Free Prisoner of Desire by Jennifer Blake

stimulating company.”
    “Desperate! Don’t be ridiculous.” Her heartbeat increased, thudding heavily against her ribs.
    “Is it ridiculous? What would you do, Anya, my love, if I were to walk into your house and make myself at home at your table, in your bedchamber, in your bed?”
    “I am not your love,” she said, her eyes narrowing. “Step one foot in my house uninvited, and I’ll have you thrown out so fast you’ll have to send for your shadow!”
    “Who will do the job? Your servants? It would mean the life of any slave who should touch me. The blacksmiths? Assault is a serious charge even for freed slaves. Murray Nicholls? But if all this is to protect him from my wrath, it would be defeating the purpose to expose him to it. Who then?”
    The temerity of the man was infuriating. That he would seek to frighten her while lying flat of his back with her needlework in his scalp defied belief. And yet, there was in his long body as he reclined on the bed a sense of power only temporarily subdued. His cape had fallen away when he tried to rise, and he was bare to the waist; still, he made no attempt to cover himself, permitting her to gaze as she would at the corded muscles of his arms and shoulders, the flat planes of his chest marked by the copper-colored rounds of his paps, the fine, curling black hair that narrowed from the triangular furring on his chest to a thin line as it disappeared under the waist of his trousers. Unprincipled, rakish, intensely masculine, he exuded a threat that was far from subtle.
    Anya’s stomach muscles tightened. Never had she been so aware of a man before. Never. Nor could she ever remember being so disturbed, so unsure of herself and a situation. She did not like it. With slow emphasis, she answered him, “I will do it myself.”
    “Would you care to explain how?”
    “I have a pistol, and I know how to use it.”
    A faint smile touched Ravel’s lips. She was quite a woman. Most others of her sex that he knew would have stammered and blushed and ran away at the suggestion he had just made, or else fluttered their lashes in a coy pretense of misunderstanding or in blatant invitation. Of course, such women would never have dared attempt to hold him prisoner. Admiration had its limits.
    He said, “I have been shot at before.”
    She lifted a brow as she selected a new means of defense. “Tell me, are your threats an example of the honor that you refuse to have called into question? I was warned that you were not quite a gentleman. I see why.”
    “Since you are not quite a lady,” he drawled, “it hardly matters.”
    “Not a lady? That’s ridiculous!” The taunt had touched a nerve, one made more sensitive by self-doubt.
    “On the contrary. Show me, if you can, an etiquette book or ladies’ journal that covers this situation. What might the heading be: The Proper Way to Interest a Man’?”
    “I don’t want your interest,” she said in waspish tones. “I only want to hold you for a few hours.”
    His voice dulcet, he said, “You may hold me for as long as you please.”
    “That isn’t what I meant!”
    “Isn’t it? With some women it’s necessary to guess what they want. But I remember; you don’t like guessing games. We could cease playing and begin in earnest.”
    She drew herself up, looking down at him with cold hauteur. “It’s plain that the blows on the head have addled your senses. You need rest. I will leave you to it.”
    “You would leave me without food and water? I could do with breakfast.”
    That he was hungry was a good sign. “I will send it,” she said over her shoulder.
    The faint clink of the chain was her only warning. She glanced back to see him easing from the bed. As swift as a doe scenting danger, she leaped away, plunging across the room, hitting the wall near the door with a hard, jarring crash.
    There was no need to go farther. She knew exactly the limits of Ravel’s chain, for a semicircular depression was worn in the