Chapter 6
Bea hastily closed the door behind her. Not because Darius had told her to, but because anyone could walk past in the hallway outside her bedchamber and see him standing there, his naked, muscular body bathed in the golden glow of candlelight.
Her mouth had gone dry at the unexpected sound of Darius’s voice, but it now flooded with moisture as she stared at the utter perfection of that very aroused body.
His dark hair was in complete disarray as it rested on his broad shoulders. Those shoulders and arms were firmly muscled, as was his chest and the tautness of his stomach. His waist was slender, and his thighs as powerful as she had imagined.
But it was his cock which drew Bea’s attention back up those long legs. It was fully engorged and jutting up toward his stomach, thick veins running from base to tip, that top glistening and the sac beneath full and heavy. The moisture increased in her mouth at the memory of having her lips wrapped about that turgid flesh earlier today, and she found it impossible to avert her gaze as it seemed she could once again taste him.
“I said lock the door, Bea.”
“I—”
“Lock it.”
She rallied what few defenses she had left. “I do not like this dictatorial tone you have decided to take with me.”
“Please lock it.”
Darius said the words so harshly, and not as a question, it was really no improvement on the abruptness of his previous instruction. In fact, despite his nudity and obvious arousal, the sternness of his expression was not in the least that of a lover. It was almost as if he was angry with her for being the cause of that arousal.
If she was the cause.
His being in her bedchamber at all, let alone naked and aroused, after his coldness toward her at dinner, was questionable to say the least.
Her eyes widened as Darius walked slowly toward her with all the grace of a predator about to devour its prey, causing her to instinctively press back against the door behind her. “I thought we had settled this matter at dinner and decided we did not suit after all.”
He came to a halt in front of her. “I seem to recall you were the one who decided we would not proceed with our plans for me to pleasure you during dinner.”
He was standing so close to her, Bea could feel the heat of his body through the silk of her gown. Her senses were also awash with the heady aroma of his body, that lemon and sandalwood and seductive male musk.
She was trembling so much, her knees were shaking. “I think it will be better for both of us if we do not proceed at all.”
“I disagree.”
She blinked up at him. “You do?”
Darius had been furious throughout dinner as Bea virtually ignored his presence in favor of talking to the Scot, Monroe, seated on her other side. It was made all the more unacceptable because Darius was unaccustomed to being ignored. Under any circumstances, but least of all by the woman who was currently his lover.
He had lingered only long enough to down a single glass of brandy after the ladies had left the dining room, before striding from the room and up the stairs to his bedchamber. Quinlan had taken one look at the furious expression on his face and wisely decided not to say whatever mocking remark he had been about to make. Instead, his valet had remained silent as he helped Darius undress and then tidied away before making a hasty departure.
Darius had paced his bedchamber for some time, a dark scowl on his brow as his thoughts once again turned to tying Bea to his bed and pleasuring her, punishing her, until she passed out.
He had brought four of his neck cloths into her bedchamber with him with just that purpose in mind. The apprehensive expression in Bea’s eyes was causing him to rethink that earlier decision.
“I do.” He forced the anger from his tone. “Bea, if I have done something to frighten you, if there are…sexual and other situations you would rather not participate in, then it is for you tell me, so that I do not venture into those areas by accident.”
Her eyes widened. “You would listen?”
He nodded. “Otherwise, how am I to know? The last thing I wish to do is hurt or frighten you.”
Something melted inside Bea at the gentleness of Darius’s tone. Possibly that block of ice which had taken up residence in her chest after their disagreement at dinner? Whatever it was, she was no longer filled with that cold tension and dread at the thought of their liaison being over before it had truly begun.
She so wanted to be wild and irresponsible for just once in her life, to indulge in physical pleasure, and Darius was proving to be the perfect man with whom she might indulge that fantasy. Older than her but not too much so, and obviously not interested in anything more than a weeklong affair. He was also far more knowledgeable in how a woman experienced physical release. Which was not difficult in Bea’s case, because until last night with Darius, she had never known even a moment of that pleasure.
She chewed briefly on her bottom lip. “It is difficult to have this conversation, any conversation, when you—when you are completely naked.” That heady musk and the heat of his body were making it difficult for her to think.
He chuckled softly. “I can see no benefit in my dressing now only to have to undress again once we have finished talking.”
She gave him a quick glance. “Perhaps you will not wish to remain after our conversation.”
“I will.”
Bea blinked. “You sound very sure of yourself.”
“I am always sure of myself.”
“You are indeed a very confident gentleman,” she acknowledged ruefully.
“But I am not a cruel or unfeeling one,” he assured her firmly. “I certainly do not take any satisfaction in causing a woman discomfort or pain during lovemaking or at any other time. Tell me, Bea,” he encouraged. “I assure you I will listen.”
He sounded so sincere, how could Bea doubt him? “I—I do not like to be ordered about as if I have no will of my own.”
“Hm.” He gave a pained wince. “And I have done nothing but order or instruct you since my arrival. I will endeavor not to do so in future. Anything else?”
