Jo Beverley - [Malloren 02] (21 page)

And Portia wasn't just penniless, she was a positive sinkhole for money. If he didn't win this wager, she'd have cost him a small fortune without trying. When they married, she'd expect him to save her home, and then keep towing her brother out of River Tick. Doubtless the rest of her family would prove to be just as expensive.

He accepted it. It was clearly fate. Cupid's arrow. He didn't know how these things happened, but he knew he and Portia were linked now and for evermore. Fort believed he'd trapped Bryght into a commitment, but he'd just pushed him into accepting the inevitable.

Bryght told himself to concentrate on the immediate. He had to get his future bride through this with as little embarrassment as possible, and without revealing her identity. Yet at the same time he had to stir her desire so as to win their wager.

'Struth. He felt a strong inclination to beat his head against the lewdly painted wall!

He fell on the bed and snared her around the waist, rolling her back and under him. At the feel of his half-naked body, she let out a genuine squeal of alarm and struggled.

"Want to bite me, pretty one? I don't mind."

She bared her sharp white teeth and he thought she might actually try to take a lump out of his shoulder, but then she remembered their situation and looked to him for guidance.

"Beg for mercy," he mouthed.

"Oh, my lord, spare me!" she cried. Not an actress to match Peg Wolfington, but not bad for a beginner.

"Alas, my pretty, I've paid six hundred for you. But I swear you'll enjoy your initiation." Then he mouthed, "Cry."

She rolled her eyes, but covered her face and started to wail.

He moved off her. She promptly rolled on her front and went into a full-blown paroxysm of grief, beating the bed with her fists, heaving and howling. It was over-acting of the most atrocious sort, but he thought it would have its effect.

Trying to keep a straight face, he patted her back. "Now, now, sweetheart, it won't be so bad. Stop crying."

She wailed louder.
"I want to go home!"

That should set the stage for act one, he decided. Now he had to at least partly seduce Portia, both to make this convincing and to win their personal wager. The twelve hundred was nothing. He had to win that personal wager.

He had much on his side, much that she was denying. The energy, the magic, that sometimes sparked between two people from first meeting, was alive between them. He had known it from the first and fought it. Now he surrendered to the folly of it and turned his skills to making her surrender, too.

He eased onto the bed then suddenly covered her, head to toe. She stopped wailing and went rigid beneath him. He brushed away the false hair and kissed the back of her neck.

"Don't!" she gasped, and it was genuine.

"But I must," he murmured against her skin. "Isn't it sweet?" He ran his tongue along her shoulder, easing the gown off as he went. "As sweet as you..."

She clutched the front of the gown to stop it sliding further. "Please!"

It was right for the frightened child, but it wasn't acting. "Remember," he murmured, "you get to keep all your clothes on. Which is more than I do."

He felt her relax a bit. "That was your own choice," she hissed into the bed.

"Someone had to show the paying customers a bit of skin."

Her hands made fists. "London is foul, and all in it!"

He laughed against her skin and let his teeth graze her. "Considering the king and queen live here, sweeting, that could be seen as treason." He kissed down the top few inches of her spine and she shivered. It wasn't from fear of treason, either.

"Just do it," she whispered.

"Too soon," he replied and eased off her a little, sliding his hand down to rub at the small of her back. He rubbed firmly there as he teased and tormented her upper back with his mouth.

He heard her breathing alter. Ah, Portia, one day we are going to do this as it should be done, and take it to its beautiful conclusion. Aloud, he whispered, "You are as sensitive as I dreamed, like the finest instrument."

"Or a hair-trigger pistol," she muttered.

He laughed and began to work his hand lower.

With a heave, she turned to avoid that, but his hand ended up in a much more interesting place. For the audience he said, "That's more like it, Hippolyta. I knew you'd come to like it."
Sotto voce
he added, "No, don't fight. Whimper."

Her eyes flashed outraged defiance, but she made a sound like an anxious puppy. It was surprisingly disconcerting and Bryght was strongly tempted to cuddle her. How the devil did men rape these creatures in truth? He'd never concerned himself over it much, and wasn't sure there was anything he could do about it, but now it bothered him.

Getting rid of Cuthbertson would end one foul supply. It wouldn't do anything, however, for other victims, or for frightened brides like Prestonly's poor wives.

He found his hand was stroking her belly in soft, comforting circles, and she was staring at him in wary confusion.

"There's nothing to be frightened of," he said aloud and whispered, "Trust me."

Perhaps there was the slightest trace of trust behind the mask. Daring to be gentle, he kissed her lightly on the lips before leaving the bed to inspect the items on the wall. He relieved one satyric male figure of the oil vial he held and returned to the bed, tipping oil onto his finger and breathing in the aroma.

As he thought. Musky, powerful, and sexy as all Hades if her instincts were attuned to it.

Chapter 10

Portia's mind was all spinning confusion. During the auction she'd been prepared for the worst. Bryght's voice had unbalanced her so she had not known what to think, but when she'd realized Fort was there, she'd been sure of rescue.

But it had been Bryght who'd claimed her, and he had not freed her but brought her to this disgusting room.

