The Captain's Wicked Wager Read Free Page B

strangely beautiful, smooth and curving, like a separate being. She wanted to touch it. To run her fingers along its length. To caress it.
    Her muscles clenched in anticipation. Her breath came faster. Ewan’s gaze locked onto hers. Watching her watching him. A reflection of desire. And in the reflection a multiplying. Sure of her instincts now, she stepped out of the garments at her feet. Deliberately turning her back to him, she rested her foot on the chaise-longue, provocatively stretching over so that her chemise was pulled tight against her bottom. A shoe removed. Her stocking followed. She could hear Ewan breathing. She could smell her own scent. Salt and spice. Her other foot on the chair. Shoe. Stocking. She turned and walked towards him, the urge to touch was almost irresistible but she managed to restrain herself, presenting her back to him.
    His hands on the laces of her stays. His fingers running down her spine, setting every nerve end on fire. She stepped away again. Slowly, she pulled her chemise down. The soft material felt strangely coarse on her nipples. Distracted, she touched one curiously with her finger. It was pebble hard. Amazingly sensitive. She closed her eyes at the spark of feeling. Opened them again as she heard Ewan’s intake of breath.
    “Sit down and do that again,” he said, his voice ragged.
    Embarrassment briefly flared. Mortification threatened. Then she remembered; perform.
    Belle sat naked on the chaise-longue. Tentatively touched her nipple. That strange feeling again. Abrasive. Pleasure and pain. Like the teasing. She closed her eyes as her untutored touch sparked a connection, from her fingertips to her nipples to the knot in her belly and the heat between her legs. The damask covering of the seat had a deliciously abrasive quality. She writhed against it.
    “Lower,” Ewan rasped.
    Her eyes flew open, startled. She must be mistaken. Surely, she was mistaken?
    He raised his eyebrows, patiently waiting. The tussle for supremacy was almost tangible between them. She would not surrender so easily. He would not be the only one to exercise control.
    She knew with shocking clarity what he wanted of her. She could not! But to deny him would be to admit defeat. She would not be defeated. In his eyes she was already a wanton, after all. Why not complete the illusion?
    Closing her eyes, Belle sprawled back on the sofa. Released from shame by his command, she touched herself. She was in uncharted waters, navigating by intuition, steered by Ewan’s visceral reaction. Tentatively, she allowed her finger to slide over the most sensitised part of her, dipping down, inside, then back. Slippery. Swollen. A feeling like waves rolling into the shore, like breakers ready to foam. Astonishing and yet somehow completely natural.
    Then, a hand on her wrist. Her eyes flew open. Ewan was standing over her, his face hard planes and rigid control. “Not yet,” he said harshly, placing her hand onto his erection.
    Belle sat up. Giddy. Disoriented. Edgy. She touched him. Skin like velvet. A pulsing vein running up to a hot tip. She ran her fingers over it, felt him shudder and ran her fingers back down, mimicking the way she had touched herself. Trailing and fluttering. Now cupping. Feeling him contracting against her, feeling the roughness of hair on her palm, enjoying the contrast of his satin smoothness in her other hand.
    “Like this,” he said, wrapping her fingers around him.
    She watched, fascinated by his response to her touch, and smiled with satisfaction at the pleasure she was giving, for in his pleasure lay her victory. She looked down, lest she give herself away, moving her hand more purposefully. Feeling a shifting response in herself she moved closer, grazing her breasts against him.
    Ewan pushed her back onto the chaise-longue. Unresisting, Belle lay waiting for his next move. She did not know, but she knew. He had won the throw, and in the end she must capitulate. She did not care, as long