She drew in a deep breath. “Nor do I want to be—to be forced to accept your…attentions when you wish it and without consulting my own feelings on the matter.”
“Agreed.”
She glanced up at him before quickly looking away from the intensity of those shrewd gray eyes. “I also reserve the right to add to that list if you do something I dislike.”
“Also agreed.”
“You are being very…obliging.”
“I am a very obliging fellow.”
“When it suits you.”
Humor glinted in his eyes. “When it suits me.”
As Bea had expected. But she also trusted Darius when he said he would not hurt her. “Then that is all for now.”
Darius knew it was not all, that there was far more to the statements she had made than Bea was willing to say. She had been very young when she married, and no doubt a virgin, before being widowed for these past two years. There had not been so much as a hint in Society gossip of her having taken a lover in all that time, something Quinlan had confirmed. As such, Darius could only assume that Bea’s husband was the man responsible for these further stipulations being added to their agreement.
An ugly image was starting to form in Darius’s mind, one in which Bea was merely used by Hanwell for his own selfish sexual gratification rather than shown even the consideration of respect she deserved as his wife.
Darius decided using his neck cloths to tie Bea to the bed would definitely have to wait until another night. There would be time enough to suggest that and discuss it once Bea had learned to trust his promise not to hurt her and was accustomed to the other sexual pleasures he intended introducing her to.
He reached up to curve the warmth of his hand about Bea’s cheek before placing his thumb beneath her chin and lifting her face up to his so that he might capture her lips with his own. He forced down his own need to take and claim in order to ensure the kiss was slow and undemanding. He was not used to denying his own desires, but he knew some of them might be darker than Bea was ready to accept, and he was determined not to alarm her any further tonight.
Considering Darius did not ordinarily kiss, it seemed to be becoming a need where Bea was concerned. As before, when he kissed her, her lips were soft and trembling beneath his. They also parted readily enough when he ran his tongue along them, seeking entry.
He groaned as his tongue entered the heat of her mouth. She sucked on it, in the same way she had his cock earlier, and ran her silky-soft and moist tongue along the length of his as if it were his cock.
No, he did not ordinarily kiss, but kissing Bea was so sensual, so arousing, Darius felt as if he could do it for hours and not grow tired of it. Or of her.
He had no idea how long those kisses lasted, nor did he care. Bea tasted so good, and the curves of her body felt soft and yielding against his muscled hardness. Her hands were warm against his flesh as they caressed across his shoulders and down his chest.
Darius raised his head to draw his breath in sharply as delicate fingertips caressed the hardness of his nipples, sending pleasure coursing through his body before settling in his cock and balls.
“Did I hurt you?” She was so much shorter than him that her breath was a warm caress against his bare skin.
Everything this woman did, every caress, felt like so much more than that and gave Darius not just physical pleasure but touched something deep inside him. In the past, his giving a woman physical pleasure had been more of a duty. With Bea, he found he wanted to give her that pleasure, with no thought of whether or not he found his own release.
“It pleased me, not hurt me.”
“It did?”
“Yes,” he assured her huskily.
Everything had melted inside Bea during the long minutes of kissing and being kissed by Darius. Undemanding and gentle kisses that had nevertheless aroused her and also given her the confidence to now touch him in the ways she had so longed to do.
Her hands roamed across and learned the curvature of his muscular shoulders and chest, those taut and responsive nipples, and the hardness of his abdomen. She looked down to watch as she curled her fingers about the long and throbbing heat of his arousal. The skin felt as soft as velvet, but underneath was pure steel, with those thick and engorged veins running the length of it. It was so long and aroused, the skin was pulled back, revealing the purple and glistening head she had taken in her mouth in the garden earlier today.
“Not tonight.” Darius’s fingers moved about her wrists as she would have moved down onto her knees in front of him. “Not because I did not enjoy having you suck me earlier,” he assured her as she looked at him uncertainly. “I did not eat much at dinner. For some reason, my appetite seemed to have deserted me,” he added self-derisively. “But I am hungry now and should very much like to satisfy that hunger by eating the nectar from your pussy. Do I have your permission to do that?”
Bea felt the flare of heat in her cheeks, along with a spreading warmth inside her because Darius was asking rather than taking. Proof he had listened to her earlier. “Here?”
“I believe you will be more comfortable on the bed.”
Of course she would, Bea acknowledged as she allowed Darius to take her hand and lead her across the room. How gauche and naïve she must seem to— “Why are there four of your neck cloths laid out on my bed?” She came to an abrupt halt as she stared down at those pieces of black silk.
“Damn it,” Darius swore as he quickly gathered up those scraps of material. “It was a mistake to bring them here. I had thought you more experienced than you are,” he muttered uncomfortably.
Bea eyed at him with calm curiosity. “What did you intend doing with them?”
“It does not matter now—”
“I want to know,” she pressed.
