His Wicked Seduction (12 page)

A pang of hunger streaked through to the juncture between her thighs. She tensed, startled at the frightening feeling of losing control of her body’s reactions. Jonathan pressed himself deeply against her at the same moment, as though knowing how she would react. Audrey moaned and arched her body upwards as her hands roamed his tightly muscled body. He hadn’t lived a life of leisure; he was corded steel layered with primal sensuality. A rough nibble of her lower lip, a grind of his pelvis against her core and she melted into him completely. One of her hands strayed below his waist, seeking the bulge in his trousers that he fervently pushed against her. He groaned helplessly. They were a symphony of ancient instincts, exotic sensations and thrilling sounds in a perfect moment that should have gone on forever. But it didn’t.

Recalling what Evangeline had said to do, she moved one of her hands down to his groin and rubbed at the hard shaft pressing against the front of his trousers. He hissed against her lips, then almost snarled as he took her mouth hungrily. She tried to curl her fingers around as much of his covered length as possible and squeezed. She’d been told it was the best way to stimulate a man’s interest so she made sure to squeeze as hard as she could.

Something seemed to shift a little in her hands, like Chinese baoding balls.

Jonathan gasped. His face had become a silent scream. But that face wasn’t supposed to come until later, was it? Quickly she realized it was not a look of pleasure. Quite the opposite.

Jonathan ripped himself away from Audrey and dove for his jacket. Without a backward glance he sprinted from the room. Truth be told it was more of a bowlegged hobble. Audrey lay still on her bed for a long moment, struggling for breath, trying to ease the heavy panting and the disappointment she now felt. She’d come so close. What went wrong? One thing was clear however—kissing Charles had certainly not felt like that.

The drawing room was filled with candlelight, firelight and two people who should not have been in the same room. Horatia, not willing to concede defeat, had curled up in her window seat again, her silver gown tucked up around her slippers, knees nestled under her chin. She clutched her novel,
Lady Eustace and the Merry Marquess
, trying to focus on its pages and not the real life marquess sitting by the fire. In the short span of time between Jonathan’s battle of wills with Audrey, and Jonathan’s hasty departure soon after, Horatia and Lucien found themselves in a battle of their own. Though Lucien’s gaze was on the fireplace’s vermillion flames, she could sense his attention on her—as though his thoughts had become physical and caressed her skin, making her burn with awareness she wanted to ignore but couldn’t.

“How do you find your novel? Amusing? Trite? Impossibly lurid?” The cold silence of the room succumbed to the surprising warmth in his voice.

She shouldn’t have answered, but couldn’t help it. “It may not be a literary masterpiece, but…”

“But?” Lucien turned in his chair, propping an elbow on the armrest and resting his chin in his palm, looking genuinely interested in what she had to say.

“Well, it is just that Lady Eustace is a most irritating heroine.” Horatia idly flipped through the pages she’d already read before chancing a look back in his direction.

“I agree. Eustace is an inferior example of a female character. She lacks all the great qualities that would attract a man.”

“And what, pray tell, would those qualities be?” Horatia closed the volume and eyed him curiously.

“Cunning, cleverness, intelligence,” Lucien said.

“You don’t prefer women to be sweet, demure and obedient?”

“Such a woman would be a dreadful bore. Perhaps a woman could be sweet, but if she was demure and obedient as well that would deprive a man of all the joys of a complex woman, and a woman ought to be complex. Simple things and simple people are quite overrated. Now let us return to this book. Surely the plot entices you to keep reading, despite Lady Eustace’s disappointing lack of complexity?”

“Admittedly, it does. Eustace keeps finding herself in the most absurd predicaments. For example, on page fourteen, she gets locked in a tower. A tower! What woman is insipid enough to trust herself to a man’s whims like that at the start of the story?”

“It is foolish to get locked in a tower, but as to trusting in a man…given certain circumstances, it can be most thrilling. Wouldn’t you agree?”

His eyes were like honey, but his words had reminded her of the sting that often followed such sweetness.

“Thrilling, yes, but not ultimately satisfying, given that trust seems to end in betrayal.” She returned to the book, trying to focus on Lady Eustace’s mad flight from the marquess’s castle in the dead of night. What rubbish! Yet the Merry Marquess’s character also kept her attention, probably more than it should, rather like the very real marquess who sat only feet from her.

