She awoke in the morning alone and feeling strangely contented, as if she had emerged from a dark tunnel into the light. New. Replete. For the first time, Isabella examined Belle cautiously in the light of day, like a scientist surveying a new-found species. Alien but familiar. Part of her, once caged, now set free by this game of theirs. Like an alchemist, Ewan had conjured something new from two separate elements.
Something destined to be short-lived, she realised poignantly. After tonight it was a part of her which would forever go unnourished. Without Ewan, Belle would surely wither and die. The thought squeezed her heart, and she banished it. Plenty of time for pain on the morrow.
After dressing, Isabella found Ewan in the library reading
The Spectator
. He held out his hand in greeting, looking much younger in the daylight, almost boyish. Welcoming. She remembered her dream. Here was a man to keep confidences. A man to trust. A man of integrity, so different from the dark soul she crossed swords with at night. And yet…
Two Ewans; one for Belle, the other for Isabella. Opposite sides of one coin. Like her. Exactly like her. Like an animal with hibernation in mind, she stored up this comforting crumb for the bleak months ahead.
Wandering aimlessly about the room, Isabella spotted a large map of America laid out on the desk. “Is this the New World?” she asked excitedly. “Tell me about it, Ewan.”
He described cities and plantations, a land of
contrasts and plenty. “But no words can convey the sense of space the sheer size of it,” he said with a sweeping gesture.
Isabella ran her finger over the vast empty space to the west of New England. “The Frontier, they call it. Think what that could mean. The chance to start afresh, without the prejudices and constraints of England.”
“That is precisely why the early settlers went there in the first place. But it is a life of hard work and many dangers, too,” he cautioned.
“Think of the rewards, though,” Isabella said with a glowing smile.
“You are serious,” he said wonderingly.
Her smile faded abruptly. “A dream, that’s all.” She was silent, frowning down at the map. “As a woman, I am allowed no ambitions,” she said bitterly. “But you can do anything you want. You are marking time with your hell raising I think, but it does not satisfy you, does it?”
“You’re very perceptive. It’s not the danger I miss, nor even the battles—it’s the challenge, the unpredictability. I had forgotten what that felt like until I met you.”
“Your dark side,” Isabella said, flushing. “You will need to find another outlet for it after tonight.”
He was hurt. “And you, too,” he said roughly, testing her reaction.
She shook her head. “Tomorrow, perhaps even tonight if I win, Belle will be gone forever.”
“Don’t talk like that,” he said, putting a hand on her
wrist.
She brushed him away. “This is not real life, what has transpired here between us. It is a game. A necessity for me, a diversion for you.” She stood, brushing out her skirts, and left the room, seeking refuge in her chamber. She would not give house room to this stupid sentimental feeling the day-time Ewan aroused in her. He was her adversary. For if he was not, then what was he?
The question would not go away. As she bathed and dressed in an evening gown, as dusk fell and night ascended, Isabella and Belle waged war in her mind.
It’s ridiculous to imagine an acquaintance which can be measured in hours could amount to anything important. I hardly know Ewan.
I know the important things. I have known those since almost the moment I set eyes on him.
Extreme circumstances brought us together. I am here only to save my brother.
I came here for Robin but I am staying for my own reasons.
I am simply in thrall to my own passions then…that is it, surely?
This chemistry between us is a symptom, not a cause. My passions are the result of my feelings, not the other way around.
So I am in love with him?
Yes, I am in love with him. Deeply, irrevocably in love with him. There, it is said!
I am not foolish enough to think my love returned, though.
No. And I do not want his pity, either.
My opponent he must remain then, Isabella said.
My opponent, Belle agreed sadly.
But by the time Belle faced Ewan over the dinner table, her mood was black. She would be gone in the morning. She wished she could be sure Ewan would miss her. She wished she did not care whether or not he did. She wished she could stop wishing. She cut viciously into the capon on her plate.
“You have the look of someone with a hunger food won’t satisfy.”
His words cut into her thoughts. He was not smiling, but he was laughing at her all the same. Pettishly, she pushed her plate away. “You flatter yourself if you think it’s you I hunger for,” she snapped. “You are a skilful lover, and you have taught me a few tricks, but I am a quick learner. I don’t need you. Rather it is you who has need of me.”
