No Choice but Surrender (26 page)

"Are you listening to me?" Avenel demanded, pulling her attention back to him.

"I am." She swallowed hard, not knowing how to handle the situation. Only weeks ago she would have gleefully taken the key and the money and not given him a second glance. But now she felt as if her whole world were coming to an end. The burning anger she'd felt when she had entered the room now turned into cold desolation, and there seemed to be nowhere to turn. "You want me to leave."

"I want you to leave." He refused to meet her
searching
 
eyes
, but his words were more than clear. "You must leave."

"That
night . . .
at the cottage—" she began stupidly.

"Forget that night! Forget that place!" he interrupted her. "We're back at the Park now, and we must live by Osterley's rules and Osterley's past. There is no choice."

"I see," she said, her voice wavering. Numbly, she stood up to go but then realized that the key had fallen to the carpet near where he sat. She knelt down to pick it up, and her hand trembled as she reached out for it.

"Tell me one thing, Brienne, before you go." His fingers caught her delicate wrist as she reached for the key.

"Yes?" She looked at him, her face pale and drawn.

He took a long time before he finally asked, "After I'd been shot, why did you not leave me altogether when I told you to go?"

"You . . . you were hurt."

He shook his head. "Is that the only reason?" He searched her violet eyes; his own narrowed. "I think not."

When the words came to her, they were not the words she wanted to say. "You already know why," she whispered, looking away from the dark triumph shining in his eyes.

Avenel lowered his gaze to where his fingers were clamped around her tiny wrist. The tone of his voice held many contradictory emotions. He was commanding her, she knew, yet for the first time, there was a slight hint of uncertainty in his order. "Tell me to let you go, Brienne. Say the words. Say them now. Then you'll be free. If
not . . ."

Hesitating for one fatal second, she knew she could not bring herself to go until, bending near to him, she placed a long, sweet kiss on his distrusting lips. It was a kiss for remembrance, one to last her the rest of her life. When it was over, she would have to comply with what she knew was a rational decision. It was best she get away from this crazed personal war he and her father were fighting. It was best she leave this man who openly declared himself her enemy.

Before her gentle kiss ended, she had unconsciously dropped the brass key once more. Yet she heard its thud on the carpet more clearly than she would have cannonfire. Her mind shrieked a warning, but her heart refused to heed it. She felt Avenel's hand release her wrist, and then, in the brief interlude when their only contact was between their lips, she had her last opportunity to go. . She stayed.

Allowing Avenel to pull her into his arms at that moment was like allowing a lion to eat her alive. Gone was the gentle, chaste kiss, and in its place was a raw, starved devouring that left her senses skittering on the brink of ecstasy. His lips moved roughly and claimed every part of her mouth as his; his tongue licked like flames over her own. Enveloping her in his strong arms, he pulled her so close, his robe opened. Only when the soft hyacinth brocade of her dress met his hard, naked flesh did he tear his lips from hers. Although the kiss had ended, she could tell from the look in his eyes that they had just begun.

"You should have forced me from you. You should have fought to get away. If you had an ounce of self-preservation, you would have done this, my love," he gasped desperately. "It took me seven days and nights to allow you to go."

"I wanted . . ."
she whispered, suddenly desiring him with every inch of her body and soul.

"You know if you stay here tonight, you will never be rid of me or Osterley. My mark will be permanent—I'll have it no other way." He took her face into his large, powerful hands, searching for her answer. And she gave it immediately, not with words but with her lips, which moved of their own volition over his.

Deep inside him she heard a groan, and soon she felt her laces being severed one by one with the sharp edge of the fruit knife. His hands forced the dress apart, and it fell in satin folds around them as they both half-sat and half-lay on the floor. With one uncontrolled movement, he shoved aside her slashed shift and claimed both her breasts with his hands. His beard-roughened jaw left a trail of blush-colored marks along her shoulders and chest until his roaming mouth nipped at each crest of her bosom. The inside of her belly burned as his teeth grazed her sensitive skin. Mindlessly she ached for more; recklessly he gave it.
               
~

His hands moved down the creamy smoothness of her thighs and roughly pulled at her silk hose. With two sudden rips, her stockings and her green slippers lay in a fluffy pile at her side. As if drowning in the whirlpool of his frenzied demands, Brienne could only look on with eyes sultry and dark as he released his arms from the robe. Once free of his clothing, he abruptly pulled her into his arms, and then, as if forcing the animal in him to perform a more civilized ritual, he carried her into the state bedchamber and flung her onto his ornately domed bed.

Something related to fear made Brienne pull the torn edges of her shift together as she tried to get to her knees. Her whole body trembled with fearsome, unexplored desires, yet looking up from the bed as Avenel stood over her, she wondered if she would be trampled by her own inexperience. How would she keep up with this man tonight? Had she been foolish to think she would fare well against his raging passions? Almost dazedly, she watched as he folded his arms across his chest. She was allowed a tantalizing glimpse of his maleness as he stood with his powerful thighs leaning against the mattress, and her thoughts turned to those few times she'd overheard talk of what went on between a man and a woman. "The first taking is
painful. . . .
It
must be suffered through. . . . The lucky ones don't bleed much. . . . But you must submit, submit,
submit
!
"

Nervously she backed toward the headboard. Perhaps she should have gone. Perhaps she had made a mistake. But even now, as Avenel towered over her, naked and magnificent in the dark, ember-lit bedchamber, she knew she had made the right choice. Her gaze wandered over him, and she saw how terrifyingly beautiful he was. His body exuded masculine dominance with every flex of the most minute of his muscles. She was crazed, she concluded wildly—she had to be. For how could she want so badly something that seemed destined only to hurt her?

