1939912059 (R) (32 page)

It was all too symbolic. Little did the bastard know he was about to become that chair.

Unraveling his lace cravat, he tossed that onto the toppled chair as well, while also removing his waistcoat. He yanked off his linen shirt, revealing a surprisingly well-defined muscled chest whose bulk shifted.

She lowered her chin, trying not to admit the enemy was well-equipped.

He flexed his chest muscles. “I thought I would give you something to admire.”

Every man was a rooster looking for a hen to…how did Sade say it?
Fuck
.

Little did these roosters know she was no hen.

He strode toward her. “You had better move.”

She planned on it. Gathering her skirts, she bustled her way up the stairs, moving as fast as she could without ripping her gown.

“Faster,” he tauntingly called up after her.

She now sprinted down the corridor, toward her bedchamber whose door was already open. She paused long enough for him to see her enter into it.

Scrambling around her four-poster bed, she skidded over to the side table with the silver tray strategically set with a glass of cognac and a single slumber cake. She kissed Gérard’s ring to give herself strength, then angled herself toward the tray in rehearsed measure, her fingers daintily set against her own lips.

Sade, if you betray me in this, I will cleave every limb off your torso.

She eyed the open door of her bedchamber, waiting.

Robespierre draped a long, muscled arm against the frame of the doorway.

On cue, she let her hand fall away from her lips and pretended to chew on cake, tapping a prim hand to her chest as if she were attempting to swallow.

He pushed away from the doorway. Slamming the door behind him, he rounded the bed and sidled up to her. He grabbed the back of her neck, his hands tracing her body.

In between half-breaths, she relented to that aggressive touch, knowing any form of resistance would work against her plan.

Robespierre leaned in and sucked on the side of her throat extra hard, startling her.

She plucked up the glass of cognac and jerked toward him, breaking his advance with an elbow. Taking several long sips of cognac, she met his gaze over the rim of the glass, mentally playing the come-hither game of trust. After all, if he saw her drinking and eating, he wouldn’t suspect a breath of what was about to happen next.

He swiped the cognac from her hand and tossed it back, setting down the glass with a chink on the tray. He grabbed her face and tongued her, sucking her tongue deep into his own mouth.

She struggled not to gag, permitting him to do it, and eventually broke away.

He leaned past her, grabbed up the small cake and pushed the whole thing into his mouth. He chewed. “Try to enjoy this, will you?”

She staggered in relief knowing he had shoved the entire slumber cake into his own mouth without her having to do it for him. She only prayed it worked.

Eight minutes.

He chewed, watching her. Kicking off his buckled shoes, he unbuttoned his breeches and shoved them down along with his undergarments and silk stockings. He fell onto the bed naked, rolling onto his back. Setting both hands behind his head, he said in between chews, “Undress, find a sheath and straddle me.”

These men seriously needed to learn more about bedside manners. Rape aside, did fathers not teach their sons the basics? “I will undress and straddle you in due time,” she offered. “We have all night.”

Seven minutes.

The moment this was over, she was getting into her carriage and strangling Sade
and
Gérard with more than her hands.

Robespierre veered a wagging finger toward her clothing.

Unbelievable. Removing her pearls, which Gérard had given her, she tucked them into the drawer of the side table to keep them from seeing what was about to happen.

Turning back, she slipped off her shoes with unhurried ease and shifted her hips from side to side in an effort to give him something to look at. Slowly, slowly, slowly she undid the hooks on her gown so he could watch.

One by one by one by one.

Six minutes. She was putting her faith in Sade now. Which was a very scary thought.

Robespierre swallowed what remained of the cake and shifted his muscled, naked body toward her to watch, propping his dark head on his hand. “A little faster.”

This was about to get challenging. “Of course.”

Quickly finishing with all the hooks and pins, she edged open her bodice to reveal her corset beneath. Holding his gaze, she presented one shoulder and slipped the sleeve entirely off. She then presented the other shoulder and slipped that sleeve entirely off.

Stripping while some mass murderer watched was actually relatively easy to do. Undressing and dressing at the theatre with as many as three dozen people always watching, depending how many people were in the room tending to her wardrobe, she had long set aside the notion that her body was her own. It belonged to the people.

She edged the gown down past her hips and shimmied out of it.

Robespierre gathered all the pillows from behind himself, his movements growing uneven. He blinked rapidly and set the two pillows behind his head with trembling hands, staggering to set himself against them. “Damn but that cognac was strong.” He puffed out several more breaths, blinking against its effects while looking more and more flushed.

Miffed though she was with Sade, it appeared his slumber cake was, in fact, legitimate. It had only been three minutes and the leader of France was already waddling like a duck without its head.

Robespierre spit into his hand twice and drunkenly attempted to hold up his rigid cock. He masturbated himself with a wad of his own saliva, puffing out breaths. “Do you have a sheath?”

The man sought to rape her using a sheath he didn’t even bother to bring or buy. How typical of a man. “No. I never use them,” she said in the hopes of scaring him. “Men complain about its effectiveness, so why bother?”

He paused. “Are you…clean?”

Oh, this was too good to be true. Of course the man would worry about his level of exposure to disease given he thought she was a whore. What was wretched but not too wretched lest it not be believable? “Unfortunately, I have been unable to rid myself of…
papillion d’amour
.” Pubic lice. “Is that a problem?”

He hissed out a breath. “Yes, it is a problem. Damn you for—” He stared at her corset, masturbating himself again. “Undress. I will finish while watching you.”

