Page 41

“If you mean to kill me, do it now,” he said through his teeth.

Angelique smiled. Languidly she pulled her arms free of her bodice and untied the loose trousers she wore. She let both articles drop to the floor and stepped out of them, then kicked off her shoes. Nate’s eyes devoured her as she stood in her shortened chemise, the hem just covering her hips. As she plucked at the string of her corset, she angled her head to watch him watching her. “As you can see,” she whispered, “I am completely unarmed.”

“But far more dangerous,” he growled. “My God, Angelique…”

She unlaced the corset and tossed it aside, and peeled off the chemise. With deliberate slowness she cradled his jaw in her hands, tilting his chin up as she bent down to kiss him lightly, her lips lingering on his, and for a moment the intense heat in his eyes faded to something almost yearning. He surged toward her, straining to prolong the kiss even as her rope held him to the chair.

Angelique stared at him, her heart pounding. “What should I do with you?” she asked aloud, both of herself and of him. She’d been right to be afraid last night; this was not a passing attraction. Something inside her responded to Nate in a deep, elemental way, and she wasn’t sure she could control it.

“Kiss me,” he pleaded in a rough whisper. “Please. Just…kiss me.”

She touched her lips to his again, letting herself be pulled along by that force for a moment. His kiss lured her, tempted her to surrender to it. How could something she knew to be dangerous feel so sublime, she wondered hazily as Nate seduced her with nothing but his mouth. She had stripped him and tied him to a chair, and yet somehow she felt as though he held her captive, enslaved by the connection between them that she was helpless to deny.

She turned away, trying to recover herself. He made a low murmur of protest, but simply transferred his attentions to her neck, sucking lightly at the sensitive skin below her jaw. Angelique shivered, and pushed herself away. He would own her body and soul if she allowed that sort of thing to continue. There wasn’t just lust or seduction in his kiss; there was longing, rich and sweet. That, she could not allow. Lust and seduction were all she could offer, and all she could accept.

“You called me ferocious,” she murmured, sinking to her knees. “When you gave me that knife.”

“I said the Wyandot are ferocious,” he rasped. She ran her hands over his shoulders and raked her fingernails down his chest, and he shuddered.

“But you gave me their knife, as if I were just as cruel.” She swept her palms across his stomach and down his thighs to his knees. His muscles tensed into iron-hard readiness. “I think I must torment my captive to deserve such a gift.”

“I thought you would like it,” he said swiftly. “Not that you would—should—torment— Ahh…” His voice faded into a ragged groan as she flicked her tongue over the head of his cock and circled her hand around the shaft.

Angelique looked up at him, her lips poised above his erection. “Do you wish to beg for mercy?”

He grinned, although it was strained and feral and he didn’t open his eyes. His head had fallen back and the pulse beat hard in his exposed throat. Veins stood out on his arms, flexed behind the chair. “Never.”

She smiled and closed her lips around him, taking him deep in her mouth on one stroke. Nate made an otherwordly sound, half rapture, half anguish. He dug his toes into the floor and pushed, and the chair rocked back until it hit the wall. Angelique simply shifted her weight and swirled her tongue around him. Just the sound of his breathing, hard and uneven, was arousing. For tonight at least he was hers—her captive, her partner, her lover.

She meant to repay the devastation he had wrought on her last night. She meant to exact a price for the tangle he had made of her logical, coldly pragmatic life since the day he appeared in Bow Street. By dawn, Nathaniel Avery would feel as stripped and vulnerable as she had felt this morning, when his absence seemed a thing of pain.

When she tasted the first salty drop welling up from the head of his erection, she licked him once more and released him with a last lingering stroke of her hand.

Nate’s eyes popped open, wild and fever-bright. “Witch,” he croaked.

“Captive,” she countered softly. “Don’t you like it?” She ran the tip of her tongue around the head of his cock, and his entire body spasmed in ecstasy. The chair tipped forward, the legs hitting the floor with a thud.

“No, it’s…good,” he said, almost panting. “God, is it good. Too good. Untie me.”

She smiled, running the tip of her tongue over her lower lip. His eyes fixed on it, and his erection bobbed. “I like having you at my pleasure. I may not untie you until tomorrow.”

His jaw hardened. Angelique got to her feet and ran her fingertips up his biceps and over his shoulder, marveling at the strength in his lean muscles. She dug her fingers into his hair and pulled, tugging his head back until she could see his face.

He met her gaze evenly. “Let me touch you.”

“No,” she replied. “But I shall touch you.”

“Then do it.” It was almost a plea. She had this man—this man—begging. It really was intoxicating. She straddled his lap, curling her toes around the rungs of the chair to keep her weight balanced above him and bracing her hands on his shoulders. Slowly she lowered herself until his erection brushed the dark curls between her legs. In spite of her desire to remain in control, that contact sent sparks across her skin. She rocked back and forth, rubbing against him. His shoulders tensed and strained beneath her hands as she clung to him, rocking closer and closer, losing a little bit more of her composure with every pass of his cock against her center.

Nate whispered dark, guttural encouragement, daring her to move faster, taunting her to tilt her hips just a little and ride him properly, promising to pay her back for this exquisite torture.

Abruptly she abandoned her desire to drive him slowly mad. His words, his expression, the heat of his skin against hers…it was too much. She was torturing herself even more than she was him. She slipped one hand down her belly to touch herself, just once, then let her legs fall open wider. She sank down on a slow slide, taking him inside her.

With a harsh exhale, he swept his hands up her back to cup her shoulders and pull her down, hard, at the same moment his hips bucked upward. The unexpected pressure caught her off guard; she cried out as he filled her completely. Before she had recovered, he was lifting her to do it again, and this time she could barely breathe as he thrust into her. The next time she was ready, though, and moved with him. The chair rocked back and forth under their urgency.

Angelique had been on edge already, and this was too much. Without much warning her inner muscles clenched and she came with a shuddering sob. Nate growled, gripping her shoulders almost painfully hard as his hips jerked up twice more before he stiffened in his own completion.

Not until she was draped over him, feeling boneless and tingling with warmth, did she realize something. “I tied your hands,” she mumbled.