Rexanne Becnel by Heart of the Storm Page B

process she would learn a few things as well. First, the pleasures to be had between a man and woman, something a sheltered young woman such as she had undoubtedly been well-protected from. Second—and more important, he told himself—was how it felt to be at someone else’s mercy, to survive purely on the whim of someone more powerful than yourself. She was used to being part of the ruling class. Now she would have a taste of life as it was for the poor, the weak, and the helpless.
    “Be still. Be still, by damn, and I won’t hurt you,” he growled as he forced her hands to her sides and held her on his lap. “I said be still.”
    He couldn’t see her face beneath her tangled hair, but even so he could feel her panic. She struggled against him, kicking fruitlessly with her heels against his booted shins, and her heart beat a thunderous pace beneath his tight embrace. “You’re only hurting yourself,” he
taunted, murmuring the words somewhere in the vicinity of her right ear. “Just calm down.”
    “Go to bloody hell,” she muttered back, kicking once more.
    “I bloody well intend to,” he replied, smiling as her delectable bottom shifted across his lap. What would it take, he wondered, to make her more amenable to his overtures?
    Only when she had exhausted herself did her struggles against him finally subside. For a moment Cyprian simply enjoyed the feel of her in his arms. Her breath came in quick, deep gasps. Her exertion had released that same lemony scent he remembered. It was in her hair, he realized, nuzzling his nose into the silky thickness of it.
    She reacted as if stung, starting to struggle once again. “Let me go you … you bloody monster! You horrid child stealer! You … you—”
    “You smell of lemons,” he said, paying no mind to her anger. “How do you manage that?”
    She strained away from him, but it was a futile effort, for he had no intention of releasing her until he was good and ready. Yet how was he to get her to relax her guard long enough to make her willing?
    “Listen to me, Eliza. You don’t mind if I call you Eliza, do you? Considering how well acquainted we became at our last meeting.”
    “I hate you,” she swore.
    “No doubt you do,” he mocked. “Especially since I intend to take your cousin away from you. I suppose your uncle asked you to watch over him, didn’t he? To chaperone and protect him. I’m sorry, but it will now be impossible for you to carry out those instructions.”
    “If you were truly sorry you wouldn’t be stealing him this way. No, nor treating me so cruelly. Let me go!”
    But he ignored her last remark. “I’m not trying to be cruel. But I can’t have you throwing my belongings
about, can I? If you’ll promise to behave I’ll release you.” He paused, waiting for her answer. “Well, will you behave?”
    He could feel her heaving breaths against his arm. “What are you going to do with Aubrey?”
    Aha. So the chink in her armor was her responsibility for the boy. Just as he’d suspected. Loyalty was a good quality in a person, something he highly valued. In this case, however, it was a virtue he could use against her.
    “I haven’t decided what I shall do with him. Yet.”
    She was still a long moment and he guessed what she would say before she phrased the first word. “If you would just return him unharmed, I … I would make a bargain with you.”
    “A bargain?” Again he smiled. Yes, she was nothing if not the loyal guardian.
    “I will … I will—you know—do whatever it is you wish to do.”
    He nuzzled his face against her hair again, searching out the rim of her ear with his lips. When she jerked her head away he laughed. “But would you do it willingly? Somehow I don’t think so. Besides, I’m not in the mood to bargain. I have the boy and I also have you, if I want to keep you. I can do whatever I wish with either of you and there’s no one to say me nay.”
    She shuddered and Cyprian felt a vague and