Page 117 of To Pleasure a Prince

“No. Make love to me here. In the dungeon.”

Chapter Twenty-five

Your charge may choose a husband whom you would not choose for her. If she is happy with her choice, however, then you must be, too.

Sometimes a man improves upon acquaintance.

—Miss Cicely Tremaine,The Ideal Chaperone

An involuntary shudder wracked Marcus. The very idea of laying his lady wife down in this hellish place revolted him. “No. Trust me, you do not want—”

“I do. And why shouldn’t I?”

“Because it’s filthy and unfit for a lady.”

Her eyes gleamed at him like steel through a mist. “Yet you dreamed of me here. Naked.”

A strange panic gripped his chest. “I told you, I don’t know why I dreamed that. I only come down here to be alone and—”

“Think upon your sins. Yes, I know.” Taking him by surprise, she shoved him so hard that he lost his balance and fell onto the chaise longue. Before he could stand back up, she had moved between his sprawled legs.

His cock instantly went hard. With a sensuous smile, she removed the pins from her hair and shook it out. As a curtain of gold curls fell to drape her shoulders, his breath caught in his throat.

Nimbly, she unfastened the front of her gown. “You come here to vent your temper where it can do no harm. Isn’t that what you said?”

Her bodice fell open to reveal the sheer linen of her chemise, and his mouth went dry. He nodded, unable to speak, unable to do anything but stare at her. Even with only candles for light, he could see the rosy buds of her nipples through the fabric. God help him.

She thrust her breasts forward, as if to tease him. “What you really meant is, you come here to let the dragon loose when he is at his fiercest and ugliest. When you don’t want anyone else to see him. Well, I mean to prove that I can handle even the dragon. In all his manifestations.”

She shoved off her gown, and his blood beat a hot tattoo at the sight of her in that sheer chemise, her slender arms and bare neck awash in golden candlelight.

He reached for her, but she brushed his hands aside. Grabbing the hem of his shirt, she dragged it over his head. Before he realized what she was doing, she lifted his hand to one of the eyebolts fastened into the wall directly over his head. “I mean to chain the dragon,” she said as she closed his fingers around it.

His heart hammering, he held on as she did the same to his other hand.

“I mean to chain him so that you’ll learn how. So that chaining the dragon will become a pleasure to you, and not a fear that you are giving up your soul.” Her eyes glittered as she skimmed her hands down his raised arms. “So that you will trust me not to hurt you, the next time I ask you to chain the dragon.”

She stepped back to unbutton her chemise.

“What if I don’t want to be chained?” he growled.

“You said you’d do anything I want. Do you really want to break another of your promises to me?”

He groaned, his groan deepening to a moan when she shimmied out of her chemise. Great God, she really was a siren. And La Belle Dame. And the woman clothed in sun. The candlelight behind her kissed her shoulders with a molten glow and turned her gilt hair to fire, but cursedly eclipsed all the places he wanted to see and lick and touch.

Bending close, she whispered, “Close your eyes.”

He didn’t want to close his eyes after being without the sight of her for so long. And he’d spent his three nights in the dungeon at thirteen entirely in the dark. Why did she think he kept so many candles lit down here now? During the day, the slit window provided enough light, but at night—

Glaring at her, he hissed, “No.”

She set her chin stubbornly. “Close your eyes,” she demanded.

“Make me.”

She sucked in a breath. Then she smiled. The wickedness gleaming in her smile should have warned him. But when she leaned in to brush his mouth with her breast, her nipple hardening instantly, he didn’t think twice before thrusting his tongue out to catch it.

Only to catch nothing but air.