Page 46 of The Avenging Angel and the Spy
“There.” She stood back, admiring her handiwork. “I would likely bind your ankles as well, but since I don’t have another rope, this will do for demonstration purposes.”
He cast a patronizing look over his shoulder. “If you wish, I will pretend to have my ankles tied.” Stiffening his legs together, he took a slight hop forward.
“Step back and give me a little room. After capturing me, I would assume you went on your way, pursuing your nefarious schemes.”
“Consider me gone.” Belle dipped into a mocking curtsy. She moved back to the doorway, hands propped on her hips, waiting to see what he would do next.
Sinclair dropped to his knees and rolled to one side. Belle watched him flex his shoulders back, straining to move his arms past the hard curve of his buttocks, then down over his legs in an effort to draw his hands up in front, It was rather an incredible maneuver, considering Sinclair’s muscular build and the tightness of the shirt and waistcoat restraining him. He appeared to be quite limber, but from the beads of perspiration dotting his brow and the set of his lips, Belle could tell the movement was not performed without some pain.
She had never intended the foolish game to go that far. “Sinclair?—”
“Quiet,” he said through clenched teeth. “I need to concentrate.”
Taking a deep breath, he exhaled and with a final strain that seemed likely to dislocate his shoulders, he succeeded in getting his arms behind his knees. With one fluid motion, he eased his bound hands around his feet, then drew them up in front of himself, struggling to a sitting position, a triumphant expression on his flushed features.
“Very good,” Belle said grudgingly. “But now what? I wouldn’t have been stupid enough to leave a knife behind or any sort of a candle for you to burn through the rope.”
“Then I shall just have to do it the hard way.” Raising his hands, he began tugging at the knots with his teeth. Belle folded her arms over her chest, watching him in confident silence. There was no way he was ever going to undo her knots in that fashion. None whatsoever.
It took him less than ten minutes. He leapt to his feet with a self-satisfied flex of his back muscles and dangled the undone length of rope before her eyes. The chagrin must have shown upon her face for he laughed and said, “There was nothing wrong with your knots, only your choice of rope, Angel. It wouldn’t seem so, but this thick hemp is far easier to undo than say a silken cord from a robe. Never let your captive dictate his own bindings.”
“I shall strive to remember that.”
With a mischievous glint in his eyes, he fingered the rope and advanced upon her. “Now it’s my turn.”
“Oh, no.” She shook her head firmly. But he continued to stalk toward her. Belle backed away. Slowly, but relentlessly, he pursued her around the chair. Belle suppressed a ripple of laughter.
“Behave yourself, Mr. Carrington,” she said in as stern a tone as she was capable of. “I would never permit my enemy to tie me up.”
“What would you do to stop me?” he asked in tones of silken menace. He had her nearly backed up against the bookcase, twin devils dancing in his eyes. Well, Belle thought, if he insisted upon pursuing this game of pretense, she was going to make up a few of her own rules.
She startled him by snatching an object from the shelf behind her. It was only the end of an unlit candle, but she brandished it at him.
“I would draw forth my concealed pistol.” With her thumb she feigned cocking the ‘weapon’. “Now you must stop or I will blow a hole in your chest.”
She was not certain if Sinclair would acknowledge the imaginary pistol. His lips twitched with amusement. Still clutching the rope, he raised his hands, such an expression of deceptive meekness upon his face, she did laugh.
It was all so absurd. She did not know why she was enjoying it so much. Maybe because so many times she had enacted this scene in deadly earnest. There had never been any place in her life for frolic or lightsome behavior. And maybe it had something to do with the undercurrent of challenge that had existed between her and Sinclair from the very beginning. She became suddenly aware of how her heart thudded, of a stirring in her blood.
That was her mistake, forgetting one of her own basic rules and allowing her attention to wander when training a weapon upon someone. Sinclair was quick to sense how she wavered and took full advantage. With a lightning-quick movement he tossed the rope toward her face. In the second she took to blink, he pounced, deflecting the hand that held the make-believe weapon. If it had been a pistol, it would have discharged harmlessly in the air.
Seizing her wrist, Sinclair forced her arm down and the candle end dropped to the floor. He pinned her against the bookcase, his face only inches away, his eyes glittering.
“Checked again, milady.”
Did he truly think so? Belle tilted her face upward, her lips curved in a deceiving smile, Then she trod down hard on his instep.
Sinclair’s smirk vanished, his eyes widening with pained surprise. “You little vixen—” He had loosened his grip enough for her to hook her foot about his ankle, setting him off balance. But the maneuver backfired. As Sinclair went down, he pulled her with him. As they tumbled to the carpet, he still maintained his grasp. They wrestled for a moment, banging into the chair, until Belle felt her carefully secured hairpins coming free, her tresses falling about her shoulders. She shook her hair back, clear of her eyes, just as Sinclair pinned her flat on her back beneath his weight, both of them slightly breathless with laughter.
“So you want to play rough?” he asked with a low seductive growl. Her struggles to pull free of his viselike grip on both wrists were futile. She could not match him for sheer strength. Pausing, she panted for breath, staring up at him.
As their eyes locked, the laughter shared between them stilled. Belle became all too conscious of the intimacy of their position, the hard length of his masculine body trapping her against the floor, just as she sensed Sinclair’s awareness of it, too. His eyes hazed a smoky shade of green, his dark hair tumbled over his brow, his pulse beating at the base of his throat.
“Surrender, Angel.” His light taunt came out somewhat unsteady.
“Never,” she said. “You gloat too soon, Mr. Carrington.”
She allowed herself to go limp beneath him and cast him her most sultry look from beneath the thickness of her lashes, then slowly undulated her body against his.
