Bertrice Small - Captivated

"I wouldn't have to kiss you for that." How curious that he could almost make her smile when so much in her life was cheerless.

"You might enjoy it."

"And so might you."

"Not likely," he said in truth and also to nettle, wanting her to move nearer.

Both considered themselves jaded, worldly, immune to trembling anticipation, but when she accepted his challenge or his offer to talk and moved closer, gracefully leaned forward when her silken hair brushed his face and her perfume pervaded his nostrils, when she stroked her palms lightly down his temples and held his finely modeled face between her hands, they both felt an irrepressible impatience, a restless enticement quite distinct from previous amorous encounters. "I think I hear choirs of angels," he lightly breathed.

"Nocherubim," she whispered, her voice as teasing.

Then their lips touched and pure lust dissipated more temperate images of heavenly bliss. His body instantly responded, the shock of desire so intense he wondered if he'd been drugged at dinner. She pulled away as if burned and sat trembling beside him.

"Untie me," he whispered.

She seemed to come back from some inner world and, appalled at her response, at what she perceived as the disreputable marquis's expertise and cunning, she said, cool and brisk, "Let's keep this impersonal."

"It's too late."

"You're wrong."

"I can make you hear those cherubim anytime you want." Seduction was so familiar to him, even he didn't know whether it was emotion or necessity driving him. But this woman was the only way to freedom.

That he knew.

"Untie me. It's safe enough with all the guards. And if we must dothis… baby making," he gently said, his gaze guileless, "why not make it more pleasant?"

Debating his sincerity, she gazed at him, his power undiminished despite his bondage. He stretched the length of the large bed, his powerful musculature evident beneath the fine wool of his evening clothes, his thighs and biceps straining the fabric. And then her glance slipped downward and his arousal brought a heated blush to her face.

"There are enough guards to protect you," he quietly reminded her and, taking note of her gaze, insolently added, "Do you like it?"

"Whether I do or not doesn't matter." Her eyes turned cool.

"I can make it matter if you'd let me," he lazily drawled.

"Maybe I'm offended by such libertine charm."

"Really. You don't look as though pleasure offends you."

"This isn't pleasure, Crewe not by the farthest stretch of the imagination."

"Untie me and I'll change your mind."

His voice was like velvet, his husky promise tantalizing even while she resisted the urge to believe him.

"How can it hurt? We're both here as captives, and if we must perform, why not at least attempt some semblance of politesse. I'd prefer holding you."

She softly sighed. "Can I trust you?"

"Hardly a word for you to use with me," he lightly remarked, lifting his arm the marginal distance allowed by his tight bond.

"Touch é," she softly murmured.

"Would it be too much to ask you to cover the peepholes?" he queried, his brows lifted faintly.

"No, and I apologize once more for"she lifted her hand in a gesture of futility"for everything…"

"We can argue degrees of blame later," he pleasantly said. "Right now I'd prefer not having an audience."

He watched her cover the surveillance points, four in all, pulling drapes over two, sliding a picture into place over another, hanging a pillow sham over one beneath a hook on the door. And when she returned to the bed, she said, very low, "This is very difficult."

"Just untie one of my hands and I'll do the rest. You can shut your eyes and pretend you're somewhere else."

"Wouldn't that be nice," she sardonically murmured, reaching for the knot at his wrist. She struggled with the tie while he lay quiescent, trying to appear calm when his mind was racing with the options available to him once he was freed. "There," she said, the knot loosening, and she unwound the braided cord on his wrist.

Half sitting up, he smiled at her and reached for the bonds on his left wrist. Swiftly he released the tie and then those on his ankles in quick succession. One floor to drop, he thought, the landscape outside his windows etched on his brain. Springing from the bed, he sprinted toward the windows. Reaching them, he lifted a heavy upholstered chair as though it were weightless and heaved it through the leaded glass. Following his juggernaut through the large opening in the glass, he leapt to the ground below.

Of course he would have tried to escape, Sofia reflected, picking her way through the shattered glass on the carpet, moving to draw the drapes over the broken window. Next time, she sensibly decided, tugging on the crimson velvet, the sounds of a skirmish coming out of the darkness before she shut out the cool night breeze and the strident accents, she'd be sure to leave him tied. The guards under the windows should soon have him in custody once again.

When they next met a brief time later, the marquis was captive again, bound to the bed in another room. Nude.

"I'll kill your husband for this," he snarled.

"I hope you weren't hurt." It took effort to keep her voice temperate. He was magnificenthis musculature tautly defined, the sense of rampant power only barely leashed, riveting. The width of his shoulders was startling, the ridged muscles of his lean torso classically sculptured, the strength in his thighs evidence of years in the saddle. How could fashionable evening clothes have disguised such brute strength?

Such striking virility. Even in repose, the length of his penis was formidable. Aroused, he would bea tiny flutter raced up her spinemonstrous. His legendary reputation was well deserved.

"You're all fucking crazy," he growled. "And yes, jumping fifteen feet to the ground leaves a bruise or two, not to mention your guards who are none too gentle."

"Why not agree to my proposal and be done with this?" She gestured at his bindings.

"Because I'm not inclined to suffer capture docilely. Your deranged husband will rue the day he chose me as stud for his dynasty."

"Then we might as well get on with this," she said with a repressed sigh.

"You forget there are some things your husband can't control," he snapped. "I'm not in the mood for sex."

"Then shut your eyes and pretend you're somewhere else," she noted, in parody of his earlier remark. "I'll take care of everything else."

"Good luck," he curtly said.

But when she unclasped the jeweled closures of her robe and slipped it from her shoulders, he found himself drawn to the glorious sight despite his raging anger, regardless of the bindings cutting into his wrists and ankles. Her husband must have had her vetted before marriage, he thought, for her sumptuous body was perfectionevery depiction of Venus from antiquity to the present outdone by the flaunting pride of womanhood before him.

He swore under his breath, the term "compromising position" advancing front and center in his mind, and he wondered how long he'd be able to control himself. It would take an impotent saint to withstand such blatant sexuality. And sainthood had always eluded him.

"I have instructions to see that you come in me twice a day during this month-long hermitage," she murmured, walking toward the bed. "I hope it won't be too arduous for you," she went on, a half-smile forming on her mouth as his erection came to life. "Apparently not," she sardonically noted.

Her demented husband understood lust at least, even though his other sensibilities were suspect, Hugh thought. He knew his nude wife would be irresistible. Now what the hell was he going to do?

As if logic and reason had a chance against rapacious desire. As if deductive analysis would serve as a reliable restraint in the next few minutes.