“—apologetic about the upset you experienced yesterday.”
She sighed. He waited for her to explain. Instead she said, “My reputation is very important to me.”
Although it wasn’t said, he understood the implication that it was not a concern they shared. “Your good name is important to me, as well.”
One gray eye opened. “Why?”
“Because it matters to you.”
That lone, assessing eye might have been disconcerting if he hadn’t been determined to be completely honest with her. With a nod, the eye closed again.
“I enjoy the feel of your gaze on me,” she said with surprising candor. “That enjoyment is quite distressing.”
He hid a smile behind the rim of the bottle. She was an honest drunk. “I enjoy looking at you. I always have. I doubt I could change that. You are not alone in this attraction between us.”
“It has no place in either of our lives.”
Stretching out his legs in front of him, Alistair said, “But we are not in our lives now. Nor will we be for the next few months, at least.”
“You and I are very different individuals. Perhaps you think my paralysis that night in the Pennington woods hints at some deeper, more intriguing aspect of my character, but I assure you, nothing of the sort exists. I was confused and mortified; there is nothing of note beyond that.”
“Yet here you are. Traveling alone a great distance. Not by necessity, but by choice. I find that very intriguing. Tarley bequeathed you a source of great income. Why was he so determined to see you not merely taken care of, but exceptionally wealthy? In doing so, he provided you with the means to go in any direction you choose, while also forcing you to conduct business on a large scale. He shielded you with one hand, while pushing you into a new world with the other. I find that intriguing also.”
Jessica drank the last of the wine in her glass and set it on the stool where the bottle had previously been. Sitting up, she wrapped her arms around her bent knees and looked at the door. “I cannot be your mistress.”
“I would never ask you to be.” He draped one arm over the tabletop, his focus narrowed to the wet curl adhering to the pale curve of her back. He was hard as a poker, throbbing and on display due to the tailored fit of his breeches. “I want no arrangement with you. I do not want to be serviced. What I desire is your willingness, your needs, and your demands.”
She turned those big gray eyes on him.
“
I
want to service
you,
Jessica. I want to finish what we began seven years ago.”
Chapter 6
A
listair could see Jessica considering his suggestion.
“I cannot fathom how it is,” she said at length, “that I am having this discussion with you, today of all days.”
“Is that why Tarley settled Calypso on you? Because he wanted to preserve you as his? Because he wished to leave you with no excuse to turn to a man to look after you?”
She turned her head and rested her cheek on her bent knees. “He was too dear a man for such selfishness. He told me to be happy. To love again. To make my own choice this time around. But I am certain he was thinking of marriage, not an affair with a man who dallies about promiscuously.”
Alistair’s hand tightened on his glass, but he wisely held his tongue.
“Men have so much more freedom,” she said on a long-suffering sigh.
“If freedom is what you seek, why marry again?”
“I have no intention of doing so. What purpose would it serve? I do not need the support, and since I am barren, I have nothing to offer men of suitable station.”
“Financial considerations are valid ones, of course. But what of your needs as a woman? Will you deny yourself the pleasure of a man’s touch forever?”
“Some men’s hands give nothing but pain.”
He knew she could not be speaking of Tarley. The rapport between them had been evident to one and all. “Of whom do you speak?”
She moved. Gripping the rim of the tub, she rose from the water like Botticelli’s Venus. Dripping wet and unashamedly bare. Her hands ran over her full breasts, then across her abdomen, her gaze following her own touch. When she lifted her head to look at him, his breath seized in his lungs. It was a siren’s look she gave him. One full of heat and longing and hunger.
“By God,” he said gruffly, aching. “You are beautiful.”
He was in a riot of lust, half mad with the need to spread her beneath him and sate the damned spurring longing that had haunted him far too long.
“You make me feel as if I am.” One slender leg lifted over the edge of the tub. The sinuous invitation in her movements wasn’t lost on him. It seemed drink also roused her passions.
“I can make you feel a great deal more.”
Her nipples were a soft rose hue and luxuriously long. Puckered by the chill of air on wet skin, they begged for the attentions of his mouth and hands. He stroked his tongue deliberately along the curve of his bottom lip, teasing her visually with a physical enactment of the thoughts smoldering in his mind. He could please her to madness. Sex had been one of his trades, and he was damned good at it. If she but gave him the chance, he could ruin her for other men. He was determined to do so.
