Free The Wicked One by Danelle Harmon Page B

allowed him to drain his glass before picking up the cravat she had discarded.  Loosely looping it around his wrists, she tied them in a figure eight before securing them to the bedpost above his head.
    He smiled up at her, a chained wolf.
    A chained wolf who was very much looking forward to eating her after she was through stroking him.
    Eva's stomach was in knots.  She didn't know how long she had before the aphrodisiac took effect.  She shuddered inside, sitting down on the edge of the bed and affecting a satisfied, amused smile as she gazed down at her willingly helpless captive.  God help her, she wasn't even sure she could go through with the act; she wanted only to see how effective the potion really was, before passing it on to Marie Antoinette, wanted only to restrain Blackheath so he couldn't leap up and ravish her, wanted only to test it on this cunning devil while minimizing the dangers to her own heart — and body.  How long would he suffer before its effects finally wore off?  Or would he suffer until whatever savage lust he experienced was finally slaked?
    "You do not drink much," he murmured, noting her half-full glass.  "Champagne not to your liking?"
    "Oh, no, that's not it at all, Blackheath.  I want to be totally alert, totally aware, so that I can experience whatever is about to transpire with none of my senses dulled."
    "I see," he said, pushing himself upwards a little, so that he was more comfortable against the stack of pillows behind him.  Furtively, Eva glanced down.  Though the shirt preserved his modesty, she had no doubt that he was fully aroused; but was he even more aroused?
    "I also have a family intolerance to alcohol," she added, jumping as a spark exploded in the hearth.  "My mother died from overindulgence."
    Well, that wasn't completely true; she had died of a broken heart, and only used the alcohol as a spiritual anesthetic on the way to killing herself with it.
    "I am sorry to hear that," he murmured, his eyes taking on a strange gleam and fixating on her with the unwavering concentration of a predator.  She saw muscles beginning to bulge in his arms; rigid triceps, taut biceps, strained, defined tendons in the forearms.  "My own mother died in childbirth.  It is difficult to lose someone you love."
    "You never forget, do you?"
    His jaw was tensing up.  She could see the very controlled way he was breathing, as though each inhalation might shatter him.  "No.  You do not."  He had his teeth clenched now.  "Especially when you lose two parents within the same week."
    "Then I am sorry for you ," she said.  "What happened?"
    "Mother was in childbirth with Nerissa and having a damned hard time of it. . . .  Papa couldn't bear to hear her screams of agony . . ."  He shut his eyes, tiny beads of sweat breaking out on his forehead now, his great chest rising and falling laboriously.  "He ran up to the tower to get away from the sounds . . . fell, and broke his neck."
    "Dear God," Eva said, fingertips touching her mouth.
    Blackheath was now straining against the bonds that held him.  The cravat was stretched tight; too tight — in danger of tearing.  Fear drove through Eva — fear that it would tear, fear that she had poisoned him.  That he was in some sort of agony, she did not doubt.  "I was the one who . . . found him," he said hoarsely, clenching his fists.  "As you say, you . . . never forget."
    "Are you all right, Blackheath?"
    Black eyes shot open, burning her with their intensity.  "I'm in bloody agony for wanting you," he exploded.  "Christ, woman, have mercy."
    It would be so easy to just leave him here, tied to the bed as she had planned; so easy to just put her clothes back on and return to the ball as though nothing had ever happened, as though everything inside her weren't aching with a reciprocal need.  She would have the last laugh; she would deal the final humiliation.  But though Eva prided herself on her calculated hard-heartedness where men