Darius felt discomforted by the arrogant assumption he had made earlier when he brought those neck cloths into the room. Admittedly, his intention had been to give Bea pleasure, but his own satisfaction in tying her up before ravishing her would have been as great.
Bea placed her hand on his forearm. “Please tell me.”
He could not quite meet her gaze. “Once you were naked, I was going to tie you to the bed and then take you with my mouth and hands until you had screamed yourself hoarse.”
She swallowed at the disclosure. “With pleasure rather than pain?”
“Of course with pleasure.” He scowled. “I have told you, I do not enjoy inflicting pain upon anyone, least of all a woman.”
“Then do it.”
“What?” Darius stared at her in disbelief.
Bea’s gaze remained steady on his. “I am taking you at your word when you say you will not hurt me.”
“I told you I do not—” He broke off as he gave a shake of his head, not sure he had ever met a woman like Bea before. Her previous experience of physical relations had obviously not been a happy one, and for her to put her trust in him in this way caused an unfamiliar ache in his chest. “I believe this may come under the heading of ‘doing something you might dislike.’”
“Might dislike.” She nodded. “We will not know one way or the other until we try it.”
“You seriously wish me to tie you naked to the bed with my neck cloths and then pleasure your body in any way I please?”
“I do.”
Darius frowned his frustration. “It is extremely dangerous to give an aroused man carte blanche over your defenseless body.”
“The only defense I need is my trust in you to release me if I find I do not like being tied.” Bea’s smile became teasing. “After all, you are the Duke of Wolferton, and everyone knows that gentleman is far too arrogant ever to be duplicitous. What is it?” she prompted curiously as his frown now seemed pained.
“Nothing.” A nerve pulsed in his tightly clenched jaw.
“Darius?”
“I said it is nothing,” he snapped. “Do you need help removing your gown?”
“The buttons are at the front.” Bea continued to look at him searchingly for several seconds. Something she’d said had obviously disturbed him. “I was only teasing when I called you the arrogant Duke of Wolferton.”
His mouth twisted self-derisively. “I am the arrogant Duke of Wolferton.”
She chuckled softly as she let down her hair before unfastening the front of her gown. “Yes, you are. The very naked and arrogant Duke of Wolferton,” she added admiringly.
Bea had never seen Charles completely naked. He had always worn a nightshirt during his nocturnal visits to her bedchamber, his taking of her always carried out in the dark. But she still knew her husband’s body had not possessed the musculature and beauty that Darius’s did.
She could not help but admire his complete ease with his own nakedness. “Your body is beautiful, Darius.”
How, Darius wondered, could one tiny woman, one who was not obviously beautiful, so completely disarm him with her candor? Because he was disarmed. As much as he had been by her previous comment regarding his lack of duplicity.
Surely his reason for being at Hanwell Manor at all was duplicitous.
Perhaps it had started out that way, as had his seduction of Bea, but that had changed since he had come to know her. He no longer regarded their lovemaking as a means to an end, but desired Bea wholly for herself. She might not be a beauty in Society’s accepted sense of the word, but that sort of surface beauty was fleeting anyway. It was Bea’s inner strength that made her so desirable to Darius. It touched a similar strength inside him.
His parents had died when he was six years old, after which he had to go and live with his uncle, Lord Soames Strong, his father’s younger brother. Strong had been an exacting and cruel guardian, often beating Darius for no other reason than he felt like it.
Darius had felt nothing but relief when he was sent away to boarding school two years later. He’d had to go home for holidays, of course, but by that time, he had made his own “family” with the seven other orphaned boys who were still his closest friends. Occasionally, he even spent holidays with one of them.
By the time Darius was fifteen, he had been big enough and strong enough to hit his uncle back. And he had, repeatedly, until the other man had ceased hitting out with his fists and took to verbally abusing Darius instead with snide comments about his parents and Darius himself. Even that had come to an end once Darius was one and twenty. The guardianship came to an end, and he took up the title of duke and the managing of his own finances and life. He never spoke to his uncle again.
With hindsight, Darius realized the other man had been taking out his frustrations on the small boy who was heir to the dukedom Strong felt should rightly be his now that his older brother was dead.
That hindsight did not lessen Darius’s hatred and disgust for the man who should have cared for that bewildered six-year-old boy but had instead chosen to show him nothing but cruelty and violence.
In the years that followed his coming of age, Darius had become the cold and controlling man he was today.
Darius sensed Bea, possibly because of her unhappy marriage, possessed a similar steely core, one that would not allow her to be controlled, by him or any other man.
And while he had been lost in memories of his past, Bea had removed her gown and drawers and now stood before him wearing only her camisole. “You may keep that on if you would prefer it,” he assured her as he saw how self-conscious she was about removing this last garment.
Her expression remained anxious. “Perhaps for the moment? Once I am…more at ease, I might remove it then.”
“Of course,” he accepted lightly. “I will tie your wrists loosely so that you do not— Bea?” he questioned sharply as she turned to climb onto the bed and he saw the top of her bare back for the first time.
A back that he could see was crisscrossed with a maze of silver scars.