She was as stiff as a board as he moved her fingers over the smooth contours of the stone. He forced her to trace the sinuous lines up to the shoulder. Then her lips parted to exhale quick breaths, and Raven knew he was breaking though the cold shield of unhappiness that had quickly enveloped her.
“It is remarkable work,” she whispered, as if they were in church and she was afraid to shatter the reverent atmosphere. Her eyes shone, glowing with more than admiration. She loved this.
“So you are a female sculptress? That’s unusual.”
“I—I suppose.” She glanced at him, but she didn’t stop touching the marble Atlas in front of them.
It had been more than a hobby, he realized. She couldn’t touch anyone, yet like any human she had yearned to do it. Not just feel someone’s touch and savor those expressions of affection and love, but give them herself.
He had assumed he had become heartless when he’d been changed into a vampire and had been made soulless. But he knew he had a heart—it cracked for her with a considerable shot of pain.
“I would like to see your work someday,” he said softly, by her ear.
“Oh. Oh, you wouldn’t be able to. Everything is at Mrs. Darkwell’s and I can never go back there—”
“That’s true,” he said darkly. “I would never let you go back. You are going to be free, Ophelia. I vow it.”
She looked down the hall. “There are more statues—” She broke off. A blush ran down her face like a stage curtain dropping. “Oh my goodness,” she whispered, her voice strangled.
Turning, he saw the reason for her flushed cheeks and shock. Many other statues lined the ample hallway, but they depicted sex. Muscular men mounted dainty Grecian goddesses from on top, underneath, from behind. One group showed a woman in savage ecstasy being penetrated by two figures—each half-bull, half-man, with cocks the size of cricket bats.
“You aren’t going to expect . . . any of that, are you?” she asked.
She was frightened. But it was his duty to transform her from a woman who had learned not to touch into a wanton lover. “Only the fun things. It will just be between the two of us.”
For one moment, he toyed with removing choice from the equation. As a vampire, he had the power to compel a woman to offer her throat. He could control a mortal’s thoughts; he could make her do anything he wanted. That was the kind of undead being he was. But here, now, that wasn’t what he was allowed to do. Guidon told him he needed her consent; he needed her to be willing. He could not manipulate her mind, or he would not be able to take her power.
“Why do you hunt and kill vampires?” she asked quietly, surprising him. He thought he’d distracted her from that. “There were vampires at Mrs. Darkwell’s. They didn’t hurt anyone.”
“Some do. We shouldn’t speak of this here. People wouldn’t understand.”
She glanced around. Laughter came from down the hall, but they were currently alone in the statue-filled corridor, with its watered silk walls and gleaming floor. “I should not be here. What if I touch someone or someone touches me? It doesn’t take much for me to hurt someone . . . normal.”
“I will keep you by me and ensure no one touches you.” He put his hands on her shoulders and placed her in front of him. Behind her, Raven gritted his teeth as pain shot through his arms. At least she didn’t appear to feel it. He propelled her toward the laughter and noise at the end of the hall. On the way, he lifted his right hand from her shoulder, whisked a glass of champagne from a footman’s silver tray, and pressed it into her hand.
She wrinkled her nose and peered at the slender flute, the golden liquid, the popping bubbles, as if he’d given her a witch’s brew. “I’ve never had champagne.”
“Try it. If you want to be free of your power, you are going to have to spread your wings a little and fly into adventure.”
He watched her slim, gloved fingers pinch the stem. Her lower lip plumped as she rested the gilt rim of the glass on it, then sipped. Her eyes widened, large and blue. A soft giggle escaped. “It tickles,” she whispered.
He bent close to her small, delicate ear. Her golden curls brushed his lips. “See. Pleasures await when you are adventurous.”
He let his breath whisper over her ear. But getting so close he breathed her scent, and it was a damned mistake. Fang eruption occurred, and he had to hide them. At least he stood at her back, where she could not see.
