“I can send two of my most promising students to your house party,” she suggested.
His wandering thumb had found the center of her palm now, and he lingered there, asserting just enough delicate pressure to give her a gentle massage. “That won’t do, I’m afraid.”
“Why not?” Belatedly, she pulled her hand from his grasp.
“Because I want you, Miss Lenox,” he said, his smile fading. “No replacements shall be suitable.”
I want you.
Her stomach flipped.
Her response was instant. “No.”
But the Duke of Whitby simply shook his golden head slowly, unperturbed by her refusal. “Don’t give me your answer now, lovely. Think upon it. I’ll return in a day or two for your response.”
He sketched an elegant bow and, without awaiting her reply, took his leave from her office.
She gaped at his retreating form, utterly stunned. The Duke of Whitby was a madman. A beautiful one, but a madman, nonetheless. And whenever he returned to her school of cookery, her answer would remain unchanged.
CHAPTER 2
“Damn it all,” Rhys grumbled to himself as he soaked in his bath.
Ordinarily, the tub was a place of relaxation. If he was submerged in hot water, he was a happy man. He could easily spend an hour or more within, contemplating life with a glass of good French wine. Or fucking.
Tubs weremadefor fucking.
But presently, his wine remained untouched, and the gorgeous woman awaiting him in the adjoining chamber held precious little interest to him. Because he was a man possessed.
Why couldn’t the owner of the bloody Lenox School of Cookery have been a disagreeable, bald old chap with stains on his shirt? Or a crone with a wart-speckled face and a mustache? It would have made Rhys’s life so much easier.
But no.
She had to be exquisite. It was a sin her raven hair had been swept into an unforgiving knot at her nape. A woman as lushly beautiful as Lady Miranda Lenox—or Miss Lenox, as she oddly preferred to be styled—should always wear her long locks cascading down her back. Preferably naked. Naturally, she’d been anything but, demurely covered in her unadornedgray gown, buttoned up to her creamy throat. But Rhys had a discerning eye, and there was no denying the lush, full breasts and curved waist hiding beneath her silk.
The Fallen Countess who’d had an affair with the Marquess of Waring, leading to a scandalous divorce that had been the talk of Town for some time, no longer appeared to be particularly wicked or indecent. Instead, she was hiding herself away in a cookery school, of all places, creating confections that tasted as if they had been ripped from the heavens themselves. And masquerading as a lowly miss.
Mystery surrounded Miranda Lenox, and Rhys couldn’t deny he found it intriguing. But he was also drawn to her. Her skin had been soft and smooth and warm. She smelled of roses and orange blossoms, and he had no doubt that the woman herself was every bit as decadent and delicious as one of her culinary creations.
Now he didn’t just want those blasted coronets of hers. No, he wantedher.
He wanted her naked and beneath him. Moaning and riding him. He wanted her in this tub, bare-breasted, her hard nipples above the water so he could see if they matched her berry-pink lips before he sucked them. He wanted the water sloshing around them as he fucked her.
Rhys groaned and allowed his eyes to close as his head fell back against the rim of the tub, the scene he had been inventing in his mind ever since their morning meeting returning. His cock, already hard, stirred and lengthened beneath the warm water. He grasped himself at the base then stroked firmly, pretending it was her dainty hand on his prick instead of his own.
Speaking of scandalous, he was almost ready to come. He’d scarcely even touched himself, and yet the memory of Miranda Lenox’s fluttering pulse and wide eyes, the heat of her skinburning into him, was enough. His hand moved faster, his hips undulating in mindless thrusts as he imagined her hot pussy gliding down on his cock, tightening and welcoming him deep. As he imagined suckling her breasts and licking those pretty nipples and nibbling on her shoulders, threading his fingers through her long, dark hair and filling her with his spend.
If he breathed deeply enough, he could almost discern her scent. His breaths were faster now, ragged. His need was boiling, an ache deep in his ballocks telling him he was close. But then the scent grew stronger, and it wasn’t his imagination, but it was all wrong. It was roses and ambergris instead of orange blossom, and a throaty chuckle cut through the silence as a feminine hand closed over his beneath the water.
Rhys’s eyes shot open, his head jerking up. The naked woman smiling down at him with sensual promise wasn’t Miranda Lenox. She wasn’t a black-haired beauty, but an ethereal blonde whose long curls had been draped artfully over her full breasts so that only her nipples peeked through.
“Beatrice,” he said, trying to keep the disappointment from his voice.
The scene in his mind was effectively broken, like a fine piece of Sèvres hurled from the top of a staircase to smash below.
“Why are you in this tub alone, handling your big, delicious cock, when I am here to do it for you?” she asked, pouting as she caressed his hand.
The Marchioness of Levenwood had been his lover for the past few weeks. She was insatiable and pretty and bored of her elderly husband. Rhys was also insatiable and pretty and bored of his previous lover. The arrangement had suited them both. But his cock was wilting by the moment, strangely uninterested in the enthusiastic attentions of the woman at his side.
