A Dom for Christmas Read online

  A Regency hero, that’s who.

  Angie decided to knock him off balance. His level-headed calm was annoying her, even though she didn’t know why.

  “I need a pee. I’m not peeing in front of you. Shit, it’ll be bad enough in front of a maid, but at least I can pretend I’m back in my teens, in a disco loo with my mates.”

  It was unfair of her. After all, if she was dreaming of Regency times, shouldn’t she be in character as well?

  “I mean, no thank you, and yes send for my maid if you must. But I’ll have to go before I have my cuppa, or there might be an accident.”

  He still frowned. Couldn’t he at least get rid of the lines across his forehead?

  “You need to rest. You’re confused.”

  I’m not, but you sure are. Okay, I can do this. Remember that book.

  Angie cleared her throat. “My Lord,” she began and stopped. How on earth could she do this and not giggle? She sounded like a particularly large box office flop. B movie material.

  “My Lord, I need to use the chamber pot, and I’d prefer privacy. Then perhaps you could carry me into—” Into where? “—into our private room? If I promise to rest?”

  “I can’t see you’ll be ready for our private room for a while yet,” he said, somewhat cryptically.

  Sheesh. Must he talk in riddles?

  “Our sitting room, maybe.”

  “So what’s the difference?”

  Before he had time to answer, there was a knock at the door and the young girl Angie had woken up to entered, carrying a tray with a teapot and cup on it. Cam smiled at her. The tray wobbled before the maid steadied it. Angie smirked. So it wasn’t just her he had that effect on. Cam either didn’t notice, or affected not to, to spare the young girl’s blushes.

  “Esther, My Lady needs help.”

  He turned to Angie and tipped her chin gently up so she looked at his face. His fingers were warm, his hold firm, and his touch seared her, sending a rush of red-hot heat through her body. Angie wouldn’t have been surprised to see an imprint of those digits on her skin.

  “Call me when you’re ready, and I’ll carry you to the sitting room. As long as you promise not to move.”

  Angie beamed. “And I won’t clype on you to the doctor either, for not following orders.”

  “Clype?”

  “Squeal, grass, tell on you, er, tell the doctor what we did, do…”

  “Ah, no need, for I will.”

  That’s boring. Is he a fuddy duddy? Not in my dream, he isn’t. I want a sex-on-legs, hot, bad, take-me-I’m-yours guy. Mind you, I also want him to be masterful and in charge. It was hard not to giggle. In “real life” she was sure she had that. A picture of this Cam’s doppleganger flashed into her head. Dark hair, black shirt and… Oh my God…Cam. How on earth didn’t I see that? Shoot, what if this is real life? I don’t want a headache, the curse, or to be celibate, either. In my dream I want it every which way we can. It can be my Christmas present. Hold on, do they do presents? I should have read that next book in the series.

  The need to pee became urgent. “Then please, My Lord, exit the room at once.” She waved at the door. “Shoo.”

  His eyes widened and he grinned. “Ah, yes. Call me.”

  Chapter Three

  Cam paced the corridor. Three days had passed since his wife had dismissed him into this very same place. Three days during which, to her annoyance, he’d made her rest. Now, though, it was time for answers. He wasn’t sure Dr. Taylor could help, but he needed to know. Could a knock on the head create such a change in a person? His wife had been a natural submissive. This Angelina seemed altogether more feisty and ready to challenge him at every turn, whereas beforehand his wife would only challenge him when she deemed it really necessary. The thought of what that attitude could add to their enjoyment when they made love brought his cock to high alert, about to edge over the waistband of his pantaloons, ready and eager for action. It was so hard that one strike with a ruler, such as his tutor did when he caught him masturbating as a schoolboy, would snap it in half. At least, Cam ruminated as he waited to be recalled, he could give lie to the old wives tale that playing with your pego shriveled it and you would go blind. He had excellent vision. Turning the corner into the square, looking across to your house, a hundred yards away, and seeing your wife being carried into the house was not a sight anyone would relish.

  Now, however, he waited with patience. Almost.

  Esther exited his wife’s bedchamber and curtsied. “My Lady is ready for you, My Lord.”

