He moved so he was behind her. He began washing her breasts and chest. “When we return to London, I would like this to continue.”
She managed to look back at him. “You don’t mean giving me baths, do you?”
“That too.”
She untwisted herself and rested back. He lathered her breasts and watched the tips tighten.
“I see difficulties with that, don’t you?” she asked.
“Not at all. It will require some discretion, of course.”
“I have no experience in that kind of discretion. Do you?”
“How hard can it be?”
She laughed. “Spoken like Mr. Kevin Radnor. I doubt there are books on how to do it well, though.”
“I’ll ask. Nicholas and Chase will know where the lines have to be drawn.”
She grew thoughtful. He decided that such contemplation would not benefit him. Affairs like this rarely ended well for women, and she was smart enough to see that.
He set about rinsing her body and kissing her neck.
“See here,” she said. “I don’t think of myself that way. As a man’s mistress.”
“Heiresses are not mistresses. They are not kept women. They are lovers, if anything. Or wives.” He angled around so he could kiss her fully. “I asked before. You declined, but I think the biggest reason was your old lover. Perhaps we should reconsider that idea.”
She did not say no right away, but then, he kept her mouth too busy for that. Still, a quick refusal did not come.
“I will want to think about it,” she said. “I also will want a frank discussion of what it means to both of us, and to the enterprise.”
He stood and grabbed a big towel. “Think all you like. Now, up.”
She stood, a Venus rising from the sea, all slick and creamy and more beautiful than she knew. He bundled her in the towel, then lifted her in his arms and carried her into the bedchamber.
* * *
She opened her eyes a slit and looked down her body and her position. She held her bent legs by the knees the way he had told her. It exposed her in a scandalous way.
He held up his own body on extended, taut arms in a position that left a gap between them. And so she could see how his long, hard cock was right above her, and how his head angled so he could watch himself. She could watch too.
He began entering, then stopped. She throbbed around him, aching. Wanting. He was good at doing that. Making her want him. She relinquished her pride when he brought her to this state of craving.
She could not even caress him while she held herself like this. She could only watch, noticing the way his hard body dominated her. Odd for a man so involved with his thoughts to have a body like that. It seemed he imposed the same discipline on his physical self as he did his mind.
He pressed further, then stopped again. He closed his eyes. She guessed whatever sensations they shared, he felt them more than she did. Not because he was a man and she a woman. Because he was a man who had mastered concentration.
He opened his eyes and looked in hers. Intense. Warm. Such depths his eyes contained. Captivating. As if nothing else mattered right now, and no other world existed except this bed with the two of them in it.
He joined them finally. Slowly. She discarded her impatience and accepted the delicious fulfillment for what it was. He withdrew and did it again, only she could not remain so calm this time. Nor the next, when she murmured encouragement, asking for more.
Harder, then. Deeper. So deep, she felt the thrusts touching her deepest essence. Desire and pleasure left her oblivious to her own words and sounds.
He finished hard. Almost violently. The power of it left her thrashing, reaching for him, for her own end, for that heaven just out of reach. Breath rasping hard, and his body still hovering over hers, he reached down and touched her. She arched in response to the intensity. Her whole body and mind screamed for release from the torture. He kissed her cheek and said something, and touched her differently, and suddenly she was screaming again, only in wonder.
* * *
“I suppose if I made this marriage of convenience you proposed, I know at least one part of it won’t be horrible.”
