Silent Surrender (4 page)

“You eat here?” she signed, raising one eyebrow. She waited only long enough for Jude to translate that before she continued. “I pay you. Five days, five nights, all. Understand?”

Esau did not look away from her as Jude translated. Impressive, as most people did their best not to acknowledge her in conversation, even when she was the one speaking. Wordlessly, Esau nodded and pushed his chair back.

Dinner had been destined from the start to be an uncomfortable affair, but Honoria would not give Jude the satisfaction of admitting it. She made pleasant conversation with Esau, letting Jude facilitate their communication, and she soldiered ahead even when Esau seemed unable to give her anything but a few simple words in reply. It seemed he was a man less used to talking than he was to smiling, and he hunched over his plate as though someone might come up and snatch it from him. He looked all the more strange slumped that way in his fine clothes, his dark tailcoat stretched tight over his shoulders.

Only when Honoria asked him if he’d ever been to sea did he seem genuinely engaged. He spoke faster than before, and it was more difficult to follow his words. With Jude’s help, she learned that Esau had traveled once, only a short trip across the channel, and found the crossing so perilous that he’d sworn off ever attempting it again. He told a story, laughing as he did, of wealthy Frenchmen falling over in their own sick during the storm, and though Jude was horrified at the crude talk, Honoria could not help her own laughter. She wiped tears of mirth from her cheeks, her face and stomach aching from the ridiculous picture Esau’s words had painted.

Then, from the corner of her eye, she caught Jude signing. “He. You want man like this?” Jude’s stern expression and pointed question took all the joy out of her. She felt suddenly foolish, like a naughty child who’d expected to tell a convincing lie, only to be caught out by someone more clever. She pushed her plate back and made to stand, but Esau rose before she did and pulled out her chair for her. He caught her wrist and drew her close to him, mouthing one word for her, and for her alone. “Bedroom.”

It seemed almost too easy to follow him out, giggling and blushing, leaving Jude alone in the dining room. No doubt a lecture would await her in the morning, but she couldn’t force herself to care about that when Esau held her hand and led her through the house and up the stairs. She was breathless and excited by the time they reached her door, and he pushed her against the wall beside it, trapping her with his arms on either side of her.

She thought he would kiss her, but his gray eyes scanned over her face, eyebrows knit together with regret. “You can speak, you know? To me. I won’t mock you.”

The breath she took was more dagger than air, piercing her chest with a tenderness so keen she wondered if she would ever breathe again. She couldn’t remember an instance where anyone had apologized, truly apologized to her for the way they had treated her. They might have said sorry, and Esau had not, but none of them had shown such sweet earnestness. She rose on her toes and kissed him, and he pulled her away from the wall, into the bedroom, kicking the door closed behind him.

It had occurred to her that she could have him again that night. She hadn’t worked out the delicacies of asking him. It seemed strange, to feel more shy with him now than she had before they’d made love. Before she’d had to ask him, he’d volunteered. Did that mean he’d enjoyed her so much that afternoon that he’d looked forward to being with her again?

She opened her mouth, the words frozen in her throat. His hands cradled her buttocks and he lifted her, smiling and saying, “Up you go.” He pushed her dress around her thighs, the long skirt and layers of stiff petticoats trapped between them as she wound her legs around his back. His hands slipped, and he nearly dropped her before he could deposit her on the bed.

Motioning frantically through her giggles, she tried to convince him to pull the rope and bring her maid, but he shook his head, trapping one of her ankles in his big hand. He made surprisingly quick work of her shoes, then swept those rough, square hands over her calves, behind her knees, up to untie the ribbons of her garters. He took great care rolling the silk down her leg, until she no longer laughed, but trembled. When he cupped her heel in his hand and bent his head to suck her toe into his mouth, she positively quivered.

When she had selected him for this task, it had been expressly for this reason. His dark glare had hinted at this type of depravity, but she’d been certain he would display more roughness. She longed to be taken, thrown and held down by the sheer physical power of him. Of course, she’d feared that desire the first time, and he’d been so gentle, as if he’d known that was what she’d needed.