  He didn’t think the maid meant ready as in ready in their preferred position to play, or waiting for his cock inside her, more was the pity.

  Angelina was sitting up against the pillows once more, her hair a halo of honey-colored curls around her heart-shaped face. Her eyes were no longer cloudy with pain, and she seemed bright and alert. She scowled at him and waved her cup in the air. “This isn’t tea. It’s another dose of cat’s pee. What on earth did you put in it?”

  Cam removed the cup from her grasp. He hadn’t missed the sudden glint in her eyes, or the way her fingers tightened around the handle of the cup. Full or not, he didn’t want it flung at him, even if, he reasoned, she might not throw straight. In his opinion, most women didn’t. His mind flashed back to when she’d asked if she could try out his flogger. She hit the back of the settle and the wooden spanking bench, but not his outstretched hand. Of course she’d said that was on purpose, but spoiled her assertion by giggling.

  Cam had then shown her once more, just how painfully pleasurable a well-directed flick of the flogger could be. “I suspect Mrs. Nicholls added a little something of her own making to give you a boost,” he said. Angelina looked at him blankly. Demm, I forgot she appears to have no memory. “Our housekeeper. She is an herbalist. Ever since I was a young boy in short coats, she’s ministered to all my aches and pains. Mrs. N. has been with the family for as long as I remember.”

  “You’re lucky you can remember,” Angelina replied. “I can’t.” She shuffled under the covers. “This nightgown has sneaked into all the places I don’t want it. Ahh, that’s better.” She wriggled her shoulders. “I’m as stiff as a poker.”

  So was he, but not in the same way.

  “I will apply some salve later,” Cam said. His salve was multi-purposed. “Do you feel well enough to tell me what you remember? Both of the attack, and anything else?”

  “I thought you’d never ask.” Angelina coughed, somewhat theatrically, Cam thought. “Perhaps a drink?” she queried.

  “One small glass of wine,” Cam said. “Or the good doctor will have me strung up.” He poured a tiny amount of madeira into a goblet and handed it to her.

  She sniffed it suspiciously and then sipped. “Hmm, somewhat sweet, but better than c…” She looked straight at him and colored. “Than nothing,” she finished. “Thank you.”

  He dipped his head. “You’re welcome. So?”

  “So, I’m all at sea here. I don’t really remember anything before I opened my eyes to hear you bullying me. Well…” She worried her lip. “I don’t think I do. Maybe you should start? How we met, who I am.”

  “You’re my wife.” Hadn’t he said so earlier?

  “So you say, but who am I.” Frustration showed in every word. “What’s my name, my birth name, not Lady so-and-so or whatever. Where do we live, what do I do? For that matter, what do you do? Hell, I knew I shouldn’t have dogged off my history lessons to snog Donny Jepp behind the bike sheds.”

  She made very little sense, and Cam suspected it wasn’t the time to question her too closely. Instead he needed to answer her questions and allay as many of her fears as possible. He dragged a button-back chair next to the bed and sat down in it, conscious of the way the material of his pantaloons lovingly followed every contour of his body. He shouldn’t be aware of that fact. After all, they should fit properly; his tailor was second to none. Cam was considered to be a nonesuch in the manner of his dress. Pin
kney, the tailor in question, often remarked, His Lordship, the Earl of Camberley’s patronage, had been the tailor’s making.

  Angelina glanced at his cock, which once more strained the material, and then looked away quickly. He couldn’t blame her. This was no time for rampant arousal.

  “We met at a ball given by an admirer of yours. One who I believe was pursuing you closely,” Cam said. “I rescued you from his unwanted advances, and began to court you formally. I’d been abroad for several years and not au fait with who was part of the ton. I appraised you of my personal preferences, and you decided they would be to your liking.”

  “Eh?” She sounded and looked confused, as well she might.

  “Dominance. I as your master, you as my subservient. We mesh. More of that later. You agreed to be my wife, and we married in the chapel of my country estate. There is no doubt I put Rawcliffe’s nose out of joint, and I believe he was muttering retribution in the clubs.”

