Prologue
December 23, 1817. London.
No, no, no, no.“Stop, stop, stop, stop.”
On her fourthstop, Kit seemed to realize Franny was talking to him. He got off her, sweat beading on his forehead. The fall of his trousers was half unbuttoned, and he had pushed her skirts to her waist.
He knelt between her legs, staring at her quim, panting.
“This isn’t how this happens.” She sat up and pulled her dress down. When her quim disappeared under the red wool and she hugged her knees to her chest, his eyes slowly came up to hers.
“But you said . . . ?” Confusion had replaced savagery.
“I said we should have amorous congress.”
He rocked back onto his haunches. “That’s what we’re doing.”
“No, we’re not. You were just taking. Have you learned nothing?” Franny scraped her hair off her face with the side of her hand. “If you do this on your wedding night, it’ll be a disaster. An utter disaster.”
He scowled.
“And I told you I don’t exchange intimacy for anything. Not for money,” she said, ticking her fingers. “Not for lodging in London. Not even for the wonderful Christmas you’re giving me and my brother.”
He grunted. “Then why did you offer to let me fuck you?”
The exasperating man.
“Fine,” he said when clearly, in his mind, nothing wasfine. “You want me to use another word?”
“I’m in this bed with you because I’m attracted to you, you drumpty. Because I’m wanting and needing. And I thought it might be what you needed, too. So we could concentrate your mind on solving your problem. Your courtship problem. Maybe get some of the blood out of your cock and back into your brain in time for Christmas.”
Kit wiped his forehead with his shirt sleeve. He’d shed both of his coats somewhere between the front door and his headlong rush up the stairs of his empty house with her over his shoulder, squealing and laughing.
“But don’t plunge into me like I’m a vessel for you,” she said. “I’m here for your bodily pleasureandmine. But you were interested only inthat.”
She gestured at his cock and finally let herself take a good look at it.
No wonder it occupied his attention. Zounds. It was thick and long and dark in color, pushing its way out of his fall. A thing of power and strange beauty. Like the man who possessed it.
“Yes,” he said, his voice flat and empty.
When she tore her eyes from his cock, he himself was looking down, his chin against his chest.
“Does this make sense to you?”
He swung himself away and dropped his legs over the edge of the bed and sat slumped, his trousers still undone, his shirt untucked.
She had chided him enough. Maybe too much. If she kept going, neither of them would get what they wanted.
And she knew she wantedhim.
“I would like to please you,” he said at last, his voice hoarse.
“Why?”
He shook his head.
She untied her boots. “Do you want to please me because I’m your teacher and you’re a good pupil?”
