Mastered By Love

Eighteen

M inerva paused just inside Royce’s sitting room to drag in a breath and steady her nerves.

A shadow across the room shifted. Her senses flared.

He emerged from the dimness, the shadows sliding away; he’d dispensed with his coat, waistcoat, and cravat, and was barefoot, but still had his shirt and trousers on. He set down the empty glass he carried on a side table. He didn’t actually growl, “About time,” but the sentiment invested every stride as he stalked toward her.

“Ah…” She grabbed her sliding wits and hauled them back, raised her hands to ward him off.

He reached for her, but not as she expected. His hands clamped about her head, angled it as he swooped and captured her lips with his.

The searing kiss overwhelmed all thought, submerged every last vestige of rationality beneath a scorching tide of desire. Of passion unleashed; the flames licked about them, crackling and hungry.

She was, as always, drawn into the sheer wonder of being wanted so blatantly, in this way, to this degree. His hands locked about her head, with his mouth, lips, and tongue, he claimed, possessed-and poured so much raw need, unfettered passion, and unrestrained desire into her, through her, that, swamped, submerged, instantly aroused, she swayed.

Her hands flattened on his chest; through the fine linen of his shirt she felt his heat and hardness. Unrelenting, demanding, commanding-she felt all he was beckon and lure. Sensed through her touch and the grip of his hands that amazing though it seemed he wanted her with an even greater passion than he had the night before.

Far from waning, a hunger gradually sated, his appetite-and hers-only grew. Escalated, deepened.

Fingers curling in his shirt, she kissed him back-an equal participant in the outrageously explicit kiss. If he never seemed able to get enough of her, she felt the same about him.

The thought reminded her of what she needed from the night. What more she wanted of him. The others had given her directions, not instructions. She knew what she had to achieve, had known she would have to improvise.

So how?

Before she could think, he released her head and drew his hands outward, letting her hair flow through his long fingers. Her cloak slipped from her shoulders, sliding down to puddle in a heap behind her. He broke from the kiss, reached for her body-and she’d run out of planning time.

“No!” Stepping back, palm braced on his chest, she tried to hold him off.

He halted, looked at her.

“I want to lead. For this dance, I want you to let me lead.”

That was the critical point-he had to let her. Had to accept the passive role instead of the dominant, had to willingly relinquish the reins and let her drive.

He’d never shared the reins-not truly. He’d allowed her to explore, but it had always been a permission granted, time and duration limited, all subject to his rule. He was a marcher lord, a king in his domains; she’d never expected anything else from him.

But tonight she was asking-demanding-that he not just share, but cede her his crown. For tonight, in his room, in his bed.

Royce understood very well what she was asking. Something he’d never granted to any other-and never would grant, not even to her, if he had a choice. But it wasn’t hard to guess from whom she’d got the idea, nor what, in her mind and theirs, it meant. What they thought his capitulation would mean.

And they were right.

Which meant he had no choice. Not if he wanted her to wear his duchess’s coronet.

Desire had already locked his features; he felt them grow harder, felt his jaw tighten as he held her gaze-and forced himself to nod. “All right.”

She blinked-he had to stop himself from scooping her up anyway and carrying her to his bed. He could rip away her wits, and her determination, but that way lay failure. This was a test-one he had to take. Easing back, he stretched his arms to either side. “So what now?”

A more cerebral part of him was intrigued to see what she would do.

Sensing his underlying challenge, she narrowed her eyes, then grabbed one hand, swung on her heel, and towed him into his bedroom.

His gaze locked on her hips, swaying naked beneath the near translucent poplin of an amazingly prim white nightgown. None of her nightgowns rated as provocative, but this one, with its long, gathered sleeves and high collar, closed all the way up to her chin with tiny buttons, seemed extreme-and erotic.

Because he knew the body inside the gown so well, the nunlike outer casing only spurred his imagination in picturing what it concealed.

She led him to the foot of his bed.

Releasing him, wordlessly she pushed until he stood with his back to the bed, his thighs against the mattress’s edge. She positioned him in the center of the four-poster, then grasped one arm, raised and slapped his palm to the ornately carved post on that side.

“Hold that. Don’t let go.”

She did the same with his other arm, setting that hand, too, level with his shoulder, against the other carved post. The bed was wide, but his shoulders were broad, his arms long; he could reach both posts easily.

She stepped back, assessed, nodded. “Good. That will do.”

