Zero Control Page 12

  “You are goading me, sir.”

  “A challenge perhaps, but goading, no.”

  “Since you have issued a challenge, it appears I am not in a position to deny you this dance.”

  “Indeed.” He raised a rakish eyebrow that jutted up high above his mask and proffered his hand.

  How could she resist? Roxie smiled and placed her hand in his.

  She was a little nervous about dancing, but the minute he winked reassuringly, she felt more at ease. Have fun. Live in the moment. Tonight would make up for all the things she’d missed—senior prom and the homecoming game, the senior class trip, her graduation ceremony, having a boyfriend in high school.

  Dougal, it seemed, was fully in command of the dance floor.

  She simply followed his lead, letting him take charge. Oddly enough there was something highly erotic about the simple contact of their hands in the midst of the communal line dance. The music was bouncy and lively, and she quickly found herself laughing breathlessly with the rest of the group.

  Who knew dancing could be so much fun? More accurately, who knew dancing with Dougal could be this much fun? She was enjoying herself more than she ever had, but she didn’t feel the least bit guilty about it.

  The song ended and they broke apart. A sheen of perspiration dampened her brow, and she wiped it away with the back of her hand. “Mr. Darcy,” she said. “You have certainly proven your dancing skills. You may extend my compliments to your mother for insisting you learn the proper way to propel a young lady across the dance floor.”

  “My mother will be quite pleased to hear of your compliment,” he said. “And might I add I appreciate that you did not once trample upon my toes.”

  “You are most welcome, Mr. Darcy.”

  “May I offer you some refreshment after our exertion? Some water perhaps? Or would a stronger beverage be to your liking?”

  “Water is in order.” She fanned herself with a hand. “Thank you kindly for your offer.”

  It wasn’t so much the dancing that overheated her but staring at Dougal, who didn’t seem the least bit winded. The man was amazing—virile, strong, loaded with stamina. Most of the guys she’d gone out with were cerebral, long on college degrees, short on actual real-world experiences. They loved to pontificate and get into intellectual discussions, but when it came to putting theory into action they moved with the speed of a stone pony. Sudden insight dawned. Was dating professor types her way of rubbing elbows with the education she’d never received?

  She pondered this realization and it made her look at Dougal in a whole new light. He wasn’t her usual type and yet he made her feel more alive than any man she’d ever been with. Was he the perfect antidote she needed to shake her from this habit of choosing men who seemed to make up for what she lacked? Being with him jolted her system. He was a worldly man, who’d really lived. Not a pontificating professor who’d spent his life wrapped up in books.

  He escorted her to the bar, where he requested two glasses of water, then headed for an empty table in the corner. She followed, trailing awkwardness behind her. Once they were off the dance floor, she had time to realize that hanging out with him was counterproductive to her mission as a corporate spy, but she couldn’t seem to help herself.

  All the more reason to tell him good-night.

  He set down their drinks and then pulled out a chair for her. His mother had clearly raised a gentleman. Roxie sat and he stopped to unbutton the jacket of his costume.

  “It is growing quite warm in the confines of the building,” he explained.

  You can say that again. She felt a trickle of sweat slide between her breasts.

  “Would you find me too forward if I removed my outer garment?”

  “By all means, Mr. Darcy. Your comfort is my utmost concern.”

  “I appreciate your permission to cool myself.” He stripped the jacket off his shoulders and draped it over the back of his chair. Roxie couldn’t stop herself from watching his small striptease.

  Looking more obscenely impressive than Lord Byron himself, Dougal scooted his chair as close to hers as he could get and sat. She shut her eyes and bit down on her bottom lip, willing herself not to be so aware of him, but it was futile.

  He was so near she could smell him. His scent, a pleasing, masculine aroma—part soap, part perspiration, part spray-starch, part leather—crept over her. If it was a color it would be verdant Kelly green, live, rich and fertile.

  Dougal shifted in his seat; his thigh briefly brushed against hers. Accidental or intentional? His eyes behind that dark mask were enigmatic.

