For now, he could not even give a damn. All he wanted was to revel in the miraculous feeling of this woman beneath him, her body pressed to his, their mouths moving together in sweet, slow splendor.
Chapter 7
Fucking hell.
Sodding, fucking, floating hell.
In the grim quiet of his sister’s office, Demon sat, staring unseeing at the ledgers before him. He had made a mistake. A grave mistake. A grim one, and he had not made it merely once, but twice.
It was the sort of mistake he had never, in all his eight-and-twenty years, made. The sort he had vowed toneverallow, regardless of the reason, the woman, the moment. The sort that could land him in more trouble than Gen discovering he was fucking one of the fancy ladies who was a member of her gaming hell.
The sort that could make him afather.
Why the hell did the notion of claiming that particular title not horrify him as much as it should?
“Yournabs?”
He shook himself, running a hand along his jaw, and found Davy standing before him on the threshold. “Demon or Mr. Winter will do, lad. I ain’t a cull and you know it.”
“Right you are. The shipment of Madeira’s come. Thought you wanted to ’ave a look.”
They had been two bottles short last shipment. “Thank you, lad. You are correct.”
He rose and skirted the desk.
“Not going to need the pen, are you?” Davy asked, eying him oddly.
Christ.
Demon glanced down, realizing he was still holding his quill, which was looking rather strangled at the moment. “Of course not.”
Grimly, he thrust it into the well, cursing himself and Mira for the effect she had upon him. His mind was addled. Rotten. Mayhap she had placed a curse upon him. That was what this felt like—the all-consuming need for her, coupled with the frustration at his lack of control.
He had risen that morning to the scent of her on his sheets. She had been long gone, having been handed into her carriage by him some time after midnight. But the memories had lingered like the sweet floral fragrance. And despite the guilt twisting his guts over what he had done, he had taken himself in hand to the thought of her supple curves beneath him and the drenched heat of her cunny gripping his cock like a vise.
Once more caught up in his thoughts, Demon somehow managed to upend the inkwell on Gen’s desk. A massive blot spread on the surface. His sister was going to blacken his eye.
“Christ,” he muttered. “Davy, fetch something to clean this, will you?”
The scamp was already there, moving faster than Demon had anticipated, a cloth in hand as he righted the inkwell and mopped up the ink. “There you are, yournabs. No ’arm done. I’ll see it cleaned, I will.”
The scamp had been astonishingly helpful since his return from his sojourn under Mira’s protective wing. He had claimed he preferred to be at Lady Fortune. Indeed, he had not—at least to Demon’s knowledge—thieved so much as a feather from a lady’s hair. Moreover, he had proven himself something of a shadow. But a useful one.
Demon frowned at Davy, who had mopped up the ink and was frantically scrubbing before a lasting stain permeated the polish. “Lad, as I told you, I ain’t a lord. Call me Demon or Mr. Winter or sir. No moreyournabs, you hear?”
There was something about the pretensions of a lordly title which disturbed him. More so now that he was lusting after a woman who was beyond his reach. One who shared her body with him but did not deem him worthy of learning her full name. But there was also something deuced odd about Davy’s sudden angelic behavior.
“Sorry, your—sir.” The lad continued scrubbing. “I’ll see to this. You best go and check on the Madeira. Count ’em thrice.”
Their wine merchant was an unscrupulous bastard. But he also sold the best wine for the best price. Even with missing bottles, Lady Fortune was well ahead of the game. However, it did not sit well with Demon that someone had been cheating them. The merchant claimed his deliveries were complete. No one had counted the last delivery. Which meant some bottles could well have been stolen.
Demon nodded, an unexpected feeling of tenderness toward the scamp rising within him, along with something else. Pride, odd as it seemed. “Thank you, Davy. I will return in a few minutes. No thieving whilst I’m gone.”
Davy tugged at his forelock. “Wouldn’t dream of it, sir.”
The little thief was growing on him, much like a barnacle on a ship’s hull. He felt almost…fatherly toward the lad. Fancy that. Bemused, Demon spun on his heel and quit the office, lest he become truly maudlin or start knocking over the bloody chairs in his distraction. It was his stupidity the night before which was making him mad, and that was plain to see.
Give him one beautiful flame-haired widow with a tight, drenched cunny, and all he could think of was her. And siring offspring.Good fucking God.He had to grab the reins whilst he maintained whatever shreds of sanity he possessed.
