Chapter 10
“I see that you are the one who has changed her mind.”
Bea had no need to turn to know that it was Darius standing behind her and mocking her as she and her guests once again assembled in the drawing room after dinner.
All of her guests.
Because after spending the rest of her day in her bedchamber considering her dilemma, Bea had decided that it would be better if all her guests remained rather than putting herself in the positon of spending time alone with Landbourne and Wolferton. It had never been her intention to have Landbourne remain, but if Wolferton did so, then in order to save face, she would have to invite Landbourne to remain also. In the face of Wolferton’s determination to stay, she knew it would be impossible to eject him if he did not wish to go. Not without causing a colossal scandal, anyway.
But putting Landbourne and Wolferton alone together for any length of time was also unacceptable. The two men did not get on. Darius made no effort to hide his contempt for the earl, and Landbourne was unable to hide the fact he was slightly in awe of the younger man. Bea had decided it was far better to dilute that tension by having all her guests remain.
With that decision made, she had risen from her bed and set about organizing the entertainment for after dinner this evening. Having eaten a sumptuous meal, with Darius thankfully once again seated at the end of the dinner table from Bea, her guests were now all occupied in enacting their own version of Romeo and Juliet. A more risqué version than Bea might have wished for, but everyone was enjoying themselves, which was the whole purpose of them being here.
As their hostess, Bea had helped with setting the scene and costumes, but otherwise preferred to remain a spectator.
Wolferton had, of course, disdained taking part in the entertainment which was now causing such hilarity to the others in the room.
Bea forced a polite hostess smile to curve her lips as she turned to face him.
He looked as dark as the devil himself in his completely black evening clothes and loosely curling hair, the gray of his eyes the only light to his scowling countenance. They were the color of and as cold as ice.
Bea maintained that falsely polite smile. “I am feeling much better, thank you, Your Grace.”
His mouth twisted with derision. “I believe I stated you have obviously changed your mind about asking your guests to leave, not inquired after your health.”
“Then perhaps you should have done,” she snapped her exasperation. “It is the polite thing to do, after all, when one knows one’s hostess has been feeling unwell.”
“Indeed.” He gave an inclination of his head, maintaining that slight bow so that none should overhear their conversation as he spoke close to her ear. “How are your pussy and nipples this evening? Any lingering soreness from last night?”
Bea drew her breath in sharply. This man was… He was… “You are utterly scandalous!”
“On the contrary, I am a concerned lover assuring myself as to your well-being.”
“You are not my lover!”
“Until an official announcement is made of your impending marriage to Landbourne, that is exactly what I am and shall remain,” Darius insisted softly. “Perhaps, as you are proving unhelpful on the subject, I should ascertain for myself as to whether or not your pussy and nipples are sore.”
“I should like to see you try!” she scoffed, feeling safe among her other guests.
She should have known better than to challenge Wolferton.
His fingers snaked about her wrist as he tugged her toward the door out into the main entrance hall. Tightly enough that Bea could not escape the grip of those long fingers when she attempted to pull away, nor dare she call out and so bring attention to the two of them.
The duke picked up a three-pronged and lit candelabra as they passed through the shadowed hallway. “As my hostess was indisposed, I had absolutely nothing to do this afternoon, and during my wanderings, I discovered you have an orangery.”
“My guests—”
“Have absolutely no need of your presence for the next hour or so.”
The next hour or so…?
What did Darius intend doing to her that would take an hour—
He has already stated his intention is to ascertain for himself as to whether my pussy and nipples are sore.
Darius released her wrist as he closed the orangery door behind the two of them. “Never.” He turned the key in the lock. “Challenge me again.” He regained that grasp of her wrist and pulled her along beside him in the warmth of the glass room, making his way through the lush foliage. “Because I always.” He stepped into the comfortable seating area. “Always.” He placed the candelabra down on a side table. “Do exactly as I say I will.” He turned toward her, his eyes glacial. “Take off your gown.”
She raised her hands defensively in front of her. “No.”
“Another challenge.” He gave a sad shake of his head. “Will you never learn, Bea?”
“You agreed you would not order me about in this way.”
“I agreed to that when you were not contemplating marrying a man we both know is beneath you in every way.”
“That still does not give you the right to— Darius!” She cried out her shock as he took a firm grasp of the front of her gown and ripped it from breast to ankle. “My God…” She gasped again as he did the same to her chemise, her hands moving up instinctively as her bared breasts spilled free of the ripped material.
Darius moved those hands with a flick of his wrists before his own hands cupped beneath both breasts as he inspected them. “Hm, your nipples are a little red, perhaps.” He lowered his head, causing Bea to draw in a sharp breath as he suckled one of the nipples into the heat of his mouth, laving it with a moist sweep of his tongue before releasing her. “And oversensitive.” He nodded his satisfaction before capturing the other nipple in his mouth and repeating the caress and release. “The left more than the right,” he observed before stepping back. “Remove your clothes, Bea.”
