“Please,” she whimpered, as if she’d read the denial in his mind.
He drew back a little and looked at her, even more gorgeous when she was mere centimeters from him. When he could smell her and feel the warmth of her and hear every catch of her breath as well as explore the exquisitely perfect lines of her.
“I would like nothing more than to put you into my lap and have you until you were limp with pleasure,” he murmured, splaying his fingers across her back.
“Yes,” she whispered, squirming against him.
“But the last time we did this it was hard and fast and without much thought,” he said. “Tonight I want to undress you and see you and take my time. Because I know this is a gift I might not earn a third time.”
She was quiet a long time and he couldn’t tell whether her reaction to that statement was positive or negative. At last she traced her hand along his cheek, across his shoulder.
“I could seduce you,” she whispered.
He chuckled. “You most definitely could. I’m not denying it.”
“But you’re right that we may only get this night. And I think perhaps patience is the greater virtue.” He waited for her to remove herself from his lap, but she stayed where she was. “That doesn’t mean I don’t want to tease you a little.”
He didn’t get a chance to answer, because she bent her head and kissed him again. He felt the shift in her into a seduction. There was more purpose to her kiss, more heat. Her hands roved across his back and shoulders and chest, she lightly ground in his lap. It was everything to test a man and he drowned in it and her for the remainder of the ride to her house.
And anticipated the gorgeous moment when all the tension would break and she would be, at last and again, his. At least for a little while.
Julia had been with many lovers in the years she’d been a courtesan. Some had excited her, given her pleasure, and she’d looked forward to their time together. But as she walked up her drive toward Arabella’s house, her fingers entwined with Alexander’s, she hadn’t ever felt anything like this.
Thiswas a wild desire. It made her shaky and her mind unclear. All she wanted was him.
“Good evening, Miss Comerford, Mr. Castleton,” Parsons said from the landing.
“Good evening,” Julia managed, hearing how her voice shook. “We won’t require anything, thank you.”
Parsons knew well enough to bow away and Julia drew Alexander forward. They went upstairs and there she paused. At the end of the hallway was Arabella’s old room. It had been designed to bring lovers to it, to surrender to everything sensual. The bed was huge, the comforters and sheets silken, the fire massive. She could have it made ready for them swiftly.
But at the other end of the hallway was her own room. The place where she slept and lived as a woman, not a courtesan. It was real.
She wanted real. She drew him to the door and pushed it open, letting him inside. He stepped in and looked around the big chamber, done in soft pinks and gray-blues. Beatrice was on the pillows, curled up in the sweetest little black-and-white ball. She stretched as they entered and Julia blushed as she caught her and cradled her against her chest.
“I’ll put her in the adjoining room,” she promised, and then slipped to do so. Beatrice shot her a side glance worthy of the highest disdain but plopped herself onto a pile of clothing in the corner of her dressing room and went back to sleep.
Alexander was watching her when she came back. “It’s lovely.”
She shifted, because she hadn’t realized how vulnerable sharing this part of her would be. “I-I’ve never brought another man here.”
His eyes widened a little and then he shut the door and moved toward her. “Then this will just be ours.”
“Tonight is ours,” she agreed as she wound her hand around his neck and brought him back down for another long, heated kiss like the ones they’d shared all the way here in the carriage. He drew her more firmly against him, his hand splaying against her lower back. She could feel the hard length of him pressing to her belly already and she almost purred.
She slid her hand between them and glided downward so she could cup him. But before she could loosen the fall front of his trousers, he caught her wrist and lifted her hand back up. He kissed her palm and shook his head.
“I’m not rushing this. I want to see you and taste you and touch you long before we involve that.”
Her eyes went wide. He was talking about making love to her, not just fucking her to slake some need. Had anyone ever truly done that?
He pulled her in for another kiss, his fingers drawing into her hair. He pulled the length of it down, pins scattering across the floor at her feet. She whimpered at the feel of him, the taste of him, the solidness of him.
He drew back at last and stared at her. “I have wondered what you looked like with your hair down for months.”
“Months?” she whispered. That would be long before the countryside. “You didn’t like me months ago.”
“I never didn’t like you,” he said, and touched the long waves of her hair. “That was never the issue.”