For what? He was utterly intrigued over what she was planning. For all his experience, he’d never considered anything from a woman’s perspective; it was a novel, and unexpectedly arousing experience, arousing in an unusual way.

He’d been aroused from the moment he’d closed his hands about her head, painfully so once his lips had found hers; he would have taken her against the door in his sitting room if she hadn’t stopped him. Although she had, courtesy of her peculiar direction, the fire in his blood hadn’t died.

She trapped his eyes. “Under no circumstance are you to let go of the posts-not until I give you leave.”

Turning, she walked away from him, and the fires inside him burned brighter.

He tracked her across the room, aware of his hunger growing. Curiosity balanced it to some degree, let him wait with some semblance of patience.

Crossing to where he’d slung his clothes on a chair, she shifted things, then straightened; because of the sharp contrast between the shadows cloaking the room and the brilliance of the shaft of moonlight beaming like a searchlight on him, he couldn’t make out what she held in her hands until she drew near.

His cravat. Two yards of white linen. Instinctively he shifted his weight to his toes, about to step away from the bed.

She halted, caught his eye-waited.

He eased back, gripped the posts more firmly.

She uttered a small “humph,” and walked down the side of the bed. The covers rustled as she climbed up, then came silence. She was on the bed a little way behind him, doing something; her gaze wasn’t on him. “I forgot to mention-you aren’t allowed to speak. No words. This is my script, and there are no lines for you.”

He inwardly snorted. He rarely used words in this arena; actions spoke louder.

Then she moved closer behind him. He sensed her rising high on her knees; her breath brushed his ear when she murmured, “I think this might be easier if you.” He sensed her arms rising over his head. “Can’t.” His cravat, folded to a narrow band, appeared before his face. “See.”

She settled the band over his eyes, then wound the long strip multiple times around his head before tying it off at the back.

A cravat made a damned fine blindfold. The material sank across his eyes; he couldn’t lift his lids at all.

Effectively blind, his other senses instinctively expanded, heightened.

She spoke by his ear. “Remember-no speaking, and no releasing the posts.”

Her scent. The brush of her breath across his earlobe. Inwardly he smiled cynically. How was she going to remove his shirt?

She slid from the bed, and came to stand before him. The subtle beckoning heat of her. Her light perfume. The more primitive, more evocative, infinitely more arousing fragrance of her-the one scent he hungered for most strongly, that of his woman aroused and ready for him.

He’d had that taste on his tongue; it was imprinted on his brain.

Every muscle hardened. His erection grew even more rigid.

She was two feet away. With his hands locked on the posts, she was out of his reach.

“Hmm. Where to start?”

At his waistband, then head down.

“Perhaps with the most obvious.” She stepped into him, plastered her body against his, drew his head down, and kissed him.

She hadn’t told him he couldn’t kiss her back. He ravaged her mouth, seized a first taste of what he ached for.

For one heady moment, she clung, caught, helpless, in the passion he’d unleashed, her body instinctively sinking against his, yielding, promising to ease the ache in his groin, offering pleasure and earthly delight…

He sensed her find her feet, digging in so she could stand against him. On a gasp, she wrenched back. Broke the kiss.

Unable to see, he couldn’t follow and reinstate the exchange.

She was breathing rapidly. “You’re hungry.”

An indisputable fact.

He smothered a growl as her body left his, clenched his jaw to quell the impulse to seize her and haul her back.

From his shoulders, her hands trailed slowly down, over his chest, over his abdomen, provocatively assessing. One paused at his waist; the other continued on, to, through his trousers, outline his erection, fingers tracing across the broad head before her palm flattened, warm and supple, over the throbbing length.

“Impressive.” She gripped, then removed her hand.

He bit back a hiss. His fingers sank into the posts’ carving.

“Wait.”

She left him, got back on the bed behind him; her hands gripped the back of his shirt at his waist, yanked it free of his waistband. Without freeing the sides or front, she slid her hands under the fabric, pressed her palms to his back.

Ran them-slowly-over him.

Over his back, up and over his shoulders, around and across his chest. The peaks of her breasts rode against his shirt-clad back. Her knees bracketed his hips.

She was still fully covered. So was he, yet with his sight gone and his other senses alive, her blatantly possessive caresses seemed infinitely erotic.