He watched her through narrowed lids as she tried in vain to pull the two halves of her gown together. “You have ruined my gown.”
He shrugged. “Then perhaps you should have removed it when I asked you to do so.”
“You did not ask!”
“I am not asking now either.”
Bea gave up the exercise altogether when it seemed nothing could repair the damage he had done. “How shall I ever be able to go back into the house, return to my bedchamber, with my clothes in tatters?”
Darius ignored her question. “Take off your undergarments as well.”
She looked at him with dark, accusing eyes as some of her fire returned. “This is outrageous. You are outrageous.”
Darius knew himself well enough to know exactly what he was and was not. And currently, he was a man in the throes of a passion so strong, it robbed him of any other thought. He had been in this intemperate mood since earlier today when Bea had told him she intended accepting Landbourne’s proposal of marriage and then requested that Darius leave. On the surface, he might still appear civilized, but inwardly, it was a completely different matter.
He desired this troublesome woman to the point of madness.
So much so, he had realized as he paced this orangery for hours this afternoon, he was willing to defend her if it should transpire she was guilty of treason.
Which he was very much afraid was the case.
Her behavior in deciding to ask all her guests to leave—apart from Landbourne, Darius recalled with a scowl—was questionable to say the least. As was the behavior of her butler in asking Quinlan those pointed questions about Darius.
The thought of Bea swinging on the end of a rope was completely unacceptable to Darius. He had made love to this woman, he had seen the scars she bore from being married to a man who had taken out his frustrations on her, and Darius could not, would not, let her meet her end that way. Not without a fight on his part, at least.
“You are the one who is outrageous,” he bit out harshly. “Now. Take. Them. Off.” Whatever Bea’s reasons for betraying her Crown and country, Darius intended to punish her before offering her his protection. For making him want her to the point he was willing to betray his closest friends in order to save her. “All of them.”
She obviously saw something in his face which alarmed her enough she shrugged out of the torn gown and chemise.
“Drawers,” he bit out.
She swallowed as she unfastened the garment at the waist before lowering them to the ground and stepping out of them, standing before him wearing only her stockings, garters, and shoes.
A nerve pulsed in Darius’s tightly clenched jaw. “Bend over the back of the chair.”
“Darius—”
“Do it, Bea. Please.”
She moved slowly toward the chair as she obviously sensed the coiled—deadly—tension driving him. “Are you going to spank me?” she prompted once she was bent over the chair enough to expose her moist and swollen pussy.
He should. He should beat her ass until it was so red and sore, she was incapable of sitting down for a week.
The evidence of those scars on her back prevented Darius from ever laying a hand on her, or anything else, in anger.
“No,” he assured her gruffly as he stepped forward to lift one of his hands and caress the soft curve of her bottom. “I will never physically hurt you in the way Hanwell did. Part your legs for me. Wider,” he instructed softly.
She glanced over her shoulder at him. “What are you going to do to me?”
Darius moved down onto his knees behind her. “This.”
Bea let out a low and aching groan at the first touch of the moist heat of Darius’s tongue against her nether lips, her hands moving to tightly grip the sides of the chair as that marauding tongue laved her thoroughly, from those sensitive lips to her throbbing clit.
This was not punishment. This was bliss.
Bea knew she should not be as aroused as she was by both Darius’s dictatorial tone in placing her in this vulnerable position and the intimacy of his mouth against her exposed flesh. She should not. But she was. So aroused, she parted her legs even farther and moved up on tiptoe to allow him greater access.
“Yes…” She groaned as she felt the hard probe of his tongue beneath the hood protecting her nub. Stroking. Pleasuring. “Do not stop,” she pleaded as that warmth left her and she felt utterly bereft without that moist tongue pleasuring her.
“I should like to be inside you again, Bea. This time, I should like to come inside you. To fill you to overflowing. To claim you, and continue claiming you until you accept that I am your lover.”
God, yes.
The increased heat and dampness between Bea’s thighs told her it was what she wanted too.
She had been disappointed when the two of them had made love during the night and Darius had withdrawn before his release, the heat of his seed pumping onto her back instead.
But there was no reason why he should not release inside her when there was no possibility of her conceiving.
“Please,” she encouraged.
“So polite.” Darius had risen back to his feet behind her. “Will you say thank you afterward too?” His hand stroked along the wetness of her nether lips.
“If you wish it.”
“I wish it.”
“Then, yes, I will thank you. Only please…” She blushed to hear the desperation in her voice. “I need to be filled. I need you to fill me.”
