“Oh, George, wouldn’t it be wonderful if men had a little tongue just above their cocks?”
Uh-oh. The word had slipped out. She looked at his face, sure he would scold her. But he was still grinning. He leaned down and kissed her and she tasted on his lips what she had recently discovered was her own taste. “You have a fantastic imagination, Phee.”
“Just think. It would be so efficient.”
“I’m not sure God had efficiency in mind when he made our bodies so enjoyable.”
And then he nuzzled his face under her right breast and took a bit of the skin there in his mouth and sucked on it for a long time. It didn’t hurt but it wasn’t really pleasurable either. But it was difficult to imagine anything being really pleasurable again after the three glorious releases he had just given her.
She was so at ease. And drowsy. Perhaps that was why only husbands and wives were supposed to have this intimacy. So they could fall asleep together afterwards. What heaven it would be to just stay here right now and fall asleep. But George was not her husband. She could not sleep in his bed.
“I have to go now.”
He moved his head back and gazed at the skin where he had sucked. “All right.”
She got off the bed and started looking for her undergarments. There, her petticoat was tangled in a sheet of the bed. And George’s shirt was crumpled on top of her chemise on the floor. Really, George was becoming as messy as she was.
Eleven
George sat sprawled in his wing chair in his study, wearing just his shirt and trousers, the same ones he had worn with Phoebe last evening before he had stripped. He had stayed naked in bed all night after she had left, wanting to be surrounded by the faint trace of her smell that clung to the sheets, recalling the sensation of her mouth on him, her hooking one ankle around him and rubbing her foot up and down his backside as he held her own perfect bottom and seduced her with his mouth on her quim and his face wedged between her lush, soft thighs.
And the mark he had left on the underside of her right breast. The love bruise. Claiming her. Saying she was his. He had not been able to resist after he had seen the lines of redness on her other breast and thought Thornwick had left them there.
The bruise had been stupid. Impulsive. And he was not a man who usually operated under the influence of impulse.
But if Thornwick dared anything that might allow him to see Phoebe’s breasts in the next week, he would see George’s mark. He would know another man had been there first, had labelled her MINE.
But Phoebe wasn’t really George’s yet, was she?
Last evening hadn’t worked out quite as he had planned. He had thought he would ensnare her as he had his previous mistresses. He would stay dressed. He would deny himself her touch, deny himself coupling with her, his own release. He would encourage her to remain passive and to indulge in her own pleasure.
Of course, that hadn’t worked with Phoebe. He should have known she would want more. She would want to engage. She would want to do something to him. Control him. Make him helpless. Make him whimper and scream. Take his king.
How incredible she was.
And how incredibly exasperating. Although she had seemed pleased with what she had done to him and what he had done to her, he did not sense he had really trapped her, addicted her to his tongue, convinced her to return to his bed over and over again. She had gotten up and dressed with no sign of longing, just as she had on Friday.
He rubbed his face with his hands. He was trying to come up with his next strategy and having a deucedly difficult time doing so. Perhaps he couldn’t formulate his endgame because he didn’t know his objective.
What did George Danforth really want?
Phoebe in his bed? Yes.
Phoebe not married to Thornwick? Preferably yes, because he didn’t think Phoebe would dally outside her marriage. And George felt he was still, himself, somewhat a man of honor, having only bedded unmarried women and widows in the past. And the idea of Thornwick touching Phoebe made George ill. He wouldn’t stand for it. No, she would not marry Thornwick.
So. Phoebe in his bed. Phoebe not married to Thornwick. Was there anything else?
Perhaps he should bathe and change his clothes. That might help clear his mind so he could plot his ruthless attack. But he was loath to do so. Thoughts of Phoebe filled his imagination and kept him from moving. Her tiny gloves littering his house. The darling way her hair fell down. Her sweet smile of delight when she promoted a pawn and when he touched her berry.
His reverie was interrupted by the remote rattle of the downstairs door of the special entrance. He leapt to his feet, his heart hammering at his ribcage.
Phoebe. She had come to him. Again. He was wrong. Hehadcaptured her. She wasn’t able to stay away from him. She wanted him as he wanted her. He didn’t need a plan, after all. Now all he must do is demand she break it off with Thornwick if she hadn’t done so already. Then he would take her to his bedchamber and make slow, careful love to her. Almost instantly, he was half-engorged at the thought of her skin against his, her lips moaning his name, her bottom in his hands, her beautifully pink, wet quim taking his cock.
Wait.
An idea of startling clarity swept over him, scouring away the muddle of feeling he had over the last four days.
It was crystalline, pure. Right. He teetered with the force of it.