  Did it matter? The touch immediately caused her thigh to tingle. Nervously she drummed her fingernails against the tabletop.

  Dougal closed his hand over hers, stopping her restless tapping. She waited for him to say something, but he did not. He just held her hand.

  Roxie forgot to breathe, and she didn’t dare raise her gaze to meet his. She didn’t know what else to do so she simply sat there, sipping her water, staring at the dancers, aware of nothing but the pressure of his hand on hers.

  “Would you like to discuss what is troubling you?” he asked after a very long moment.

  “I have no need to offer conversation,” she said, her words tumbling out on a whoosh of pent-up air. She was in over her head with this guy, like an inexperienced swimmer who’d wandered away from the kiddie pool and found herself in deep water with no life preserver in sight. Time apart served to sharpen her awareness of him, not thwart it as she’d hoped.

  “You seem quite agitated, my dear Miss Bennet.”

  Roxie blew out her breath on a flippant puff of denial. “No, not I, sir. Agitated is not a state of mind with which I am familiar.”

  “Pray tell, then, why does your knee bob up and down so vigorously?”

  Was she doing that? Lovely, she was. She placed her free hand on her knee to stop her fidgeting. “I fear I have developed an annoying habit,” she explained.

  “Might a case of nerves be the reason behind this nervous habit of yours?” he asked.

  “Absolutely not, sir. I have no call to be nervous about anything.”

  “No?” There went that eyebrow again, launching higher on his forehead.

  “No.” That was her story and she was sticking to it. She raised her hand to nibble on her thumbnail but stopped herself with her hand halfway to her mouth, grimacing at her action.

  “Ah.” He cracked a smile but his tone said he wasn’t buying her explanation, not for a second. “I thought maybe I’d flustered you.”

  “Not at all.” Okay, where did she sign up for the liar’s hall of shame? She was a shoo-in.

  He held fast to her hand.

  Roxie ached to snatch her hand away, but she couldn’t because then it would confirm she was a great big fibber and he had flustered her. “You know,” she said, “everyone has nervous habits.”

  Dougal said nothing, but stared at her through half-lowered lids, the look in his eyes weighted with hidden meaning.

  She reached out to trace her fingertips over his clean-shaven jaw. She felt the muscle tense beneath her touch even as she saw he was steeling himself not to flinch. What was she doing?

  “Now who’s flustered?” she whispered, amazed at how she’d managed to turn the tables on him and thrilled at her brazenness.

  He interlaced his fingers through hers, holding her hand anchored to the table. No escape. It was as if he was waiting for her to tell him the truth, spill her guts about why she was really here.

  She thought of the first time she’d seen the movie Bambi when she was six years old. The most vivid scene for her had been the one where two quails were hunkered down in the grass, trying to be quiet to avoid a gun-toting hunter stalking closer and closer and closer. Watching it, she’d known that if the quails just didn’t make a move, if they would just stay cool, their lives would be spared. But the tension tightened with each encroaching footstep. Then the hunter had suddenly stopped oh so near those
crouching birds. Roxie remembered holding her breath at that point in the movie, her stomach twisted into knots, her fist clenched. Finally one of the quails screamed, “I can’t take it anymore,” flew into the air, revealing herself to the hunter, and he shot her dead.

  Right now she felt exactly like that panicky quail, and Dougal was shooting her dead with his glittery dark eyes. He tightened his fingers around hers.

  Stay quiet. Reveal nothing. Don’t lose it and expose yourself.

  His eyes burned into hers, his gaze stealing all the oxygen from the room.

  “I do have a sinful secret,” she whispered.

  Don’t be a quail.

  Dougal’s mouth opened slightly. His lips were full and sensuous, the skin of his chin smooth where he’d shaved. His chest jerked up and then inward with each compelling breath. His scent, that devastating scent of his, assailed her nostrils.

  “What is it?” he murmured. He was positioned between her and the door. Getting away from him wasn’t a viable option. She had to deal with this to the end. What would Mata Hari do?

