glance toward the house. Her tongue flicked over her lips, leaving a gleam of moisture that sent one more jolt of arousal to his already hard cock. Another thing to fight while fighting his hunger.
He lifted her hand and kissed it until she gave soft, breathy moans. “It will,” he promised.
“All right. I believe you,” she whispered.
He offered his arm. She laid her hand lightly on his forearm and let him lead her up the steps. He felt pain but didn’t show it.
He wasn’t as confident as he let her believe. How would she react to the club? Lady Ophelia was innocent, extremely so. As a prisoner, she had been more cloistered than a nun.
Would she be frightened by bold sexual displays?
Hell, he would have to deal with it if it happened. He wanted her to recognize that sexual pleasure was natural and normal, and that she didn’t need to fear it. Playing voyeur might arouse her, giving him the chance to start his mission to take her power.
He’d selected this club for a reason. It was a house on the edge of Mayfair, and since it served both ladies and gentlemen of the
He detected Lady Ophelia’s quick breaths before he rapped on the door. “Don’t be frightened.”
She jerked nervously with each thump of his fist on the door. “Easy for you to say,” she muttered. “I suppose you come here all the time.”
“No, I have never been here.” Couples came here, and he had never been part of a couple—this was not the kind of place he would have taken his fiancee. He’d never had a regular mistress. “It will be an adventure for both of us. You will see that sex is enjoyable without the problems of love and marriage.”
He slid his arm around her waist, but she jumped away so quickly he never even felt the pain. “
“It’s fraught with problems—” He broke off. Damn, he was supposed to make her fall in love with him for her own protection. On the other hand, maybe this was a role that could work in his favor. When he’d been engaged, his wife-to-be had endeavored to change him. She had told him women always viewed husbands as projects of improvement. Maybe he needed to pretend to be jaded about love—hell, not really pretend— then let Ophelia convince him of how precious it was. Nothing would be more guaranteed to win her heart.
As long as she didn’t find out he was a vampire.
“Love is a complicated thing, and leads to much unhappiness.” He put on his best Byronic brood. “This is about pleasure. Here, you have to let me touch you. We have to appear to be an amorous couple in search of adventure. Mr. and Mrs. Ravenhunt.”
“Oh heavens, really?”
She seemed more horrified to pretend to be his wife than to enter the sex club.
“Yes,” he growled. “It will ensure you are protected. Stay close to me. That way no man can whisk you away and try to seduce you more forcefully.”
“Forcefully!” she squeaked. “I do not want to go in here.”
“There’s nothing to fear. They will be too afraid of me to do anything to you. I promise.” He lifted her gloved hand and kissed it. Pain singed his lips but he refused to stop.
She jerked her hand away. “I don’t want you to
It couldn’t be. Not if he wanted to save both her and Frederica. But he had to lead her slowly. He knocked quick and hard. The doorman eyed him through the grille, then opened the door.
In moments, they were inside. Red silk covered the walls, along with prints of tattooed and bejeweled men and women in a multitude of sexual positions. Lady Ophelia’s cheeks turned as red as the walls. Above them, strips of white silk flowed from the chandelier to the walls, giving a tent-like look to the room. He handed her cloak, along with his coat and hat, to the beefy doorman, and they were strolling from the large foyer, with its exotic decor to a hallway painted and decorated to look like an exotic oriental garden, though the statues were of Greek gods and goddesses. Like a terrified animal, Lady Ophelia slid her gaze hurriedly around, as if seeking danger. Would she run if she saw something that frightened her? Propelling her along the paneled hall, he kept watch on her and not everything around them.
“These statues are magnificent,” she exclaimed. She ran away from him, and planted herself in front of a muscular Atlas, bent beneath the weight of the earth. Her fingertips were pressed to her full lower lip as she made soft sighs of pure admiration.
“You enjoy art—or just his admirable proportions?” Raven asked it teasingly, but he admired the glow of vivid pleasure in her eyes. When Ophelia was happy, she sparkled like a star.
“I love such classic statues. I have—” She hesitated.
“What?” he coaxed.
“I have done my own sculptures. Trapped with Mrs. Darkwell, I had to do something or go mad.”
“That was why you were savoring the Elgin Marbles at the museum.”
She nodded, but he saw the light fading in her eyes, as if it were extinguished by the memory of the early evenings they had spent together there. Probably because it reminded her she had been duped and kidnapped.
“You can touch,” he told her. “Given the scandalous things done here, I don’t believe anyone will mind.”
She shook her head fiercely. “I shouldn’t. You are like the serpent in Eden, tempting me to do so many things I shouldn’t.”
“There are no ‘shouldn’ts’ for you anymore. You are special and unique, and the normal rules of Society do not apply to you.”
Her face looked grim. “
“It does not have to be all cursed.” He led her hand to the bicep of the muscular marble arm. “You love sculpture, you want to touch it. Indulge yourself.”
She was as stiff as a board as he moved her fingers over the smooth contours of the stone. He forced her to trace the sinuous lines up to the shoulder. Then her lips parted to exhale quick breaths, and Raven knew he was breaking though the cold shield of unhappiness that had quickly enveloped her.
“It is remarkable work,” she whispered, as if they were in church and she was afraid to shatter the reverent atmosphere. Her eyes shone, glowing with more than admiration. She loved this.
“So you are a female sculptress? That’s unusual.”
“I—I suppose.” She glanced at him, but she didn’t stop touching the marble Atlas in front of them.
It had been more than a hobby, he realized. She couldn’t touch anyone, yet like any human she had yearned to do it. Not just feel someone’s touch and savor those expressions of affection and love, but give them herself.
He had assumed he had become heartless when he’d been changed into a vampire and had been made soulless. But he knew he had a heart—it cracked for her with a considerable shot of pain.
“I would like to see your work someday,” he said softly, by her ear.
“Oh. Oh, you wouldn’t be able to. Everything is at Mrs. Darkwell’s and I can never go back there—”
“That’s true,” he said darkly. “I would never let you go back. You are going to be free, Ophelia. I vow it.”
She looked down the hall. “There are more statues—” She broke off. A blush ran down her face like a stage curtain dropping. “Oh my goodness,” she whispered, her voice strangled.
Turning, he saw the reason for her flushed cheeks and shock. Many other statues lined the ample hallway, but they depicted sex. Muscular men mounted dainty Grecian goddesses from on top, underneath, from behind. One group showed a woman in savage ecstasy being penetrated by two figures—each half-bull, half-man, with cocks the size of cricket bats.
“You aren’t going to expect . . . any of that, are you?” she asked.
She was frightened. But it was his duty to transform her from a woman who had learned not to touch into a wanton lover. “Only the fun things. It will just be between the two of us.”
For one moment, he toyed with removing choice from the equation. As a vampire, he had the power to compel a woman to offer her throat. He could control a mortal’s thoughts; he could make her do anything he wanted. That was the kind of undead being he was. But here, now, that wasn’t what he was allowed to do. Guidon told him he needed her consent; he needed her to be willing. He could not manipulate her mind, or he would not