The drawing room doors were open, and he directed her inside. He kept his attention on people around them—to ensure no one collided with Ophelia. His glower made men step back and women retreat to give them space. Gentlemen near the door wore tailcoats, waistcoats, trousers, cravats. Fully dressed, they wouldn’t shock Ophelia. Most of the women wore just shifts, corsets, petticoats. Or filmy nightdresses of silk. Though in the middle of the room there was probably an energetic orgy taking place, with eager males penetrating every orifice of bounteous and willing women.
“Oh, he’s tied up!” Ophelia cried.
Raven looked up. His jaw dropped down.
He was staring at a muscular, naked arse. The crowd had gathered in a circle around the display in the center of the room. A riding crop whistled through the air and landed with a sharp
thwak
on the tight, rounded rump. Broad shoulders jerked, muscles twitched, and a black scarf tied at the back of his head showed he was blindfolded. He looked about two-and-twenty, with curly blond hair. His arms stretched above his head, his wrists tied together. Ropes ran from his bound hands to hooks in the ceiling.
Hades, Raven had thought this was a club where, if there was play of this sort, the males were dominant, the women submissive. Apparently, he’d chosen the wrong one.
Another woman stepped forward—the dominant females wore corsets dyed black with their large bosoms jiggling on top of the boning. She spanked the young man with a wooden paddle. A third attended to his rump with the flat of her hand.
Ophelia twisted to face him, her eyes as large as saucers. “You wish me to tie you up and smack you with things?”
“No. Wrong club,” he muttered. “Come, this is enough for tonight.” Between visiting Guidon and coming here, they had spent enough time out. He should get her home before dawn.
“Was this your idea of what we would do instead of touching? Spanking?” she asked, her eyes wide and guileless.
The image of spanking her voluptuous bottom speared him. But he was not going to have her do it to him. He should have known Lady Ophelia would not be so easily quelled.
“It can be erotic,” he said. “But I—”
“Well, if it’s what you wanted to do,” she said briskly, “I’ll start on you.”
A bark of a laugh left his lips. That was not going to happen. He could not deal with being struck, not by a woman. Not after his years with Queen Jade.
“No, you will not. We are going to return to the house.”
“You want to go home already? We just arrived.”
“I did not expect the men would be submissive,” he growled. “I don’t want to give you too many ideas. We need to go. It’s almost dawn.”
Damnation, he was rattled. He should not have said that.
* * *
“You do not really want me to spank you, do you, Ravenhunt?”
“Indeed, I do not.” But he gave her a smile filled with devilment, thoroughly mischievous. They had stepped into the foyer of his house. Using the key she had swiped earlier, he locked the door, then slid four bolts across to secure it.
Yes, he had definitely allowed her to escape earlier, for those heavy, awkward bolts had been left open. Now he was making sure his house was completely secure.
She couldn’t bear to think of men who wanted to kill her. She was too tired.
Spanking.
Ophelia never would have dreamed she would think about spanking a man so she did not have to think about assassins and mad scientists.
He turned to her. Moonlight spilled in through small windows flanking the door, sending blue streaks through his hair, casting blue shadows across his crisply sculpted features.
His was a beautiful face. Her fingers tingled. Suddenly she was compelled to sculpt it. To remember every detail so she could slowly coax marble to flow in those magnificent lines.
“To be honest,” he said, “I was planning to spank you.”
She quirked a brow. “I wouldn’t like that. It would hurt.”
“I would never hurt you.” His voice was smooth as chocolate, deep and husky. “Think of the way it would tease your skin.”
“A blow would not tease me!”
“A soft blow. Just enough to ignite your nerve endings. Enough to make your skin sensitive and your nerves sizzle. To send a rush of electric sensation through your body. To make your quim ache and pulse. To make you feel, my dear. I could make you come, just by spanking you.”
“Come? Come where?” she asked, confused.
“Coming means the orgasm you will have.”
She looked at him, lost. “What is that?”
“When your body feels pleasure—when it feels sexual stimulation—tension builds inside you. Your body works toward a climax, with the pleasure building and building until you want to scream. Then it explodes inside you, on a wave of pleasure that melts your soul, my love.”
She shivered. His husky voice was like a magic spell. She almost said yes. “Spanking is a punishment.”
“In this case, it would be erotic foreplay.”