She did not fail to register his intent or to assess his condition; the color of her blush deepened. Looking at her towel and robe, she seemed to consider whether or not she wanted to retrieve them.
If he could, he would help her with that, if only to restore some semblance of his sanity by covering her. But he couldn’t move. His body was not his own. Every muscle was tense and straining, while his cock hung heavily between his thighs.
“You see how much I want you,” he said hoarsely.
“You have no shame.”
“I would be ashamed if I didn’t desire you. I wouldn’t be a man.”
A faint smile curved her lips as she reached for the folded towel. “Perhaps it was inevitable, then, that I should want you as well. Every other woman is susceptible. It would be curious if I was not.”
His smile came with a host of wicked intentions. “Then the only question remaining is: what will you do about it?”
Jess paused with her fingers curled into the towel. It was madness that she should be standing before Alistair Caulfield without a stitch on. She did not recognize herself or the way she felt—uninhibited, greedy, empty.
What would she
do
about it?
It was a sign of her ignorance that she hadn’t considered
doing
anything at all. However, faced with the choice of taking action or not, she realized she had power. She hadn’t thought of her fascination with Alistair in terms of balance of power at all. She had, in fact, felt quite powerless.
She released the towel and faced him. “If I wanted you to touch me, where would you begin?”
He set the bottle on the table and sat up with what appeared to be some discomfort. She could imagine why, considering the size of the erection so prominently tenting his smalls and breeches. “Come here,” he said in the rich deep voice she was enamored with. “I’ll show you.”
She wavered, her first steps not quite steady. Whether that was from the wine or her own nervousness, she couldn’t say.
He was impossibly handsome. Irresistibly so. He lounged in the insubstantial chair like a sleek panther, all restrained power and suppressed violence. The muscles of his thighs were clearly defined, reminding her of his strength, which had always captivated her. It was all too easy to imagine how his body would work on a woman’s … on
hers
…
A shiver moved through her as she remembered the sight of his strong hands gripping the gazebo post.
“I can warm you,” he murmured, reaching out to her. He heated her simply by looking at her. “I fear you are too much for me.”
“In what way?”
With her eyes on the bulge in his breeches, she answered, “In every way.”
“Allow me to prove you wrong.” He beckoned her with a rather arrogant crook of his finger.
She looked at her glass, wishing it wasn’t empty.
“I have the bottle here,” he reminded. “Bring your glass and I will pour what remains of it.”
She decided to forgo the wine but take everything else on offer. It was a conclusion hastily reached, and she rushed to him before her mind could be altered by sobriety or common sense. Knowing he could make her forget everything but him, she hurried to feel his hands on her and lost her footing on the polished wood sole. Her wet heel slipped, sending her into an ignoble tumble.
He stood so swiftly to catch her, she barely registered his movement. All she knew was one moment the sole was racing up to meet her, and the next she was flattened against Alistair’s large, hard body.
“Fortunate that you left the glass behind,” he teased, but his voice was whisky-rough. His blue eyes were dark as sapphires.
For a moment, Jess was at a loss for what to do. Her mind was too engaged by the feel of his body against hers and the smell of his skin.
He sat and draped her over him. “Damned if you haven’t made me weak in the knees.”
At eye level with him, she was riveted by the fierceness of his gaze. For lack of something wittier, she said, “I’ve made you all wet.”
“It’s my turn to perform a like service for you.”
The licentiousness of his reply made her laugh.
One dark, winged brow rose. “Do that again.”
“Not wise. It could have been painful had you not been so agile.” Thoughts of his agility had a now predictable effect.
“Not the fall,” he said wryly. “The giggle.”
Her chin lifted. “I think not. I do not giggle on command.”
Alistair’s fingers fluttered along her rib cage. Tickled, she writhed and laughed.
He quit as quickly as he’d begun. “No more of that. Any further wriggling on your part will take this farther than I intend while you’re impaired.”
She realized his erection was pressing rather insistently against her thigh. The understanding that she’d been rubbing against that part of his anatomy made the blood rush to her head, which increased her intoxication.
“We are being very naughty,” she pronounced.
“Not nearly naughty enough, but I intend to address that. Hold tight.” He pushed to his feet and crossed to the bed. Setting her down on the edge of the mattress, he urged her to lie back, then sprawled beside her with his head propped in his hand.
