He'd never thought of using sex as a weapon. His seducing her to climax with words had been more emotional than calculated, an attempt to regain some control. But he'd gotten in a lucky shot with a master swordswoman. The master now thought she was dealing with an equally skilled opponent and would no longer hold back. She'd slice him to ribbons.
Though she'd come down from climax, she kept her legs spread, playing with herself where he could see the glistening folds, the wet gleam of her knuckles, the post-climax dampness trickling down the base of her ass. At a particularly deft squeeze deep in his own, he let out a guttural snarl and cursed his own weakness.
"I told you I could be crueler than anything you could imagine," she whispered. It resounded through the chamber and inside his head. "You think about it, Jacob. Think."
He blinked in darkness. The candle had burned out, so the only illumination was the light on the clock and those glowing stars on her ceiling. Almost five hours had passed. He could barely make out her form, but it was in the same position, resting on her hip and turned away from him, the way she'd been before he'd drifted off. Though there were no hands touching him, his cock didn't care. The thin layer of flesh stretched over his ironlike erection suffered in the tight clasp of the cock rings and chains. His urethra burned from the invasion of the anchoring rod.
Think, Jacob.
He couldn't think. No one who used his rational mind about this would stay. It didn't matter if his brother, Mr. Ingram and even his lady thought he was fucking crazy. Maybe he agreed with them, but again, that didn't matter. This was where he was supposed to be.
* * *
Lyssa dreamed of storms. Wild whipping winds beneath her leathery wings. Her eye was turned toward the ground for prey, but in this type of storm everything had taken cover. She spun, the wind whistling over and under her, the vibration of the thunder and electric static of lightning skimming along her skin.
There. A duck paddled in a marina, unconcerned by the storm because she lived in the shelter of Man's harbor. While wild ducks often found such a port because so many of the wild places were disappearing, this was a domesticated duck, released or lost from somewhere. Living alone during the winter months because she was too weak and less capable of migrating with her wild brethren. Nature weeded out. Nature provided.
Lyssa tucked in her wings and dove with single-minded intent. The noise of the storm and the darkness provided her cover. The reflection of lightning gleamed off her talons as she unfurled them like landing gear, only she would use them to snatch dinner and be aloft again, never touching the ground.
Thirty feet from her goal, another movement caught her eye. She veered off sharply, somersaulted in a controlled move and dropped in a hover.
The white duck, having seen her now, had panicked. However, her mate, a brown and black wild duck and the distraction Lyssa had seen, now shepherded his snowy female into the shadow of the floating docks. She was not alone after all, and Lyssa would not kill one of a mated pair. Nature weeded out. Nature provided. But Lyssa could choose what offering to take.
A piercing scream split the air. She spun to see the wiser, wild-born mate snatched by a hawk who'd apparently been marking Lyssa's prey as well. The duck had been focused on Lyssa and getting his mate to shelter. The hawk had been noticed too late.
The white duck squawked her distress as the hawk pulled her mate into the air and broke his neck in an easy movement, carrying him away.
Over in less than a breath. The clouds boiled in the sky behind Lyssa. The white duck swam in circles out in the open, lost, in anguish. Confused by what had just happened.
The hawk's approach had been covered by the storm, just like her. Opportunists. The world of men was turning birds of prey into opportunistic scavengers. As civilization often did, it turned wild creatures into what they were never intended to be. Perhaps it did the same thing to men.
She flipped, dropped and pulled the white duck from the water, ending her life in the same economical movement. You won't have to learn how to live without him.
* * *
Lyssa opened her eyes to see Jacob sitting cross-legged on her bed, watching her. Wearing a T-shirt and clean pair of jeans, he'd apparently taken the time to shower and change.
On the unrumpled side of the bed where he sat, he'd laid her satin robe and a pair of slippers. He balanced her brush on his knee and had a basin of hot water with a facecloth sitting within reach behind him.
As the time of her rising drew near, if nothing set off the warning spells she had guarding the upper room, the staircase would reopen. Apparently Jacob had made good use of that effect when he'd managed to free himself again.
His blue eyes were steady, bluer than the daytime sky she'd never seen, the analogy coming from the imitation of it in picture books. But she sensed his were a reflection of the actual color, perhaps pieces of the sky itself, they were so vivid and real.
"I did spend the night thinking, my lady. Fully bound as you left me." He inclined his head. "I chose to free myself an hour before dusk to prepare for your care. I ask your forgiveness and pray you won't view that as flaunting your will."
Lyssa pushed herself up, blinking. Wetting the cloth and squeezing out the excess hot water, he spread it out over his hands. "May I, my lady?"
When she nodded, he brought it to her face, pressing comforting heat to her skin. She drew in a breath, letting it wake her up and drive grogginess away. She smelled the scent of the lotion she used to remove traces of makeup and realized she'd forgotten to remove it as she customarily did before she slept. Apparently he'd noticed and so did it for her now, withdrawing the cloth after a moment to wipe the lids, over and under, pass the cloth over her cheeks, her lips, so she could feel the touch of his fingers through it. He brought the basin onto the bed then, rinsed it out a couple times. When he was done, he put cloth and basin back to the side and lifted the robe. "If you'd like to slip into this, my lady, I'll brush and pin up your hair before you bathe. Unless you'd like me to help you wash it today."
Once when she'd been angry with Thomas over something she couldn't even remember, she'd told him she was going to toss him over the next available cliff. Unruffled, he'd assured her she'd never do that. "If my usefulness to you expires on every level, you'll still need a mirror." Perhaps that's why he'd taken such extra care to teach Jacob all the things involved in her daily toilette, and overlooked some of the other things that seemed so much more significant.