“Now I understand why you normally negotiate first.”
Rebellions in her body created discomforts never experienced before. Disappointment made itself known in visceral ways.
He stood. “You are safe. I promise.” He caught her gaze with his own and slid his hand under the fabric, beneath her pressing palm.
“I thought you said I was safe.”
“From that, for now. Not from me.” He wrapped her legs around his hips. “Move your hand now. I will not take you, if you worry I have put you like this for that. Unless you want me to.”
She stared at him. She shook her head.
“Are you sure?”
She was not sure at all.
“Move your hand. I am good to my word.”
She moved her hand.
“Close your eyes, Padua. Think of nothing.”
That devastating touch pressed again, ensuring sheobeyed. Her physicality dissolved until only the pleasure remained. Amazing pleasure. Demanding pleasure. No thoughts meant no restraints. She felt as she never had before. As she never knew possible.
He knew just what to do to intensify the madness. She knew he watched. Wicked. Wonderfully wicked. She knew she moaned and cried. When the pleasure became too intense and relentless to bear, she knew she begged. For something, anything, she knew not what. She stretched toward it, desperate, insane and adrift in agonizing sensation.
Suddenly it grew worse yet, wonderfully worse. Focused and deep. The locus of pleasure filled, then spread abruptly. It conquered what was left of her separateness. Then it burst, awing her with its perfect bliss.
CHAPTER10
Ives pried Padua’s hand off his. As her climax neared she had tried to stop him and spare herself from plunging into the unknown. He sat her up and embraced her. He could feel the echoes of her explosive finish still affecting her body like aftershocks.
Expression slack, skin flushed, she did not object to how he handled her. Perhaps she did not even notice. She set her head on his chest and rested limply against him. He pressed his lips to her crown and slowly trailed his fingers over the sheen on her shoulders.
He should not have done this, but he did not care about that right now. Later he would scold himself for following impulse. He knew the lecture well. Anger, passion, sorrow—conquering outbursts of emotion remained a lifelong effort at which he often failed.
Subtle changes in her body showed her retaking control of it. She did not move or break the intimacy of the embrace for a good five minutes, however.
“We have been bad, I think,” she murmured into his shirt. “Very bad.”
He’d be damned before he agreed to that. He might have been bad, but she had been glorious.
“What you wanted to do—I suppose that is why decent women won’t have anything to do with you.”
“One reason.”
“There is more? Yes, of course there is.” She sighed. “It is well that you negotiate directly, although one wonders how you explain it all. I suppose being a lawyer helps. All those fancy words you can command. I expect those pour over the women, and by the time they dig through them all and understand your meaning, it is too late to be embarrassed.”
In truth his mistresses needed little explanation. They were in the business of pleasing men. He did not shock them any more than a merchant is shocked on hearing a patron wants one gallon of the best ale for his shillings, instead of two gallons of the ordinary kind.
She eased off him, and looked over her shoulder. She flushed, and groped at her garments about her waist. “I should—”
He lifted the stays onto her shoulders. He tightened and tied the laces. He stepped back and lifted her petticoat by the neckline.
“I can do it.” She took the cloth out of his hands.“Could you perhaps...?” She made a twirling motion with her finger.
He turned so his back faced her. “Are you embarrassed, Padua? You should not be. Not with me.”
“I am too astonished to be embarrassed, but I expect that to change. I think that soon I will conclude I have been foolish. You are a revelation to me. I assumed that a man of your standing and cool thinking would never be so—impetuous.”
