lick across her nipple, the sensation at once soothing and exciting. Pleasure stabbed through her.

  “Well?” His voice was Lucifer’s, enticing, arrogant, and commanding, rife with satisfaction but thick with longing, too. She was not alone in this tempest of need.

  And that knowledge gave back part of the power she’d conferred on him.

  “You’ll not make me beg, Ned Masterson.”

  “We’ll see.” He laughed again, albeit in a voice shaking with passion, and rolled her under him, better availing himself of her body. He took her in his mouth and played with her, suckled and kissed her, beat little staccato tattoos with the tip of his tongue and drew so deeply on her that she cried out.

  Only when he’d feasted long upon her did he finally release her, gazing down at her quaking form with lambent, sexually charged eyes, his face still.

  Her gown was up about her thighs and his erection strained against her. He slid his hand under her skirt and found the juncture of her thighs. She was wet.

  They’d ventured much in those months before she’d discovered his perfidy. They were healthy, willful, and hot-blooded. But while he’d pleasured her through a cloth barrier, he’d never touched her naked flesh before. They’d never gone this far before.

  Deep beneath the mounting haze of expectation, she recalled where she was, what she’d meant to do. But it was fading, being devoured by sexual excitement.

  She tried to wrench herself away but his free hand clamped her hip, keeping her still just long enough for his fingers to stroke her. His touch was deft, undeniable. She gave in, rising, moving in to his caress.

  All the while his gaze remained riveted on her face, gauging her reaction. It had always been so. He’d always watched for her pleasure, never availed himself of her for his own use.

  He did the same now, reading the slight parting of her lips, interpreting each jagged breath as his fingers slipped within her body and stroked her. He manipulated her with a thoroughness that had nothing to do with delicacy and everything to do with intuition, a raw, direct stimulation—like the man himself—the heel of his hand riding her mons, kneading her.

  “Please…” That whimper couldn’t be hers. But she’d heard the siren call of completion, and felt the first tendrils of pleasure seize her. She had one chance left to get away, to find her brother and warn him.

  She fumbled awkwardly with the hand clasping her hip, prying it off and pushing it down toward where his free hand worked such magic.

  He hesitated a moment and she stared wildly at his face. He’d broken into a sweat. His aristocratic face glistened, his expression was unreadable. “Oh, please…”

  “Yes,” he whispered, delicately kissing her forehead.

  “Yes.”

  She stretched her fingers toward the loose manacle resting by her hip. She reached to secure it over his wrist. But before she could, it was snatched away. She heard a click and felt it close about her wrist.

  Chapter Eight

  “You handcuffed me to you!”

  “Yes.” Ned relaxed on his side, propped up by one elbow and looked down at their hands. “Trumped you, sweetheart.”

  “You can’t do that!”

  “Why? It’s only what you were attempting to do to me, was it not?” He grinned at her lazily, but the grin, she noted, did not quite reach his eyes. She decided that denying it would be ridiculous. �
��Besides, it will be easy enough to undo once we have hashed things out between us.”

  “Hashed out?” she shouted indignantly, rolling over and scooting off the side of the bed. She couldn’t go too far, however, as Ned was not scooting anywhere.

  In fact, the farthest he would go to accommodate her was to raise his hand. Which made returning her breasts back beneath her bodice a very uncomfortable and embarrassing business and one that he took full advantage of, letting the backs of his fingers slide lightly over her skin as she tucked them back in place. Her treacherous flesh tingled at the deliberate accident. She glared at him. His smile didn’t change.

  Once she’d returned her dress to a semblance of respectability she didn’t know what to do. So, she stood beside the bed with her hand stuck out toward him while his rested on the mattress edge.

  “Pleased with yourself?” she finally asked. She was near shaking with anger and frustration while he looked like he’d just finished some slight exertion like a…like a brisk stroll!

