Griffin withdrew his hand but only reluctantly. He would have liked to drag his thumb across her lower lip. He turned fully to face her and punched the pillow under his head to find the most comfortable incline. Once he’d settled back and his eyes could rest on her again, he found himself moved by the sorrow of her expression. “What is it, Olivia?”
Afraid she might weep, she sucked in her bottom lip and shook her head.
“Will you tell me nothing?”
This time when she shook her head, she was able to offer a brief, watery smile.
“Poor Olivia,” he said gently. “It has all been rather too much, has it not? Or perhaps in some manner, not nearly enough.”
Confused now, the space between her eyebrows bore twin creases. He posed a riddle she could not hope to answer. “I don’t know what you mean.”
That did not astonish. “You gave a great deal and received nothing in return.”
Olivia recalled the sweet, swift pleasure that had slipped under her skin and made every part of her tingle. Just thinking about the sensation brought it flooding back. “Hardly nothing,” she whispered. Her eyes darted away from his as she pressed her legs together. She could still feel him there, inside her. Involuntarily, she contracted as though to hold him, and her eyes closed briefly as an echo of pleasure shivered through her.
Watching her, Griffin felt a powerful surge of lust. He pressed his hands into fists to keep from pulling her to him. He did not trust himself to take her with the regard she deserved, not when his blood was hot and his cock was once again at a full stand. What he wanted was her and his own satisfaction. They were irrevocably joined in his mind, one with the other. Neither alone.
“You should sleep,” he said when he could trust his voice.
Olivia nodded, but when Griffin turned over, giving her his back, she simply stared at him. She had been so certain he wouldn’t leave her alone, and yet that seemed to be precisely his intent. What purpose, then, was served by remaining in his bed?
She had only begun to ease herself out from under the covers when his rough, rumbling voice came to her.
“Don’t do it.”
Olivia fell asleep entertaining the rather odd notion that Griffin Wright-Jones possessed eyes at the back of his head.
Griffin tossed a few coins onto the street and watched the children scatter before he drew back from the window. It was a cold morning, with a brisk wind, and he’d already let too much it into the room. When he glanced at the bed only the ginger crown of Olivia’s head was visible outside the covers.
He snapped open the paper young Fitz had thrown up to him. The boy had a good arm, and given a chance at a proper education would make a fine bowler. Fitz, though, like all of his friends, was unlikely to ever walk the cobbled paths at Hambrick Hall, Eton, or Harrow. The one time Griffin had suggested such a thing to the boy’s whore-mother, she’d accused him of being a pederast. Apparently she could not fathom his interest in her child as being other than the most perverse.
It had been his last attempt at social reform.
He sat at the table, opened theGazette,and lowered it just enough that from time to time he could observe the shifting lump in his bed that was Olivia Cole. It was considerably fortunate that she was not in need of social reform. He’d already proven by making her his mistress that he hadn’t the least notion of how to go about it.
He began to read, starting with the news out of the parliament, then to the murder du jour, a particularly nasty piece of work perpetrated against two prostitutes in a Holborn hovel. He turned to the editorial page before his appetite was completely disrupted. Folding the paper in quarters, he laid it down beside his plate and uncovered a platter of toast and bacon. He helped himself to both, poured some coffee, then set a soft-cooked egg in a cup and gave it a satisfying thwack with the bowl of his spoon.
He peeled back the shell and dipped a finger of toast in the warm, viscous yolk. “Was it the smell of the bacon or the coffee that roused you to wakefulness?”
Olivia peered at him over the top of the blankets. “It was the crushing blow you delivered to that egg.”
Griffin tapped his left ear with his fingertip as he bit off one end of the toast. He chewed with obvious relish, swallowed, and then spoke. “I can’t hear you if you don’t speak up.”
Olivia poked her chin above the covers. She didn’t repeat herself because she didn’t believe for a moment that he hadn’t heard her. Her eyes fell greedily on the spread before him and her stomach actually growled. She caught his grin because he made no effort to suppress it. “You heard that easily enough,” she said.
He shrugged. “I am more attuned to some sounds than others. Would you like something? You will notice that there is a place set for you.”
So there was. She had only seen the food. “I need a moment.”
“Have as many as you like.”
“No, I mean, mmm, I need…a moment.” She glanced significantly toward his dressing room. “You’ve been awake longer than I have.” Indeed, he looked rested and very much in his element. Although he still wore his nightshirt, he’d covered it with a loosely belted silk robe, the silver-blue color of a frozen lake. He’d had time to shave, wash the sleep from his eyes, and brush back his hair—though the effect of this last was mostly gone as he’d plowed it several times with his fingers. “Please?” she asked when he continued to regard her blankly. “A moment?”
God, but she was lovely. Sleep-tousled. Flushed. Wide, imploring eyes almost too big for her face. Griffin blinked. “You want privacy,” he said flatly. “Of course. Make free with my dressing room.”
His obtuseness compelled her to point out, “I want privacy to get to your dressing room.”
He looked from the bed to the dressing room door and back to the bed again. Mrs. Christie would have been pleased to parade her particulars twice that far. It was borne home to him that he had not clearly seen any of Olivia’s particulars, and the stubborn set of her features warned him that he would not see them now.
