'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 e,' 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.
chapter 2
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.
Squaring her resolve, the princess knew she must do what she must do. In sending her to England, her husband had taken added measures to see that she obeyed him; her mother was hostage at her husband's court. She must submit to his commands. 'I'm as resentful as you,' she said, moving onto the bed, kneeling beside him. 'Neither of us wish to be here… so this should be'she exhaled softly'interesting.'
'Do you play the whore for him often?' the marquis maliciously drawled.
She slapped him so hard, her fingers left red welts on his face.
'Touchy, are we?' he sarcastically murmured, the taste of blood in his mouth.
'You don't know anything, Crewe, about man's inhumanity to man. And until you do, I'd suggest you reserve judgment on others. Now I'm going to have intercourse with you and I expect you'll enjoy it whether you want to or not. Consider this your first lesson in the realities of life.'
Having spent three years in India, he'd seen misery on a grand scale, but he supposed the princess wasn't in the mood to compare life experiences. 'Perhaps someday, I'll be able to return the favor,' he coolly said, 'in terms of showing you the realities of life.'
'I doubt that. At the end of a month, we'll never see each other again.'
'Don't count on it,' he brusquely muttered, vengeance burning through his brain. 'I don't plan on walking away from this, no matter what you and your crazy husband want. This won't be over in a month.'
'I'm not here to argue with you.'
'No, you're here to fuck whomever your husband tells you to fuck,' he viciously replied.
'You don't understand.'
'A slut is a slut.'
'While your libertine ways arewhatmasculine prerogatives? Why don't we see how virtuous you can be, how righteous and unsullied,' she murmured, leaning forward to trace a gentle finger down his chest. 'Will you resist temptation? Can the profligate Marquis of Crewe say no?'
He twisted in his bonds, trying to avoid her touch, but her hands lay warm on his flesh, her plump breasts quivered before his eyes and when she purred, 'Gossip says a night with you ruins women for other men. Why not show me that splendid… expertise?' she dulcetly breathed. Bending low, her breasts brushed his arm, seared his senses, the silken pressure of her pliant flesh reminding him that she was pliant… everywhere, and if not exactly willing, receptive. 'You can refuse me, of course,' she whispered, lightly cupping his testicles with one hand, the fingers of her other hand closing around his penis.