His breath was a warm caress against her ear, and there was the rustle of clothing. “Will you like feeling my hard cock stroking along that knot of nerves inside you?”
“Yes!” she gasped. “God, yes!”
“I intend to fuck you and keep on fucking you as you scream your pleasure, again and again.” He ran the velvety length of his bared cock down the seam of her bottom and along her pussy lips, the brush of material against the backs of her thighs revealing that he was still fully dressed and had only unfastened the fall of his pantaloons to release his cock. “Even then I shall not stop. I will continue until you are hoarse from screaming. Until you repeat over and over again who it is you belong to.”
This was wrong. So very wrong. Bea did not belong to anyone but herself. She should stop this. Must stop this before—
She groaned long and achingly, her fingers tightly gripping the arms of the chair as Darius’s cock entered her in one smooth, slick thrust, lifting her up onto her toes as he filled her completely.
“Is this what you wanted?” His hands were on her hips, holding her in place as he slowly withdrew, deliberately stroking that cluster of nerves inside her, before thrusting in again, harder and deeper still. “How you want it?”
“Yes!” Bea hardly recognized her own voice in that rasping plea.
“Then you shall have it, Bea. All of it. All of me,” he promised darkly.
Bea was aware only of those continued and relentless thrusts and the slow and tortuous withdrawal. Feeling so full when he thrust inside her and so empty when he withdrew.
“Come for me, Bea,” he instructed. “Come for me now.”
Bea cried out as she tumbled over the edge of that fierce climax.
“Again,” Darius instructed harshly seconds later, his hands now cupping and squeezing her breasts.
Her second climax was even more earthshattering than the first.
“Again.” His fingers stroked across her engorged nipples.
Bea was still recovering. “Darius—”
“Again, damn it!” He captured her nipples between fingers and thumbs, squeezing and pulling on those sensitive buds.
She trembled and shook as her body was claimed by yet another climax.
By the time Bea felt Darius’s cock swell and grow even longer inside her, evidence of his own impending climax, she had lost all track of time and self. Forgotten everything and everyone else but the two of them and those increasingly aching climaxes as Darius took her to the heights again and again. As if he was punishing her— No, not as if he was punishing her; he was punishing her.
“Tell me who you belong to, Bea.”
Bea was so exhausted from those multiple climaxes, she lay acquiescent over the back of the chair, no more than a willing vessel for that long and thrusting cock.
“Tell me,” he said gruffly.
There was one last spark of rebellion inside her to assist her in remaining silent.
One of Darius’s hands moved between her thighs, fingers remorseless as he ignored her groans of protest to stroke and pinch her oversensitive clit until she hurtled over the edge of yet another release. “Who do you belong to, Bea?” he repeated firmly.
“You,” she choked. “I belong to you.”
“I am going to release inside you now.” His hands moved to grip her hips and hold her firmly as his thrusts became harder and faster, wilder. The only sounds in the room were her groans, whether of pleasure or pain, she was no longer sure, Darius’s harsh breathing, and the slap of his heavy sac against her hot flesh.
Bea had not believed herself capable of it, but she was consumed with yet another climax as the hot spurts of Darius’s release filled her channel. Tears of joy fell down her cheeks as Darius kept on filling her until he finally stilled behind her.
The reality of the situation hit Darius with the force of a punch to his gut.
That reality was Bea collapsed in front of him, bent over the back of a chair, her body shaking with uncontrollable sobs. There were marks on her hips where his fingers had gripped her tightly to hold her in place to receive his cock. No doubt her nipples would be even redder than they were earlier after he had pulled and pinched them to make her climax. Her channel would be sore, both from his length and the amount of time he had spent thrusting inside her. Her inner muscles would be screaming out in protest from the number of climaxes he had demanded of her. The backs of her thighs too, from the unnaturalness of her position.
He had behaved like a wild animal.
Marking what he considered to be his.
Taking what was his.
Even now, he wanted to withdraw and scoop up his cum with his fingers before smearing it all over her body. Marking her with his scent.
“Darius?” Bea’s voice shook.
He drew in a ragged breath, unable to answer her as he slowly withdrew so as not to cause her further discomfort. He quickly shrugged out of his jacket before wrapping it about her naked and trembling body. His hands were gentle as he helped her to straighten before turning her to face him.
She was deathly pale, the tracks of her tears upon her cheeks, dark shadows surrounding her eyes as she kept her lashes lowered. As if she could not bear to even look at him.
Which, Darius accepted heavily, she probably could not. He was unsure as to whether he would be able to look at himself in a mirror right now, no longer sure what or who he would see reflected there. Himself, Darius Strong, the controlled Duke of Wolferton, or some wild and out-of-control barbarian he did not recognize.