The change in position affected her immediately, thickening her blood and slowing her ability to reason. She felt more naked on the bed than she had while standing. Her arms crossed her breasts.
His smile was warm and very amused. He stroked a finger across the back of her forearm, sending tingles racing through her body. “Wouldn’t you rather touch me, than yourself?”
The thought was extremely tempting. “Where?”
“Anywhere you like.”
Exhaling audibly, she lifted one hand to cup his cheek. His skin was whisker-coarse due to the hour. She liked it. A sweet warmth moved through her before she realized what she was doing.
His smile faded, and he grew very tense. Alarmingly so.
She pulled away abruptly. “Clearly I do not know how to conduct an affair properly.”
After a sharply drawn breath, he pulled her hand back to where it had been. “Affairs are meant to be improper.”
“But not romantic,” she argued. “I will endeavor to touch you with only consummation in mind.”
Alistair rolled to his back and laughed. He continued to laugh until she took his former position by lying on her side. His amusement was catching; she stared down at him with a smile.
“You succeeded beautifully,” he said finally, his eyes still crinkled at the corners. “That is singularly the most unromantic utterance I have ever heard.”
Jess felt silly, but accepted for her silliness. It was lovely being encouraged to be herself.
He reached up and cupped her cheek as she’d done to him. The tenderness behind the gesture was a surprise delight.
“Do you like that?” he asked.
“It’s very sweet.”
“I thought so, too, when you did the same to me. Why don’t we agree to do whatever feels natural to each of us?”
Lowering her head, she licked her lips and moved to kiss him. She saw the understanding of what she was about move through his eyes. Once again, he grew very still. Expectant. Watchful. He gave her the lead in the approach, but when their lips connected, he took over. Snaring her nape with his hand, he adjusted the fit of her mouth, his lips opening under hers with barely tempered hunger.
Jess gasped as she fell into him, the lone support of her arm giving way. His lips were firm, but soft; his skill evident, but restrained. Where Tarley’s kisses had been reverent, Alistair’s were laced with sheer carnality. There was a wicked decadence to the way he tasted her. The approving groans, bouts of sudden fervency followed by savoring licks, and the gentle movements of his lips made her mad for a deeper connection.
Canting her head, she tried to take what she wanted. Surprisingly, he allowed her to. His touch at the back of her neck did not restrain her. It kneaded, as if he couldn’t help but touch and was restraining himself to an innocuous part of her anatomy.
As if she would or could protest a roving exploration.
She turned her head to gulp down much needed air. The tender pressure of his fingertips spread outward from that one relatively innocent place, creating the phantom feel of his fingers running down her spine and between her legs. “Alistair …”
His given name slipped from her lips with remarkable, breathless ease. He reacted to it abruptly, rolling until she was once again on her back and he loomed over her. As he took her mouth, his hand ran down the length of her torso, stroking along her waist and coming to rest at her hip. He gripped her hip bone with a clenching of his palm, nowhere near painful but more than enough to relay his fervency. That telltale grasp excited her, made her feel powerfully feminine and seductive.
Her hands lifted to his hair, pushing into the thick tresses, gripping the strands by the root and tugging—a returning message to him that she was feeling equally passionate. The slow, deep thrusts of his tongue into her mouth so perfectly mimicked what she wished would happen between them that she grew slick and hot between her legs, the sensitive flesh of her sex swelling and throbbing.
She arched upward, pressing her aching breasts into the embroidered silk of his waistcoat. His grip on her hip tightened, pinning her down.
“Easy,” he crooned, caressing her as if gentling a skittish mare. “I have you.”
“Not yet,” she breathed, feeling as if her body was no longer her own. “Not enough.”
Alistair’s mouth moved to her jaw, then to her right ear. “Let me take care of you.”
“Please.”
His lips slid along her throat, sucking soft enough to be felt but not enough to mark her. The sweet greediness of his mouth on her skin burned across her nerve endings in delicious torment. Her fingers spasmed in his hair, her toes pointing as he kissed across her collarbone. He made her feel more intoxicated than the wine had, while also heightening her senses. It was the best and worst sort of madness.
“Please what?” he asked, his breath gusting over the pebbled tip of her breast. He watched her as his tongue flicked lightly over her nipple. Dark satisfaction burned in his gaze when she cried out and clung to his shoulders. The velvet of his coat was soft beneath her touch, reminding her that he was completely clothed while she was completely bare.