The instant he released her, she spun around and slapped him. While he could have stopped her, he figured he owed her that much.
“You bastard,” she hissed.
She wasn’t wrong. The light of battle flashed in her goddess’s eyes. No matter how deserved her fury was, he couldn’t allow her to unleash it here, not when they would likely have an audience. Voyeurism and exhibitionism were draws of the club, and this room, like the others, was peppered with peepholes. Indeed, after tonight’s chef-d'oeuvre, this chamber, which looked like the abbess’s punishment dungeon, would be a sought-after one. The stone walls and wooden straw-covered floor had a distinctly medieval feel…as did the rack, stocks, and flogging net made of rope. On the wall directly behind the machines hung a variety of whipping instruments placed in direct view of the victim. To heighten the anticipation, no doubt.
The image of Lottie bound and panting for him sizzled through his blood. They’d never played in this manner...or any, really. Their passion had burned so hotly that they’d just ripped each other’s clothes off and got to it. If they hadn’t been separated all these years, he wondered what avenues they might have explored, what inventive delights they might have discovered together.
Once her fires were burning, Lottie had no trouble letting go of inhibitions. He’d tupped her in a public place more than once—on a balcony in Paris, a beach in Greece. Each time, she’d come so hard around his cock that his eyes had rolled back in his head. Had his wife been as sweetly wanton with other lovers? The hot sap of jealousy trickled through his veins.
He shoved aside the possessiveness, which he knew he had no right to. Instead, he focused on his goal: to prevent Lottie from ruining his carefully laid scheme. His hard work was finally paying off, and he couldn’t allow her to scare off Xenia Loveday.
For the sake of any audience they had, he adopted the languid tones of a louche blueblood.
“Is that the game you wish to play this eve, darling?” he inquired. “The Fishwife’s Talewas rather diverting, and the chamber is certainly set up for a rendition of Sir Piers Bottom’spièce de résistance. Are you to play the part of tempestuous Lady Analise whilst I take the role of long-suffering Robert?”
Her eyes narrowing in the holes of her mask, Lottie studied their surroundings...and did he detect her breath quickening at the sight of the stocks? Christ, the things he could do to her there?—
Stop it, man. Concentrate. Don’t get distracted by the idea of screwing her from behind whilst she screams your name in pleasure.
He knew Lottie was buying time to analyze her options. He saw the moment she accepted that Miss Loveday was out of her reach this eve. Praise God she was as intelligent as she was beautiful. Then again, a lady couldn’t run a highly successful secret investigative society without brains. He’d always admired her analytic prowess, even when it had led her to conclude that he’d been sleeping with another woman. As if he would ever betray her in that fashion. As if he would even have the stamina to do so, given the frequency of their conjugal activities.
He watched with no little fascination as his wife composed herself in a blink, locking away her emotions the way another lady might her jewels. This was new. The Lottie of the past had worn her every reaction on her sleeve.ThisLottie had learned control, a woman of secrets rather than a girl of passion. It intrigued and depressed him simultaneously.
“That scenario is so done,darling.” Her honeyed voice sent a thrill up his spine, even though he knew better than to believe she had any sweetness of feeling for him. “I thought we would engage in a variation on the theme.”
“What do you have in mind?”
He burned to know. It was an ungodly curiosity given that the only reason she would put her hands on him would be to strangle him. Was it wrong that the notion aroused him?
He was a damned fool.Yet what was more important: to live intelligently or die happily? All his life, he’d survived by his wits, but when was the last time he’d been happy?
You know when. Twelve years ago.
Longing escaped its cage, gripping his lungs, making it hard to breathe.God, he’d missed her. She was everything he’d ever wanted: then, now, and always. The force of her was beyond resisting—like gravity. Essential and inescapable. She made the blood plunge from his head and land in his other head. The one that wasn’t capable of thinking. That knew only instinct and desire and was harder than an iron pike.
He saw her gaze drop to his groin, her eyelashes flickering when she registered his state. Was she going to put a stop to their game, perhaps endanger their situation after all? He waited with bated breath…
She licked her lips.
Christ.
In that heart-pounding instant, their smoldering antagonism burst into a different kind of flame. The kind that was as dangerous and unpredictable as a runaway train. He was powerless to stop it—and, more to the point, he didn’t want to. Savage satisfaction surged through him becausethiswas the way it had always been for them. Passion and feeling beyond reason. Even if it led to pain. Even if it destroyed you and ruined you for anyone else. Even if it made you suffer every minute you were apart, every heartbeat, every breath of twelve endless years.
“Strip,” Lottie said.
Die happily it is.
Aiming for nonchalance, he managed not to sound desperate. “What will you do with me when I am naked and at your mercy?”
Whatever you want. Do it. For the love of God.
“That is up to me.” She arched a brow in challenge. “Stay or leave—that is your choice.”
Charlie didn’t know what game she was playing.
She could blame the overstimulation of the club. All this depravity was bound to affect anyone, and she was a sensual woman who hadn’t had a satisfying bedding in years. She was, unfortunately, also a woman who made it a rule not to lie to herself.
It wasn’t the dashed club that riled her up. It wasn’t listening to salacious stories or watching those same fantasies played out in the flesh that made her blood rush hotly under her skin. It wasn’t even the years of celibacy.