“Not ultimately satisfying? I seem to recall your screams of pleasure as my fingers—”

“Stop!” she hissed, slamming her book shut. “Or do you forget how that ended?”

He grinned devilishly. “You’ll have to make me.”

“Oh? Now who’s the child?”

Lucien shut his eyes and licked his lips. “I can still taste you. Even though it’s been hours, I can’t help but wonder if my memory is doing you justice. Would you shiver beneath me? Moan my name in helpless pleasu—”

Lady Eustace and the Merry Marquess
had its revenge by catching Lucien right in the face. He cursed, clutching his nose and shot a dark look at Horatia who still sat in the small window seat overlooking the back garden, eyes now fixed on the ceiling. Lucien got up from his chair and started towards her, a predatory gleam in his eyes.

“What are you doing?” Horatia flattened herself against the cold windowpane, hands braced behind her on the chilly glass.

“I think it’s time I taught you a lesson, and since there’s nothing else you can throw, this seems like the perfect opportunity.” He strolled right up to the window seat, hands on his hips.

Horatia raised her chin. “Just being in the same room with you is punishment enough.” She crossed her arms over her chest in what was meant to be an imposing pose, but it only seemed to draw his eyes down to her breasts.

“Being with me is a punishment?”

Horatia wondered if she’d said the wrong thing.

“I suppose the better question is why do you see me as a punishment if you claim to love me? And don’t deny it. Even now your pupils are dilated and your breath is quickening.”

He was right, the arrogant rogue. Her heartbeat was fast and her breath unsteady.

“Do you still desire me even after all that I’ve done?” He leaned down and cupped her face, brushing his lips teasingly over hers. Horatia swayed towards him, wanting more than that torturously brief contact between their lips.

“Why?” he repeated, his tone low as he nibbled her lower lip.

Horatia refused to answer. He knew full well why. He trapped her back against the window, the frosty glass burning her shoulder blades. His hands slid up her outer thighs, baring her legs to his touch and pooling her silver skirts around her waist. Lucien thrust one knee and then the other between hers as he knelt on the seat, caging her against the window. He spread her legs so he could lift her up against him and made her straddle his lap. Her knees clutched at his hips, molding her to him.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“What question?” she asked in a pleasure-filled daze. She felt his body fill with silent laughter and for some reason that angered her, bringing a wave of clarity with it. Horatia leaned back and balled her fist, striking in the general region of Lucien’s stomach. In a whoosh of air he doubled over and they both fell from the window seat. Horatia heard her gown rip as she fell off to Lucien’s side. He lay on his back, one hand clutching the wounded area.

“Good God!” he howled. “I’m fairly certain you just obliterated my insides. Did your brother teach you to punch like that? Perhaps Charles was in more trouble than I thought; I should have taken up Godric’s wager.”

“It serves you right for being such an insufferable tease. You’re lucky I admire your face so much or I’d claw your eyes out.” Her own eyes narrowed as she scrambled to her knees, glaring at him.

“Getting to be quite the harpy in your old age, aren’t you?” Lucien laughed.

“Harpy?
Old
?” Horatia’s voice was embarrassingly shrill and she clenched her fists, ready to punch him again.

“You’ve had what? Three seasons? You’re practically ancient, my dear. You even have the cats to play the part.” Lucien looked to the drawing room door where Muff sat idly licking a white-tipped paw. The cat paused when he caught the two humans fixed on him.

“
Mrreow?
”

Unable to help herself, Horatia laughed. This clearly annoyed Muff and he walked off, his black bottlebrush tail waving like a feather plume. Horatia regained control of herself and got up to retrieve poor Lady Eustace from her spot on the floor. Several pages were bent, like broken wings. Horatia’s throat tightened. She’d worked so hard to keep her books in good condition, especially the ones Lucien had given her. Why did the man always have to tie her in such knots?

Lucien propped himself up on his elbows on the floor, legs crossed at the ankles, watching her through hooded eyes. He’d enjoyed rousing her, but the resigned hurt in her eyes now made him uncomfortable. She was trying to bend back the pages of the novel and her lack of success was distressing her.

“It’s just a book. You can buy a new one.”