As she battled her doubts, Brienne saw that Avenel had paused; the firelight revealed a tormented expression on his face. His eyes raked up and down her body until they settled on her face. He seemed to be searching for something, and his unnatural stillness unnerved her.

"What is it, Avenel?" Brienne whispered to him from the dark recesses of the bed.
Had she gone this far, only to feel the sting of his rejection?
Clutching at her bosom, she wondered self-consciously if he were seeing her now not as a vulnerable woman ready for love but as her father's daughter. As she prayed that whatever traits she'd inherited from Oliver Morrow wouldn't show, she lifted her eyes, only to find Avenel pensively staring at the burgundy spill of her hair.

"It's beautiful," he murmured almost to himself. His hand reached out and grasped several locks. "You're beautiful."

With that, the spell of indecision that had come upon him was broken. With new resolve, he pulled her to the edge of the mattress. His face became taut and unreadable, and Brienne felt a new tremor of fear and excitement. Avenel was ready. To get what he desired now, he looked as if he would embrace the devil.

"Untie this," he said, nodding at the ribbon that held together the remaining shreds of her sleeveless shift.

Showing her trepidation, her hands trembled as she raised them. She clutched at the single tie that so tenuously held the tattered garment to her; it took her a long time to finally pull the silken ribbon between her breasts. But before she had even released it, Avenel was tearing the filmy shift over her head, letting her dark red curls fall around her with the motion. He stared at her in the firelight as she knelt on the huge bedstead. Again her hands instinctively went to her lush breasts to hide them from his view, but he would have none of it.

"Don't," he said, pushing her arms to her side. Gently he entwined his fingers in her hair, and he bent to kiss her.

"Avenel, wait—" Her words were lost as his lips took possession of hers. His arms dropped to her supple waist, and before she could catch her runaway senses, his kiss grew more demanding. He seemed to want more from her than she knew how to give. Breathlessly, she tried to ignore his persuasions, for she was reluctant to taste him. But when his hand slid to grasp her bottom, she found herself growing more brazen. The wildfire he was creating in the nether regions of her belly made her act without thinking. Every time he moved his hand, the flames licked higher and higher. Finally, when she could stand it no longer, a soft moan escaped her, and she did as he desired. Her tongue slid timidly into his mouth, and with that she became all too aware of what he thought of her lovemaking. They were so
close,
she could feel every muscle tense along his front. Avenel stiffened, and Brienne soon discovered that the deeper and longer she kissed him, the greater his response grew. Although she was shaken by the force of his reaction, she at least knew he was pleased.

"Avenel, we're going so quickly," she gasped when he tore his mouth from hers. His scent, rich and masculine, one that no amount of soap could wash away, lingered on her skin, and his mouth burned along her neck. Drowning in its heady influence, she fell silent before he roughly laid her back on the bed. She felt his weight upon the mattress, and soon he was next to her, cupping her breasts and making her own hand move down his broad, muscular back. Anxiety and delight made her vision dim. His hand was warm and gentle on her flesh, but she felt flashes of fear whenever she looked at him. He seemed possessed by his desire for her. Because she couldn't understand his urgency, she was frightened by it.

In an effort to slow him down, she placed her hands against his chest. With his body pressed against hers, she could feel how the hair of his chest made a fine stream down his rock- hard belly and finally thickened once again below his navel, where he was pressing urgently against the softness of her stomach. Her palms grew damp, and she wondered madly how she presumed to control a man like Avenel Slane when she couldn't control her own body, which was arching against his like a moth to a flame.

She tried for the last time to regain her self-control before Avenel's hand forced her to abandon the effort. He began by stroking the curve of her waist, then swept his palms over her hips, and finally explored the intimate sweet flesh of her inner thigh. His teeth nipped at her shoulder and moved down to her breasts.

"I want you, Brienne, do you know that? I want you like no other woman I've ever known. But are you my curse or my charm?" He groaned and didn't wait for her to answer. Expressing his desire perfectly, he took each of her breasts and brushed their creamy roundness with his fingers until each rose-colored nipple blushed and strained for more of his touch. Fire raged within her then as his mouth possessed them, and she felt as if she were being swept away in the rampage of Avenel's desire. Panting and utterly helpless, she felt his tongue trail down the gentle curve of her breast, and with that he edged between her thighs. When his hands wove themselves into the unbound glory of her hair, she knew it was time for his fiery need to be satisfied.

Yet his desire was too demanding and too ferocious. Seeds of panic lodged in Brienne's breast when his strong body came to rest between her legs. Choking on her words, she made one last attempt to explain her own needs to him: "Avenel, you know I'm not wise in the ways of love."

He paused, just as she'd hoped he would, but only to whisper very firmly in her ear, "I know that, my love. A wise woman would have left."

He kissed her then and moved farther between her thighs. Yet with his every movement, Brienne felt her panic grow. "Avenel, wait . . ." she cried softly, but he seemed not to hear. Instead he roughly took her hands and held them over her head. Stunned and disoriented, Brienne wondered if he even realized who she was at that moment. His movements had become so calculated and practiced, it seemed almost as if he were making love to another woman, a woman with experience that she had yet to gain. He was breathing hard, and she knew he was anxious to enter her. His body had gone rigid, and his heart was pounding heavily in his chest. Although she believed it was Impossible to stop him, she knew she had to make him realize what he was doing to her.