  For years, Roxie had suppressed her impulses, placing Stacy’s needs above her own. She’d done it for so long, second-guessing herself was default mode. But the panicky sensation that quail had experienced swept over her and she simply reacted.

  She got up, crooked a finger at him. “Come with me, Mr. Darcy.”

  HE SHOULDN’T FOLLOW HER. Dougal knew it, and yet when it came to Roxie, he possessed zero self-control. Add to that the fact that he hadn’t seen her in four days and he was off-the-charts horny.

  Where was she leading him?

  It didn’t really matter for it seemed he would go with her to the ends of the earth if that’s where she took him.

  Four days without her had been pure torture, and when there had been no further incidents of sabotage in that time, his gut told him she was innocent, even as his mind told him he was a fool for letting down his guard.

  She moved through the crowd of masked partygoers and out the side exit, his attention fixed on her swaying hips. God, how he loved her curvy feminine figure. He was just itching to cup her round, full bottom in the palms of his hands.

  “Where are we going?” he asked.

  She didn’t answer him, just kept walking, and her silence only served to escalate his desire. She wandered down the corridors, her shoes echoing against the stone. He was getting so hard he was having trouble walking.

  She descended a long flight of stairs. Down, down, down they went.

  At the bottom of the stairs was a stone door. She stopped, turned her head and glanced at him over her shoulder. Her blue eyes looked deliciously cool beneath her purple sequined mask. She put out her sweet pink tongue and swept it across her lips. His heart galloped.

  Still, she did not speak. She pushed open the heavy door. It swung inward with a groan revealing a dark, narrow foyer lit only by flickering wall sconces. Excitement pressed tight against his chest.

  She stepped over the threshold and he followed.

  Once inside, the door automatically creaked closed behind them. They were in a dungeon.

  “I have a feeling we’re no longer Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy.” He chuckled nervously.

  She reached for something on the wall. He didn’t see what it was, but he heard the unmistakable crack of a whip. Instantly his balls drew up tight against his body. “Into the chamber with you, heretic,” she roared.

  Trepidation raised the hairs on his arms, and Dougal realized he’d never in his life been so turned on.

  Another door creaked—metal, this time, from the sound of it—and another faint glow of flickering orange light. A cool draft blew across his face. It smelled musky and damp like sex. She cracked the whip again. “Inside!”

  He went.

  She slammed the door behind them and turned a big black skeleton key in the lock.

  The stone walls had iron manacles mounted on them. Dougal gulped. Oh shit, he thought and his cock got so hard he feared he might shoot his wad then and there.

  “Stand here.” She flicked the whip at the spot on the floor beneath the manacles.

  Compelled by a force he could not explain or manage, he obeyed.

  Her role-playing was exciting. She could slip under the skin of anyone and fully become that character. She was everything he was not. She was expressive, unrestrained, eager. She was real and true with her sexuality, and he admired her for it.

  “Arms up.”

  He raised his arms over his head.

  She had to reach up to clamp the manacles around his wrists and when she did, her breasts grazed his chest, and he groaned at the contact. The woman was driving him insane.

  Roxie slid to her knees in front of him, and then coyly canted her head up. A wild glow of excitement sparked in those eyes behind that mask. The contour of her lips changed, her posture was looser. Her fingers worked frantically, undoing his pants. She tugged his trousers and underwear to his ankles, revealing his jutting, rock-hard cock.

  He flinched at the first touch of her mouth on him, but her lips felt so hot and wet around his shaft that Dougal couldn’t help groaning. The sensation was achingly sweet and so powerful he was grateful for the manacles that kept him from toppling over.

  He was a lucky, lucky bastard. No doubt about it. He looked down at her and his heart stuttered. He swayed.

  She spread her hands over his buttocks to help steady him, her fingers splaying into him. And when her mouth latched on to him with a strong suction, Dougal’s eyes rolled back in his head. She was lapping and suckling as if she could never get enough of him. He knew he couldn’t get enough of her.

  She tickled the small of his back with one hand, cupped his balls with the other. Dougal almost yelped. It felt damned incredible.

