He clicked the dressing room door shut. In the middle of twisting her hair, she looked up at him.
“From today on, you sleep here every night, all night,” he commanded, wrenching his stare from her before he made it daytime too.
Turning, he walked out and resisted the urge to look back to watch her re-pin her glorious hair.
Blast the man! Edwina threw mentally, striving to put herself to rights to resume work.
That’s if she’d ever concentrate on anything again.
Madame Delamere had placed an order, and she didn’t wish to humiliate herself by extending the due date.
Good gracious! But the cad took her by storm. The moment she peered at him standing at the library’s entrance with every wicked intent in those dark eyes, she’d been vanquished. By her own desires. The sensation that fulminated down her spine had been so overwhelming that she didn’t know how she’d lasted so long.
By the time they’d reached his chambers, she’d been nearly begging him for hard and fast.
Fortunately, it proved to be his exact intention. And then he’d been over her, inside her, flooding her with so much pleasure it was a wonder she managed not to scream for the whole street to hear.
And she’d wanted more. She’d envisioned them lying there the entire day until they lost count of the times they did it and the hours they stayed in between the sheets.
But her world shattered when he’d left the bed all too soon.
Only for him to issue that imperious demand.
Without the privacy of somewhere to ensconce herself, she’d be exposed, open for the whole avalanche of sensuality he’d cast at her. This week had been enlightening. He’d taught her every possible way of enjoying her and his body, of making the most of every position, of giving and taking and sharing. It’d been a newly found land. One where guilt or regret didn’t exist. One where everything was allowed, provided it came with mutual consent. One she’d have difficulty forsaking. But depart from it she would have to sooner or later.
Right now, she couldn’t consider herself completely detached from his brand of carnality. Worse, with his command, she’d not count on a reprieve from it.
Though she had to admit, peace was not something she found when back in her own quarters. Not a wink did she sleep these past nights, her body a furnace of yearning. Perhaps, she’d find a few hours of slumber this way.
A woman could only hope.
Edwina’s eyes snapped open to the early grey light announcing dawn through the drapes. The first fact she registered was that she didn’t lie there alone. A warm wall of a body scorched hers from every side as Harris’s limbs entwined with hers in a way that they touched everywhere.
The second was that they were tangled in a mess of coverlets, bedsheets and pillows scattered throughout the bed. Those dishevelled items enveloped them after hours of hard work.
The third fact she registered was Harris’s nose diving in her hair, which had spread out in every direction. His hand hovered over her naked form, and her eyelids fell again to revel in it as she sighed.
Even if she’d tried to go back to her room, she wouldn’t have succeeded. Harris kept her enthralled most of the night, and when he finally relented, he held her to him, never letting her go until she fell asleep from pure exhaustion. She was utterly delighted with the cocoon they created together.
There was no denying the reward of staying the night. It’d been almost two weeks, and she still marvelled at their cuddling. He was an extremely tactile man, and his hands and lips explored her continually. She never imagined it could be this satisfying. As she followed suit, she discovered new nooks and crannies where he enjoyed being touched. The same he did to her.
He moved again, gluing to her yet more snugly. His lips found the shell of her ear. “Why return to your bedchamber?” he drawled, smoothing a hand along her side.
The question caused her to turn to him. In the dim light, she devised merely the shape of his tall frame. He gave off the scent of pine and man when her arm wrapped his shoulder.
“It’s how my parents proceeded at home,” she answered before nuzzling his throat. Which was not entirely false, nor altogether true. But she preferred to be let out in the snow in only her chemise before she admitted to any other reason.
“You jest,” he said after emitting a sound of approval at her caress.
“Each of my parents emerged from their own chambers every single morning.”
His lips slid down her temple. “But they shared a connecting door, didn’t they?”
In response, one of her hands traced down the indent of his spine. “Naturally.”
“So you cannot be sure where they slept.” From her waist, his hand glided to one buttock.
“Clearly.” She let the whorls on the top of his chest tickle her lips. “But they were impeccably composed when they emerged.”
His mouth traced her chin. “For the sake of discretion, I’d venture.”
From his spine, her hand climbed up to his hair. “There’s no way of finding out at any rate.”
He flattened her on the mattress, grinding his erection on her softness. “But you can find out other things, perhaps.”
She bent her knees to cradle him. “I’m sure I can.” But when he kissed her, she forgot even her name.
Next morning, after breakfast, Edwina descended the stairs briskly, still putting on her gloves. She’d dressed in the demurest dress among her new ones. It wouldn’t do to wear one of her old attires and raise suspicion. This one left only her collarbone bare. She also chose the warmest redingote in a cream colour, aiming to blend in with the crowd.
Hobson stood in the entrance hall. She was fully aware that the butler had been tasked with relating her comings and goings to Harris. The footman that unfailingly accompanied her served for her protection as much as her watch. Why Harris determined it, she couldn’t tell as she’d never thought of breaking their agreement. Not until the debt had cleared.
“Out for a walk, my lady?” the butler probed gently.