Her brown eyes misted over. “It wouldn’t be the same.”

“Don’t tell me that you’ve grown impossibly fond of Lady Eustace in the last few minutes.” He was trying to tease her but she wasn’t smiling.

“It’s not Lady Eustace I’m fond of.”

Horatia got to her feet, not seeming to notice the rip in her gown near the shoulder. The silver fabric sagged off her left shoulder, exposing part of the creamy mound of her breast. Lucien silently begged for the gown to drop farther. Would her nipple be a soft peach, or a sweet berry red? He ached to know its taste, to explore that nipple with his mouth, his tongue. Would she like to be laved, bitten or sucked on? All of these questions suddenly seemed vital. He had to know the answers. Lucien whimpered in protest when Horatia tugged the ripped sleeve back up, hiding that taunting bosom from him.

“If you’ll excuse me.” She made to leave but he lunged to his feet and caught the back of her gown, stopping her dead in her tracks. She reached behind her and gripped the wrist that held her gown, digging her nails into his skin. He didn’t even flinch at the pain.

“Release me.”

“Answer my question.” He found himself grinning, knowing she would break. He wouldn’t let her leave otherwise.

“You know the answer,” she replied, releasing his wrist and crossing her arms. She turned her face away from him.

“You’re no fun tonight,” Lucien muttered.

“Since when do you ever want me to be fun, or even want me to
have
fun? As I seem to recall, your life’s mission is to rip my heart and soul out and crush them under your boot heels. And congratulations Lucien, you’ve succeeded. Bravo. Now please let me go, so when I start to cry I may do so in peace. Please, save me the humiliation of breaking down in your presence.”

Lucien would not have believed she was close to crying, her tone was too strong. But the almost invisible quake in her pale pink lips spoke volumes.

“I promise to let you go if you answer my question directly.” He lowered his voice, speaking more gently. “Do you still desire me after everything I’ve done to you?”

“What do you think?” Horatia blinked back the shimmer of tears in her eyes. “I feel like a mouse being toyed with by a cat. You’re worse than Muff. You bat at me with your paws, claw me, excite and thrill me with your wild antics, but it is all a game to you. You seduce me because you’re bored. You derive pleasure from giving me hope of returned affections, then lay ruin to my dreams. I’m begging you, Lucien. Either kill me now or leave me alone forever, but for God’s sake stop this infernal dance. I am in agony every minute of every hour of every day, fearing what you’ll do to my heart next. Put me out of my misery and be done with it.”

Lucien was stunned. Never had he thought she would be so honest over something so private. Her warm brown eyes blinded him. The pain in her voice cut through him, leaving scars he justly deserved. She was right, he’d gone out of his way to ignore her these last few years, only to tease her when he couldn’t stand to stay away, and what use had that been?

Why did he persist in torturing Horatia? In treating her so callously he’d taken a grim satisfaction from his ability to control his desire for her, though that had become more and more difficult as of late. Slowly he loosened his grip on her dress. A moment passed as neither of them moved and then Horatia, clutching her book like a shield, fled from the room and up the stairs. Lucien shut his eyes at the distant sound of her door closing.

Something had changed tonight. He wasn’t sure what, but he felt it deep in his bones. It was as though he’d been set on a course and turning back now was impossible. What was more he didn’t want to. The only thing he knew was that his life’s mission, as Horatia had called it, had changed.

Starting tomorrow he’d never again pester or tease Horatia, or be cold to her for that matter. He would maintain a polite but hopefully warm distance from her. And once this dreadful business with Waverly was over he would start looking for a wife. If Godric could settle down, then Lucien could too. It just couldn’t be with Horatia.

Cedric would never condone that marriage. If Lucien were in his place, he wouldn’t have allowed it either. Cedric had seen him sleep with two women at once, and knew Lucien had done things in bed even some of the League shied away from. Stupidly, he’d boasted of such conquests and the cunning methods of seduction he’d used.

No, Cedric would never allow his sister to marry a man like him. Nor would Lucien find a woman who would rouse his passions, but then he’d always known he’d be doomed to a loveless marriage. He’d find some quiet unobtrusive girl, marry her quickly and be done with it. If Horatia saw him married, then she’d be able to move on herself.
And the past will be truly buried,
he thought.