Her words were meant to hurt him. He knew that, but they hurt all the same. He could not read her mood. When she had left him earlier, he told himself it was part of their game. But she was still angry; so angry with him, and he did not know why. With the curtain up on their final act, it was as if he was in the wrong play. He had not thought of the ending, but he did not want
this
ending. “Isabella,” he said urgently, “it doesn’t have to be like this, you know.”
“Yes, it does,” she said at last. “We agreed on the rules at the outset. And you must call me Belle, not Isabella,” she added coldly.
As he followed her for the last time to the upstairs
parlour, uncertainty made him apprehensive. He had convinced himself that the fall of the dice tonight was irrelevant. He realised he had been horribly wrong. He picked up the ivories. “Three,” he called, for the nights of their wager. “No four,” he amended superstitiously, casting the dice reluctantly.
Belle watched unblinking as they landed. Five and six. When it was her turn to throw she looked at Ewan, not the dice. “Three,” she called, and three is precisely what fell.
He could not believe it was over. Striding over to the silver salver standing on the table beside the fireplace, Ewan poured himself a large brandy and downed it in one draught.
“Slowly, take your time,” Belle said, in a deliberate echo of his own words that first night. “I would have you sober. You have a debt to settle, Captain Dalgleish.”
Ewan looked up. Blue eyes, alight with something. Mouth curled up in a mocking smile, a direct imitation of his own. “But you won,” he said stupidly.
“Indeed I did. Which means that I decide what happens.” She crooked her finger and swept imperiously from the room.
Ewan followed, his heart thumping with anticipation. By the time they arrived at the door of her chamber he was already hard. Never had he wanted something so much.
“Undress,” Belle commanded him, busy rummaging for something in the tall chest of drawers set against the far wall.
He did so. She turned to find him magnificently naked before her. She caught her breath, allowed her
eyes to travel slowly over him, from his flaming mane down past the breadth of his shoulders, his chest, the rippling muscles of his abdomen, his powerful thighs, her breath coming shallow and fast as she took in his aroused state. She forced herself to continue down the length of his legs, the beautifully defined muscles of his thighs and calves. Standing thus, there was no trace of the sophisticated gentleman; he was all raw power and overwhelmingly male. Untamed. But not, she hoped, untameable.
She wondered if it was possible to tease a man in the same way as she had been teased. Brought to the brink of pleasure and suspended there, time and again. She was resolved to try.
“Well,” Ewan demanded, more aroused than abashed by her scrutiny. “Do I pass muster.”
“You are a fine looking specimen,” Belle said dismissively.
He laughed, genuine amusement rippling through his stomach muscles, making his eyes crinkle attractively at the corners.
She could not help it; she returned his smile.
“Come here, Belle.”
His words brought her up short. “No! It is for you to do my bidding tonight. Lie on the bed.”
A quizzical look, but he obliged. “What do you plan to do with me?”
She looked down at him, trying to etch his image in her mind. Anger gave way to tenderness. Desire, as ever in his company, lurked in the wings ready to take a leading role. “Tonight you are the vanquished. My
prisoner. I intend to make use of you. Raise your arms.”
Warily, he did so, watching as she produced two silk ribbons, sashes from dresses, he realised, and tied one around each wrist. When she concentrated her tongue peeped out between her lips. He wondered if she knew. He wanted to kiss her. As she tested her knots and began to tie the other end of the sashes to the bed posts, he relaxed. She wanted revenge, but it was not his demoralisation she sought; it was the upper hand. In this dark part of themselves were they not made of the same clay? Tonight, she needed him to resist before he submitted. A reversal of last night. He understood that, too.
Belle surveyed her handiwork with satisfaction. She stood in front of him to unhook her dress, recalling how much he had enjoyed watching her disrobe that first night. How much she had enjoyed it, too. Watching his excitement mount served to increase hers, she had learned. Provocatively, she paraded in front of him, casting silk and lace and cotton and ribbons aside. Naked, she reached up to loosen her hair, stretching her arms above her head to tauten the line of her breasts, watching Ewan through half-closed lids with immense satisfaction. He was positively devouring her with his eyes. A curl of excitement knotted tight in her belly.