  “Hardly.” He glanced tellingly at his crotch. “But you were the one groping for the manacles, love. And not being too subtle about it. You seemed somewhat…distracted.”

  “You’re loathsome.”

  “I’m right.”

  “What of it?” she demanded. “You’ve always had the power to make me feel things I shouldn’t. Is the merry brotherhood of rakes giving out medals for that these days? Or are you simply trying to establish a record? How many other Trecombe women have you brought to the point and abandoned?”

  Even as she spoke she was aware that she was making the same accusation against him that he’d earlier levied against her. In any other instance it would have been laughable. She didn’t feel like laughing. She felt hot, her skin too tight, her heart wrestling with the imperatives of simple desire.

  Simple? There was nothing simple about this situation, about the quagmire of emotion and conflicting needs that assailed her. And it rather irked her.

  “If you want to be ‘finished,’ I’ll be happy to oblige.” With a gesture rife with mockery, Ned patted the mattress beside him.

  She turned to stalk away, forgetting she was tethered to him and coming up short. With a strangled sound, she turned around and with all her might wrenched the bloody chain, jerking his arm straight out and jolting him flat on his back, his expression so comically astonished that Philippa laughed with triumph, enjoying the spectacle. She’d had precious few moments of mastery this evening. In fact, since the moment he’d opened his eyes, he’d had the upper hand.

  His head swung in her direction. His green eyes glittered dangerously. Purposefully, he rolled off the bed and slowly rose to his full height in front of her. But she’d no fear left in her.

  “What now?” she jeered. “You’re going to beat me? Kiss me? Upbraid me for my loyalty to—”

  He swooped down on her, his hand covering her mouth. “Don’t. God, don’t.”

  She wrenched her head free, pulling his hand away. “Don’t what?” she demanded angrily.

  “Don’t say his name. I couldn’t stand that.” He meant it. It seemed Ned, too, had reached an end point. His expression was stripped of all pretense, his perfect, oh-so-carefully fashioned mask of cool composure was gone, leaving a stark expression of anguish. He looked raw, naked, and violable.

  She didn’t understand. It made no sense. And yet, for the first time she realized that this was hard for him, had been hard for him, that possibly he’d paid for their estrangement in the same painful coin as she. She’d hurt him, after all. The thought brought her no pleasure.

  He stepped closer, lifted his hand and turned it over, stroking her cheek with his knuckles.

  “Good God, Philippa,” he murmured, his gaze roving in pained wonder over her face, “how much do you think I can take?”

  His touch was exquisite, the more so for its trembling uncertainty. Her eyelids drifted shut. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  She felt his head drop nearer hers, the warmth of his breath across her cheeks, her throat, as though he was tracing her features by scent. “How can you let me taste you, touch you, pleasure you, and then say his name to me?”

  She barely heard him. The sensation, this muted desire was new and staggeringly sweet. She sighed, turning her head toward him, her eyes still closed. The movement brought her cheek against his lips. He did not move away. He pressed a kiss to her skin with tender fervency.

  “It isn’t just lust, you know.” He spoke against her temple. She felt his hands slip up her arms, his long fingers circle her upper arms. “What you feel, it’s more than a matter of craving release.”

  She needed no convincing. Regardless of what he thought, she well knew her heart. She always had. She’d never owned the art of self-delusion.

  “You’ll love me,” he said. “I swear to God, you’ll love.”

  The time for self-protection was past. She could not bear to hear the anguish in his voice. “I already do,” she whispered.

  The fingers around her arms tightened convulsively. “Don’t taunt me.”

  Her eyelids flew open to find his head lowered, his eyes searching her face. “Don’t lie to me. Not about that. You aren’t the sort of woman that divides her heart between two men.”

  “I haven’t. I don’t.”

  Confusion chased across his features. His hands dropped. He raked his free hand through his hair, looking at her uncertainly.

  “Forgive me, if I appear disconcerted,” he said. “I am stunned by this sudden switch of loyalties. It has a taint of convenience.”

