Page 104 of A Gentleman's Wager

The look she gave him with those wide luminous eyes was one of lust and outrage. Her delicate mouth opened but no words emerged. Vaughan gave her at most five minutes before he could get her to say something unspeakably crude. “You want me to…”

She shook her head so that all her blonde ringlets bounced and quivered. “I won’t say it.”

He’d slighted her before; she had more spirt than he’d supposed, but not so much that she resisted when he closed in for a kiss. For a split-second she fought him, then her desires simply overwhelmed her. She moaned. Then, eagerly danced her tongue against his.

“Ask,” he insisted. “I’m yours to command.”

She trembled. The fabric across her bust pulled taut as she took a deep breath. “Very well. Since you insist. I want you to… to make love to me.”

“To fuck you.”

The shot of distaste that leapt through her face and flared in her cheeks, made his cock buck in his breeches. Silly that one word could make her blush when he’d already tasted her quim. He was only glad that she couldn’t tell how much all this delay was costing him. His own needs were overpowering. He wanted nothing more than to throw up her skirts and sink himself inside her. But, he also wanted to milk this situation for all it was worth.

“To make love to me,” she repeated steadily, and even managed to meet his gaze.

“In that case, you’ll have to tempt me a little more.Quid pro quo, Louisa, for only then shall you have what you desire.”

“How?”

“Let us consider that dilemma in your bedchamber.”

-56-

Louisa

Louisa shivered as the excitement and boldness she had previously felt ebbed from her. He had walked her straight up the main staircase, directly to her room without a regard for if they were seen. She had stumbled over her own feet, her gaze flitting in every direction. Although Bella and Lord Marlinscar were out, Charles remained, and there were servants by the dozen, all with eyes, and thoughts, and minds for gossip. She’d be ruined if it got out. Nor did she fool herself with the notion that he’d do the gentlemanly thing in such a situation and ask for her. He would absolutely leave her to rot.

It was therefore a relief when he turned the key in her lock, though a short lived one. It meant she was confined with the beast. Any moment, he was probably going to push her on the bed and ravish her; it was, after all what she’d asked him to do. Maybe that had been madness. He was saying something to her, she was watching his lips move, but all she could hear was the sound of her heart. It thundered like the drums of an attacking battalion.

He chuckled, seemingly bemused by her daze.

Off came his coat and cravat, exposing his throat. Fascinating, how the skin dipped then rode over his collarbone. Next, he stripped off his rings, leaving them in a glittering pile upon the dresser. He didn’t so much stalk but glide towards her. She jumped when his shadow hit her skin.

“Be at ease, Louisa. I’m not going to devour you. I can be gentle when it pleases me to be.”

“Why would you be so?”

He lifted her hand, pressed it palm to palm with his own, before linking their fingers. “There are times for all things in life. Cruelty. Passion.” His lips trailed along her arm as he spoke providing punctuation. “Gentleness. Whimsy. I could make this swift, rough, but you would not enjoy the process, and it’s not what you asked of me. You desire this to mean something, or at least present the façade of doing so.”

“You’re confusing. I don’t know whether to be revolted by the deceptions you weave, or to simply surrender to the spell.”

She felt his smile as his lips continued to brush her skin. “If you are thinking those thoughts, then it is a very imperfect spell.”

“Because I strive to maintain some measure of rationality. I know I do not mean anything to you.”

“I am growing in my admiration of you. You did come on my tongue so very sweetly.”

“I’ve experienced it now and I still cannot believe that is a thing that gentlemen do.”

“Oh, Louisa. Trust me, upon this, if nothing else. It is not a thing that gentlemen do. Most of those you might choose to wed yourself to will not worry themselves with your pleasure. They will simply take what they need to satisfy their basest instincts, use you as a vessel—”

“And you are not like that?”

“I find that the greatest pleasures are to be had when the rewards are mutual. There are women I would throw down on the floor, not a bed, and rut with like a snarling beast and they would take the greatest pleasure from that, though they cursed me all the while. But that is not you. You, I believe desire more control of this narrative.”

He was entirely too accurate in his perception. She did not want her virginity to be something seized from her, rather something she had deliberately chosen, with forethought and malice, to shed. Wakefield…Frederick had wanted her. He had expressed that longing countless times, but he hadn’t been prepared to wait, nor utter the simple words that would have made her his entirely. So now, now she would rip that possibility out of existence. She’d surrender to his enemy.

Nay, not surrender, but collude.