Page 25 of The Villain
Daphne was almost loath to destroy the easy camaraderie they’d found during dinner. For at least an hour, he’d been polite, a perfect gentleman who seemed to listen to everything she had to say, answering her questions and asking a few of his own.
Still, the nagging suspicion concerning what he hid in that forbidden corridor would not allow her to enjoy his company with ease. Not when his wife could be eating her own dinner alone in her chambers right now.
The thought washed over her like a frigid douse of water, and she dropped her fork to her plate, the loud clangor drawing his sharp gaze. He frowned as she straightened, lifting her chin and narrowing her eyes at him.
“Is there something wrong with your dessert?” he asked, a look of genuine curiosity plastered across his face.
Instead of answering his question, she volleyed one of her own at him. “Is there a woman living here?”
Pausing with his wine goblet halfway to his mouth, he gave her an amused smirk. “Aye, little dove … you.”
Scoffing, she shook her head, annoyed with his avoidance of her question. “I meant, other than me. A wife? A mistress? Someone you don’t want me to encounter during my time here?”
For a moment, something flickered in his gaze, but it disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. Had that been shock—anxiety, even? As if she’d struck a nerve.
He inclined his head. “What does it matter?”
“It matters!” she exclaimed, her voice raising as the annoyance and anger she’d been trying to hold back all evening boiled to the surface. “It matters if you are keeping both your wife and your … your …”
“Whore?” he finished for her with a sarcastic smirk.
After coercing her into this agreement, humiliating her in front of his butler, then subjecting her to his debauched attentions, he had the nerve to refer toheras a whore?
Rage gripped her so swiftly, she could hardly register the emotion before it propelled her to act. Wrapping one hand around the stem of her goblet—which he had just refilled for her—she tossed its contents in his direction. The amber liquid splashed his face, soaking his cravat and front of his shirt. He flinched, closing his eyes and reaching quickly for his napkin, using it to clear his vision before settling his gaze on her.
Dread coiled in her belly at the predatory gleam in his eye, his jaw hardening as he glared at her, nostrils flaring like an animal scenting its prey. She realized her error far too late, and now could not find the strength to stand and run. Her legs had turned to jelly, and she remained frozen in his stare, even as his upper lip curled back from his teeth in a snarl. Even as he took up his own glass and flung its contents at her, returning tit for tat.
She gasped when his wine missed her face but soaked her neck and chest. It sluiced into her cleavage and down her belly, causing her bodice to cling to her breasts. As she stared at him in open-mouthed shock, he reached out and grasped one of her wrists.
Before she knew what was happening, he had hauled her out of her chair and into his lap. She struggled in his hold, but he quickly captured her other wrist, winding it behind her back. Then, bending the other arm so both were trapped behind her, he secured her wrists with one large hand. He used the other to grasp her throat, the light hold just enough of a threat to frighten her into submission.
He was looking at her the same way he had before stripping her naked and humiliating her in front of Niall. The same way he had when threatening to debauch her in every way he could think of. Had she angered him enough that he would simply throw her onto the table and ravage her?
A shiver raced through her—though, with the way her traitorous body behaved in his presence, she could not be certain whether it was from fear or excitement.
“Shocked, little dove?” he growled, his teasing tone edged like the blade of a knife. “Perhaps I should have forewarned you, I am no gentleman, and your maidenly outbursts and childish tantrums will not endear you to me.”
“That you are no gentleman has been quite apparent to me from the beginning,” she snarled.
Tightening his hold on her neck just enough to kick her pulse up a notch, he leaned closer … so close, his mouth brushed the line of her jaw. She shivered, her body now chilled by the Madeira soaking the front of her gown.
“One turn deserves another, does it not?” he murmured, his lips gliding along her jaw line and toward her chin.
He opened his mouth and lapped at her skin, now sticky from the wine. He made a sound low in his throat, like a purr, then closed his lips around her chin and suckled.
“If you wanted me to lap wine off your beautiful tits, you should have simply said so, Daphne,” he uttered, the rumble of his deep voice stroking down her spine as he kissed her jaw, then lapped at it with his hot, rough tongue.
“I do not … oh!”
Her protest broke off on a surprised cry as he lowered his head toward her collarbone, then licked his way slowly up the side of her neck. Latching on, he suckled, drawing a breathless sound from deep in her throat.
“Of course you do,” he whispered, his breath tickling the areas he’d left damp with his tongue. “I can feel you responding to me … hell, if you were any more aroused, I’d be able to smell you.”
His crude words stunned her; yet, her cunt throbbed in response, her nipples tightening and her breath quickening. He continued lapping at her, like a cat enjoying a saucer of cream, forging a slow path down toward her décolletage. Releasing her throat, he gripped the front of her bodice, snatching it down to free her breasts. He paused, his lips poised just above the fleshy mounds.
“Christ, you’re a bonny thing,” he murmured, his breath causing goose bumps to spread over her naked chest. “No, little dove … to answer your question, there is no woman here. Only you. Mine to do with as I please.”
“For the next twenty-eight days, at least,” she replied defiantly, despite the urge to arch her back and place her nipple within reach of his mouth striking her hard and deep.