  “And I am beyond bemused,” Philippa returned with a growing sense of injury. “I have switched no loyalties—” and then remembering John, she flushed. Ned must think she’d said she loved him in order to save her brother.

  The moment her skin colored, Ned stepped back. His expression grew shuttered. How strange that she, normally at the mercy of her emotions should be so drawn to a man who had mastered all of his.

  Or had seemed to. She knew better now.

  “I beg you, don’t arrest him,” she said quietly.

  His head tilted back, his eyes briefly closed against some interior agony. “God, how can you ask that?”

  “What choice do I have?” she asked plaintively. “He’s my brother!”

  He grabbed her arms, shaking her. “He’s a jackal, Pip, a man without con—” He stopped. Stared. “What?”

  “I love you, Ned. I don’t deny it,” she said tersely. “But loving you does not refute my other loyalties or affections. You would despise me if it did. He’s my brother and I am begging you, as you have some affection for me—”

  “Affection! God, nothing so tepid—” he broke in hoarsely.

  “—as you have some affection for me,” she went doggedly on, lifting her hands and cupping his lean, angular jaw between them, “do not arrest him.”

  “You think it is John I have been pursuing,” he whispered as if to himself.

  “I am not blind.” She laughed without humor. “I guessed soon after I learned why you’d come to Trecombe. John is always leaving the house late at night on some pretext or another; he spends money we do not have; and he wastes his time at the local tavern associating with the sorriest lot on the coast.”

  She gazed earnestly into his eyes. “But he is a decent man, Ned. I swear he would do no one a willing harm. Not coldly, not with planned malice. He is simply—”

  “—headstrong, subject to his emotions, too willing to take risks. But fiercely loyal, dauntless and proud,” he finished for her. At some point his free hand had slipped round her back. He pulled her close.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m not after your brother, Pip. I never was.”

  She pulled back. “But, you were angry that I protected him. Indeed, derisive. You said—”

  “Hal Minton,” he broke in. “I thought you were protecting Hal Minton. I thought he was the man you were talking about when you said you were trying to save someone y
ou loved. I thought—”

  She tried to pull away. He wouldn’t let her. “You thought Hal Minton and I were lovers!”

  “I thought that is what you told me.”

  Her mind raced back, recalling bits and phrases from the evening. She never actually said John’s name while several times Ned had mentioned Minton. But, as Hal Minton meant nothing to her, she’d simply discounted his name. And on more occasion than one, she had flaunted Minton before Ned.

  Yes. She could see how he might misinterpret her words. All night, in every instant that mattered they’d spoken at cross-purposes. “Hal Minton means nothing to me.”

  “Good.” Jealousy imbued the single tense syllable. “Because he is the leader of the smugglers I have been sent to arrest.”

  “Hal Minton.” Her shock faded before a growing realization that Ned had only needed to tell her who he was and what he was doing for all the agony of the preceding months to have been averted. When the full impact of that realization hit her, she raised her hands and shoved him away with all her might.

  For the third time that night, she caught him off guard. He fell back a step, his thighs hitting the edge of the bed, and tumbled onto the bed. She watched him fall with undeniable satisfaction but, as she was chained to him, her satisfaction was short-lived. Before she knew what was happening, she was falling atop him, caught in his embrace, cushioned by his body.

  Shaking the hair from her eyes, she rose up, her arms braced on either side of him and glared at him.

  “You could have told me!” she accused him. “You should have told me! Instead you let me think that you—Oh!”

  He swept the hair back from her face. His gaze was glazed. He swallowed. “I couldn’t.” He sounded breathless. “God, Philippa, you have always been honest, sometimes disastrously so. Be honest in this. You could no more have kept the knowledge that Hal Minton was a smuggler secret than the sun can keep from shining.”

  “That’s not fair,” she denied hotly. “I can be trusted. If I swore not to speak, by all that’s sacred I wouldn’t have spoken.”