She didn’t need it any longer. His tongue swirled over the pad of her toe and she twisted on the bed, almost losing her resolve to sheer pleasure for just a moment. She wrenched her foot from his grasp, clambering to her knees to grip the front of his shirt. He looked down at her in a moment of confusion, and she ripped the shirt open, buttons landing on the bedclothes around them. Looking for a moment as though he were torn between disappointment at the ruination of his new clothes and excitement at what she’d done, he shrugged out of his coat, waistcoat and shirt, one brow arched as he studied her.

“Is that the way of it, then?” His words were hard to make out, his mouth barely moved from the dangerous smirk that curved his lips.

In answer, she slapped her palms against his chest, raked her nails over crisp hair and the purplish scars that marred his skin. She didn’t have to ask him again. He proved he understood her meaning by grabbing her arms and throwing her down. This time, when he pushed her skirt up, he was not careful; she wondered if he would tear the fabric. He groped between her legs, finding the slit in her drawers, and pushed two fingers into her without further preamble. His eyes widened, and she made out only one word, “wet,” on his mouth before he sank his other hand into her hair, tugging her head back to kiss her. She held onto him, with her hands and her cunny, riding his fingers, reveling in the sting of the sudden intrusion. His mouth covered her throat, sucking and licking over every inch of sublimely untouched flesh from her jaw to her shoulders, until she knew she was shouting to bring the house down and she didn’t care. As if his lips drew on her intimate flesh, desire shot white-hot threads through her, straight to her secret pearl, while his fingers pushed and pulled inside her and her body convulsed in the grip of an ecstasy she could never have imagined before today.

He withdrew his hands quickly, cruelly, before she could come down from the breathless height, and flipped her abruptly onto her stomach on the big bed. In moments she felt the impatient tug of his fingers on the buttons of her gown. If he treated her dress as roughly as she’d treated his shirt, she would have much to explain to Annie in the morning. She didn’t care what the servants thought of her, not anymore. She hoped he would rip her gown from her, hoped he would shred it in his passion. He pulled the whole thing down with a single tug, the close-fitting sleeves wrenching her arms.

She leaned up, steadying herself with one hand to reach for the clasps down the front of her corset. She’d only managed to loosen one when, with a terrific yank, he freed the first set of laces, stealing her breath away. The second set came harder, but once it did, the entire garment fell to the bed. He hauled her up over one broad shoulder to walk to the end of the bed. He placed her on her feet, her back to the bedpost, and, before she thought to protest, wound one of the corset laces around her hands before bringing them over her head to secure them to the post.

“Something a little more rough, then?” His eyes glittered, with either humor or malice. Not knowing which thrilled her and terrified her at the same time. Could the man who’d treated her with such tenderness lash out at her in earnest now? Surely this was all a game?

He stood before her, surveying his handiwork with warring pride and lust written on his features. Then, slowly, he went to the chair before the fire and sat down, leisurely unlacing his fine new shoes. He only looked at her once or twice while she stood, arms trussed above her head, growing more and more impatient as he rolled off his socks and laid them over his shoes as if he were his own valet.

When finally he stood, hands going to the waist of his trousers, he hesitated a moment, tilting his head to one side and then the other, as if studying for a flaw that should be obvious. Finally he came close, so close his chest brushed her bare breasts, and she moaned, gooseflesh erupting all over her body. With maddening slowness, he eased his hand behind her neck, sliding his fingers into her hair to cup the base of her skull, then, with a gentle tug, loosened the pins that held it until her braid came undone. He combed his fingers through it thoroughly until her dark curls lay upon her shoulders in a cloud.

Her mouth went dry and she almost sobbed at the loss of his touch when he stepped back and pushed his trousers down. He was already hard and her eyes widened at the size of him. Had she really taken him into her body? Even as she doubted it, her cleft ached with emptiness. She wanted him so badly that when he touched her, she came close to begging him with her voice. Tying her hands was as effective as gagging a hearing woman and she doubted she would have ever let anyone besides him do such a thing to her. Their arrangement had inspired a strange trust in her; he would not do anything she did not want him to, and it seemed clear they both knew it.

