Bride of Fortune (12 page)

      
Suddenly her husband's arm swept around her. He picked her up and pressed her against his chest in one fluid motion that left her so breathless with surprise all she could do was let out a small gasp. “Lucero—”

      
“To hell with dinner. We'll eat later. I've plans for us that will work up sufficient appetites for Angelina to roast us two fat chickens!”

      
Just then the old cook stepped through the heavy doorway to the kitchen, carrying a steaming tray which she almost dropped in amazement. Her meaty reddened hands tightened on the handles as she set it on the sideboard, then watched the
 
carry his wife from the room. Her expression was impassive but for the sadness in her dark eyes.

      
Nicholas half expected Mercedes to struggle or scream out in protest as he carried her across the foyer to the wide curving stairs.

      
Instead, her voice was low and rigid with controlled fury. She hissed in his ear, “Do your worst. I cannot stop you. Father Salvador would only remind me that it's my duty to submit to my husband.”

      
The bitterness in her voice almost made him relent. She sounded so desolate. Again he cursed his brother for treating her so shamefully, then vowed to show her how different things could be between a man and his woman.

      
And she is my woman, my wife.
Or, she would be after tonight. When he reached the door to his bedchamber, Baltazar stood inside it, a set of clean towels on his arm. Like Angelina and the rest of the old house servants, he had learned to school his emotions, revealing nothing to his master. Yet there remained a silent reproach in his eyes. He held the door ajar for the
,
then stepped outside it so Don Lucero could enter with his wife in his arms.

      
Mercedes could not bear to look at the dignified old servant who had always been so kind to her. She stared over her husband's shoulder as he turned to step through the door with her. That was when she saw Innocencia. The other woman stood at the top of the staircase staring at them. Her whole body was rigid with rage and her face was contorted with hate. The venom in her black eyes was a palpable thing.

      
Just as quickly as her rival's face flashed before her, it vanished as she was carried into the softly lit bedroom,
his
room. In her four years on Gran Sangre she had never set foot inside it, although she knew his mistress often had.

      
It should be Innocencia, not me, in his arms
. All too soon it would be again, she was certain.

      
Unaware of Innocencia's presence outside, Nicholas strode toward the bed as Baltazar quietly closed the door behind them. He could feel a renewed stiffness in her body as he neared the big canopied bed, but he attributed it to the proximity of the bed and all it must symbolize to her. Slowly he set her on her feet beside it, still holding her closely against his body.

      
“This is your bed,” she said coldly. “You've never brought me here before because you always have other visitors in the night after you've finished with me.”

      
After you've finished with me.
The words spoke volumes to him. “Ah, wife, but I don't plan to finish with you until first cock,” he whispered with a chuckle at the pun. First cock was a Mexican idiom for the rising sun.

      
Fury sluiced over her in fresh waves. At least before he had strode through his door under the cover of darkness and done the hateful act quickly, then left her alone while he cavorted with his harlot. “What cruel new game do you play, Lucero?”

      
“Not cruel at all, but a very delightful game, I promise,” he whispered, ignoring her frosty facade and her anger. He stood back and studied her with the deliberation of an artist examining a potential model for a nude painting.

      
Her heart came leaping into her throat when she divined his intent. “Surely you don't...you can't expect me to...”

      
He let his hand graze her jaw, then brush down the curve of her breast. “Yes, I can...and yes, you will.”

      
“The candles—at least douse the candles.” She broke out of her horrified trance and tried to step around him and seize the silver snuffer lying on the table beside the freshly turned back bed.

      
Nicholas reached out and wrapped his hand around her wrist, holding it firmly but gently, preventing her from achieving her goal. “We would only fumble around and get tangled in our finery if we attempted to undress in the dark.”

      
Such reasonableness. Such sadistic pleasure. No doubt Innocencia loved to undress for him! Mercedes looked at his restraining hand, so large and dark, enveloping her slender golden arm. Then she forced herself to look up into his face. His eyes were hooded but she could see the eerie silver lights that sparked in their black depths. His features were taut with hunger. Male predatory hunger. She could not escape, but she determined at least to salvage a shred of her pride.

      
“You must allow me the courtesy of summoning my maid to help me undress. A gentleman—”

      
“I'm afraid you'll find me no longer a gentleman—if I ever was one. War does bring out a man's true colors,” he added wryly.
Mine and Luce 's
. He placed his hands on her shoulders and turned her around. “I'll be your maid, for tonight, beloved.”

      
She allowed him to handle her. What choice was there? To fight and claw, kick and scream? Humiliate herself by letting his mistress and all the other servants hear how he forced her? No, but neither would she cringe and shiver. No, damn him, she would not shiver—in fear or pleasure. Least of all pleasure!

      
Yet the gentle urgency of his touch, the way he breathed low and raggedly, had a peculiar effect on her. She felt wanted, cherished as his hands deftly unlooped the long row of tiny buttons down her back and then slid the frothy pink dress from her shoulders. His lips were warm and firm as they trailed soft, moist kisses over the skin he bared, inch by inch until the gown and its petticoats fell to the rug, pooling around her ankles. Then he turned her until she faced him and he cupped her breasts in his hands.

      
Mercedes knew she was far less well-endowed than Innocencia. Was he making invidious comparisons? Her face flamed in embarrassment when she felt her body betray her, reacting with a strange new volition to his caresses. Her breasts seemed to swell and grow taut, and her nipples burned as his fingers circled them through the silk and lace of her camisole, teasing them to pucker and stand in hard little points. Sweet Mother of God, what was happening to her? She wanted to ask him where he had learned such devilish tricks, but perhaps he had always known them, just never showed her before. And how she wished he would not do it now!