He was a slave and she his mistress, intent on possess ing him for the first time. He sucked in a deep breath, chest swelling under her hands. Splayed, one on either side, she ran them slowly down from upper chest to waist.

They hovered for a long moment.

She drew back, warm palms and fingers trailing back over his sensitized skin, withdrawing from under the fall of his shirt, now hanging loose all around him.

Blind, he turned his head the better to sense her.

Noting the movement, Minerva smiled; sinking back on her ankles, she picked at the side seam of his shirt. “Did you know that the best tailors always use weak thread in their shirt seams, so if the shirt catches or tugs, the seam gives rather than the material?”

He stilled. She gave an experimental tug; the seam gave with a satisfying sound. Tugging, she opened the side and sleeve seams to the laces at his cuffs. The laces undone, with a wrench she had one side of the shirt hanging free.

She repeated the exercise on the other side, then swung off the bed and sauntered up before him. She flicked the hanging ends of the shirt. “I wonder what Trevor will think when he sees this.”

Decidedly pleased, she unknotted the loose laces at his throat. Excitement flashed through her as she lifted both hands, found the front center seam. “Now, let’s see…” She ripped.

The shirt parted all the way down the front.

“Oh, yes.” Eyes feasting on his bared chest, she let the ruined halves fall to frame the heavily muscled expanse. Bathed in silvery moonlight, every powerful ripple and curve sheened, every line of bone was gilt-edged.

He breathed in, muscles tensing. His hands gripped harder.

Slowly she circled and climbed up on the bed again. Close behind him on her knees, she caught the shirt at the shoulders, drew it back and off, tossed it on the floor.

Although his back was in shadow, there was light enough to see. The long muscles, the supple, powerful planes, the quintessentially male sculpture rendered in muscle and bone and hot taut skin. She traced each feature. His tension built. Pressing against his back, she touched her lips to his shoulder, trailed her fingers around and reached for his waistband.

His stomach pulled in, letting her fingers slide past the band as she slipped the buttons free.

Lips curving against his shoulder, she drew the halves of the front placket wide, releasing his erection; careful not to touch, she grasped his trousers, edged them over his hips, down his thighs until they fell to the floor.

Leaving his body displayed naked in the moonlight, arms wide, muscles bunched as he gripped the posts. The only thing he still wore was the blindfold.

Drawing breath through lungs suddenly tight, placing both palms on his shoulders, she stroked slowly down, following the long muscles bracketing his spine to the slope of his rear; pivoting her hands over the tight cheeks, she slid them still farther, pressing against the mattress to reach and caress as far as she could down his thighs.

His head tipped back; his breath shuddered.

Retrieving her hands, she gripped the sides of his waist, eased her thighs wide, fitted herself against his back. Her cheek to one shoulder blade, she sent her hands around, down; lids falling, she found his erection, closed her hand about the rigid length.

He breathed out, short, sharp, as she squeezed and released. With her other hand, she reached further, caressed his heavy testicles, cradled them, fondled.

Royce’s lungs locked tight, his body as rigid as his erection as she worked him with one hand, with the other weighed his balls, assessed, played. The sense of possession escalated. Head back, he gritted his teeth against a curse.

He’d felt nothing like this. Ever before. Sight cut off, he was functioning on touch, and imagination. Her lascivious acts conjured the image of a sultry, sirenlike seductress who owned him. Who could make free with his body as she wished, with total impunity.

That it was he who granted that immunity, his hands so tightly locked on his carved bedposts his fingers felt fused with the wood, merely added another layer to the swelling sensuality.

Her hand closed firmly. His control shuddered. Jaw clenched, he fought the impulse to pump his hips, work his erection in her fist. He wanted, desperately, to turn to her, rip the prim nightgown away, exposing the siren before spreading her beneath him and sheathing himself in her.

He burned to possess her with the same calculated intensity with which she was possessing him.

Over recent nights she’d learned what strokes, what actions, most pleasured him. Now she applied the knowledge. Too well…

Head back, he fought…every muscle locked tight.

“Minerva!” The plea was wrenched from him.

Her grip eased, her strokes slowed. Her hand drifted from his balls and he could breathe again.

“No talking, remember. Well, not unless you want to beg.”

He growled, “I’m begging.”

Silence, then she laughed. Sultry, rich, a siren’s laugh. “Oh, Royce-what a lie. You just want to take control-but not this time.”

She shifted position; her grip changed. “Not tonight. Tonight, you’ve ceded control to me.”