Still, when he pressed his body against hers, the rigid column of his male flesh pushed tight against her stomach, she felt a thrill of trepidation. That she knew he would not harm her wasn’t enough. Not knowing what would come next, what sensual torture he might inflict, welcome though it would be, turned her already heightened anticipation into a physical reaction. She writhed against the bed post, felt the bite of it against her back and pushed into it. When he knelt before her and slowly drew her drawers down, she almost kicked him in the process of trying to fling the garment aside. He lifted her legs over his shoulders and buried his face in her coarse hair, wet from her earlier climax. His breath, the stubble on his chin, the hot softness of his lips all teased her to a burning frenzy. The satisfaction she’d just had seemed a long way off, and when his tongue parted her, seeking out her sensitive nub, she thought she might weep with frustration. Her desire burned so hot and the journey toward appeasement seemed so long.

He circled her, sucked her into his mouth, delved between her folds like a cat licking up cream. Indeed, it seemed he loved the taste of her as he burrowed his tongue deep in her clenching channel. She gripped the post, ignoring the bite of the cord around her wrists, and writhed her hips against his mouth until finally he returned to that sweet place that would bring her fulfillment. He sucked the bud between his lips, tapped with his tongue and teased her with the edges of his teeth until she bucked and shrieked, her legs thrashing senseless against his back. The cord biting into her wrists released her suddenly, and she scrambled to get a tighter hold on the post.

Esau did not let her fall, supporting her back easily with his arms as she disentangled her legs from his shoulders. She thought he would set her on her feet again, but she got no lower than his hips. Trapping her between his thickly muscled body and the hard bedpost, he entered her in one strong, deep thrust. Her intimate flesh protested for a moment, still unused to being so filled, and the stinging stretch took her breath away. He did not display any of his earlier gentleness, burying his face in her neck, biting and sucking at her throat until all she felt was the wicked pleasure of his tongue lapping over her skin, the hardness of his body against her, the harder post at her back. She wriggled, squeezed between two immoveable objects, her ankles clasped behind his back. Every movement only heightened the sensation of his hard flesh inside her, driving deep, slamming her hips backward into the sharp flowers and whorls carved into the bedpost.

It wasn’t enough, and he seemed to know it too. He lifted her off him, spun her so she could not see his face, though she heard the deep rumble of his voice as his chest pressed her into the bed and his cock pushed inside her again. Her hands clutching the duvet, she could only hold on as he pounded into her, her feet slipping on the rug as he crushed her down on the bed. She wanted it to never stop, wanted him to go harder, faster, to punish her body with his, to leave an indelible mark, some soreness in her bones. She wanted to remember this feeling long after he withdrew from her, long after she’d sailed away to France and her spinsterhood. If he killed her now, if she died from the pleasure and pain and pure sensation, she would not care. The life she would miss would be no reward so great as this.

Then it started, the tight, hot spiral between her folds, and she canted her hips forward, pushing into the bed, trying desperately to ease the ache. In a moment, Esau’s hand was there, wriggling between her body and the mattress, seeking out her nub, stiff and enflamed with her desire. He stroked her only briefly before her crisis took her and a gush of wet bathed his hand and the bedclothes beneath.

She heard his shout, though not the word he spoke, as he pulled roughly from her. Something fell, hot and heavy, like beads of quicksilver across her buttocks, and he sagged on top of her, their skin sticking together with sweat and his seed.

How long they stayed like that, ridiculously propped against the edge of the bed, she could not say. Her knees trembled but she could not summon the strength to move, and to move Esau besides. When he did raise his head and leaned away from her, she slid boneless to the floor. She sat there, blinking up at him, his belly still smeared with the evidence of his climax, and they laughed.

He helped her to her feet, murmuring things she could not hear, but when she asked him to repeat them, he shook his head and told her they weren’t important. If anyone else had said so, she would have been offended. It seemed it was always unimportant for her to know things that had been said. With Esau, she could tell he was uncomfortable with silence and spoke only for himself to hear. That endeared him to her more than perhaps it should have. Her heart clenched around the threat of coming emptiness, warning her away from such feelings.