Mastered By Love (31 page)

 

Despite his nonchalance, he knew perfectly well he’d come within a whisker of dying that day. He’d waltzed close to Death before; he knew what the touch of her icy fingers felt like. What was different about this time was that—for the first time—he’d had regrets. Specific regrets that had leapt, sharp and clear, to the forefront of his mind in the moment when Phillip’s hand had seemed just too far away.

 

His principal regret had been over her. That if he died, he’d miss knowing her. Not just biblically, but in a deeper, broader sense, something he could put his hand on his heart and swear he’d never wanted with any other woman.

 

Yet another reason it was just as well he was set on having her as his wife. He’d have years to learn of, to explore, all her different facets, her character, her body, her mind.

 

That afternoon, while warming up in his bath, he’d considered the odd impulse her hurrying him back to the castle had evoked. He’d wanted to put his arm around her and openly accept her help, to lean on her—not physically—but for some other reason, some other solace. Not just for him, but for her, too. Accepting her help, acknowledging it—showing he welcomed it, that he was pleased, felt honored, that she cared.

 

He hadn’t done it—because men like him never showed such weakness. Throughout his childhood, his schooling, through social pressure, such views had shaped him; he knew it, but that didn’t mean he could escape the effects, no matter how powerful a duke he might be.

 

Indeed, because he’d been destined to be just such a powerful duke, the conditioning had reached even deeper.

 

Which, in many ways, explained tonight.

 

Beneath the flow of his thoughts, he’d been evaluating, assessing, deciding. Drawing in a long breath, he lifted his head and looked to the left of the stage. “Come out. I know you’re there.”

 

Minerva frowned, and stepped out from her hiding place. Tried to feel irritated; instead…she discovered it was possible to feel exceedingly vulnerable and irresistibly fascinated simultaneously.

 

Stepping off the stage, she told herself, her unruly senses, to concentrate on the former and forget the latter. To focus on all the reasons she had to feel vulnerable about him. About getting too close to him in any way.

 

Predictably, as she walked with feigned calmness down the aisle, her senses, skittering in breathless expectation, gained the ascendancy. Being within four feet of him was not a wise idea. Yet…

 

The light from the window behind her fell on him, illuminated his face as, remaining seated, he looked up at her.

 

There was something in his expression, usually so utterly uninformative. Not tiredness, more like resignation—along with a sense of…emotional tension.

 

The observation puzzled, just as another puzzling fact occurred. She fixed her gaze on his dark eyes. “How did you know I was here?”

 

“I was in the corridor outside your room. I saw you come out, and followed.”

 

She halted in the aisle beside him. “Why?”

 

The moonlight didn’t reach his eyes; they searched her face, but she couldn’t read them, any more than she could tell what he was thinking from the chiseled perfection of his features, yet they still held that certain tension, a need, perhaps, or a hunger; as the silence stretched she sensed it more clearly—honest, sincere, direct.

 

Real.

 

A lock of sable hair had fallen across his brow; entirely without thinking, she reached out and smoothed it back. Fingertips seduced by the rich softness, by the sensual tingle, she hesitated, then started to withdraw her hand.

 

He caught it, trapped it in one of his.

 

Eyes widening, she met his gaze. Fell into it.

 

He held her ensorcelled for a long moment, then, uncurling her fingers with his, he turned his head and, slowly, deliberately, pressed his lips to her palm.

 

The shocking heat leapt like a spark into her; the blatantly intimate touch made her shiver.

 

He shifted his head; his lips drifted to her wrist, there to bestow an equally intimate lover’s caress.

 

“I’m sorry.” The words reached her on a dark whisper as his lips left her skin. His fingers shifted over hers, locking her hand in his. “I didn’t intend it to be like this, but…I can’t wait for you any longer.”

 

Before her brain could take in his meaning, let alone react, he surged to his feet—angling his shoulder into her waist, using his hold on her hand to pull her forward—in one smooth move hoisting her up over his shoulder.

 

“What…?” Disoriented, she stared down his back.

 

He turned to the door.

