As Cam rose to shrug off his coat, he caught the excitement in Pen’s face. And something else that he didn’t understand.
These glimpses of a stranger in her eyes always disoriented him. It was like seeing a ghost standing behind an old friend. Slightly eerie. Fascinating. Irresistibly tempting.
But then, everything about Pen was irresistibly tempting.
This raging hunger was unsettling. He was grimly reminded of the straits his parents and uncle had found themselves in when private feelings overflowed into the public arena.
He tugged his shirt over his head and as he emerged from the folds of white linen, Pen leveled an assessing stare upon him. The way her gaze fed upon his body made his gut knot with anticipation. And more unease. She was definitely up to something.
One slender hand curled in a damned suggestive way around the carved bedpost. Blatantly her gaze dropped to the front of his trousers. This time when she licked her lips, it wasn’t nervousness, but salacious appreciation. Arousal thundered through him, making him deaf to warnings.
“Take off your trousers, Cam.” Her tone was sultry, setting his bones vibrating with desire.
Startled, he paused, shirt dangling from one hand. “What did you say?”
She shrugged, still staring at his crotch. “You told me to be myself.”
“Yes,” he said warily. “In society.”
“Everywhere.” She licked her lips again. Each time she did that, his blood heated another ten degrees.
“Come here and I’ll help you with your nightdress.”
She smiled as if recognizing his offer for the weak foray that it was. “First I want to see you naked.”
She pointed one elegant finger at his stiff cock. Cam, as master of his household, didn’t approve of Pen seizing control like this. His dick, however, thought it was a brilliant idea.
“I didn’t mean that you can order me around,” he protested, even as he unbuttoned the front fall.
That mysterious smile still curved her lips. Seducing Odysseus, Calypso must have worn such a smile. Then Cam realized that this was no sorceress. His bride was named for Odysseus’s faithful and loving wife. If mythical Penelope bore any resemblance to this Penelope, no wonder the wanderer had been desperate to return.
“You complained that I was too amenable. It’s too late to change your mind.”
“Perhaps I miscalculated.”
“Recalculate naked.”
Surprised, excited, delighted, he released a huff of laughter. This was the woman he’d found so endlessly fascinating in Italy. Although in Italy, she’d never have told him to take his clothes off.
Perhaps his marriage progressed better than he’d thought.
“Is there a penalty for noncompliance?”
She shrugged, although the glitter in her black eyes belied nonchalance. “If you don’t play the game, you don’t win the prize.”
“You’ve convinced me.” Hurriedly he tugged off his trousers.
Then because he knew that she tested his commitment to wanting her real self, he stood and let her stare at him. However much a numbskull he felt with his necessaries waving in the wind.
To his chagrin, his cheeks heated under her thorough inspection. “My manly magnificence can’t strike you dumb. It’s not as if you haven’t seen everything before.”
Her attention didn’t waver. He shivered, although the night wasn’t cold and a fire burned in the grate. “You usually don’t give me time to look at you.”
Guilt pinched him. So far in their married life, he’d swept Pen into bed. He’d aroused her, but he’d been ruthless about it.
“Lie down.” At last she raised her eyes. Her eyelids were heavy and her cheeks were flushed. He felt less powerless now that he knew this seduction played on her control too.
He surged forward, taking her arm. As cool lawn bunched beneath his hand, he felt her lithe strength. He hadn’t married a frail lily. He’d married a lioness. “Lie with me.”
“Eventually.” She stepped back, shaking him loose.
“Pen, don’t tease.”
“Teasing does you good. You’ve become odiously imperious in your old age.” Her voice firmed. “Now on the bed, if you please, Your Grace.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Tonight I’ll call you what I wish.” She paused. “Your Grace.”
He wasn’t sure whether he wanted to kiss her insolence away or put her over his knees and spank her. Both. Still, she’d promised him a prize. He shot her a telling glance before stretching across the bed.
In the quiet room, he heard Pen exhale. With relief? With nerves? With anticipation?
He shifted on the sheets. They’d been packed in lavender and the sweet scent tickled his nose. “I feel absurd.”
The silence extended, charged with suspense. Eventually he could bear it no longer. “Pen, for God’s sake, touch me.”
She continued to study him from the base of the bed. “Later.”
“What the devil?” He started to lunge toward her, but she shook her head.
“Stay where you are.”
For a long moment, he met the challenge in her eyes. She wanted him to prove that he couldn’t handle this raw version of Penelope Thorne. Well, bugger that. If breaking through to something real between them required his abasement, he’d damn well accept abasement.
She crossed to the decanters waiting on a gilded table. Cam slumped back with a groan and stared at the intricate plasterwork on the ceiling. The clock downstairs chimed two. They’d been home little more than an hour. He felt like he’d been hard for days.
He heard the clink of glass. “Dutch courage?”
“Need some yourself?”
He was past politeness. His voice emerged rough and urgent. “The only thing I need is you. Wet. Ready. Under me. Moaning.”
He turned his head quickly to catch what would surely be disgust on her lovely face. Instead, she looked intrigued. But not, blast it, intrigued enough to relent.
