“No.” She clenched her fists at her sides. “That’s not what I’m saying. I merely don’t want to stare at the wall all day.”
“Then shut your eyes.”
She gasped at the snide comment. Again, she was growing frustrated with her new situation. “I don’t understand what you want from me. You paid quite handsomely but I don’t see where there is any benefit for either of us.”
He leaned back in the chair and folded his hands over his taut stomach. She despised the fact she noticed his physical attributes when she was furious with his cold detachment. If he intended to remain like this, she would have rather gone home with one of the other men. At least they would have used and discarded her, rather than lead her around on a string where she had to wonder when he would finally pounce.
“Would you prefer that I had my wicked way with you?”
She put a hand to her forehead. “No! I— you’re so infuriating! Please forget that I mentioned anything.” She headed for the door, helpless to try to make him understand any further. She would go back upstairs. Perhaps she could try painting. She already knew that she wasn’t adept at it but it would be better than wasting away from boredom. It was bad enough that she didn’t know how Flavian was faring.
She was in the hallway before he called her name. Fleur didn’t want to acknowledge him. She wanted to keep walking, preferably out the door and back to some semblance of normalcy. But she was afraid that part of her life was gone forever. After the auction, she was a doomed woman, teetering on the edge of respectability with a man who didn’t care for it at all.
She stopped but didn’t turn to face him. She heard his footsteps approaching, slow and steady. She gritted her teeth, because she knew that she was at his mercy. If he told her to jump, she would have to do it. After last night, she was more or less his property until he released her from his care.
He moved so close that she could feel the heat emanating from him, but he didn’t touch her. It was more disconcerting than if he’d actually spun her around and kissed her. “Would you be happy if I paraded you about high society in the best silks and jewels that money could buy?”
She sighed. “No, that’s not what I want. I just want a… purpose for being here, or else what was the point of demeaning myself in such a fashion, other than to please you in seeing me humiliating myself like I did?”
“That didn’t please me.”
She almost shivered. She was angry at him, and yet, when the mocking tone was absent and replaced with the sensual baritone of his velvety voice, she wasn’t sure it was any better for her peace of mind.
“You’ll forgive me if I don’t quite believe that.” Fleur didn’t want to be petty. But she couldn’t resist a barb at his expense since he had tormented her this morning.
His hand gently touched her right shoulder. “I thought of nothing but you the moment you walked in that club,” he murmured next to her ear. “I knew I would pay anything to have you.”
This time she did shiver. “For revenge,” she guessed somewhat breathlessly.
His hand slid slowly down her arm and around her midsection. “For something else.” His hand trailed further downward until he reached the apex of her legs. She inhaled sharply when he inserted a finger inside her. “I wanted you from the first moment I saw you on that field.”
He toyed with her, moving his finger in and out, and then his thumb pressed against the sensitive part of her that was throbbing with anticipation. Her toes curled beneath her and she could tell her breathing had deepened. “You didn’t know… it was me.” She gasped when he started a rhythmic movement with his fingers that had her lower stomach burning with desire. She didn’t know it was possible to feel such wanton urges for someone she didn’t even like.
“I knew it wasn’t a man. The movements were too fluid. Too quick. That weapon could only be wielded by a feminine hand.”
“It fooled everyone… else.” She bit her lip as her eyes closed. There was something heavy swirling about inside of her, desperate to escape. She wanted to give in to the urge, to release herself to the need but something was holding her back.
The rhythm increased and suddenly, Fleur was beyond conscious thought. She didn’t want to talk anymore. She just wanted to… feel, to give in to the passions threatening to envelop her.
The impact swept over her like a blissful wave. Her legs trembled as she fell back against Mr. Porter, trusting him to carry her over the crest. Fleur had never experienced anything so incredible. It was as if she was transformed from the woman she was, unto the woman who stood in this cavernous foyer.
Afterward, like the tide going back out to sea, her body was languid, calm. Mr. Porter removed his hand and, making sure that she could stand on her own, took a step back away from her. She still didn’t turn around but this time it was because she was starting to understand what had happened. It was her initiation to the carnal arts, and she had enjoyed it.
Shame washed over her, because surely, she should have been horrified by her actions. This wasn’t someone that she loved, or who would ever be her husband. This was just a man who had paid to make her his whore. An expensive one, but a personal whore, nonetheless. It was what she had been expecting, and yet, now that she had been introduced to the game, she wished the circumstances were altered. She would have rather engaged in a mild flirtation until it expanded into something further. Instead, there were no flowers or poetry. It was lust.
She didn’t wait for him to speak. Instead, she darted to the second floor and returned to the bedchamber. She closed the door and leaned against it with heaving breaths, as if she’d run around all of Chelsea, instead of just up the stairs.
* * *
Drake frowned when Fleur left.He had wanted to take things slow, to let her come to him, but she had looked so appealing in that shirt, he had wanted to rip it off of her and sink himself into her welcoming heat. Instead, he settled for pleasuring her. What he hadn’t anticipated was her reaction. She fled as if he was the devil himself, convincing her to condemn herself to the fires of hell. He might have been called a demon by more than one person for his previous deeds years before but he was trying to change all that. He was in a comfortable place where he could almost imagine himself engaging in more than a single night’s tryst.
While marriage was nowhere on the table, he had thought it would be nice to have a mistress for a month or so. It was another reason he had singled out Miss Davies, to see if it was a situation that he could handle. He wasn’t sure he could deal with anyone staying under the same roof for very long, especially when there were uncomfortable secrets that he didn’t care to explain.
Like painting.
He was annoyed with himself that he hadn’t thought to clear out the mess of his past before now. Of course, Fleur was a woman and a magnet for curiosity. It was in their nature to find the darkest part of someone’s history and question them about it.
Drake realized that he might have overreacted to her query the night before but he was not used to trusting anyone. Ever. He had been betrayed by those closest to him. There were things that Amos still didn’t know about him, and he preferred it that way. Giving someone too much knowledge about one’s life, one’s fears, opened one up to being hurt. After what Elina had done to him, he vowed it was the last woman who would make a cuckhold out of him. For ten years he had kept that promise. Until he met Fleur, he hadn’t been in danger of breaking it.