Head rising, she murmured beneath his ear, “Tonight, you’re mine.”

Her fingers closed around his erection. “Mine to take. Mine to sate.” Her breath fanning his ear, she ran her thumb over the weeping head. “All mine.”

Sensation lanced through him. He locked his knees, sucked in a breath. He’d agreed-now all he could do was endure.

Easing her grip, but without releasing his erection, she slipped under his braced arm and off the bed. Taking him firmly in hand again, she came to stand before him. The hem of her nightgown drifted over his feet.

Pressing herself to him, she reached up, drew his head down for a long, sultry kiss. Locked between them, her hand solidly fisted his erection. He let her dictate, did nothing but follow. She laughed softly into his mouth, then, lips locking on his, moved.

Sinuously, flagrantly, blatantly erotic, her breasts, hips and thighs caressed him, flooding his senses with images of her writhing against him, wanton and abandoned-as hungry, as urgent, as desperate as he.

She released his lips and sank slowly down, lips trailing down…head back, jaw clenched tight, he waited, prayed, wanted-feared…

She slid her lips slowly over his erection, slowly, deliberately took him into her mouth. Deep, then deeper, until he was sunk to the balls in her wet heat.

Slowly, deliberately, she reduced him to quaking desperation.

And he couldn’t stop her.

He wasn’t in control. He was at her mercy, completely and absolutely.

Hands gripping the posts, unable to see, he had to surrender, cede his body and his senses to her, hers to do with as she pleased.

One heartbeat before the point of no return, she slowed her attentions, then drew back.

His chest heaved; the night air felt cool against his damp, heated skin. She released him, rocked back, rose.

Fingers loose around his straining erection, she reached up and drew his head down. Kissed him, but briefly; drawing back, with her teeth, she tugged his lower lip-refocusing his attention.

“You have a choice. You can have your sight, or your hands. Choose.”

He wanted his hands on her, wanted to feel her skin, her curves, but if he couldn’t see…“Take off the blindfold.”

Minerva smiled. His gaze she could endure, but with his hands free, her remaining in control for much longer was unlikely.

And she wanted longer.

The air was heavy, thick, the scent of passion and desire a miasma about them. The salty taste of his arousal was fresh on her tongue; she’d wanted to lure him to completion, but the hollow ache between her thighs was too insistent. She needed him there as desperately as he wanted her sheath enclosing his erection.

They each needed the other to achieve their ultimate in completion.

She reached up as he lowered his head. She picked the knot free, unwound the folds, drew the long strip away and stepped back. He blinked, focused.

His dark gaze burned, scorching, piercing.

She caught it, refused to think about his strength, that it was his control that gave her any chance of controlling him. “Put the insides of your wrists together in front of you.”

Slowly he eased his fingers from their death grips on the posts, flexed his arms, then set his wrists together as she’d asked.

She bound them with the linen band. Releasing the trailing ends, she placed her splayed fingertips on his chest, pushed. “Sit on the bed, then lie back.”

He sat, then let himself fall back onto the crimson-and-gold brocade.

Grasping one bedpost, raising the nightgown, she clambered up, kneeling, looking down at him. “Put your hands on the bed above your head.”

In seconds he was lying stretched out on the bed, hands above his head, calves and feet dangling over the edge.

He lay there, naked, delectable, heavily aroused, hers for the taking.

Trapping his gaze, she wrapped one hand about his erection, with the other raised her nightgown so she could swing her thigh over his hips. Sinking down on her knees, she released the gown; the folds fell to his belly, screening her actions as she guided the blunt head of his erection between her slick folds, then eased back.

Releasing him, she sank slowly back, down, smoothly taking his turgid length into her body.

She shifted, sank further still, until she’d taken him all. Until she sat across his hips, impaled, full of him. He stretched her, completed her; the length and strength of him at her core felt indisputably right.

Her gaze locked with his, she rose slowly up, then slowly sank down.

Fingers braced on his chest, she changed angle, pace, found the rhythm she wanted, one she could maintain, sliding him deeply in, then almost completely out. He clenched his jaw, clenched his fists. His muscles hardened, tightened, as she devoted herself to taking every iota of sensual pleasure she could.

It wasn’t enough.

