She didn’t hesitate, settling her hand in his, the softness of her bare skin making his pulse pound harder. “Where are you taking me?”
He pulled her swiftly to her feet. “To bed. We’ve made use of a door and a desk thus far. I think it’s more than time we tried something more comfortable.”
He drew her hand into the crook of his elbow.
“I won’t be your mistress, if that is what you’re thinking,” she cautioned as he led her from the room and up the stairs. “You’ll soon be a married man, and I do not abet husbands who are unfaithful to their wives.”
“I didn’t ask you to be my mistress, did I?” he asked mildly. “Besides, I’m not presently a married man, and I have no one to whom I owe faithfulness.”
Except you, he might have said, but he kept that to himself.
Lottie was to be handled with kid gloves. Her instinctive reaction was to flee in the face of the slightest hint of matrimony. His intentions regarding her had never changed, not from that first meeting in the emerald salon when he’d bumbled through a regretful proposal. But she didn’t need to know that.
Yet.
“I suppose you haven’t,” she allowed. “However, it’s not an unreasonable expectation. We are lovers, after all.”
And he intended for them to be more than that. Much, much more than that.
“A lover is not a mistress,” he pointed out.
“Fair enough.” Lottie inclined her head, but the stubborn set of her lips suggested she didn’t entirely believe him. “Just so you know, it will never happen. I’m not a kept woman.”
“Nor do I expect you to be one. You are a force unto yourself.”
They reached the bedroom, and he stopped, gesturing for her to precede him into the chamber. Lottie released her hold on his arm, crossing the threshold, her golden silk skirts shimmering in the low gas lamps. He couldn’t help but to admire the way the light shone in her cinnamon hair, the curls that were artfully arranged to fall down her nape. He longed to brush them aside and press his lips there, to know the satiny heat of her skin.
To savor her, to take his time and learn every inch of her body.
And he intended to do that.
All.
Night.
Long.
He followed her inside the bedroom, which was his alone. Even when he had granted Sidmouth and Lady Southwick the use of the house, he had made certain to keep his private space precisely that. The door closed behind him with a soft snick, and the blood rushed to his cock.
This woman was his. She didn’t know it yet, but he fully intended to make it so.
She turned to him, a small smile flirting with the corners of her rose-pink mouth. “A force. A goddess. What else am I to be this evening?”
“Whatever you wish to be, darling.”
She moved toward him, her silk gown playing with the light like liquid gold, and he thought he had one more to add to the list: naiad.
“The woman who brings the greatest lover in London to his knees, I think,” she told him with sultry intent, sliding her hands up his waistcoat until they locked around his neck.
“You won’t even have to try, Venus.” He dipped his head and claimed her mouth.
She opened instantly, her kiss eager and hot, her tongue gliding past his lips to tease. She tasted likeChateau Margauxand sin and decadent desire, and despite the delicacies his chef had offered up that evening, nothing had ever been so delicious. He had intended to take his time, but she was kissing him ravenously, making soft sounds of need, crushing her breasts into his chest.
His fingers found buttons and hooks. Fabric parted and spilled and fell, giving way to glorious feminine flesh. To hot skin, curves, and the sweet scent of roses and violets. He found hooks and eyes and pulled them free, her satin-and-lace corset falling with a dull thump at their feet. He had her half undressed without his mouth ever leaving hers, and she did the same for him, working his coat from his shoulders, tugging away his necktie, tearing open his waistcoat.
Her nimble fingers danced over the fall of his trousers, and that was when he finally moved, denying her what she wanted, lest she make him spill in his trousers like a callow lad touching his first woman. He ended the kiss to find her lips lush and swollen, her blue eyes glittering up at him like twin storm-tossed seas.
“I want to suck your cock,” she told him.
