“Don’t move?” Was she a humorist now?
His bedroom door swished across his carpet as it opened then closed.
Leaving him alone.
With something distasteful.
Perfect.
“Netta!” he bellowed.
No response.
He strung together a row of curses, their inventiveness rather impressing even himself.
And then he heard it.
The soft skittering of tiny feet.
“Bloody hell.” He pulled at his restraints with all his might. Not in his home. His housekeeper and butler would be fired if they allowed vermin to roam freely. He levered himself up the bed and set his teeth to the knot at his right wrist. The whole bloody staff would be looking for new positions on the morrow.
Something soft brushed his foot.
John froze, blood thundering in his ears. Probably just the sheet twisting about him.
The sensation crawled past his ankle.
Not a sheet. He thrashed his foot about. Not a bloody sheet!
Netta’s peals of laughter cut through his panic.
“Get it off!” He pulled his legs up. “Kill it with the broom!”
She laughed harder. And his brain finally started to work.
He banged his head against the headboard, a metal rosette in the lattice framework digging into his skull. “You, my dear poppet, are going to pay.”
Netta tugged down his blindfold. She twirled the feather she held in the air, flourishing it like a sword. “When it comes to toying with a person’s mind, I’d say I won that round spectacularly. I owed you one.”
His heart slowed from its fright, but then picked up its pace for an entirely different reason.
Netta wore nothing but the delight of her victory and a proud smile. The thrusting and parrying she was doing with the feather made her full breasts bounce and her arse wiggle.
His mouth went dry.
He’d never known anyone so full of life. After all the horrors he’d seen as a spy, in the wars, borne witness to all the atrocities people could inflict, Netta was the closest thing to pure he’d ever known.
“Are you going to release me?” His voice was rough. Predatory. The need to touch her unalloyed brilliance was overwhelming.
When he was with her, he felt unsullied as well.
She ran the tip of the feather down between her breasts. “That depends. Are you going to use your freedom to carry out a revenge?”
He showed her all his teeth. “Only in the best way possible.”
“In that case….” She tossed the feather on the bed and bent over him to work on his knots.
Her breasts swung above his face. He couldn’t not lift his head and suck one of her pebbled nipples into his mouth. He swirled his tongue around the hard bud, inhaling her scent, enjoying her breathy sigh.
