“I’m anarse,” he muttered.
“What?” She stopped next to his chair and folded her arms across her chest. “What did you say?”
“I’m anarseand I apologize. Please forgive me.” He gazed up at her. She stared at him as if she’d never seen him before. Then again, he was tied to a chair, not wearing a stitch, and there was a ballroom full of people within hearing distance.
Suddenly she leaned over and kissed him with such force the chair rocked backwards. Her tongue invaded his mouth. She held his head in place, her hands fisted in his hair. She removed one hand, but continued to kiss him. He tried to raise his arms, but he was tied too tight. She rucked up her skirts with her free hand and climbed onto the chair, straddling him. Her skirts pooled around her lap, she gripped his cock and placed the head at the entrance to her quim. She sank onto him in one quick, brutal stroke. He groaned into her mouth. She ground her lips against his even as she raised and lowered her hot, wet cunny up and down, faster and faster. She grabbed his shoulders and ground herself against him. He swallowed her cries and moans until he could hardly breathe. With a few powerful strokes she shuddered again and again as she tore her mouth from his and bit down on his shoulder to stifle her cries as she came.
The moment her orgasm ceased she climbed off of him, used his shirt to wipe her cunny and dropped her skirts. She patted her hair into place, adjusted her bodice, and kissed him on the forehead.
“Thank you, Leo. I quite enjoyed that game, especially as I won.” With that she took the key from the door, closed it behind her, and locked him into the minstrels’ gallery.
Naked.
His cock hard as a Coade stone statue.
She’d brought him to the point of pain and had left him there. Alone. With no way to get free or to take care of his throbbing cock.
She was a witch. A minx. A seductress.
She was magnificent. A match for any man. And she was likely laughing all the way home where she would regale first her maid and then Mrs. Seaforth with the tale of his little game.
The orchestra had stopped playing. The noise of the crush of people moved like an ocean under the minstrels’ gallery. It was midnight. They were all going to supper. What the hell was he going to do. If he moved about too much he’d draw attention to where he was.
“Bollocks,” he muttered. “Bollocks, bollocks, bollocks!”
The click of the key in the lock sounded like a gunshot. He tried to scoot the chair back into the corner, out of the light. The door creaked open just enough for someone to peer inside, and, of course, it was Carrington-Bowles. He squeezed into the room, closed and locked the door behind him, and collapsed to the floor in spasms of quiet laughter. He was bent double with it, the fiend. He could hardly breathe. Every time he looked up and saw Leo he went off into seizures of amusement once more. When he finally gained control of himself his face was streaked with tears.
“I can’t,” he gasped. “I can’t. I can’t.” He tried three times before he got to his feet.
“Untie me, you bloody shit-sack. And find my clothes.”
“Was she surprised?” CB asked as he waved the key Honoria had obviously given him.
“Fuck you,” Leo grunted as he tried to snatch his arms free. “Untie me.”
“Not until you put that damned thing away,” CB said as he settled onto the stool Honoria had used and waved his hand at Leo’s cock.
“I will kill you when I get free. I swear I will.”
“If this is the last time I see you before I die, I will die a happy man,” CB assured him.
Leo had to laugh. He’d fought it as long as he could, and once he started, he could not stop. Especially when CB joined him. But behind the laughter he knew he was going to have to deal with the answers Honoria had given him. He did not look forward to that.
7
“You left him tied to a chair?” Julia cried and then went off into gales of laughter.
“Naked as the day he was born, and she locked him into the gallery.” Esme offered to refill Julia’s cup of tea. “I’d have left him there all night instead of sending his friend up with the key.”
“Can you imagine if one of the maids found him in the morning?” Julia stopped laughing long enough to hold her cup for Esme to fill.
Honoria sipped her tea and glanced at the porcelain clock on the mantel is Julia’s sitting room for the third time in the last hour. She had regaled her friend and Esme with the tale of Captain Atherton’s little game, with the more salacious bits left out, and the two women closest to her were still laughing, incredulous. Fortunately, the story was entertaining enough without her including her ravishing of Leo, out of desire or anger or both. She could not decide or perhaps she chose not to decide. Four days and nights had passed and her impetuous and satisfying act played heavily in her daydreams and even more vividly in her dreams at night.
Either way he did not appear to hold a grudge. He’d sent a note by the young boy, Dickie, for her to come to the back door of Albany at noon. He wanted her to pose for him as a certain Lady B had done as he’d written in his journal. She’d read the journal entry several times since she’d received his note. Her assignation with him today was the reason she had come to visit Julia.
“What did you tell your father?” Julia asked. “I want to at least try to match your story should he show up on my doorstep.”
“I told him you were still convalescing, and you asked me to bring some of my Gothic novels by for you to read. I am to stay for luncheon and then go to Bond Street to do some shopping for you.”
