Tiffany Clare - The Surrender of a Lady

He released her breast and rolled her onto her stomach. His knees came between her thighs and pushed them out.

“Put your hands above your head, Jinan.”

The way he said her name sounded different and foreign, rolling off his tongue with his crisp English lilt. He made it sound more exotic than any other man who had whispered it.

She wanted him to say her name again. Instead his leg came up firm to her mound, causing her to groan. She raised her hands above her head and grasped the edge of the divan, nails clawing into the material for purchase as his knee rode up farther, splitting her sex, exposing it to the abrasion of his trousers. Her desire flared anew.

There was indeed more than a mutual rubbing to be had between them.

Now, he would start his real games.

“I’m going to have you so many ways, you won’t remember where you are, my sweet Jinan.  My name will be the only one you can speak for weeks, wishing for my company.” He bit her shoulder, not too hard, but enough to leave the flesh stinging when he released her.

“You’ll want no other.” He growled so low in her ear, she thought maybe it was her imagination. Those words held deeper meaning for her. Did they for him, as well?

She unclenched her fingers from the couch and reached back to hold his head against the flesh bite. He rewarded her with a deep groan of appreciation. Pressing her bottom up to his groin, she gave herself over to him in complete animalistic supplication.

He ground their bodies together and pushed her down so her stomach was flat to the soft, cushiony velvet, his breath hot in her ear.

“You’ll never want another after me, Jinan.”

She made no response. She knew the truth of those words without having to say them.

Pulling his lower body off hers, he centered his fingers at her core. “Say it, damn it. You’ll want only me.” He drove his fingers into her, slamming the flat of his palm against the damp lips of her slit. The slapping, moist sound made her writhe against him for more.

This was so different, so primal and raw, compared to the innocence of their courtship ten years past.

There was something more decidedly pure, real about this.

“Say it.” He pulled out and thrust his fingers back in, causing her to arch her back as she tried to get closer to his warm body.

“Only you, my lord.”

Those words held a finality.

Without a doubt, this man she was to play mistress to still held her heart in his hands. The light, fragile beat could be easily crushed in his grasp. She buried her eyes into the divan so he couldn’t see her tears. She suffered under the heat of her veil in the dark room but didn’t care.

She didn’t deserve comfort. She didn’t deserve him.  Even if he was nothing more than her master for however long her owner said. She had done the one thing all the girls here feared. She’d fallen in love. Not tonight. It wasn’t so simple as that. But years ago.

Her humiliation was complete.

She was to play the whore for a man she loved and yearned for.

And he would never know the truth of it.

“Much better,” he said.

Damn her foolish heart. She was still in love with him and that was the most dangerous thing to ever happen to her. Tomorrow she’d try to break the contract. Tonight.

Tonight she’d live the dream.

“Why do you hide yourself from me?” His fingers brushed along the edge of tiny, bronze coins hanging beneath her jaw.

Jinan turned to face Rothburn. “I do not.”

“Then why won’t you remove your veil? You are the only harem girl who holds to this tradition. It stands between us as a very ineffective shield.” He dropped his hand away. “You only wear it because I allow you to. There will come a time when it will be removed.” He just hoped she would remove it before it came to that point.

She made to stand from the bench, but he clasped his hand around her wrist. “Sit down, Jinan.”

He didn’t release her till she sat, reluctantly. “The contract you’ve agreed to stipulates my being veiled at all times. It is the only condition you must adhere to, or I will have Amir cancel the agreement.”

“That’s not what stops me from removing it,” he mumbled, and leaned against the vine-covered wall. They were in the gardens, in one of the many secluded nooks off the flowered paths. It hadn’t escaped his notice that they were very, very alone. Plucking a pink clematis from the vine hanging over his shoulder, he ran the flower over her bared arm.

“Is there no way for me to convince you that you’d be better without it? What secrets do you possibly mean to hide beneath a thin piece of silk?”

She looked at him for a long moment. “None.”

