Heiress in Red Silk, Hunter, Madeline [good beach reads TXT] 📗

aroused her breasts, skimming and flicking over the tips. Each touch sent an arrow of pleasure down her core. His mouth claimed her neck, making her tremble. Exciting sensations cascaded through her, and each one broke a thread of her control.

A new embrace, with one hand lower. Stroking. Probing. She lost hold of her balance and her mind. She leaned against him while torturous, relentless arousal pleasured and pained. Need began pulsing, absorbing all her thoughts and awareness. His touches left her groaning. Begging.

He bent her again. She found herself facedown on a cushion. The sofa’s rolled arm pressed her stomach while her head lolled on its seat. Her hips rose high and her legs dangled.

Vision blurred, mind confused, she looked back over her shoulder. He stood behind her, his shirt gone now, his torso sculpted by the distant firelight. His gaze met hers.

“Like that,” he said. “I want to see your face.”

His words alone sent a sharp pleasure pulsing between her legs. She wanted him desperately. Only he did not take her then. Instead, he stroked her until he made her need excruciating. Her body shook from it. Her bottom rose higher.

She felt him right there, pressing, and cried out for him. He thrust hard and she moaned in relief. It felt so good. Different from the last time too. She clawed at the cushion and gasped for breath while he thrust again and again. Each new fullness brought her closer to a pleasure all encompassing. And then an unearthly, final tremor began.

* * *

“At least you didn’t lie. I am getting my bath.” Rosamund luxuriated in the tepid water while he washed her. “A very thorough one.”

“It is difficult to keep my hands off you. This way they are useful.” And still on her, even while he made good on his promise.

The sight of her half undressed had obliterated all thoughts of Forestier, the documents, even the enterprise. He had lost his mind when she bent to remove that stocking, and her back had dipped and her bottom curved round and high. He had almost grabbed her right then and thrown her over the sofa’s arm. He was not sorry he’d waited, though. The pleasure she had finally experienced only increased his own.

The erotic memory of her watching him, waiting for him, impatient for him, would not be forgotten. So beautiful. So desirable.

She tucked a long, wet lock behind her ear. “The maid will have apoplexy when she sees what a mess you made with washing my hair. You should have let me do that part.”

“I am here to serve, my lady.” He lifted one of her legs and soaped down its length. Shapely. Even her feet were pretty. It was a wonder she had not married by now. That was because of her misplaced devotion to that scoundrel of course. He should probably send her seducer a gift of thanks.

Only that man was no longer available to make her unobtainable, was he?

“I expect that you have had a lot of men like Forestier,” he said. “Men who pursued you.”

She shrugged. “If so, I did not notice most of them. Only the bold ones.”

“You were never tempted to give up on your lover and—”

“I don’t think you understand how it is for my kind. I was working. Long hours. Even if a man was so bold that I noticed his interest, I hardly had the time to indulge in temptation.”

He could be an idiot at times. She was not some lady of leisure who collected flatteries during the fashionable hour in the park. At least not in the past. Now she was, if she wanted to be.

That notion did not sit well with him. She was not just an heiress, but a very beautiful one. He couldn’t keep an eye on her every day, all day. The last weeks had been spared those advances because she was settling in and setting up that shop and planning her grand reunion with that rogue. All of that would change, very soon.

He moved so he was behind her. He began washing her breasts and chest. “When we return to London, I would like this to continue.”

She managed to look back at him. “You don’t mean giving me baths, do you?”

“That too.”

She untwisted herself and rested back. He lathered her breasts and watched the tips tighten.

“I see difficulties with that, don’t you?” she asked.

“Not at all. It will require some discretion, of course.”

“I have no experience in that kind of discretion. Do you?”

“How hard can it be?”

She laughed. “Spoken like Mr. Kevin Radnor. I doubt there are books on how to do it well, though.”

“I’ll ask. Nicholas and Chase will know where the lines have to be drawn.”

She grew thoughtful. He decided that such contemplation would not benefit him. Affairs like this rarely ended well for women, and she was smart enough to see that.

He set about rinsing her body and kissing her neck.

“See here,” she said. “I don’t think of myself that way. As a man’s mistress.”

“Heiresses are not mistresses. They are not kept women. They are lovers, if anything. Or wives.” He angled around so he could kiss her fully. “I asked before. You declined, but I think the biggest reason was your old lover. Perhaps we should reconsider that idea.”

She did not say no right away, but then, he kept her mouth too busy for that. Still, a quick refusal did not come.

“I will want to think about it,” she said. “I also will want a frank discussion of what it means to both of us, and to the enterprise.”

He stood and grabbed a big towel. “Think all you like. Now, up.”

She stood, a Venus rising from the sea, all slick and creamy and more beautiful than she knew. He bundled her in the towel, then lifted her in his arms and carried her into the bedchamber.

* * *

She opened her eyes a slit and looked down her body and her position. She held her bent legs by the