  Systematically she set about dismantling him with her mouth.

  He felt embarrassed then, and in spite of his body’s intense ache, he wanted to break free from the manacles, reach down to pull her to her feet, but he was ensnared in a chaotic whirlwind of sensation. He was afraid. He wanted his control back. He wanted to feel balanced again. This powerful sexual attraction caused him an inner discord that went against his nature.

  Dougal moaned as the heat escalated inside him. Her rhythm picked up. Her hands slid all over his body. Indescribable, this intimacy. His chest expanded, tightened. It was unlike anything he’d ever experienced. This took the meaning of sex to a whole new level.

  “Yes,” he hissed as she moved back and forth. “Yes, yes, yes.”

  Roxie worked her magic with her fingers, her tongue leading him into uncharted territory. He was on sensory overload as she gently guided him to a paradise he’d only dreamed of.

  But this wasn’t a dream. The warm wetness of her mouth on his cock, the heavenly smell of her femininity, the greedy sound of her tongue swirled through him. This new awareness of her was breaking up his brittle outer shell.

  She was beyond beauty to him. She was pure life, pure joy. She and her sensual impulses merged together against all the rules of proper conduct. Her mouth moved over him without caution or fear. She pushed him past his knowledge of himself. He had never before been so physically possessed. The dungeon walls seemed to ripple. Could this be an earthquake?

  No. The ground did not tremble, only his body. Dougal was nervous and exalted and awed. He accepted the inevitable.

  “Yes,” she murmured. “That’s right. Let go. Give up everything.”

  How had she discerned the mental shift in him? The letting go?

  Relentlessly, Roxie pushed him forward. He was aching, gushing, throbbing, beating. He threw back his head and cried out, pleading for release from this magnificent torture, from the ecstasy he could almost touch.

  Soon. Please, please let it be soon. It had better be or he was going to drop dead from need.

  And then, just like that, it was upon him.

  Dougal tumbled. Jerking and trembling into the abyss, the world cracked open, enveloped hi
m.

  He peered down, blinked. He could barely see. Roxie was sitting at his feet, smiling coyly, her lips glistening creamy and wet. She winked at him and then sweetly swallowed his essence.

  If he hadn’t been manacled, Dougal would have pitched forward onto his knees. Instead, he hung there sweating, shuddering, panting for breath.

  He was used up, spent. His cock emptied as he struggled to wrap his mind around what had just happened.

  10

  ON SUNDAY MORNING, the bus took them for a day trip to Cambridge. The schedule was unstructured, allowing guests to choose from a variety of activities. There was shopping in Market Square and King’s Parade, tours of the local colleges and museums, helicopter tours for hire or punting on the Cambridge River. A punt was a flat-bottomed boat with a square bow, used to navigate shallow bodies of water. Roxie, Jess and Sam elected to try their hand at maneuvering these unwieldy watercrafts.

  “What are you doing for the day?” Jess quizzed Dougal as they got off the bus.

  “I’m going to hang out at the commons.” He didn’t look at Roxie nor she at him. Not for one second had he been able to stop thinking about what had happened in the dungeon last night.

  “Have you ever punted before?” Sam asked.

  “I have,” Dougal admitted.

  “Where did you learn how to punt?” Roxie asked.

  “I was in the Air Force, remember?” Dougal smiled. “I was stationed at Lakenheath, which is only twenty-five miles from here. My friends and I frequently came down to punt the Cam when we were on leave.”

  “Then come hang out with us,” Sam said. “We’re going to buy a picnic lunch and take the river to Grantchester. I’ve even brought a blanket for picnicking.” She held up the thin cotton blanket she had tucked under her arm.

  “That’s a long way. Perhaps you should just punt The Backs. It’s only takes thirty minutes. Grantchester and back is a four-hour round-trip.”

  “We’ve got friends who went to college here and they said everyone does The Backs,” Jess said, referring to the waterway that ran behind the row of colleges. “We want something lazier, less crowded and more relaxed.”