A lie, of course. He saw the tenseness in her shoulders, the affronted stiffness to her posture. You could incorporate the ways of a harem girl into an English woman; but some habits of an insulted English woman never completely disappeared. He almost smiled, but was still too angered by her refusal to unveil to do so. How was it that he had made no headway in this argument? They’d been playing this pretense for two weeks.

He’d tried to get any number of secrets out of her since their contract started. But she was closemouthed about her past. She’d only repeated the tale Amir had given him.

Sometimes Griffin wondered if she was truly Elena. It wasn’t as if he weren’t capable of imagining her to be someone she was not. In all seriousness, how could she deny their acquaintance so completely if she really were Elena? Why would she wish to deny it when he could find a way to take her from this place, if she but asked? He’d do anything for her, yet she seemed to want nothing from him. Nothing! All his years of needing her and she didn’t want him with the same ferocity.

“I have to leave again. I won’t see you for at least a month, Jinan. I have business to attend to in the East.”

Her finger stopped drawing an invisible pattern on the stone bench. Her breathing stilled. Would she miss him? It was going to be a torturous month for him, without her touch, her soothing voice, the simple comfort of her presence. She would become a dream again, and he hoped like hell he didn’t fill the void with something else.

She looked him in the eye, stopped the trail of the flower by covering it with her own hand. Her head tilted to the side in question. “Why did you purchase me if you cannot be here for the majority of that time?”

“Are you saying you’ll miss me?” He placed his hand to his chest. “Be still, my heart, I think there is feeling in you after all.”

Her brows drew together in disapproval. “What should I say? I find it perplexing. You spent a great deal at auction to have these three months.”

He sat up suddenly, worried about what she’d do with her time, and whose company she’d keep. “Will you warm another’s bed when I’m gone?”

She shook her head. “Not for the duration of your contract. And not for at least a year following that. We are not treated so poorly here as you like to think.”

Griffin gave a sigh of relief, for she was indeed his alone for the next while. Then he asked, “Will you be happy to have a reprieve from me?”

“I like the time we spend together. You are kind to me, my lord.”

He pulled her into his lap and pressed his forehead to hers. “I could be more than kind to you. You need but ask me and I’ll take you anywhere you wish to go.” She raised her head from his and pressed her silk-covered lips to the top of his head. He nuzzled closer to her breasts, pressing kisses to the exposed skin above her vest. At least she didn’t say no when he mentioned whisking her off this time.

“Where in the East do you travel to?”

A clever change of subject. He let her have it. “I’m traveling my trade routes. There have been some problems along China’s border between the locals and the Redcoats stationed there. It’ll probably have settled by the time I arrive. I still need to make sure business is running as usual.”

“Can I ask what you trade in?”

“Silk, these days.”

“And on other days?”

“You are inquisitive today, Jinan. To what do I owe this marvelous change of character?”

“My apologies, my lord. I just wondered what you’d be doing once you left.”

“Ha! So you will miss me. You are a darling girl.”

“Is it so wrong to be curious about you?”

“Not at all, but I don’t want to enlighten you if you won’t enlighten me. I think it only fair that we both share a piece of ourselves. Are you still up for a game in this?”

She nodded her head once, her long lashes caressing her cheek. “I am.”

“I made most of my fortune in trading opium. It was not an easy life, and very dangerous at times.”

“Is that why you stopped?”

“No. I stopped because I started sampling the shipments.”

“An opium swallower, then. I’ve heard of such things happening. It is not so uncommon in some harems. Amir refuses to stock it in the inner harem for obvious reasons.”

“Then count him among the more intelligent. I did not swallow it, though. I smoked it. Constantly. It was not a good time in my life. At the time, I couldn’t change my reliance upon it, even knowing that it was slowly eating away at me.”

“Then how did you stop?”

“A friend found me. On one of my bad days. I don’t recall much of it as I was in quite a state when he took me from the opium den.” He shook his head, not wanting to go into all the details of that day. It was not fit for her ears at any rate. “I’ve not touched the stuff since and one of the only guarantees that I would never touch it again was to stop trading it.”

“This is a part of yourself you do not share with others, isn’t it?”