Now they seemed to be involved in wagers. If she had it right, she'd get the ridiculous sum of twelve hundred guineas if she could act as if she wanted Bryght Malloren.

And she'd be free of him forever if she could do it by pure acting, without wanting him at all.

She tried to tell herself that would be easy, but she wasn't in the habit of deceiving herself. It was because he could stir desire in her that she needed so badly to escape London. He'd stirred wild desire in her in broad daylight and fully clothed. Now, half naked in the flickering lights he was a creature of her darkest dreams.

And surely more wicked, she reminded herself. After all, he was here in a brothel by choice. He clearly knew all sorts of lewd skills. And he was, of course, a gamester. He was here with her because of a wager.

She watched him warily. He was coming back toward the bed with a vial, tipping it onto his finger....

He smiled, and before she could avoid it, touched his finger just below her nose so that a tendril of perfume crept into her. She could not identify the smells in it but it was similar to the incense in the air, and it was wicked.

She scrubbed at the tainted spot, but the smell could not be banished.

Pretend, but don't surrender,
she reminded herself.

She watched his every move. She was beginning to understand what he meant when he said that she did not even know the rules of this game of chance, but surely she could control her own responses.

Bare-chested, his dark hair loose to his shoulders, his beauty enriched by the wildness of it, he smiled at her. "Don't look so terrified, Hippolyta. You're going to love every moment of this."

She eased away from him. She didn't want to love every moment of this. She wanted to pretend to surrender and have it over with.

As long as he did not accept that surrender.

What if it were a trick? What if when he persuaded her to say she wanted him, he took the permission she gave?

He said to trust him, but she didn't.

Only a fool would trust a rake like Bryght Malloren.

She expected him to cover her again, using his size and heat to melt her senses, but he disconcerted her by sitting cross-legged on the bed by her feet. He grasped one ankle to pull her slightly closer. She let out an involuntary squeak and wriggled her skirts into decency.

He poured oil onto his hands, put down the vial, then began to work the oil into her right foot. He stretched and stroked it, giving each toe special, delicate attention, running his thumbs up her instep so her foot arched to him all by itself. A cloud of the spicy, sultry perfume crept up her body, accompanied by the softening pleasure of his touch.

Oh dear.

She tried to pull her foot away. "What are you doing?"

His grip was too tight. "Exploring you," he said, resting her heel on his thigh, concentrating on her toes, his dark hair falling forward to conceal his face.

By heaven, but he was beautiful....

No, Portia!

He worked meticulously from one toe to the next. "Before we are finished, my Amazon, I intend to know every inch of you, and pleasure most of them."

Portia shivered in earnest. "I don't like this."

He looked up, shadowed and mysterious, magnificent as the ceiling gods, and as powerful. "Liar." His voice was soft and deep as the night sky. "With me you will find the pleasures from your most secret, heated dreams, and you will admit the truth—that you are mad for me."

He wasn't acting. "Never."

He smiled with quiet confidence. "Soon."

Portia again tried to escape but his grip tightened. She flung herself back, her arm over her eyes and sought complete control over her body. His clever fingers were having an effect, though. If he carried on this way he might make his words true.

He raised her leg a little and kissed her toes as he began to massage the oil into her heel, then up the sensitive tendon to her calf. He kissed his way to her instep, and her eyes drifted shut at the sweetness of it... but then she forced them open.

She would not give him any reaction. Not a trace.

Then the wetness of his tongue traveled along her foot and his teasing fingers reached the back of her knee.

She squirmed.

No, she wouldn't!

But it was not just her foot and knee. Though he was not touching anywhere else, other parts of her body were heating, vibrating, desiring....

How could her body betray her so?

"How beautiful are thy feet,"
he said, and it sounded like a quotation. "Delicate, arched, sensitive. Like the rest of you." He was using his deep voice to cast a spell on her. "Sensitive, all of you, arching to my touch..."

Portia arched before she knew it. She sucked in a breath and prayed for strength.

He shifted and she was relieved, but it was only to begin the same onslaught on her other foot.

"Your limbs are slender but strong," he murmured. "Your skin is smooth as finest Chinese silk. When I stroke the silk you feel it everywhere, even in your most secret places. Places where you ache to be touched. You are supple as a willow, graceful as a doe as you move in your desire. Fighting with you, little warrior, was pure pleasure. Victory and sweet surrender will be heaven on earth. For both of us..."

Touch, perfume, voice, words—they were gradually melting Portia's bones, her muscles, and her resistance. She tried to remind herself that this was all clever tricks and acting, but even so, she ached, she moved.

His hand slid firmly up her calf and down again, and she took a sobbing breath. He rolled her onto her front and stroked the back of her legs, light behind the knees, harder on the calves but always over her skirts, never under.

Portia buried her head in her hands and tried to remember why it was so important to both deny that this was pleasant, and pretend that this was pleasant.

His hands moved up, over her buttocks, and onto the small of her back, to massage there with deep strength.

"You can feel it into the bones and beyond, can't you, little cat? Stretch like a cat. Purr for me...."

And Portia did stretch—she couldn't help it—but she stopped herself from purring. "Enough!" she gasped. "My lord, please..."