Her breath quickened audibly in the silence.
Finally he left off arousing her and grasped her shoulder, rolling her toward him so that she lay on her back.
“Look at me, Brynn,” he urged hoarsely.
She did look-at his chiseled face dark and grim with concentration, and lower, at his hard, lean, graceful body with its powerful, swollen erection. Brynn shivered, despite the mildness of the August night. Lucian had possessed her body once before, but he was still a stranger, one who was prepared to invade her with his foreign hardness.
Shifting his position, he mounted her, lowering himself till their bare loins just touched. Impossibly, the muscles of her lower body tightened and clamped down in eager anticipation of his possession.
He entered her then, thrusting slowly into her with a detached control, relentlessly filling her. Brynn gasped, tremors moving through her body at the shock of his uncompromising maleness inside her.
Squeezing her eyes shut, she averted her face. She felt helpless lying like this, impaled by his flesh, totally at his mercy. Yet when he began to move, the traitorous warmth in her began to blur the edges of her resistance.
As he withdrew, her quivering inner flesh clutched helplessly at his thick length, not easing until he sheathed himself fully again.
He kissed her then, covering her mouth firmly with his. He tasted of brandy, hot and sweet and potent. She tried to turn away, but he thrust his tongue deeply into her mouth, penetrating the way his engorged shaft was doing between her spread thighs.
Against her will Brynn felt herself responding wantonly to him. When he withdrew only to thrust harder, she found it impossible to remain still. In spite of her fierce determination, she whimpered.
His kiss grew more forceful, and so did his rhythm. When her hips began to writhe, he gripped them firmly with his hands to still her and plunged into her again and again, devastating her control. Moaning now, she wrapped her arms around his shoulders, clutching him tightly to her as he drove into her. Spears of searing heat lanced her as his hard flesh went deeper and harder, ravishing her with pleasure.
Then suddenly wave after wave of shuddering tremors began to ripple remorselessly through her. Brynn cried out as she shattered in ecstasy.
She was scarcely aware when Lucian permitted himself his own harsh release. When he finally went still, she was gasping for breath. His heavy weight lay sprawled across her, his own ragged breath loud in her ear.
Burning with resentment and worse, passion, Brynn squeezed her eyes shut. He had forced a response from her that was deeper and far more powerful than her first incredible time. Far from simply enduring his emotionless sexual attentions, she had welcomed them. He was indeed Lucifer, a devil who could arouse her body at will.
Frightened that he could have dredged such a response from her, she tried to push him away.
“Please get off me,” she ordered tightly, as if she’d never come apart in his arms and burned with desire. “You are crushing me.”
He raised his head slowly, as if not believing her hoarse command. A span of several heartbeats passed. When she stared coldly at him, though, Lucian obliged her, easing from between her thighs.
Abruptly Brynn pushed her nightgown down to cover her naked limbs and drew the sheet up over her. “I trust you are finished,” she ground out.
There was another long pause before his hand reached for her. Relentlessly he cupped her chin in his fingers, his blue eyes cold.
“Don’t pretend you didn’t enjoy my lovemaking, sweeting,” he said softly. “You were hot enough to melt a glacier.”
She flinched as the words set themselves like tiny barbed arrows into her flesh. “Pray don’t call what you did lovemaking.”
“Fucking, then,” he said, his voice even lower, dangerously hard. “Is that an adequate description? Well, be prepared, love, for I intend to have you like that every night-and make you enjoy it.”
Not giving her a chance to reply, he rose and caught up his dressing gown, shrugging it on before he crossed the bedchamber. Moments later she heard the door between their rooms shut with harsh finality.
Brynn rolled over, clutching the sheet to herself as a wave of hurt coursed through her.
She suddenly felt lonelier and more wretched than in recent memory. She had wanted to wound Lucian, to drive him from her bed. So why was she the one aching with misery?
Fighting back tears, she gazed up at the canopy overhead, cursing her husband. Fucking, then… I intend to have you like that every night-and make you enjoy it.
Wincing, Brynn drew a quavering breath. She very much feared he would make good his promise to make her enjoy it, and then what would happen?
Chapter Nine
Except for his nightly visits, Brynn saw little of Lucian the following week. She was perfectly satisfied, however, to live separate lives. As far as marriages went, theirs was not an unusual arrangement for the upper classes and the nobility, although her reason for their distance-the danger of a curse- was rather unique.
During the days, her husband spent a great deal of time away from home, presumably at his work, Brynn concluded from conversations with Raven. Lucian reportedly had offices at Whitehall, where he toiled for the Foreign Office.
The first inkling she had of Lucian’s unusual job came one afternoon when she accompanied Raven shopping for bride clothes. After inspecting a bolt of ivory lace, Brynn rejected it, saying the quality was inferior.
“How can you tell?” Raven wanted to know.
“See the dropped stitches here? And the dye? The pattern isn’t uniform. We can do better, I’m certain.”
As they left the shop, their footmen following dutifully behind carrying parcels, Raven asked Brynn how she knew so much about lace.
“I have sold a good deal of it to modistes and milliners over the past few years.”
Raven raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Your family is in trade?”
Brynn hesitated, wondering how much of her background to reveal. “Of a sort,” she replied, realizing Raven could be trusted not to be judgmental. “But not the merchant trade. In Cornwall, when we speak of trade, we mean the Free Trade.”
“Smuggling?” Raven’s eyes brightened with curiosity. “How intriguing.” Glancing over her shoulder then to see who might overhear, she evidently remembered she was on a public street and lowered her voice. “Do tell me about it.”
Brynn returned a wry smile at her friend’s delight. “I don’t consider smuggling to be intriguing. Actually, it is very hard work, and rather dangerous. But it is a fact of life where I come from, a way to make ends meet. I know of few families who aren’t involved in some fashion or another.”
“And you take part yourself?”
“Not often. Mostly I handle disposing of various kinds of contraband.”
“I think it would be gratifying,” Raven said almost wistfully, “to be able to engage in adventures forbidden to women. Still… I wouldn’t advertise your connection to Lucian, if I were you.”
It was Brynn’s turn to be curious. “Why not?”
“Because he has a great aversion to smugglers. I’ve heard him express his opinion in no uncertain terms. Smuggling cheats the government of badly needed tax revenue that Britain and the allies must have to vanquish the French. I can understand his point of view, even if I don’t share it. Lucian has spent years trying to bring down Napoleon. He takes pride in his work-even though spying is considered a vulgar enterprise by most of the ton.”
“Spying?”
At Brynn’s quizzical look, Raven added, “Lucian is a genuine spymaster, did he not tell you?”
Brynn felt her heartbeat quicken with alarm. “My brother said he worked for the Foreign Office.”
“He does. In intelligence. It is all very clandestine and hush-hush. Sometimes Lucian disappears for weeks at a time, no doubt on some mission or other. He won’t discuss his work, but in fact he is considered something of a hero.”