 

She grabbed the back of his coat. “For God’s sake, Royce—put me down!” She would have kicked, tried to lever herself off his hard shoulder, but he’d clamped a steely arm over the backs of her knees, locking her in position.

 

“I will. Just be quiet for a few minutes.”

 

A few minutes?
He’d already walked out into the corridor.

 

Clutching the back of his coat with both hands, she looked around, then braced as he started climbing; through the dimness she recognized the hall before the west turret stairs—watched it recede.

 

A scarifying thought formed. “Where are you taking me?”

 

“You already know. Do you want me to state it?”

 

“Yes!”

 

“To my bed.”

 

“No!”

 

Silence. No response, no reply, no acknowledgment of any sort.

 

He reached the gallery and turned toward his rooms. Any doubt that he meant to do as he’d said evaporated. Realization of how helpless she was grew; she couldn’t prevent what would follow because she simply wouldn’t, not once he’d hauled her into his arms and kissed her.

 

Just the thought of his hands—his clever, wicked hands—on her skin again made her shiver with damning anticipation.

 

Desperate, she braced her hands on his back, struggled to push up enough to drag air into her lungs. “Royce,
stop
!” She poured every ounce of command she could muster into her tone. When he didn’t so much as pause, she quickly continued, “If you don’t set me down this instant, I’ll scream.”

 

“A piece of advice from one who knows—never threaten what you’re not prepared to deliver.”

 

Incensed, she drew in a massive breath, held it…waited.

 

His strides didn’t falter.

 

But then he halted.

 

Hope flared—only to be drowned by a wave of disappointment.

 

Before she could decide what she truly felt, he walked forward again, then swung around. Her gaze raked the line of his armillary spheres. They were in his sitting room. Her last chance of being saved, by any means, died as she heard the door shut.

 

She waited, breath bated, to be put down. Instead, he walked through the next door, kicked it shut behind them, and continued on across his bedroom.

 

All the way to the foot of his massive four-poster bed.

 

Halting, he gripped her waist; dipping his shoulder, he slid her slowly down, breasts to his chest, until her toes touched the floor.

 

Valiantly ignoring the sudden rush of her pulse and her swooningly eager senses, she fixed her eyes, narrowed, on his as he straightened. “You can’t do this.” She made the statement absolute. “You cannot simply carry me in here, and”—she gestured wildly—“
ravish
me!”

 

It was the only word she could think of that matched the intent she could now see in his eyes.

 

He studied her for an instant, then raised his hands, framed her face. Tipped it up as he shifted closer, so their bodies touched, brushed, settled, as, eyes locked with hers, he bent his head. “Yes. I can.”

 

His statement trumped hers. It rang with innate conviction, with the overwhelming confidence that had been his
from birth.

 

Lids falling, she braced for an assault.

 

It didn’t come.

 

Instead, he supped at her lips, a gentle, tantalizing, tempting caress.

 

Her lips already hungered, her body thrumming with awakening need when he lifted his head just enough to catch her eyes. “I’m going to ravish you—thoroughly. And I guarantee you’ll enjoy every minute.”

 

She would; she knew she would. And she no longer knew of any way to avoid it—was fast losing sight of why she should. She searched his eyes, his face. Moistened her lips. Looked at his, and didn’t know what to say.

 

What reply she wanted to convey.

 

As she stared at them, his lips curved. Thin, hard, yet mobile, the ends curved up just slightly, invitingly.

 

“You don’t have to say anything. You just have to accept. Just have to stop resisting…” He breathed the last words as his lips lowered to hers. “And let what we both want, simply be.”

 

His lips closed on hers again, still gentle, still persuasive, yet she felt the barely leashed hunger in the hands cradling her face. Lifting one hand, she closed it over the back of one of his—and knew to her bones his gentleness was a façade.

 

Ravish he’d said, and ravish he meant.

 

As if to prove her correct, his lips hardened, firmed; she felt his hunger, tasted his passion. She expected him to press her lips apart, with no further invitation claim her mouth, then her—but abruptly he reined in the passion about to break free.

 

Enough for him to lift his lips an inch from hers and demand, “If you don’t want to know what it would be like to lie with me, say so now.”