This she could manage.

She sat on the edge of the bed and lifting one leg onto it, gave him the illusion he was in complete control. Swallowing hard, she purposefully exposed her breasts knowing the sooner he spent, the sooner she was out of any danger.

Robespierre stared at her well-displayed breasts, now masturbating to the point of choking. He jerked his rigid cock, his chest heaving.

What was so disgusting about men was that most were so focused on their cocks, they didn’t even notice when a woman was or was not participating.

Setting her chin, she undid the pink bow of her satin garter above the knee of her silk stocking and with the flick of her wrist, tossed the garter at him, letting it land near the cock his hand kept frantically masturbating.

Staring at her now exposed leg and thigh, he jerked faster and faster, his body trembling.

Four minutes.

Regally setting her other leg up onto the bed, she purposefully hitched up her chemise almost to her buttocks. She skimmed the tips of her fingers toward her inner thighs, letting him watch. She dipped her fingers closer and closer to her—

He gasped. Seed spurted as his hips thrust upward.

She cringed and almost scrambled off the bed.

His hand, which had been stroking his rigid cock, slowly released its hold. In between well-sated breaths, he continued to stare at her hand between her thighs as if that had been his undoing. His eyes rapidly blinked and grew heavy.

Three minutes.

His hand dropped limply to his side and his stiff cock deflated and flopped over on its side, his seed slathered against his open hand. He stared at her vacantly, his breaths becoming soft. He eventually closed his eyes.

She swallowed, knowing the effects of the slumber cake were taking their last hold. She tucked away each exposed breast back into her corset, trying to remain calm. She kept telling herself to breathe. To breathe. She had survived.

His eyes remained closed. A tremor of a twitch overtook his limbs.

Two minutes.

In the pulsing silence, she waited, her eyes and her throat burning at the sight of having to look at this bastard as he lay naked. A part of her had always known their association would end in her playing the part of a whore to keep Gérard safe. Unlike any role on stage, however, this part had become all too real.

The last remaining minute seemed to take forever.

She glanced at the clock and called out in a choked tone, “
Robespierre
?”

He didn’t move and his lids no longer fluttered. His limbs remained still.

“Are you awake?” she rasped.

He slept.

She stared at him in complete disgust and loathing, wishing he were dead.

Rolling down her ungartered stocking with trembling hands, she pushed it off her ankle and toes. Dragging in uneven breaths, she gritted her teeth and snapped out the stocking toward his shaven face as hard as she could.

He didn’t move or flinch. He was officially unconscious.

She let out a sob in disbelief, allowing herself to be Thérèse as opposed to
Nina
.

Raising her quaking arm, she whiplashed the silk stocking down at his face and chest again and again and again, trying to let out her anger, her hate, her despair, and the horror of knowing what she had to resort to in order to protect Gérard’s life.

She wrapped the stocking taut between both hands and was about to wrap it around Robespierre’s neck so she could choke him until he was dead, but froze.

His death would result in her own.

Her arm fell to her side. The stocking slipped from her fingers.

Leaning closer toward Robespierre over the side of the bed, she hatefully choked out, “You will not win this game. I will. And I will do it without risking my life and that of my son’s.”

He didn’t move.

Numbly pushing herself away from the bed, she sobbed and kicked away her silk gown that was still on the floor. There was no such thing as real liberty for a woman. It did not exist even in the most hailed of democratic societies. And this was proof of it. She had an unconscious, naked man she hated laying in her bed, because telling a man of power ‘no’ was no different than a death sentence.

Long live the revolution. May she continue to justify robbing men of their vile, sexual glory from here on out. She would feed every last one of these bastards cake.

A shaky breath escaped her.

She would get Gérard out of Paris and to the border well before those three days expired and she would do it using any means possible. She had forgiven him for breaking the first rule she set of not wanting children. But
this
she would never forgive. He had officially broken her second rule of their agreement: that he would never lie.

“Thérèse!” Sprinting booted feet thudded closer. “
Thérèse!”

Her eyes widened, her heart pounding in disbelief. Gérard.

She scrambled toward the bedchamber door.

The haze of brandy had long worn off given how quickly Gérard had left the one-room, roach-infested flat he was hiding in with the Laroche’s family. Sade’s urgency, sending him to Thérèse’s
château
, insisting she was in danger, had sent him into a panic that barely got him into clothes.

The darkness of the night whispered of things Gérard dared not think about as he charged into Thérèse’s
château
through the verandah door he knew the servants left open.

Stalking through the empty corridor, and listening for any sounds, he headed through the overly quiet house. Gérard jerked to a halt outside the ornate parlor, his gaze snapping to the middle of the room. His pulse roared at the astounded realization that a man’s periwig and Thérèse’s blade, which was usually attached to her thigh, were on the card table. A knocked over chair by the card table had been piled with a male coat, cravat, waistcoat and linen shirt.

He couldn’t breathe.
Thérèse!

Setting a trembling hand on the handle of the pistol attached to his leather belt, Gérard swung toward the stairwell and sprinted, his heart pounding. Taking the stairs three at a time, he came onto the landing and thudded straight for her bedchamber door. The same bedchamber where he and she had spent their last breathing hour in each other’s arms.

He prayed that the mass of male clothing he saw did not mean she was being—

“
Thérèse!” he yelled, thudding faster and faster toward her door. “
Thérèse!”

To his astonishment, the door swung wide open, and Thérèse darted out into him.

She screeched as he grabbed her by the arms hard, his heart pounding.