“Stop saying that.” His face was red.
“What?” She knew, but he was such fun to tease.
“Lovely. You make me feel like a fraud. I’m not lovely.”
“You’re so wrong. You couldn’t be more wrong.”
She made a decision. She slapped her hand down on the table. “I have a proposition for you, Your Grace. What do you say to letting me stay here in your house for a bit?”
Far too quickly, almost as he had given it previous thought, he said, “I say yes.”
“I’m not finished. And in exchange for letting meandmy brother stay here for a jolly Christmas in London, I’ll help you with your problem.”
“My problem?”
“Your young lady problem.”
Seven
He desperately needed time alone. For relief and to shore up his ongoing success at not acting like a slavering brute. He couldn’t believe how well he was doing so far, and he didn’t want to press his luck.
“I’m going upstairs, Miss Cranwell. For clean clothes.”
She chewed on her bottom lip and her brows came together.
“What’s wrong?” Good God, he’d never asked that question of a woman before and now he’d asked it twice in one morning.
“I’ve been in my stays for over a day. Fell asleep without taking them off. Would you mind . . . that is, would it bother you if I removed them?”
Every bit of blood in his head rushed to his cock and all he saw was red. Red nipples. His mouth went dry and his lips stuck to his teeth. Air could not enter his lungs.
But still, he tried to sound as if he discussed women’s undergarments, or the lack of them, all the time. “No. It wouldn’t bother. Me.”
It came out as a growl. But better that than a whimper.
She smiled and nodded her head as if he had agreed to take tea with her next week. “Lovely.”
As he attended to himself in his dressing room, his mind was full of Franny two staircases below him. In her stays and a chemise. He saw Franny reaching behind to untie the knot of the lace of her stays.
No. Instead, it was him untying and looking down over her shoulder at the tops of her breasts. She let loose a moan of pleasure once the lace was loosened and he had drawn the stays off and over her head.
She arched her spine as she leaned back against him, her head resting on his chest, her arms going up and coming around the back of his neck, giving him the access he wanted. He wrapped his arms around her to cup her breasts, to lift and knead, his thumbs running over her hardening nipples under her chemise.
As his hand moved more quickly over his cock, his fantasy accelerated in the nonsensical way his fantasies always did. She was naked. Both of them were naked. Her nippleswerered. Saucy little things poking out, impudently erect. Her legs coiled around his waist, his hands gripped her heavenly bottom, his cock was deep in her hot, wet cunt. He plopped her on top of the bread crumbs on the kitchen table. He took her with hard thrusts, and she screamed, “Kit, Kit, Kit, Kit—”
Finished. He panted. He’d made a mess like a boy. But he’d clean up and get dressed now. He had a chance of behaving well for a while longer. Or what passed as behaving well for him.
In the library, he opened the drapes and built a fire to warm the room. She joined him and began pacing up and down in front of the windows.
Stayless.
My God, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. He was spellbound by the jouncing oscillation of her breasts. Again, his mind went to her nipples and . . . damn. His cock was acting as if he hadn’t just stroked himself to completion ten minutes ago.
“How old are you?” he asked to keep himself from asking about the color of her nipples.
“Oh, goodly gosling. You interrupted my train of thought.”
“I did?” People did that to him all the time. He hadn’t realized he could do it to other people. Dagenham and Bevel had no trains of thought as far as he could tell.
