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Dropping her hands, she stepped forward until she was nose to nose with him. “You listen to me, Nicholas Cantry. You claim to love me? How dare you claim to love me and then hide this side of you? You refuse to do something with me that you would do with a whore? With a stranger?”
His mouth tightened with anger. “Better with a stranger than you. It’s ugly and wrong.”
“Not with me. Not between us. Lose yourself in me.” She rose on her tiptoes and placed her lips just above his jaw. Her breasts rubbed the wool of his coat. “Tie me down, Nick,” she whispered. “Tie me down and have me and forget everything else.”
Chapter 22
Close to tears, Nick placed his hands carefully on her shoulders. Her skin was so soft. Her body so delicate compared to his. He shouldn’t want this from her.
He spread his fingers over her shoulder blades and whispered into her hair, “I won’t hurt you.”
“I know.”
Even as he told himself to turn and walk away, leave the room and leave her be, he stroked his hands all the way down the glorious curve of her back.
If he tied her up, he could lose himself, just as she said. He could forget Richmond and fear and reaching hands and concentrate on pleasure. With her.
Knowing it was wrong despite her words, he still couldn’t stop himself. Not with her naked and warm and asking for exactly what he wanted most. “I swear I won’t hurt you.”
He opened his mouth over her exposed neck and sucked gently just above her shoulder. Sighing, she arched her neck in encouragement. That acquiescence sealed his fate.
He’d told her the awful truth. All of it. And now he needed the taste of it out of his mouth.
Trying not to think what he was doing, Lancaster let her go and walked to the wardrobe. He pulled two plain black cravats from the small stack and carried them back to Cynthia. “Give me your hands.”
Lacing her fingers together, she lifted her arms to him. He laid a strip of black fabric over her white skin, and his cock swelled to needful life.
“Tell me to stop,” he whispered as he wound the cravat ’round and ’round her wrists. He waited for her to stop him, and prayed she wouldn’t. Please let me, the beast inside him begged, and Lancaster hated it. But he knotted the cravat and trembled at the slithering sound of tightening fabric.
Once Cynthia’s wrists were tightly bound, he picked her up and carried her to the bed. She looked down at the knot and then up at him, calmness a soft veil over her face. His own hands shook as he tugged her arms high above her and began to tie the second knot, the one that would bind her to the bedpost.
His heartbeat filled his throat as he pulled that last knot tight. Then he stepped back and looked at the vision he’d created. Her arms were stretched tight above her, leaving the rest of her body vulnerable to his eyes. She arched her back as if to encourage him, and her nipples tightened to ruched buds.
Anticipation swelled so hard and fast inside his body that his skin ached.
Lancaster stripped off his coat and waistcoat and tugged so hard at his shirt that two buttons popped free. Only seconds passed before he was free of all his clothing, and he couldn’t wait another moment to feel her.
Free to do just what he wanted, Lancaster stretched his body over hers and pressed his full, naked length to her heat. Cynthia gasped, but he couldn’t breathe at all past the joy of her skin. Nuzzling the spot just behind her ear, he let himself feel. Just feel. Every inch of her touched him.
When he could breathe again, he eased himself lower, edging his knees between hers, dragging his lips over her collarbone. He sucked her nipple into his mouth, and drew at it. Gently at first, but she was whimpering and writhing beneath him, and soon he was sucking hard at one nipple and plucking the other with his fingers.
Too rough, but she gasped with pleasure. And so did he.
The women he’d tied up before had meant nothing to him. They’d been nameless vessels for his secret needs. He hadn’t wanted to linger or explore.
But Cynthia had been right. With her it was something new. It wasn’t ugly or sick. It was a chance to know her body, to worship it in ways he’d never dared with another woman.
He shifted again, crouching over her so he could run his tongue down the skipping puzzle of her ribs. Her stomach sucked in hard, and he smiled to find that she was ticklish. When he rubbed his cheek to her belly, she jumped again.
“Sorry,” he murmured. “I need to shave.”
Cynthia laughed.
My God, he’d never imagined this, but as he dipped his tongue into her navel, she yelped, and Lancaster realized that lovemaking could be…fun.
He chuckled against her and breathed in the warm female scent of her skin. Gooseflesh bloomed over her.
“Are you cold?”