Ophelia shook her head. His mouth hardened, forming harsh lines to bracket his firm, bronze-pink lips. “A deal,” he offered, gruffly. “You spank me first, then I do it to you.”
She frowned.
“Come, love. I’m allowing you to do it first.”
“All right.” But her agreement was a lie. She was not going to be struck on her bottom—no matter what he thought she’d agreed to. “Do we go up to the bedroom? What about your room? I haven’t seen any other bedchamber that looks like it is used.”
She had almost forgotten about that. It was another mystery about him.
He shrugged. For a man who had got what he wanted, he looked troubled. “My line of work—killing vampires—keeps me awake at nights. That’s when I hunt them. So I don’t need to use a bedchamber.” A sharp tug of his gloved hand and he’d undone his cravat. He let it drop to the floor of the foyer.
Ravenhunt was undressing right here.
It startled her and he smiled. “Your mouth is a huge
O
, Ophelia. You shouldn’t be shocked. You’ve seen my naked body before.”
Yes, all muscle and lean sinewy strength, and it had been shocking. “Why do you hunt vampires at night? They sleep in the day—I learned that at Mrs. Darkwell’s. They are dormant and vulnerable. Isn’t that the best time to go after them?”
There was a pause while he took off his tailcoat, then his waistcoat, and he let those fall carelessly, too. “You have to know where their lairs are. It is easier to protect the populace by hunting at night, so you can assassinate a vampire before it takes a victim.”
That made sense, but she felt there was something not quite right. “You’d still need somewhere to sleep. You would just do it in the day.”
“Since I have no servants, I just use a daybed in the study. It’s easier than having to tend to more unnecessary rooms myself.”
“Why do you have no servants? Is it because you keep kidnapping women and that’s hard to explain?”
“The hunting and killing of vampires is an odd profession. We’re supposed to keep people from learning vampires do exist. Along with other beings with special powers, like us.”
One quick whisk of his arms and he pulled his shirt off, baring his perfect torso. “It’s too cold and impersonal in here for a spanking to be any fun.”
He started off, his clothes over his arm, and Ophelia followed. In for a penny, in for a pound. She had come back with him to his house, knowing full well what she had agreed to. In that club, she’d glimpsed other things happening in the corners of the room, when she’d quickly averted her eyes from the naked stranger who was tied up.
There was one woman on a man’s lap, the skirts of her shift pushed up and her naked legs spread over his. She was leaning back with her back against his chest, and his hands were between her legs. Her bottom rose and fell on him with a rhythmic motion. They were doing something private and intimate in front of so many people, and they were doing it so they could both watch the man in the middle of the room.
Shocking, yes. But she’d felt a wave of hot . . . awareness.
Ravenhunt led her to a door at the other end of the hallway from hers. “The master’s apartments,” he said, pushing it open. “If I used a bedchamber, this would be the one.”
It was the room she’d looked in earlier. In the center was the enormous bed—it stood at the height of her waist, with a dusty canopy soaring above. The counterpane was smooth and clean, but she suspected if she struck it, a cloud of motes would fly into the air. Balls of dust gathered like tiny kittens here and there on the floor.
He strode in and opened a chest that sat at the foot of the bed. “Ah, here it is. Thought it was here.” Straightening, he had a much smaller wooden chest tucked under his arm.
It wasn’t until they reached her room that he satisfied her curiosity. He set the small trunk on the vanity table and flipped open the lid. Out of it, he took a long thing that looked like a small whip, with a black leather-wrapped handle, and a long leather strap that dangled. Next he withdrew a wooden object, with a smooth, rounded paddle and a wood handle.
“What are those?”
“Accoutrements for spanking.”
“You have a chest filled with things to use for hitting someone’s bottom?”
“Not only that. They are all kinds of devices for enhancing sexual play. All gentlemen keep them. We spend much of our time when we aren’t using them dreaming of how we will.”
She was sure Ravenhunt was teasing her.
He led her back to her bedroom, where he tossed the wooden paddle onto the bed. “We should get started.” His shoulders shook as he undid his trousers. His long lashes shielded his eyes, but she thought he looked . . . not aroused, but troubled.