      
Nicholas felt her response and smiled inwardly as he pulled her to him and lowered his head to kiss her throat, pulling the pins from the heavy mass of her perfumed hair and running it across his face so he could inhale the fragrance and feel the silky softness. Slowly he slipped her camisole straps from her shoulders and then tugged the lacy undergarment down until her breasts were free. They were perfect pearl-white globes that stood up proudly with their palest pink nipples at rigid attention. His mouth went dry just thinking of feasting on them. He lowered his head and suckled greedily, one hand splayed across her back, holding her to him while the other tore the front lacing loose and tossed the frilly thing to the floor.

      
Mercedes stood still as the room spun around her and her knees turned to jelly. His hands and his mouth were everywhere, leaving her naked, exposed and wanting him to continue. She clenched her fists at her sides to keep from burying them in his dark shaggy hair and pulling him closer to her for more of the sweet torture. No! Any overt sign, any move on her part to show she wanted this would only lead to shame when he left her. And he would leave her for Innocencia. She felt her nails bite into her palms and was grateful for the distraction of the pain.

      
She did not fight him as he untied the tapes of her lacy pantalets and slid his hand inside. But neither did she touch him of her own volition. Her arms remained stiffly at her sides. He cupped her soft buttocks and kneaded them gently, pressing her hips against his lower body, willing her response, knowing she felt the heat building between them. Her breasts gave that away. So would her soft moist nether lips, he was certain.

      
Go slow, give her time to become accustomed
, his mind hammered out, but his body craved nothing so much as to throw her on the bed and plunge inside of her sweetness. Instead, he gently took her into his arms and laid her on the bed. Then he began to undress himself, forcing his hands not to tear the buttons from his shirt or rip the carefully tied stock off his neck. All the while he looked at her, lying bathed in the pale golden light, willing her to return his gaze, to watch him as he had watched her.

      
She could feel his eyes scorching every inch of her half-naked flesh. The rustling sound of his clothing sliding off made her burn to look at his body. But she dared not. Yet even with her eyelids lowered discreetly, she could envision him as he had been that afternoon, with the clever patterns of black hair that covered his wide chest and narrowed in a vee over his hard flat belly. The dull thud when he tossed his boots away was quickly followed by the sharp snap of his trousers being yanked down and kicked off.

      
When she sensed him standing completely naked beside the bed, staring down at her, Mercedes could no longer continue the pretext. Her eyes flew open and locked with his. Hungry black wolf’s eyes glowed silver in the dim light. A feral grimace distorted his perfectly chiseled features, giving them a satanic cast. She had never seen him naked before, had never in her wildest imaginings thought she wished to, but she did now. Her eyes, like the rest of her body, seemed to have a will of their own as they swept down the hard dark planes of his face to his shoulders and that hairy powerful chest, then lower to where the sun had not touched his skin, to where his male organ pulsed like a great living spear, ready to impale her and put his seed in her womb. He had caused her such pain and degradation in the past, yet in spite of that, she recognized that he was beautiful, a splendid male animal.

      
With his eyes still gazing into hers, he lowered one knee into the soft mattress and slowly sank down beside her. She remained rigidly still, her hands lying at her hips, small fists balled up tightly. Taking a deep breath to steady himself, he reached down and removed her slippers. Her feet were small with delicate bones. He caressed her instep and watched her toes curl in reflex. Smiling he slid his hands up her shapely calves and thighs to pull down her garters and then peel the sheer silk stockings from one sleek leg, then the other. Taking a slender ankle in his hand, he raised her leg and trailed kisses along her calf up her inner thigh until he felt her quiver. More progress.

      
“Raise your hips,” he commanded hoarsely as his hands grasped her pantalets and began to pull them down.

      
She would be as stark naked as he! Fighting down the panic that flared up again, she did as he demanded. Even the lace of her undergarment felt erotic as it scratched her skin sliding down. Then he threw the frilly thing away and replaced it with the heat of his hands. Long fingers teased and pressed, glided and stroked until she was desperate to remain passive beneath his ministrations. She was certain she could bear no more without writhing in delirium. Through clenched teeth she bit off the words, ‘‘Get on with it and be damned!”

      
Nicholas felt a stab of fury at her sudden outburst. Every fiber of his body screamed at him to do precisely that. But he knew her fears made her lash out. He rolled down and covered her with his big body.

      
Heat enveloped her as he pressed her into the mattress. In the past her husband had never undressed her, only pulled up her night rail to plunge into her, but at least this contact was more familiar. She dug her nails into the mattress and waited for the dry rasping pain to begin. It did not. Instead he rolled to one side of her and kissed her cheek and ear, then buried his face in her hair to breathe in her fragrance. Murmuring low love words, he teased the inside of her earlobe with his tongue. His scorching hot mouth placed light brushing kisses across her face, on her eyelids, nose, then her lips.

      
He felt her resistance as his tongue rimmed her mouth and pressed against the tightly closed seam of her lips. Continuing the seduction of the kiss, he cradled her head in one arm and used the other hand to graze over her breasts, then glide lower to the pale concave silk of her belly. God, she was so soft and smooth, so perfectly formed, fitted just for him as he held her molded against his side with his thigh lying possessively across hers. When he inched lower, grazing the silky curls at her mound and caressing the damp folds of her sex, she gasped. At once his tongue plunged into her opened mouth and pillaged it as his hand stroked her until the creamy moisture told him that she was ready for him.

      
In spite of her vow, she was trembling. The raw jolt of sensation when he touched her there would not have been such a surprise if she had ever felt the least flicker of it in their previous encounters. But she never had. The heat pooling deep in her belly and the ache of her breasts were completely new, too. What was he doing to her?
Soon I'll be begging him to take me!
She whimpered in protest and tried to writhe away, but he held her fast.