Pen wandered the room, sipping her claret. She paused in a shadowy corner. “I dislike this picture of Apollo and Daphne. We should replace it.”
Little red hot ringing bells of hell. To think that he’d condemned her docility. She wasn’t driving him insane. He’d been insane when he’d suggested changing the status quo. If she’d remained that compliant cipher, he’d already be plunging between her milky white thighs.
Still, two could play at this game.
He rolled onto his side to study her. In her long white nightdress, she looked like a gorgeous priestess of some exotic religion. “By all means, let’s talk about art. We have until dawn.”
Ha, that surprised her. He plastered an imperturbable expression on his face as she focused a startled gaze upon him. She’d ambushed him with this torture in the guise of seduction. See how the lovely witch liked a dose of her own medicine.
Her eyes narrowed as if she guessed his tactic. “There’s a nice landscape downstairs that would suit.”
“The Turner?” He began to sit up and was pleased to see Pen move to forestall him. “Let’s try it in place.”
She stopped a few feet from the bed. “You can’t run around the house naked.”
He subsided upon the pillows. “It’s my house.”
“The servants won’t like it.”
“They’re asleep. And we must resolve this question of the painting in that corner immediately.”
“I can wait until morning.”
She might be able to. He wasn’t sure he could.
Maintaining his casual manner required a mortifying effort. “Perhaps we should bring some pictures from Fentonwyck. My grandfather’s best acquisitions are in the long gallery there.”
She regarded him suspiciously. “I know. You showed me. Remember?”
“I remember.” After he’d botched his wedding night. She’d jumped every time he’d touched her. Just as she’d jumped tonight when he’d taken her arm at the musicale.
The
thought reminded him that he was at least half responsible for their difficulties. Pen had every right to prod and snipe. If it meant an end to the constraint between them, she could take an ax to him. He made himself smile. “I wonder if perhaps the Titian in the library might be better. Do you want to go and look at it?”
She sipped her wine as if considering his question. He had her measure now. Despite desire gnawing like a hungry tiger, he began to enjoy himself.
“Perhaps not immediately,” she said neutrally.
“Then how else shall we pass the time? Do you still play chess?”
A quirk of her lips. She definitely guessed his scheme. “Not recently.”
He nearly laughed. His amiability irked her. Although surely a moment’s glance at his body must reveal that neither art nor chess was uppermost in his priorities. “There’s a board in my room. Shall I fetch it?”
“You want to play chess?”
“You want to discuss art?”
To his relief, she burst out laughing, the sound sweet and silvery. He loved the wholehearted way she surrendered to amusement. If he could only gain her wholehearted participation in the conjugal act, he’d be a happy man.
With a click, she placed the half-full glass on the table and advanced toward the bed, every line of her slender body conveying purpose.
Cam kept his expression quizzical and his posture relaxed while his heart thundered so fast, surely she must hear it. One hint of triumph and she’d retreat.
“You want to play?” She stopped beside the bed and swiftly tugged her nightdress over her head. Before he could mask his shock, she kneeled on the mattress and with a determined gesture, pushed him back. “Let’s play.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Butterflies the size of ponies cavorted in Pen’s stomach. She wasn’t nearly as confident as she pretended. Even worse, she suspected Cam recognized her uncertainty.
But beneath the playfulness, what happened tonight was important. To her. And to her future with her husband.
She’d been a fool to think that she could sustain her submissive spouse act. How unexpected that Cam asked her to be herself. Somewhere he’d developed an appreciation for unconventional females.
“Come here, my wife.” His voice was hoarse with need. The desire in his gaze could set London alight.
He caught her in his arms, but she slid out of reach. “No.”
She’d held the upper hand until now. She had no intention of surrendering it until she achieved her aim. Tonight she’d made Camden Rothermere strip naked physically. Little did he know she launched a campaign to strip him naked emotionally.
Dark brows lowered over his deep-set eyes, shadowing them into mystery. “What’s this?”
Her laugh was mocking as she lolled shamelessly against the pillows. “Cam, haven’t you understood yet?”
“I’ve done what you wanted.”
“Nowhere near,” she said lightly, and wondered if he heard the implicit threat. She hoped not. If he guessed her plans to pierce his armor, he’d be out the door before she could blink.
His hands opened and closed at his sides. The air sizzled with frustration. And arousal. He stared at her like he was starving. She flicked her hair behind her shoulders. Cam’s attention immediately leveled on her breasts.
Only a brazen hussy would respond to that rapacious stare by arching her back. But then, only a brazen hussy would succeed on tonight’s reckless quest.
Suspicion darkened his expression. “Pen, what are you up to?”
“I promise to be gentle.” Actually she didn’t promise that at all.
He looked so magnificent spread naked across the bed that Pen’s courage faltered. Then she reminded herself to stop thinking like a starry-eyed virgin. She recalled discussions in France and Italy, late at night, when the wine flowed, when the gentlemen weren’t present.
Squaring her shoulders, she kneeled above Cam. This time he didn’t make the mistake of reaching for her. He’d always been a quick learner.