 

She’d dreamed of it, fantasized about it, spent long hours wondering…looking into the dark richness of his eyes, at the heat already burning in their depths, she knew she should deny it, grasp the chance and flee, yet the lie simply
wouldn’t come.

 

“If you don’t want me, tell me now.”

 

The harsh words grated, deep and low.

 

His lips hovered over hers, waiting for her answer.

 

One of her hands lay on his chest, spread over his heart; she could feel the heavy, urgent thud, could see in his eyes, behind all the heat, a simple need—one that pleaded, that touched her.

 

That needed her to be assuaged.

 

If you don’t want me…

 

He wanted her.

 

Tipping up her face, she closed the distance, and kissed him.

 

Sensed a fleeting moment of surprise, then he accepted—seized—the implied permission.

 

His lips closed on hers—ravenously. Hers were parted; he surged in and laid claim. Laid waste to any vestige of resistance, laid siege to her wits and flattened her defenses.

 

He filled her mouth, captured her tongue and caressed, seized her senses, engaged them with his. Commanded, demanded; even as his hands slid from her face and his arms closed around her, steely bands pulling her into him, locking her uncompromisingly against his hard frame, he lured her into a heated exchange that rapidly escalated, eager and urgent, onto another plane.

 

He fed her fire and passion, and more. He gave her, pressed on her, a taste of raw possession, an undisguised, shockingly explicit portent of what was to come, of his unleashed hunger, of her own heady response.

 

Of her ultimate surrender.

 

Of that last there was never any doubt.

 

Her shawl slid from her shoulders to the floor. She could barely find her wits in the maelstrom of her senses, could do little more in that first turbulent wash of passion and desire than cling to the kiss, to his lips, wind her arms about his neck and hang on for dear life.

 

For this was much more than he’d shared with her before. He’d let fall the reins he normally held, and let his desire loose to devour her.

 

That was how it felt when he closed one hand about her breast. There was nothing gentle in his touch; she gasped through the kiss, felt herself arch helplessly into the caress—all possessive passion, expertly wielded. His fingers closed and she shuddered, felt his palm burn even through the layers of fabric shielding her skin. Felt a hot wave of desire, as before his and hers combining, undeniably twining, rise up and fill her.

 

Take her. Compel her. Overwhelm her.

 

In that instant she set aside all restraint, gave herself up to the moment, and all it would bring. Set herself free to take all and everything he offered, to revel and seize whatever came her way. To seize the moment fate had granted her to live her dreams—even if only for one night.

 

The decision resonated within her.

 

This
was what she’d wanted all her life.

 

She reached for it. Boldly slid her fingers into his hair, tightened them on his skull—and kissed him back. Let her own hunger rise up and answer his—let her own passion free to counter his. To balance the scales as much as she could.

 

As far as that was possible.

 

His response was so powerfully passionate it curled her toes. He angled his head, deepened the kiss, took complete and absolute possession of her mouth. The hand locked about her swollen breast eased, released; he sent it skating down, trailing fire wherever he touched, over her waist, her hip, around and down to close, flagrantly possessive, about one globe of her bottom.

 

He lifted her into him, drew her up against him so the hard ridge of his erection rode against her mons. Caught in the kiss, trapped in his arms, she was helpless to hold back the tide of sensation he sent crashing through her as with a deliberate, practiced roll of his hips, he thrust against her.

 

Barely able to breathe, she clung as, with that simple, explicitly repetitive action, he stoked her fire until it cindered her wits, then he continued to move deliberately against her with just the right amount of pressure to feed the flames…until she thought she would scream.

 

Royce wanted to be inside her, wanted to sink his throbbing staff deep into her luscious body, to feel her wet sheath close tightly about him and ease the fiery ache, then to possess her utterly; he needed that more than he’d needed anything in his life.

 

Hunger and need pounded through his veins, relentless and demanding; it would be so easy to lift her skirts, lift her, release his staff and impale her…but while he wanted with blinding urgency, some equally strong, equally violent instinct wanted to draw the moment out. Wanted to make it last—to stretch the anticipation until they were both mindless.