“I’m in need of supplies, Hobson,” she said using a distracted tone as she busied herself adjusting her bonnet.
“Very well, my lady.” He bowed. “George here will accompany you.”
She pretended to check her reticule before answering. “Thank you, Hobson.”
The carriage she’d requested already awaited her. George helped her up and went to sit with the driver.
Hands tight on her lap, she endured the slow traffic to the arcade. A trip to Harding, Howell & Co always thrilled her, but today her nerves were on edge.
When the carriage parked at the entrance, George helped her down. She mustered her most dazzling smile for him. “You can wait here, George,” and checked the redingote buttons to avoid looking at him. “I won’t be long.”
“Are you sure, my lady?” the footman’s brows pleated, his eye filled with uncertainty. Should something happen to her, he would be summarily dismissed.
Her smile broadened. “Of course. My shopping won’t be heavy this time.”
With an uncertain nod, he bowed and re-joined the driver.
Edwina strolled leisurely inside until the crowd swallowed her, the place swarming at this hour. It’d been one of the reasons she chose to come here in the morning.
When she was sure the servants couldn’t spot her, she hastened her pace and found the opposite entrance to a back street. Rounding the building, she emerged in another busy street. There she hailed a hackney and gave the driver the address before she climbed onto it.
The building the driver stopped at looked unsuspecting. Any passer-by would deem it a respectful residence. For a moment, she doubted the driver had taken her to the correct place. But the street and the number were the ones she’d written down. After paying, she studied the three-storey house that lay around the corner. There must be a kind of backdoor for the servants and supplies. In fear of being recognised, she buried
her bonnet further on her head. It took a few minutes, but she located a backdoor from which a man carrying a fruit basket emerged.
Edwina remembered the first day she’d visited Harris’s warehouse and how the surrounding area had felt strange and dangerous. This house lay in a neighbourhood she’d never been to, but it seemed utterly safe.
Resolute, she strode to the backdoor and knocked. A long minute elapsed, which caused Edwina to sprout doubts. The door yanked open and gave her no time to dwell on them.
Notching her chin up, she said, “I’d like to speak to Madame Lafond.”
The servant held a wooden spoon smeared with food. A cook, certainly. She looked at Edwina from bonnet to boots and seemed to judge her worth enough for she pulled the door open further. Edwina checked to be sure no one saw her and stepped inside. It wouldn’t do to be seen at a brothel after all.
“Thank you, George,” she smiled at him before climbing up the front steps of Harris’s house upon their return.
After speaking with Madame Lafond, she’d made a point to go back to the arcade and buy a trinket or two before returning to the carriage that remained parked where she’d left it.
With the trinkets, she’d bought a ledger. In the past few weeks, Harris had been teaching her bookkeeping, and she’d made significant progress as she related it to what she’d been reading in his library.
“Aren’t you a fast learner?” Harris praised her that evening in the study.
After dinner, they’d come here for further lessons in bookkeeping, as they’d been doing for the past few weeks. At least he’d been teaching her more than his skills in the bedchamber.
Her mind drifted to her morning outing. She couldn’t believe how easy it’d been to find Madame Lafond’s address. One afternoon, leafing through a book, a piece of paper fell from it. The right thing would have been to pick it up and put it back, but the name Lafond jumped to her sight. There’d be no denying that every member of the ton, man or woman, heard of the luxurious brothel as it catered to refined tastes. The paper she’d found had been a three-month-old receipt for services provided, and on it stood the location and a veritable king’s ransom amount of money due.
“You revealed to be a good tutor,” she said. A blush surfaced on her cheeks as she remembered everything he’d ‘tutored’ her in.
The finding had sobered Edwina, she recalled. It’d brought home the reality of Harris’s lifestyle, pushing her to see what and who he was without the rosy colour of the delectation he afforded her every night. He’d always been and always would be a libertine, a hedonist who’d not stop seeking gratification. And a little prudish miss consisted of another morsel in which to indulge. Oh, how he must have been amused to seduce a blue-blood and make her scream and beg for more. For Edwina had done exactly that. For nights on end.
He directed her one of those side-smiles that got her mesmerised. “You deserve a reward for your accomplishments.” His tone had gone down an octave and caused a flutter in her lower abdomen.
She peered at him from under her lashes, her core already melting at the possibilities. “You’ve been rewarding me often enough.” Yet, she’d gobble any carnal inducement he was willing to bestow on her.
“This is special, though,” he stated as his eyes lowered to her not so discreet décolletage. It led her breasts to peak and lust for him.
It’d be a solace had it merely been lust. But her very feelings had been wringing and twisting inside her from the moment she’d laid eyes on him on that fateful day at the warehouse. These last few weeks, she’d been using her work as a way to not feel the dragging of the hours as she keenly counted the minutes for the moment he returned home. The retiring hour seemed like the beginning of a new day, when she really lived, felt the most alive. In his bed, waiting for him, her body lit up with expectation all flushed and ready. She’d avidly taken everything he deigned to give, hungry like a desert wanderer. The more she took, the more she wanted. She’d imbibe in every gruff word, every wolfish smile, every wicked caress.
