“Were you?”
“By that time, yes. I was regularly visiting a young widow.”
“Mrs. Christie?”
“Lord, no. My arrangement with Alys was made less than a year ago. The widow asked me not to return when it appeared her good name—and that of her late husband’s—would become grist for the mill. I honored her wishes, of course, understood her concern completely. She had her own future to consider.”
Olivia nodded absently. “It does not seem that adultery could have been all that your mother-in-law presented as her daughter’s motive for divorcing you. It is too often done by men and many wives find it prudent to suffer in silence or seek their own pleasure.”
“You are right. That is why Elaine’s mother made so much of my decision to manage this establishment myself. While Elaine engaged in her particular vices with some discretion, I engaged in mine openly. I made no attempt to operate this gaming hell through agents as others of rank have done on occasion. At the outset of my ownership it was as much a brothel as a place to make wagers on any number of unsavory things. It was not so long ago that a parade of glassy-eyed opium eaters trudged regularly through the house. I might have allowed it to remain all of those things if Elaine had not taken herself off. I take no pride in admitting that the ugliness of this business appealed to me. It was there in my marriage, in my heart, how could I not be comfortable with it in every other aspect of my life?”
Griffin searched her face. This time it was he who brushed her cheek with the back of his knuckles. “You understand, don’t you?”
She did not think she would be able to tell him. The words lodged in her throat along with the aching lump of unshed tears. “Too well,” she said at last.
He nodded. “I knew. Somehow I knew I could say it to you. All of it.” With little in the way of urging, her head came to rest at the curve of his neck and shoulder. “My desire to find Elaine is only selfish. I have come to care that much for my reputation in polite society that I would have the rumors finally put behind me. I will divorce her immediately upon her return, and then she may go wherever she wishes and with whomever she wants. Indeed, it is my fervent hope that she will go quickly.”
“She might be different,” Olivia said. “You are.”
“Perhaps. My plans will not be changed by it.”
“Perhaps.” But she said it on a thread of sound, her lips merely moving around the word.
Griffin’s cheek pressed against her hair. He drew back. “You are still wearing your wig, Honey.”
She smiled faintly. It was difficult to know which one of them disliked the artifice more. “Naturally. I came here directly from the tables.”
“Take it off.”
Olivia did so, but when she would have removed herself from his lap to put it aside, Griffin plucked it from her hand and tossed it negligently toward the window seat. It came to rest like a furry lap dog on a plump, embroidered pillow. She tried to look disapproving of his carelessness, but her snort of laughter could not be mistaken for anything save what it was.
He watched for a moment, his eyes darkening as she combed her hair with her fingers. He took her by the wrist. “I’ll do that.”
Olivia wanted to close her eyes and simply surrender. His fingers did not so much sift through her hair as caress it. Her scalp tingled. He raised tiny bumps on her flesh. She was warm of a sudden, uncomfortably so between her thighs, yet her desire was to move closer to the source of the heat rather than draw back from it. She fought it until he simply caught her hair in his fist and used it to pull her inexorably toward him.
The kiss was long and deep and sweet. Their lips and tongues meant to savor, not merely taste. She would be joined to him, she thought, not in the obvious carnal way, though that too, but in the sense that he was a comfortable, comforting fit for her, as gentle to her skin as a kid glove, as easy around her heart as a velvet ribbon.
For once, the danger inherent in such a notion did not drive her away. She held fast to him, slipping her arms around his neck and pressing herself to him. She felt her breasts swell above the deep cut of her bodice. Her nipples rubbed against the soft fabric of her chemise. She felt him stir under her so the shape of the cradle he provided for her changed. Olivia did not mind; she was stirred as well.
His hands rested at the small of her back, but occasionally one would make a pass up her spine. Sometimes the other drifted lower, palming her bottom. Her dress was raised, though how it was accomplished she couldn’t say. A mystery almost its equal was how she came to be straddling him, her knees pressed to the back of the chair on either side of his hips as though she had him in a vise.
Olivia’s skirt billowed around them but her drawers lay on the floor. Her fine satin garters and silk stockings rubbed against his trousers, making a deliciously intimate sound like something she might whisper into his ear, or he into hers. Under cover of her gown and the spread of her petticoats, he opened the front closure on his trousers and drawers. She was lifted, then settled carefully on him. He watched her face, most especially her eyes. He watched her irises become more deeply emerald as the centers darkened; he watched her eyelids grow heavy until they could no longer sustain any look of surprise and held only contentment.
That look did not last. It could not. Not when he lifted her again and thrust into her. A small moan escaped her lips. He smiled, wanting more of it, wanting more of what must be done to make her surrender that sound.
Her hands rested on his shoulders. She pushed, yielded, took him again. She went about it slowly, rising, falling, her hips moving provocatively. Her gown rustled, the silk shivered. She rested once, or pretended to. It was all done as a tease, and she had not known until that moment she might be capable of teasing in such a manner. Her forehead came to rest against his. Her eyes closed. She felt his warm breath, felt the strain in every line of his body as he strove for control.
She leaned back enough to take in his face. He had not closed his eyes as she had, but had been watching her all the while. The intensity of his expression made her self-conscious, but when she started to glance away, he drew her back with a forefinger placed at one side of her chin.
“Do not make me forgo the pleasure I find in looking at you,” he said. “What? Do you think I am flattering you? That you are surpassingly lovely has nothing at all to do with it. It is my selfish pleasure I’m speaking of, the pleasure of watching your eyes change color and knowing I had a small part in it. The flush that puts pink in your cheeks, whether in anger or passion, I know I provoked it in some measure. And when you see me, truly see me, it is as though you are able to look past what is flesh and blood and bone, and it seems your face reflects a certain affection for me. I would not have you deny me the pleasure of believing it might be so.”
“It is,” she whispered. “It is affection.” And though she might be damned for it, neither could she deny it.
Griffin inched them toward the edge of the cushion. “Hold tightly.” Almost before she knew what he was about he heaved them somewhat awkwardly out of the chair and carried her, still joined to him, to the bed. He took the brunt of the fall, turning at the last moment to back into the mattress before he collapsed and brought her down on top of him. Her gown floated around them and there was an infinitesimal beat in which her very breath was lost.
They stared at each other, startled by the force of their fall and the speed at which need and hunger reasserted themselves. The cadence of their laughter was both changed and charged by Olivia’s whimper and Griffin’s low growl. He eased her gown over her shoulders and loosened the ribbon that gathered the scooped neckline of her chemise. He cupped her breasts; his thumbs passed across the pebbled nipples. She leaned forward and he took one in his mouth, suckled her. Her honeyed walls contracted around him. His hips jerked. She stayed with him even then, no longer sensing his movement but anticipating it.
She felt his muscles tense, the skin tighten across his chest. The cord in his neck stood out as he strained under her. He wanted her to come with him, urged her to do so, but she wasn’t ready, not quite, and she needed to see him lead the way.
