Page 20 of The Dove
He stood, the sudden movement making panic spark in her gut. She backpedaled with a gasp, catching herself after it was too late. Noticing her skittishness, he chuckled, folding his hands behind his back. Her chest heaved as she fought to catch her breath, the sudden rush of blood having her ready to fight, to run. She had told herself she would not, but when faced with him, her body seemed to act on instinct.
“Are you certain?” he teased, raising an eyebrow. “Last night, I heard you quite clearly challenge me to match whatever price you might require … and I have come to do just that.”
She flinched as if he’d struck her, equal parts confusion and anger making her head spin. “What the devil are you talking about? I never said—”
“You quite clearly stated that I could never match the price you’d require to let me back in your bed,” he interjected. “I’ve come to put that to the test.”
Her mouth fell open, and for a moment, words failed her. She floundered, vacillating between annoyance that he’d twisted her words to suit his needs and anger at herself for saying them in the first place. In the midst of it all, her rage grew and swelled, every offense he’d ever committed against her adding kindling to the flames.
Reaching into his coat once again, he came out with another slip of paper—this one, she recognized as a bank draft. He held it up, turning it so she could see his signature at the bottom, as well as the other details neatly filled in.
All except the amount.
“Name your price, and I guarantee I can meet and probably even exceed it.”
The fragile thread of her control snapped, and she forgot to exercise caution, her instinct for self-preservation dissipating. She lunged at him with a snarl, hands raised to pummel him, scratch him, slap him … to tear at him the way he tore at her with nothing but words.
“Bugger you!” she cried, bashing up against his unrelenting body. “I am not a whore! You cannot buy my body like some cheap trinket!”
He wrestled her into submission so easily, it was laughable, taking hold of her wrists and gathering them in both hands, then wrapping an arm around her waist. When she began to kick and flail, he simply grunted and bore it, refusing to let go of her even as she punished his shins.
“Was that a refusal?” he growled into her ear, nuzzling her neck and abrading her tender skin with his rough stubble.
She squirmed and flailed in his hold, acutely aware that her nipples had gone hard, chafed by the wool of his coat, and all the blood in her body seemed to be pooling in her core. This was when Adam could be at his most dangerous—when he was forcing her to feel all the things she’d tried to stifle … all the things she tried to tell herself she didn’t want.
“That was a refusal, as well as a ‘sod off’,” she muttered, arching her back to try to put some distance between them.
That put her face clear of his, but only served to press her tighter against him, mashing her breasts into his chest and her pelvis against the hard ridge between his legs.
“Oh, little dove,” he rasped, going down to the floor with her. “You always know how to make things more fun for me.”
The panic she’d tried to tamp down previously made a resurgence, and she bucked beneath him, kicking, flailing, trying to roll away. He let her turn onto her stomach, but simply straddled her, clamping his knees on either side of her body to keep her still beneath him.
“Please,” she begged, knowing that once he began to touch her in earnest, she would be lost. There could be no fighting him. “You were supposed to let me go … I was free.”
She heard the rustle of clothing, but despite trying to crane her neck to see him, he remained out of her line of sight.
“That is the thing, little dove,” he murmured, the harshness of his breath telling her what his words did not—she affected him, too. “I was prepared to let you fly … I truly was. But hours after you’d left, and in the days and weeks that followed, I realized something.”
He went silent for a moment, and suddenly, a flash of white material appeared before her eyes. It was his cravat, she realized, being lowered over her face. She twisted her head, trying to avoid it, but he managed to work the fabric between her lips. A low whimper became trapped in her mouth, lodged there by the makeshift gag.
His weight shifted, and before she could even think to try to wiggle away, he had flipped her onto her back. Moving down her body, he reached out and took hold of her leg, stopping her from kicking him square in the chest.
“Have you ever heard of the way opium can affect a man?” he asked conversationally, as if he were not removing her slipper and tossing it across the room, then sliding a hand beneath her gown to grasp the edge of her stocking. “I know you’ve encountered laudanum, which is a weak liquid made from one of the most addictive substances in the world.”
She closed her eyes and breathed through her nose, wrestling to keep hold of her senses as he pulled her stocking down, his fingers stroking the inside of her thigh and calf as he did. He repeated the ritual with her other shoe and stocking, then held up both the silk undergarments, trailing them between his hands. Her stockings looked vulgar in his hands this way, caressed by his calloused fingers, pristine and white against his sun-darkened skin.
“Men are said to become addicted to it after just one taste … one sip of opium tea, one inhalation through a pipe,” he continued, using one of the stockings to bind her wrists together, then leaning over her and using the other to tether her to the leg of the nearby sofa—a piece too heavy to budge no matter how she squirmed. “Is it that men are so weak, or simply that opium is far too potent, too delicious, too goddamnedperfectin the oblivion it offers?”
She sucked in a sharp breath when he abruptly snatched up her gown, revealing that she wore nothing beneath. Just as she had the night he’d accosted her on the street. Just as she had during her time at Dunnottar. She’d grown accustomed to going without them, enjoying the freedom of leaving off corsets and chemises—which now made her feel heavy and cumbersome. Yet now that Adam was back in her life, being without them made her more vulnerable, defenseless, easy prey.
Lying on his belly on the rug, he pressed his face against her thigh, moving his head so that his stubble tickled her skin. She mewled through her gag, trying to close her legs. He simply held them open, continuing to rub himself against her like a cat seeking a scratch on the head. Or a lion playing with its food before taking the first bite.
“I thought I’d had enough,” he said, his breath tickling the curls between her thighs as he moved higher, his lips trailing a fiery path upward. “I thought I’d gorged myself and would be glad to be rid of you.”
He nuzzled her mons, and she choked on a gasp, her chest burning as she held her breath and waited for the exquisite moment when his lips and tongue would find her.
Inhaling deeply, he released his breath on a ragged sigh, the sound tinged with a tortured moan. “But it wasn’t enough. It was never going to be enough.”