Wrapped in his gaze, acutely aware of all she could see blazing in the dark depths of his eyes as his body strained, fought his control-as he battled his own instincts to give her all she wanted…

In that moment, she knew. For her, with him, taking would never be enough. She had to give-give him, show him, all she was. All that with him, for him, she could be.

All she could gift him with.

All that blossomed inside her.

She reached down, grasped her nightgown, drew it up, off, flung it aside. His gaze instantly lowered to where they joined. She couldn’t see what he could, imagining was enough; the heat between her thighs flared. Within her, he grew larger, harder; she felt the change in his body between her thighs, deep inside her.

He glanced briefly at her face, then looked down again. His hips undulated beneath hers.

She should have ordered him to stop, to lie still. She didn’t. Breath sawing in her throat, she arched back; head up, arms crossed behind, her hair a wild cascade about her, eyes closed, she gave herself up to the bucking ride, to the overwhelming pleasure, and rode him hard, then harder.

It still wasn’t enough; she needed him deeper.

She sobbed, slowed, desperate…

He swore. Surged up from the waist, his bound wrists passing over her head, trapping her within the circle of his arms. Turning his palms, setting them to her back, his gaze locked with hers, he shifted between her thighs, then thrust up harder, deeper, higher with her.

He settled to a solid, heavy rhythm. His gaze lowered to her lips, inches from his. “You’re still in control.” He glanced up, caught her gaze. “Tell me if you like this.”

He bent, set his lips to her ruched nipple. She cried out. He suckled; she gasped. Sinking her hands in his hair, she held him to her. Held him while he rocked her, pleasured her, while they came together and the sounds and scents of their joining wreathed through her brain, filling, reassuring, exciting.

She wanted more.

More of him.

All of him.

She wanted what he did.

Catching his head between her hands, she urged him to look up.

When he did, dark eyes heavy-lidded, lips rich, fine, wicked, she caught his gaze. Gasped, “Enough. Take me. Finish this.”

His steady thrusting between her thighs didn’t ease. He looked deep. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” Surer than of anything in the world. Slowing her own rhythm, she lost herself in his eyes. “However you wish, however you want.”

For one long moment, he held her gaze.

Then she was on her back, flung across his bed, clinging to sanity as with her thighs pressed wide, his bound hands beneath her head, palms cradling it, he thrust into her body, hard, deep-

Sanity fractured and she flew apart.

Royce gasped, fought to hold still so he could savor her release, but the contractions were so strong they ruthlessly, relentlessly drew him on, until with a muffled roar he followed her into oblivion, his release, so long denied, rolling over and through him, powerfully raking him, wrecking him, leaving him drained, a husk buoyed on a welling emotional tide, coming back to life as glory seeped in, and filled him.

As his heart swelled, and he drew in a shuddering breath, through the haze in his brain, he felt her lips caress his temple.

“Thank you.”

The words were a ghost of a whisper, but he heard, slowly smiled.

She had it arse over tit; it was he who should thank her.

A significant time later, he finally summoned sufficient strength to lift from her, roll onto his back, and with his teeth pick apart the knot at his wrists.

She lay slumped alongside him, but she wasn’t asleep. Still smiling, he scooped her up, dragged down the covers, then collapsed on the pillows, arranged her in his arms, and tugged the covers over them.

Without a word, she snuggled against him, all but boneless.

Pleasure, of a depth and quality he’d never thought to feel, rolled over and through him. And sank to his bones.

Tilting his head, he looked into her face. “Did I pass your test?”

“Humph. Somewhere through all that”-she waved weakly toward the end of the bed-“I realized it was a test for me as much as you.”

His lips curved more deeply; he’d wondered if she’d seen that.

Curiously clearheaded, he revisited the events, and even more the emotions-all they’d broached, drawn on, used, revealed, over the last hour.

She was still awake. Waiting to hear what he would say.

He touched his lips to her temple. “Know this.” He kept his voice low; she would hear all he wanted her to hear in his tone. “I will give you anything. Anything and everything I have to give. There is nothing you can ask for that I will not grant you-whatever I have, whatever I am, is yours.”

Each word rang with absolute, unshakable commitment.

A long moment passed. “Do you believe me?”

“Yes.” The answer came without hesitation.

“Good.” Lips curving, settling his head on the pillow, he closed his arms about her. “Go to sleep.”

He knew it was a command, didn’t care. He felt her sigh, felt the last of her tension fade, felt sleep claim her. Taking his own advice, contented to his toes, he surrendered to his dreams.