  “Do you think it was him who attacked me, then?” Angelina leaned forward and tapped his shoulder. It seemed she was ignoring his other information, however; it didn’t seem to have fazed her. “Can we find out?”

  “I’m trying,” Cam said simply. “If we discover he’s in the capital, then that is one step forward. However, no one seems to know of his direction, not even his parents.”

  “Roddy and Serena wouldn’t tell you anyway. They’re loyal to a fault,” Angelina said absently and then blinked. “Stuart Rawcliffe. The worm.” She threw one of the pillows from beside her across the floor. It hit the floor in the middle of the expanse between the wall and the bed. She blinked. “Damn, I wanted that to hit the wall.”

  As Cam suspected, her aim was lousy.

  “Oh, the snake.” Angelina was still talking about Rawcliffe. “But he’s not aristocracy, not really.”

  “You remember him?” Cam cupped her face with his hands and pressed his lips softly to hers. She didn’t resist and increased their closeness with pressure of her own. If he hadn’t been aware that not seventy-two hours ago he didn’t know if she’d ever waken, he’d have gone one step further and deepened the kiss. Instead he let her set the pace for a few seconds and then drew back, so gradually he guessed she would think it was of her volition, not his.

  “I think what I remember is enough to worry even the most open-minded of men, and send me straight to Bethlem Hospital if I’m not careful,” Angelina said and shuddered. “So, I’m going to plead the fifth, or whatever you say.”

  “The fifth what? Commandment? Honor thy father and mother? Stuart Rawcliffe certainly doesn’t uphold that one.” He really would have to speak to the doctor about these ramblings she had.

  “Nor the ‘thy shall not kill’ that some people use as number five.” Angelina shook her head and her hair danced around her like it had a mind of its own. This time she didn’t wince at the action. Maybe she was improving as she insisted.

  Cam noticed that untied and unpinned, the honey-hued strands curled gently around her ears. Such a strange length. He ached to run his fingers through it, to twist those curls around his digits and use the hold to pull her close and… He pulled back out of his promising, erotic thoughts, and concentrated on what she was saying.

  “No, it’s an American thing.”

  Now he had no idea what she was talking about. The Americans were a law unto themselves. However, he nodded. “Continue with what you do know.”

  “Didn’t you get what I mean?” she asked.

  He raised one eyebrow. Who could?

  “Oh, never mind. Let’s just say I can’t tell you all I know until you promise not to have me committed.”

  “My dear, why on earth would I do that?” Had she forgotten all the safe and secure houses he owned? “If I thought your faculties were, shall we say impaired, I would send you posthaste to one of my country properties where you could be watched and looked after. So, tell me now, what do you know.”

  ****

  Damn him, does he have to be so authoritative? How do I say what I know, or not? Why the hell do I want to agree to everything he says? More to the point, why am I tingling and tense? Shit, one finger on my clit and I’d come like a volcano erupting. Argh, if I was a dog, I’d roll over and say tickle my tummy—or not my tummy. Ew, no, not a dog. Oh for fuck’s sake, give over now. But blimey, that look of his could sell snow to the Arctic, let alone make me agree to any bloody thing.

  Cam cleared his throat, and Angie realized she’d been lost in her own erotic thoughts.

  “Angelina, unless you want me to make a list of your misdemeanors and chastise you in a way we both like, at a later date, I suggest you tell me what you remember, what you think you remember, and what you know for fact. Be it Rawcliffe or someone else, we need to know why you were attacked, and make sure it is not repeated.”

  Put like that, she could see the sense in what he said. She didn’t want another bang on the head. But how do you explain you had a row with an ex-boyfriend over a battered tree ornament? Especially when they didn’t exist in the time you seem to have landed in? That said ex pushed you, and you ended up waking up almost two hundred years earlier? You’d get committed for that in the present day, let alone in Regency times. Once Cam had uttered Stuart’s name, things became much clearer.

  “I remember someone coming up to me on the doorstep,” she said slowly. She did remember that. “And asking for something. My angel, I think. I wasn’t giving it to him, so he shook me and threw me down. Then I woke up properly with you bullying me. Come to think of it, you still are.”

