He paced around the little nest she had made for herself. “You said you intended to use this chamber as a free bed. You said you would go and come by those stairs outside, and no one would be the wiser.”
“That is true, I did say that.”
“Mrs. Lavender says you dined with the prostitutes.”
“We call them the young ladies.”
“We?”
She backed up a step. “Mrs. Lavender. And, um, Hector. And... me.”
“Have you decided to enter the trade now? Should I offer you coin, when you refused less insulting forms of support?”
“That is uncalled for. I am not one of the young ladies, nor will I be one.”
“How reassuring. You will, however, be a madam, like Mrs. Lavender.”
“If she told you that, she exaggerated.”
He sat on the bed, and pulled her in front of him. He looked up. “Tell me how she exaggerated. What are you up to? Are you so disillusioned with him that you want to rub your own ruin in his nose?”
“I am not doing this to spite him. I am doing this to save him.” She laid her hand on his face and leaned down so her gaze filled his own. “Do you believe me so stupid as to risk everything for no worthy reason?”
Her touch both soothed and seared. He reacted like he had been starved for years, not mere days.
“I have a plan, Ives. I think it will work.” She spoke seriously. Earnestly. He barely heard her.
He pulled her onto his lap and raked his fingers into her hair. “Later.” He kissed her. “Tell me later.”
She accepted a consuming kiss, and returned one just as fiercely. She tried to turn her head. “What are we— We should not—”
He went to work on her dress’s fasteners, impatient to see her, hold her. “We are blameless. Eros is present in this house. Have you not sensed his spell, even up here?” He kissed her neck and sucked on her pulse. She groaned, and nodded. “Then do not tell me we must not, Padua. The wonder is I do not take you every way I have known or imagined.”
He pulled her garments off impatiently. Clumsily. She knelt beside him on the bed and took his face in her hands. She kissed him a long time and forced some calm on him. Not much, but enough that he allowed her to slide his coats off, and unbutton his shirt, and tantalize him by undressing him.
“What do you imagine? You said the wonder would be if you did not take me every way you have imagined. What wicked things do you dream of doing?” She pushed his shirt open and gently rubbed her breasts against his skin.
“They would shock you.”
“I have not been too shocked so far.” She worked at unbuttoning his trousers. “Are they the things you needed to negotiate with your mistresses?”
“Some of them.”
“Not minor variations, then, if such women might not be amenable.”
“Nothing dangerous, however. Nothing cruel.”
She scooted off his lap, and helped him to shed his lower garments. Then she straddled him, her long white legs dangling on either side of his lap, the darkhair of her mound revealing flashes of dark pink flesh. “Perhaps I will not be shocked. At least not too much.”
She lured him to a path he had avoided. He might have forgone it forever. With Padua such things became unnecessary indulgences. Now that she spoke of it, however...
He put his hand to her, and used his fingers to explore the most sensitive spots she had. She draped her arms on his shoulders and accepted the pleasure. A dreamy expression softened her face.
“The first thing is that you do as I say,” he explained, leaning forward to lick the dark, hard tips of her breasts.
“You command me, you mean.”
“Yes.”