He had always possessed a temper, but it was one which Darius had believed was under his own control these past fifteen years. He could no longer believe that after the way he had behaved toward Bea this evening.
Bea’s complete physical collapse now was the result of that temper.
Darius kept his jacket wrapped about her as he lifted her gently into his arms before sitting down in the chair over which she had so recently been fucked to within an inch of her life. And it had been fucking, he acknowledged self-disgustedly. A primitive act of possession on his part.
A knife turned in his gut as Bea buried her face against his throat and he felt the heat of fresh tears against his flesh.
His arms tightened about her as he rested his cheek against the top of her head. “I am sorry. So very, very sorry.”
Bea was sorry too.
Sorry that the fierceness of Darius’s lovemaking was over.
She had seen a side of him tonight she would never have believed lay beneath Darius’s normal calm and arrogant demeanor. A wild side which had resulted in equally wild lovemaking.
Most surprising of all, despite her earlier denials and the danger he represented to her, Bea knew that she did now belong to Darius.
Body, heart, and soul.
“I will leave first thing tomorrow morning.”
Those words were like a knife plunged into the heart Bea had only just realized belonged completely and utterly to Darius Strong, the Duke of Wolferton.
How that had happened, and so quickly, she had no idea. She only knew the thought of Darius leaving Hanwell Manor, leaving her, made her heart hurt almost as much as the pleasurable ache of her body.
“Bea, for God’s sake, speak to me.” His arms were like steel bands about her waist. “Even if it is only to tell me how much you hate me.”
Hate him? Why on earth should she— Ah. “I do not hate you, Darius.” She raised her head to look at him. His face was pale, an expression of self-loathing in those gray eyes. “I asked for your lovemaking, remember?” she said softly.
“Lovemaking, yes.” A nerve pulsed in his tightly clenched jaw. “That was not lovemaking. It was—” He ran an agitated hand through the dark thickness of his hair.
“I enjoyed whatever it was.” Darius had been every bit as out of control and forceful as she could ever have wished for in a lover.
“I do not recognize myself in the man who took you so roughly,” he spat out.
“Is it not enough that I recognize you?” she prompted gently.
“As what?” he said bleakly. “The man who demanded your response and allowed you no respite until you were on the point of collapse? The man who caused these tears to fall?” He used his fingertips to gently wipe those tears from her cheeks.
“They are tears of extreme emotion, not pain.” Bea tilted her head as she looked at him. “I do not believe lovemaking is always gentle.”
“It should not be a punishment either,” he said bitterly.
“Punishment?” Her gaze searched his face. That self-loathing was still in his expression, and there was now a bleakness in his eyes. “Because of Landbourne?”
“No. Yes.” He sighed heavily. “Not completely because of Landbourne.”
“What else is there?”
He closed his eyes and then opened them again before admitting, “I am here under false pretenses.”
Bea’s mouth went dry as she recalled Kilby’s concerns regarding the duke’s unexpected arrival, and his suspicions regarding the questions asked by the duke’s valet. “You are?”
He nodded. “I was sent here to find evidence of your guilt.”
Everything inside Bea stilled. Her heart, her lungs, all coherent thought. “Sent here by whom?”
“I and my close circle of friends report directly to a prominent member of the English government.”
“Agents for the Crown?”
“Yes.”
Her throat moved as she swallowed. “And did you find the evidence against me?”
“No.”
A quizzical frown creased her brow. “Then I do not see—”
“I did not find it because there is no physical evidence,” Wolferton bit out grimly. “There is only your guilt,” he added softly. “Bea, I know you are guilty.”
“How?”
“In the way you keep people at arm’s length—” He broke off with a grimace as she gave a skeptical snort as to how close he had been to her merely seconds ago. “I refused to remain outside those defenses. There is also the behavior of your servants,” he added heavily.
“What about them?”
“They are protective of you to an unnatural degree.” His mouth twisted into the semblance of a smile. “My valet assures me there is always a disgruntled servant or two in every household. Not this one.”
Her brows rose. “Perhaps I am an exceptional mistress.”
“Perhaps you are,” he conceded dryly. “But you and those servants are also hiding something. A truth which I know your honesty would force you to admit if I asked you the question direct.”
Bea drew in a long and steadying breath. “Then ask it.”
His jaw tightened. “No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I do not want to know! Because I did not expect— I never thought I should—”
“You did not expect to like me?” she realized.
“I more than like you, Bea.”
She laughed without humor. “Did not expect to desire me as much as you do, then.”
He drew in a deep breath. “Bea, whatever happens, I shall do my best to defend your actions.”
The fragile world Bea had built for herself had been quietly falling apart since this man arrived at Hanwell Manor.
It had collapsed completely at Darius’s acknowledgment he knew what she had done.