Ewan strained at the ribbons. Forced himself to relax.
Belle laughed for the pleasure of it. She climbed onto the bed between his legs. Leaning over him, she allowed her nipples to graze the skin of his abdomen. She shivered at the contact and stooped down to lick
him, tracing the line of his rib cage with her tongue. Stopped to watch him.
His eyes darkened with desire. She felt him strain at the ribbons again. “Kiss me, Belle,” he whispered huskily.
She shook her head. Leaning over him again, she traced a path with her tongue down his stomach, cradling his length between her breasts, teasing him with her nipples, relishing the feel of their hardness against his silken skin. Down she licked; the inside of his thigh then the other, revelling in the heat and maleness of him, feeling herself tight and wet, aware of his breathing becoming harsh and quicker as she lingered on the crease at the top of his leg.
“Do you like being my prisoner, Ewan?” she asked, her mouth against his skin.
Silence.
Her finger fluttering along the length of him. Circling the tip. Her tongue now, repeating the action, licking her way up, lingering, circling. Ewan groaned.
“Tell me you surrender, Ewan,” she whispered.
“No,” he managed through gritted teeth, straining at the ribbons.
Belle licked again. More than anything she wanted his hands on her, his lips on her, but that way lay capitulation and she was not ready for that. Not yet. Daringly, she put her lips around him and sucked gently. Silence of a different sort. She sucked again. Breathing so rapid she thought he was in pain. Looked up. Saw his eyes fly open.
“Don’t stop.”
“Say it,” she insisted.
Her lips on him again. He thought he would die with the pleasure. Now butterfly kisses and fingers stroking, her lips again. Now looking at him, demanding. Ewan closed his eyes and looked away, praying she would have pity.
She remembered last night. She could do the same to him. She could have him without allowing him to have her. It was a powerfully erotic image. Ewan was looking at her. She could see the plea in his eyes, though he would not say it. She touched him with her fingers, stroking until she could feel the blood pulse, stopping as it did, glorying in the exquisite pain she could see etched on his face.
She put her lips around him again, drew him in as much as she could hold. Sucking purposefully now, feeling him engorged in her mouth, aware of him straining, breathing, saying her name, but caught up in her own powerful need to control him, feel him, and then he came, and finally she heard him, over and over again, saying the words,
I surrender,
but she didn’t care anymore and it didn’t feel like a victory; it simply felt right.
She lay on his stomach. She could feel his heart beating hard. She was conscious of her own arousal, and wondered what to do about it. She could make him tend to her as he had last night, but that was not what she wanted. She wanted him inside her. Cautiously, she touched him. Wondering.
A throaty chuckle. “Give me a moment.”
She looked up. “Fighting back, Ewan?”
He shook his head. “Simply trying to do your bidding, but I need time to recover. If you untied me, it
would help.”
But she would not. And it did not take so very long after all.;
Lowering herself onto him, shivering as she felt him enter her, satin smooth and hard in contrast to her soft and wet core. Slowly, she sheathed him until he filled her, and she held him without moving.
“Belle,” Ewan said urgently…“Belle, untie me.”
She shook her head. Even that tiny movement reverberated inside her.
Ewan strained at the ribbons holding him but to no avail. Belle moved again, up, down, slow, too slow, tilting herself forward on top of him, nipples grazing his chest. She was doing something else now, so that he was caught in a vicelike grip inside her. He felt the blood rushing. “Let me go, Belle.”
Still she denied him, squirming on top of him, enjoying the friction, enjoying the power she had over him, enjoying the power she had over herself. She lifted herself up again, then down, then writhed.
She could feel herself unravelling. She leaned forward using her elbows for purchase and thrust again. Ewan pushed up to meet her. His eyes on hers, dark amber, watching her, waiting for her, she realised. Finally, she kissed him. Deeply. Passionately. Her tongue hot in his mouth. She thrust, could hold it no longer, came around him, gripping his shoulders, like a complicated knot untying, and felt him climax almost at the same time, so that she was lost, unable to tell which was her and which was he as they fell, glided, and soared.