He released his softening shaft and gently drew her hand above water, bringing it to his lips for a kiss. “I was washing,” helied. “Why don’t you wait for me? I’ll be finished with my bath soon.”
What he truly meant was that he would be finished taking himself in hand to thoughts of the sharp-tongued beauty he had clashed with earlier that day. The notion of bedding Beatrice when all he wanted was Miranda left him feeling cold. He couldn’t do it.
And that was a problem in itself. When had the Duke of Whitby ever turned down a beautiful woman who wanted him? Never.
“Let me bathe you,” Beatrice invited, undeterred as she dangled her bountiful bubbies in his face.
Rhys adored breasts. The bigger, the better. He loved women with rounded rumps and curved waists and soft bellies. He could write odes to sweetly seductive feminine forms. Beatrice would put any Venus to shame. And yet, as he stared at the creamy flesh offered to him, he felt…
Nothing.
Not even a stirring of desire.
His raging cockstand had gone utterly soft.
“Perhaps another evening, my dear,” he denied smoothly. “The day has been a long one.”
But Beatrice was determined.
She licked her lips. “Do you want my mouth?”
He thoroughly enjoyed a woman sucking his cock. And yet, again, his stubborn prick refused to so much as twitch. This was damned out of the ordinary.
“Not tonight, sweeting.”
She plumped up her breasts, cupping them in her hands, and shook her head so that her hair fell enticingly down her back, baring herself to him entirely. “Do you want to fuck my bubbies?”
He glanced at her ripe breasts, pressed together just as he liked. But all he could think about was the enigmatic former countess in her tepid gown, those dainty hands capable of crafting such divine delights. That pretty pink mouth firmed into a disapproving line. What he wouldn’t give to kiss the condemnation from her lips.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t Miranda Lenox offering herself to him just now, however. It was Beatrice, awaiting his response, her sultry gaze assured that his answer would be yes.
“I’m afraid that I’m quite tiresome and poor company tonight. As tempting as your offer is, all I want is a bath and some sleep,” he told her gently, the same feeling of finality settling in his chest that he inevitably reached when he had tired of his lover of the moment.
As beautiful as Beatrice was, as enjoyable as he found her company, and as talented as she was in the bedchamber, she had become a shadow in the face of a blazing, burning sun.
She frowned, her expression stunned. “You don’t want to bed me?”
He couldn’t blame her. Their time together had been enthusiastically passionate. But he did not keep two lovers at the same time. Rhys was a rake, but he did have compunction, and whilst he was with one woman, he was loyal to her.
“It isn’t that,” he reassured her gently. “Of course I want to bed you. You’re unutterably lovely.”
Her eyes narrowed. “It’s someone else, isn’t it? Who is she?”
He wasn’t going to answer those questions. A pang of guilt sliced through him. It wasn’t his intention to hurt Beatrice’s feelings. But every association ran its course. This one was done. He felt it in his bones.
“Tomorrow, pay a call to Edwards & Co.,” he told her softly. “I’ll inform them in the morning that you will be visiting their establishment. Choose whatever piece of jewelry pleases you.”
Understanding dawned on her face, joining the shock. Beatrice had always been calm. He had enjoyed that quality in her; not all his lovers had been so composed. He bore a scar on his collarbone from where an opera singer had hurled a glass at him in a fit of rage.
“That is it, then?” Beatrice demanded, her voice vibrating with outrage. “Why did you not tell me so when I arrived? I could have spared myself some humiliation.”
“Because I didn’t know when you arrived,” he answered honestly. “But I do now.”
“Bastard,” she hissed. “I should have known better.”
With that parting verbal parry, Beatrice spun about and flounced from the chamber in his St John’s Wood house. The door slammed in her wake.
Rhys waited a few moments for the cloud of Beatrice’s scent to disperse before allowing his head to fall against the lip of the tub again. With a heavy sigh, he closed his eyes and saw emerald eyes fringed with long, sooty lashes, a mouth he couldn’t wait to possess, and the promise of full, heavy breasts hidden beneath her modest bodice.
