Captivated

'I didn't see anything,' Evie whispered. 'If something come for the mistress, I didn't give it to her.'

'No. You didn't.'

Evie nodded; they understood each other. 'You eat, mistress. Got to keep yourself fed for the master. He going to want to be with you again.'

Yes, he would. And soon. Oh, damn…

She managed a wan smile. 'I will.' She waited until Evie firmly closed the door before she pulled the envelope out from under the plate.

Ripped it open. Unfolded the letter with shaking fingers.

Read:

My dearest, darling Pet…

Her heart sank. Her face flushed as she read his importuning words.

Oh, Gerard… Oh, my darling Gerard… what have I done? What have I done?

Everything. I've done everything to betray him and our love.

Oh, God…

There is no way, there is no hope.

Darling Gerard… it is too late. You can never want me now that I've given myself to him like this…

Oh, God, what am I going to do? What am I going to do?

She crumpled the note violently in her hand, and then smoothed it out again.

Go-between. Louisa would be their go-between. She could answer the letter.

But howwith what?

And what if Court found out?

Oh, but she must, she must. It would be cruel for Gerard to live on any kind of hope. Cruel to her as well.

Evie would help her. Evie would provide the pen and paper, and she would write the note that would destroy his dreams, the note that would finally send Gerard away.

In the end, she couldn't do it. She couldn't find the words. Impossible to find the words as she sat naked in Court's bed not an hour after coupling with him.

And perhaps no answer was the best response of all. Gerard would have to know that he was putting her in an untenable position. She couldn't leave Court. She couldn't run away with him. Those were the impractical dreams of a different lifetime, before the wolf knocked down the door and demanded restitution.

No. Gerard's love was something she would hold in her heart and take out to savor when things became unbearable. Thinking that she could ever marry Gerard had been unrealistic, and the stuff of fantasy.

And it had taken the hardheaded business deal between her father and Court to make her understand that. That was what made her world go around, not chivalry, or romance. Business. Money. Bushels of rice and cotton and the price per pound. And the mistress of gaming who almost won it all.

She must never forget that. Court must get his money's worth, and his pound of flesh. And she knew she had barely begun to discharge the debt.

Dearest Gerard, forgive me… because I will lay with himtonight… and it will destroy me to even think about you

'She answer him nothing,' Evie said, as she brought him a goblet of wine. 'She have nothing to say.'

'I see.' Court took the crystal goblet in his hand and held it up to the lamplight. The wine was a deep, rich red, and the light played off the facets cut into the bowl. It was the glassware of a wealthy man, someone who could afford the best and who bought the best.

A man who had purchased his wife without a qualm.

He sipped the wine thoughtfully. Lenoir would not give up. He had lost too much, and he was, perhaps, counting on the fact that he, Court, had not shown much feeling for Drue. For all Lenoir knew, Court had only wanted to get his hands on Oak Bluffs, and Drue was incidental to the deal.

Perhaps that precipitated his rather desperate letter.

Noreprisals… Lenoir had written. Her father would not suffer, he'd said. In spite of the fact Victor had been on the verge of killing himself over this humiliation.

And Victor had been very clear about it: once the deal was struck, Drue was never to know that it had been Lenoir to whom her father had owed that disgraceful sum of money.

Nor would Lenoir reveal Victor's secret to Drue: it would kill every vestige of her love for him, and expose both Lenoir and Victor's deceits and lies. Neither of them would risk that.

Of such tenuous secrets were alliances made.

Court wondered if Victor even cared anymore. Since the payoff, and the transfer of the title to Oak Bluffs to include Court's name, Victor had been on his best behavior.

But the time was coming when he would start to get the itch, would feel his confidence coming back, would think that just a little roll of the dice couldn't hurt.

All these things, coming to a head, speared by his own lust for Drue, and Lenoir's determination that he could not lose everything altogether.

Well, there were ways to deal with Lenoir, and he wouldn't hesitate to expose all the dirty secrets, no matter what cost tohim, if Lenoir kept after his wife.

Which was why a man didn't allow himself to get too tangled between a pair of sleek, naked, feminine legs, no matter how seductive they were.

Drue…

Instant erection. But what did he expect?

Goddamn… goddamnshe didn't answer the letter… and he would have bet Oak Bluffs that she would.

He wanted that body, that hot, tight, traitorous body. He sat in his office, his desire a knife edge to his bulging penis and the faint lingering scent of her sex.

He couldn't go another minute without sinking into her. He was horsewhipped and he knew it and he didn't care. Not tonight.

Tonight. He ordered Evie to bring her to him, and to dress her in a particular way.

When she entered, she was perfect, naked but for her head swathed in a dark veil that covered her face and made her seem even more elusive, and the golden loops glittering around her tight, pointed nipples, and the satin bonds around her wrists.

His erection got tighter than a bone, his excitementand hersescalating as Evie brought her into the room. 'Just fasten her bonds to the hooks on the wall.'

Yes, perfect like that, her arms raised, her breasts thrust forward and quivering so the candlelight shimmered on her gold-encased nipples. And her eyes, glittering beneath the mysterious veiling, as if she knew exactly what had been his purpose and his desire.

He dropped his trousers and kicked them away, and let her glimmering gaze rest on the naked pulsating length of him for a long, long time.

It was almost enough, to have her captive and captivated so intensely by his sex. She squirmed at the sight of him, as if his ramrod manhood aroused her beyond control. Her body undulated against the smooth plaster of the wall, her nipples peaking, her every movement calling attention to them and the shimmery gold that was held in place solely by those tight, hard points.

He didn't think he could get any harder, but with every grind of her hips, he felt himself jutting out still further. She was doing everything she could to entice him to rut in her, he could see it in her eyes behind the seductive veiling, but he intended to deny her that pleasure just yet.

Just… yet

Her body shimmied voluptuously against the wall as ifit were her lover and could give her what she so desperately craved.

Goodhere was a hard lesson learned: let her comprehend that nothing could sate that gnawing desire in her but his cock. That his cock owned her and his was the only cock that would ever possess her. And that it was for him to grant the favor of plowing her and not her need to be plowed that determined whether or not he would rut in her.