Page 62 of A Gentleman's Wager
“My dear, that can be arranged, but I don’t believe you would. He may have the heart of a poet, but he lacks the brilliance of a true bard.”
“Don’t overrate yourself.”
Vaughan’s lips twitched with a smile. A cold chill tickled over Bella’s bottom as he raised her skirts and pulled her against his leg. Bella held on and rubbed herself against his chamois breeches. The friction relieved some of the tetchiness she felt towards him, but not by much. She still owed him for what he’d done in the folly and that nonsense last night. Furthermore, he’d compounded that with what he’d just done to her groom.
Vaughan grabbed the low neckline of her dress, pulling her back from her thoughts. “Before, I asked you to stay away from Lucerne. Now I’m telling you.” He tugged the fabric sharply and snapped the ribbon that criss-crossed up the centre front. The sections fell apart, exposing her chemise and her breasts. Bella cried out inarticulately in protest. However, he just bent his head and flicked his tongue across one nipple. The wash of sensation made her shake.
“Afraid of a little competition?”
He pulled her hair, forcing her to tilt her head back and thrust her breasts towards him.
“Ow!”
His lips closed over a teat, and he sucked firmly, while he grasped her bottom in his still-gloved hands. Bella’s heart leapt into her throat. She almost sobbed as she felt the nip of his teeth against her neck, but she wouldn’t let him get the better of her again. His words had just confirmed her suspicions about the locket – the hair was certainly Lucerne’s, and after what she’d witnessed last night, that made him… Well, it made him her rival.
“You’re a monster,” she snarled, attempting to bat him away.
“If I was a monster, I would fetch Lucerne to queue behind your stable-boy.” He pulled off his right glove and cast it on to one of the hay bales. Bella struggled as he sucked his thumb, but he easily stopped her half-hearted attempt at escape. “You know you want it, why pretend?”
Bella clawed at him as he kissed her. Fine, if he was going to use her, she would damn well use him too. She knew he was aroused. The outline of his prick was pressed against her thigh. How would he like it to be left a single touch away from orgasm? Maybe it was time to find out.
The hand on her bottom pulled her more firmly against his thigh. Then, his wetted fingers slid into the valley between her cheeks and touched her rosebud. No, he could not mean to do to her what he’d done to Mark. It was… he was obscene. Yet, pleasure fluttered through her chest hot and hungry, and despite her intention to repel his overtures, she instead harkened to his touch. Vaughan wrapped his other hand around the back of her neck, as his thumb tip pushed inside her.
A burst of heat exploded between Bella’s thighs. Her limbs trembled; goddamn him, he was making her light-headed.
“I’m prepared to barter with you. Ask and you shall have.”
Ask?
“No.” Lucerne was too high a price, even when satisfaction was only one word away. She wouldn’t be left to marry one of the curds of the county. Lucerne appealed not only in a physical sense, he was also her means of escaping the soul-destroying boredom of her life.
“You mean to make this a tough negotiation, hm?” Vaughan removed his other glove with his teeth and cast it aside, but then made no further move.
Her action.
Bella closed her eyes, unsure what to do. The air between them crackled with possibilities. She couldn’t convince herself she didn’t want him. The warmth of his breath against her neck and the heat of his loins against her thighs were too much. Also, there was the matter of his thumb tormenting her in a place she never imagined had so many nerve endings.
Recklessly, she pulled at the fastenings to his breeches. “Damn you. Make love to me.” There was nothing to stop her breaking the agreement later. They were enemies after all, she didn’t owe him anything, and he was extracting her word under pressure.
“Here?” He pushed his thumb deeper.
Shocked to the core, Bella spluttered. “No. Oh, my God!” The very thought of him entering her in that sensitive place made her recoil. Still, she crooned as he stroked, her eyes fluttering closed, and squirmed as he caressed just inside the ring of muscle, creating a chain reaction of bittersweet agony. Sodomy, according to the church was a foul and loathsome practice, but nothing about the sensation evoked revulsion. Certainly, there was a burn associated with the invasion, but one akin to the ache she felt in her cunny. Pictures of bending over for him, of allowing him to put his cock in there became interspersed with the fantasy of him and Lucerne entwined around her simultaneously.
“How then?” he asked.
She gasped piteously. “Like a normal man would, of course.”
He frowned, head slightly inclined, as if she were speaking another language. “Would you care to clarify that, Miss Rushdale?”
As if he didn’t know perfectly well what she meant. “In my quaint.” Fire burned in her cheeks. She couldn’t believe he’d compelled her into being so explicit, but none of this made a whole lot of sense.
“Aah. Thank you.”
He was a devil of a man, tormenting her and rejecting her, only to torment her again. And she… He ought to have revolted her, instead, each interaction made her more curious. What was his purpose?
Vaughan slid two fingers into her slit, releasing a flood of fresh arousal. In turn, Bella wrenched at his waistband. A button sprang away. He’d kept her waiting long enough. His cock reared proudly on exposure, but he held her back with the twin penetrations of his fingers and thumbs, while he settled on the hay bale at his back. Once seated, he tugged her astride his lap.
Bella squatted over him. Her skin flushed and breathing shallow as she sought her balance. “No tricks this time? No false promises?”
