“Jack.” He looked up. She was fully dressed. “Stop stroking yourself under the covers.”
“Why?” He threw the sheet to one side. “Do you want to do it, Marina?”
She eyed his cock. Unless he was very much mistaken, she licked her lips, just a little.
“Under other circumstances, I’d say yes. But I must get home. Lord Garvey is due back in London this evening.”
“So, no more fun for Jack while your husband is in town?”
“Do you know what day it is?”
“No.”
“It’s been a month since you first took me to bed.”
Had it been? Yes, it had. And it had been an extremely pleasurable month. But he knew what that meant.
He groaned, “Are you telling me I’ve had my goodbye fuck without even knowing that’s what it was?”
“It’s not my fault you don’t know your own calendar. And it isyourcalendar. You made me well aware of it when you unlaced my stays for the first time.”
Yes, his unwritten rules. His often unspoken rules. But he had known Lady Garvey’s reputation for taking lovers and keeping them, and he had thought it wise to let her know from the start she wouldn’t be sinking her claws into Jack Pike. One month and that was all.
How fortuitous that her month with him had coincided with her husband being out of town and he had had her so many times. Although risk could heighten his pleasure, he had been more than happy to trade that thrill for the delight of playing in bed with Marina for hours at a time.
“Unless.” She leaned over and ran her soft, delicate fingers over his shaft. An involuntary grunt escaped his lips. “You want to make an exception. In my case.”
“No.” He moved, taking himself and his member off the bed and away from her. He started looking for his trousers in the tangle of bed coverings on the floor.
Yes, coitus with Marina was intoxicating. But the affair was over. The month had passed, and today he would start to work on finding another desirous lady of thetonwho would welcome his transitory attentions. It shouldn’t be difficult. It never was for him. Women were weak. Easily seduced by a few compliments. Naughty smiles. Fleeting, stolen touches at the waist, the neck. And he knew his looks didn’t hurt.
“No, I didn’t think you would.” She came up behind him and squeezed a buttock as he leaned over. “But thank you for proffering such a lovely view to me on my way out the door.”
He found his trousers and straightened up with them in his hand, giving her his standard devilish grin as he looked over his shoulder at her breasts on display in her low-cut bodice. “My pleasure.”
She simpered. “No, Jack. Mine.”
“Give my regards to the viscount, Marina.”
“I’m Lady Garvey from now on. Don’t forget it, Captain Pike.”
Then she was gone, the cuckolding harlot. And he was still hard. Damn it.
“You know—”Phineas Edge, the Earl of Burchester, stopped himself midsentence. Uncharacteristically.
“What, Phin?” An irritated Jack rustled the newspaper. They were in the reading room of their club and Jack had been perusing the pages which dealt with gossip and society gatherings, looking for names of attractive women who might be ripe for a dalliance.
“You might be less convinced that all women are deceivers ever, if, just once, you bedded a woman who wasn’t already married.”
Jack snorted. Phineas had said this to him before.
“Not that I’m suggesting a debutante to you, Jack. I wouldn’t wish you on one of those innocents.” Phineas chuckled.
Jack crumpled the newspaper. “The debutantes are safe from me. And on first glance, the matrons who are in town also have nothing to worry about. A very unpromising bunch. It looks like I’ll be making do with the damned brothel until the Season is in full swing. What say you to Madame Flora’s tonight?”
Phineas sat back in what he calledthe chair.Phineas and one of their mutual friends, George Danforth, often clashed overthe chairsince George also thought it was a superior seat. The serious young Baron Danforth had resigned himself to a different wing chair today and was in a corner, reading a thick book.
Phineas ran his fingers through his mane of prematurely silver hair. “Someone else might have wanted to read that paper, Jack.”