It stopped here.
Or so she’d try. Because at that exact minute, he stared at her with such fire in his dark irises, she forgot about all her cares.
“Come here,” he ordered, making her stand and perch her bottom on the desk right in front of him. “Feet on my armrests,” he guided.
In that position, her legs opened for his full appreciation. Something he didn’t shy away from enjoying. Placing warm hands on her stockinged ankles, he slid them upwards, taking her skirts with them.
Good gracious! He wasn’t going to—
Oh!
Leaning on his desk, she became the perfect dish for him to feast on as he separated her knees to the widest. Bending his torso, he probed his wet tongue in the drawer’s slit. His evening stubble smeared on her already moist core. The shock of sensation came hot and unappeasable. Her spine arched as she emitted a moan, her hands locking on his head.
He gaped the slit together with her folds to expose her swollen nub and lick it with gusto. Her whole body sagged, and her torso fell on the desk as she let him do whatever he liked, whatever she wanted. Palming her buttocks, he dived further, driving her to extreme need.
His tongue lapped her into a brainless wanton. “Harris, please!” He paid no heed. “I want you inside me!” she specified. “I want—oh!” she moaned when, relentless, he licked her until she exploded, until there was nothing left.
Edwina lay on the sturdy wooden surface incapable of rising to her senses when he stood up, unbuttoned himself and neared her spread thighs. He bared her breasts and adjusted her, so her shoulders went off the edge.
“I’ll take you while drinking on your nipples,” he drawled.
Off the edge, her spine arched, making her breasts available to him.
She didn’t have time to respond before he found a French letter in a drawer and drove into her, bending his body over hers. Her legs surrounded him, and his head lowered to glut on a globe.
The inordinate arousal that ravaged her took her by storm. Her fingers merged in his ebony hair as he alternated nipples. He lunged in, melting her all over again.
“Harris,” she sighed. His vigorous movements made her bounce back and forth. “Don’t stop!”
His pubic bone hit on her engorged clit, his mouth suckled on her breasts, and she saw stars. Her skin flushed, heated; her core smelted and pleaded for satisfaction.
In a flash of lucidity, Edwina realised that she had become irreversibly addicted to this man. Not in a thousand years would she be able to avoid wanting him. At that precise second, she didn’t care. All she cared about was what he did to her. Her hips moved as she sought more of him and the carnal banquet he offered. He thrust once more, and she shattered with mindless intensity. The sound that escaped her throat couldn’t be described.
And when he shuddered his release, she went up in flames again.
CHAPTER NINE
Harris sat in the warehouse’s office with a letter of credit in hand when Miller knocked and entered. He’d been trying to concentrate on its content, but as usual, his mind insisted on going back home to Edwina.
“Lord Darroch, that lady, Miss Whitman, is here requesting to talk with you.” The mention of her name caused eagerness to thrum through him.
Naturally, Miller had not the slightest idea of the arrangement Harris made with the chit. For all intents and purposes, the lady merely had dealings with him. Harris and Edwina had been discreet. No doubt, no one had got wind of the earthquake that hit his home ever since she moved in. A convenient fact. He declined invitations for the various functions in town, and she hadn’t gone to her house to check on the ones sent there. Their nights in were perfectly satisfactory. Satisfactory being a mild word. Explosive would better fit the bill.
Inwardly he grinned smugly. Her presence here could mean only one thing.
Hm, the insatiable prissy chit!
His morning was about to become much
more interesting.
“Send her in, Miller.” Buttoning his coat, he lowered his head to the letter, composing his expression into an engrossed one.
Slippered feet approached, the doorknob clicking shut. She was here. They were alone.
Luncheon time, he celebrated. And he’d devour her whole.
“Good afternoon, Harris.” The tone was curt. And cold.
His dark head lifted, eyes funnelling on her. A sense of déjà vu swashed him. Edwina stood in the middle of the room dressed in one of those monstrosities she called a dress under her atrocious cloak. Beneath the same bonnet she wore on the first day, her glorious hair was coiled in a tight bun.
She might be coming from church for all he knew. “Edwina,” he greeted in a deliberately business-like timbre, foreboding forcing its way through his brain. He stood up as any gentleman would.
“I came here to inform you that my debt is cleared.” She extended a ledger in his direction.
He opened the accounting ledger, and the foreboding morphed into fury. A list of every night they spent together, the activities they engaged in and the costs figured neatly on the impersonal lines. The total exceeded her father’s debt.
His eyes cast daggers at her. “How did you come to this calculation?”
He didn’t really want to hear it; he wanted to hear nothing of it.
Her chin lifted in that haughty way that set fire to his blood. “I visited Madame Lafond to inquire about the services she offered to have a base value to do the math.”
The sly chit!
Well, she wasn’t a chit as such anymore. He’d made sure of that.
His eyes narrowed, and his fists tightened to whitening point. “And you place yourself at madame’s lofty level, do you?”
Her Wicked LibertineEDIT Page 11