  “If you think this is bullying, you had better rethink,” Cam advised her in a dry tone. “This is me at my most patient.”

  Heaven help her, then. She ran her tongue over her dry lips. Cam watched every move and swallowed heavily.

  “That my dear, inviting as it may be, will not work. Continue.”

  “I don’t remember anything of our life together here before then.” That was true. Could she say what she remembered of their life together two centuries later? Because once you looked past the Regency clothing, there was no doubt the Earl of Camberley was Campbell McAllister, her present-day husband.

  Argh and shit, this is one fucked up dream.

  “Then I’ll have to teach you.” Cam pulled back the bedcovers and lifted her into his arms. “First I’ll do as I promised and take you into our sitting room.”

  She yelped as the room spun round and he walked across to a door she’d not noticed before.

  “Push it open, please.” His voice was level and he wasn’t at all out of breath. This close to him, Angie realized she was the one who couldn’t breathe properly. Damn if he didn’t make her want to jump his bones, and sod the headache.

  By the time he put her oh so carefully on the long daybed, she had goose bumps and damp thighs all over again. How on earth she hadn’t nuzzled into him and given him a hickey, she had no idea. Love bites were a big no-no in her usual mind, but the thought of sucking, tasting and marking his flesh, made her juices gather even more. Did a bump on the head alter your rationale?

  “Do you want a blanket for your legs?”

  “Er, no thank you. I’m not in my dotage. In fact, I don’t see why I can’t get dressed.” Did she even have clothes to wear, other than this voluminous nightgown? Surely if she was young and newly married, her nightwear would be somewhat more alluring?

  Her husband—she’d have to get used to this Cam who wasn’t really her Cam—shook his head. “Tomorrow, if the doctor decrees it. I have already disregarded some of his wishes. He was insistent you should remember everything yourself. However, as I have no idea why you were attacked, I think a helping hand, or memory nudge, might be appropriate.”

  Angie more than agreed. She might not remember life with him, pre-waking up, if she’d even had any, but she did feel almost her old self again. Unfortunately, it seemed it wasn’t her old self. It was this new one. Or, she thought semi-hysterically, perhaps this was her old self. Lord, this
is so confusing. It was no wonder her head hurt. Two Angies, two lives, and one Cam? She bit back the urge to laugh hysterically. After all, how could you say to a complete stranger that you could tell them anything they needed about the twenty-first century, but all you knew of the time they seemed to be in was from high school history and Regency romance novels. Raunchy ones, at that.

  “Seems good to me. If I think it’s going to make me swoon or have hysterics or something, I’ll let you know.”

  “Good.” He kissed her nose. “I think you’d be more comfortable like this.” Cam lifted her slightly, so he could sit on the end of the bed and hold her in his arms. The gesture was so recognizable as one her own Cam did, that Angie gave in to temptation and twisted so she could tug the bottom of his shirt out of his pantaloons and run her fingers over his hair-roughened chest. She reached his nipples, stroking each tiny nub until they hardened. Cam gave a sharp intake of breath and stopped her movements.

  “Minx. That is unfair. If I reciprocated, Doctor Taylor would have my head on a platter. Not that long ago, we wondered if you would ever wake up. Stop teasing, and listen, or I’ll take you back to bed and leave you alone.”

  Reluctantly, Angie let Cam move her hand off his chest and out from under the fine linen of his shirt. She couldn’t help but notice how his pantaloons outlined his cock, which pushed hard at the knit material. It gave her a warm feeling to know he was affected by her presence as she was his. Even if he wasn’t going to let her play, or play with her, evidently it wasn’t due to disinterest.

  “Do we live in London all of the time?” Angie asked him. “Or do we spend time in the country?” She twisted to look up at him; something dug in her side, and she glanced downward. If it was his cock that nudged her, it must be one of the seven wonders of the world and be large enough to… She blanked out the images that hit her. And fumbled between them. Her fingers touched something hard, but nowhere near the size and shape of the cock outlined under his clothes.

  “How did this get here?” Angie lifted up the angel ornament and fluffed out her skirts.