Assessingly, she stared at her husband. She knew from many a scandalous duchessa or wanton comtesse that men requested services from a mistress that they’d never impose upon a wife. She even, thanks to those frank ladies, had an idea of what some of those services entailed.
The question wasn’t whether she could imagine those acts. The question was whether she could bring herself to initiate them.
Then she recalled the way Cam closed her out, even at the height of passion. Her heart slamming against her chest, she started with what lay within reach.
“Pen, what are you doing?” he asked sharply, tugging at the foot she held.
“I’m tasting you.” She carefully avoided looking at his erection as she pressed her lips to his ankle.
“Then kiss me.”
She stroked his foot. She’d never before taken time to consider what a marvelous piece of natural engineering he was. “I am kissing you.”
“On the lips.”
“Soon.” His body was fascinating, so different from hers. A scattering of black hair covered his skin. She tested the difference between bone and muscle, feeling him flex under her touch.
“We’ll be here all night if you examine me like a damned quack,” he said despairingly.
She slid her fingers between his toes. “Do you have another appointment?”
“You’ll kill me, you know,” he said almost conversationally.
A smile tugged at her lips. “All in a good cause.”
“And what’s that?”
“My education, for one thing.” She straddled his legs and kissed up past his knees to his thighs.
His muscles went as hard as rock, and heat sizzled off his skin. She cursed herself for not exerting her power earlier in their marriage. Turning him helpless with need was mightily enjoyable.
Cam’s scent had been her definition of heaven since she’d been a little girl and he’d carried her to safety from one mishap or another. Now that she lingered over him, she discovered subtle undertones. As she slowly wended her way across him, closer and closer to the part that rose hard and demanding, male musk intensified with every inch.
His animal arousal stirred her. She shifted to relieve the slick ache between her legs.
“Holy God in heaven,” he groaned, quaking under her lips.
Stroking his hips, she kissed random trails across his torso, feeling as much as hearing his breath catch when she played a sudden variation, like a bite where she’d licked or a scratch where she’d stroked. His hands tangled tighter and tighter in the sheets beneath him as he struggled not to grab her.
Of course he wanted to grab her. What she did offended all his notions of command.
“You push me too far.”
She laughed against his sternum. “If you can still talk, you’ve still got a way to go.”
He tugged at her hair, hard enough to compel attention. She stared up past his sharply cut jaw to eyes as black as her own with excitement. He must be gritting his teeth. His cheeks looked tighter than the skin on a drum.
“What are you doing, Pen?”
“Seducing you.”
“Into complete subjection?”
She shrugged, her breasts tingling as they brushed his ribs. “This is war.”
Cam was a man gifted with almost unnatural perception. Even teetering on the edge of control, he recognized that she was serious. “I don’t want a winner and a loser.”
“Unless you’re the winner.” Despite anticipation turning the air to invisible flame, she couldn’t altogether contain her bitterness.
He stared at her. “I want to make you happy. That means we both win.”
How she wished she believed him. With all the longing in her heart, she kissed him. She’d expected rapacious passion, but his lips were tender.
The frantic crescendo of desire fleetingly paused and something else hovered near. Something sweeter, more enduring, more powerful.
Then the moment dissolved as she broke away and
slid down his body.
She took him in her hand, feeling the vital leap of his flesh. The man capable of speech only moments ago responded with a guttural groan.
Listening to her friends describe this act, Pen had been completely revolted. But a quick glance at Cam’s face told her that right now he was in her thrall.
Curiosity gripped her. Curiosity and daring. And a profound wish to give him pleasure.
This was a gift of love. Cam would never know that. But Pen would. That must be enough.
She bent and took him into her mouth.
Cam watched Pen’s silky dark head move down his chest, his abdomen, then lower. All night, she’d stretched him on a rack. Now she tightened the ropes until she threatened to rip him apart.
The nearer she edged to his aching cock, the more frantically his blood pounded. Wanton images tumbled through his mind. Even as he watched her position herself, he knew that a not-much-past-virginal lady wouldn’t use her mouth on a man.
She wouldn’t do it…
His world exploded into a million blazing stars. “Hell’s bells, Pen,” he grated out in shock.
His belly hollowed in despair as with a hot wet glide that nearly blew his head off, she lifted her mouth away from him. “Don’t you like it?”
He focused on her lips. Pink. Plump. Glistening. His brain struggled to comprehend what she did. Or almost did.
“Cam?” Those witch’s lips curved into a smile. He searched her face in vain for shyness or disgust. He saw neither, just a sensual eagerness that made his heart crash against his ribs.
“How—” Dear Lord, why was he wasting time talking? “Pen, you were—”
She laughed low in her throat and he realized that his wife’s days of succumbing in wide-eyed wonder to his worldly experience drew to a close. “You don’t usually have trouble finishing your sentences.”
Damn it, she was right. He wasn’t a schoolboy with his first sweetheart. He swallowed. He still didn’t trust his voice. He swallowed again and grabbed a breath. Only then did he dare speak, hoping against hope that he didn’t sound as bedazzled as he felt. “How does an innocent girl know to do this?”
That smile still flirted with her lips. “I’m not exactly an innocent girl.”