Captivated

'Maybe I don't care,' she hotly replied, struggling to pull free of his grasp.

'Answer me.' His fingers were crushing.

'What do you want me to say? No? No, then. I was a virgin when I met you. Like all the other women you fuck,' she snapped, as temperamental as he, as moody, as sullen. As troubled by disquieting feelings. 'That's your specialty, is it?' she sarcastically went on. 'Fucking innocent maids. Strange. Rumor has it you like adultery bestall those society belles whose husbands don't satisfy them flock around you in droves. What's your record for a night? Eight?' she waspishly noted. 'Or was it ten. I forget the dossier figures.' Tantrumish, she glared at him. 'So don't lecture me on morality,' she said, testy and thin-skinned. 'You don't qualify as a critic.'

His rising temper was almost visible as her sarcasm escalated, and when she finished, he curtly said, 'I prefer quiet women.'

'Shall I tell you what kind of men I prefer?' she insolently returned. 'We could compare the best of our repertoires. I've always found that men who'

Her words were cut short by his fingers pressed hard against her mouth. 'Why don't I tell you instead what I want from you,' he said, rude and glowering. 'Stop that or I'll break your wrist,' he gruffly added, warding off her blow with his shoulder, his grip viselike on her other hand. 'Maybe I'll tieyou to the bed this time,' he brusquely said, restive under incomprehensible emotion, unsated lust flaring at the sight of her still pinked with passion telling him of other men. What had they done to her and she to them? he wondered, his erection swelling. How often did she respond like she had with him? Why did he feel this overwhelming need to possess her?

There were no answers, nothing simplistic to explain the inexplicable. 'You wanted numberless orgasms, didn't you?' he murmured, shifting into a seated position in a smooth flow of muscle, flipping her over on her stomach. 'Let's see what we can do about that,' he went on, moody, insult in his tone, raising her to her knees with effortless strength.

'Stay,' he ordered as he would to a recalcitrant pet, slapping her bottom as she tried to escape, holding her securely around the waist while he moved into position behind her. His grip was pitiless, his fingers leaving marks on her pale skin. 'You never even need stimulation, do you?' he silkily murmured. 'How convenient,' he sardonically went on, her dew-wet cleft tantalizingly available, the pink curve of her bottom provocatively raised to meet him. And, resentful of his stark craving for her, he thrust forward without preliminaries, gliding in too easily, he thought with chafing displeasureher vagina slick again with the sweet liquid of desire.

She shouldn't respond to such brute disdain, she querulously reflected, and while her intellect understood the ruinous barbarism of his actions, a molten heat dissolved through her body, the feel of himgloriously large, exquisite, the delectably forceful friction of his penetration sending fevered tremors coursing through her senses. She shivered at the heated rush, moved backward in greedy, shameless longing, slavish to the pleasure he provoked, an orgasmic flutter already pulsating deep inside her. She gasped, whimpered, the aching pressure flaring, quickly reaching tinder point as though he had to no more than enter her and she climaxed.

His savage rhythm continued unrestrained, each stroke driven by the entire force of his lower body throughout her orgasmic spasms and beyond, unrelenting, powerful, and within seconds she was crying out again in violent climax. Raw sensation tore through her mind and body and senses over and over again as the Marquis of Crewe gave vent to his moody need for submission. He rode her with a reckless disregard for everything but his own inexcusable need to assert himself, to master this woman who challenged his susceptibility to feeling.

'No more, no more…' she panted after numberless orgasms, her body over sensitized, ravished. 'Please… no more…'

Her soft appeals finally pierced the mindless fury of his discontent and an enigmatic satisfaction pervaded his mind as he allowed himself his own climax outside her body, the soft curve of her lower back alternative to her fertile interior. Then his hands gentled on her, and he felt the silken texture of her skin as if for the first time and in a voice pitched low, filled with grace and charm, he whispered, 'I'm sorry.'

She twisted around so violently, he was taken by surprise. Swinging her arm back, she slapped him with such fury, she was shaking in the aftermath. 'I wish I had a whip so I could thrash you bloody,' she stormed, trembling, glaring at him.

Her capitulation full recompense for his resentments and, momentarily sated, he was in a mollifying humor. 'Perhaps we can accommodate your fetish for flagellation later,' he suavely said.

'Only if you die in the process.'

'Then where would you be in your quest for an heir?' he pleasantly queried.

'No worse off than I am now in your uncooperative mood. At least I'd have the satisfaction of wiping that insolent smile from your face.'

'Forgive me,' he murmured, schooling his face into somberness, currently in harmony with the world. 'I'm completely to blame.'

'Damn right you are.'

'Now, if there were only some way I could compensate you,' he murmured.

'Don't toy with me, Crewe. I nearly expired with your particular brand of recompense and I'm no nearer pregnant than I was before.'

His facile smile vanished and his extended sigh recognized the extent of their dilemma. There was no denying her sensual appeal, and whether he fucked her out of spite or desire wasn't particularly clear. 'Is there no middle ground?' he queried.

'Not if I care to live. Or my mother.'

'Don't say that.'

'I wish I could sugarcoat the truth, Crewe, but there you have it. Look,' she plainly said. 'You know as well as I dothe whole world knows, you don't exactly use caution in the dispersal of your semen. So do me a favor. Think of me as one of your nameless London belles, many of whom offer your children to their husbands without a qualm. Disregard this quibble with coercion and be as obliging to me.'

'But itis coercion.'

'I can be as accommodating as Lady Lismore or Caroline Bennett or any number of others. Would it help if I saw that you had your freedom on the estate? Let me talk to Gregory.'

His interest immediately piqued by her offer, he weighed the odds of her becoming pregnant before he could escapebefore they both escaped if she wished to leave as well. An expert gambler, no one understood the laws of chance better than he. 'How much freedom?' he bargained, an edgy excitement flaring through his brain.

'We'll talk to Gregory and see what's possible. I need a child, Crewe, and I'm willing to negotiate.'

'Call him in.'

Her brows rose. 'Should we dress first?'

'You should, at least,' he casually replied, familiar with the company of men.

But he pulled on a pair of riding pants while Sofia found her robe, and before long they were discussing the requirements of Gregory's role as warden on the terrace below, the east view from the house bucolic in the morning sun.

'The marquis would like some incentive to go along with my husband's plans,' the princess explained.

The captain gazed across the marble table at the marquis, his gaze blank. 'Why?'

'Don't be difficult, Gregory,' she interposed. 'I would prefer cooperation, if you must know.'

His gaze softened as he looked at his mistress, which fact the marquis took note of. 'Would you cooperate then?' the captain inquired, his oblique eyes flicking to Hugh, his glance suddenly piercing as though he could see into the marquis's mind.

'Yes,' Hugh said, knowing what the quid pro quo would be, counting on the favorable percentages in terms of time. If he could escape in a day or so, a pregnancy might be averted. 'How much freedom would you be willing to concede?'

'A hundred yards in the open. Your privacy in the house.'

'Two hundred yards and freedom of movement in the house.'

'Fine.'

It was too easy. 'Any guarantees?'

'Are you giving any?'

The perimeters of trust were clear. There were none.

Although the men might have been related in a more perfect world, their looks so similar. Only the subtle