by Maya Rodale
Her fingers twined through his hair as he nipped her bottom lip.
“God, Theo, I had no idea.”
He managed a mumbled mmm and found that his new mission in life was to explore kissing Daisy in places other than her lips. The soft flesh of her earlobe, for example. Oh, she liked that. The soft hollow of her throat. The spot where her neck curved to her shoulder. Oh, she really liked that. And even a little lower and lower . . .
Eventually, he looked up and saw they were at Thirty-Fourth Street.
Time. They had time.
And privacy. Steam and heat and water conspired to fog up the windows. Daisy could probably explain the science of it to him if her mouth wasn’t busy with activities other than talking.
He let his hands start to roam over her body. That was how he discovered that Daisy had been hiding something from him. There was no doubt about it—she had been hiding a marvelous figure. Curves and flares and long, slender legs. Breasts that fit perfectly in his hands, and that were perfectly responsive to the slow and steady back and forth caress of his thumb, even across the fabric of her dress.
The pleasure of it drew a slow hiss of a yes from her lips.
Buttons. These little things were in the way of what they both wanted. His hands on her bare skin. Theo flicked them open, one by one. Her skin, God, was smooth and soft, like silk under his touch. It felt like a dream. A dream he never wanted to wake from.
At Thirty-Ninth Street he claimed the dusky pink center of her breast with his mouth. He teased with his tongue, the heat of his mouth, the cool rush of air from his lips just to see what drove her wild.
Yes, she whispered, an exhale as she twined her fingertips in his hair and let him know with her touch that he should keep doing exactly that. Now he knew a little more about what Daisy liked.
Theo did things with his mouth and tongue and hands that had her writhing beneath his touch. He felt a surge of satisfaction and arousal. He’d never, ever been this hard before. He was desperate for her. Not any woman, but her.
Yes, she whispered again and again.
He was thinking about more and more.
Theo cast one heavy-lidded glance out the carriage window. They were at Forty-Fourth Street now. Rain was lashing at the windows. The traffic was easing up but still moving at a glacial pace.
Time. They still had time.
And he had ideas.
“Daisy . . .” he murmured, pressing his lips against hers. He reached for her hand, her waist, her. Then he reached for her skirts, dragging the heavy layers of finely spun wool skirts and delicate lace and cotton petticoats up and away, letting his hands graze across her silk stockings and slender legs.
And then his touch went higher.
“I like your idea of celebrating,” she murmured and her lips formed the sweetest tempting smile.
“Just you wait.”
He started with the sweetest, subtle touch on the delicate, sensitive, secret spot between her legs. Light as a feather. Gentle, as befitting a lady. And he felt something shift in her. This wasn’t working. Something wasn’t right. That hot fire of desire started to fade away . . . That something electric between them started to dim . . .
Theo could fumble all around her, trying this or that to revive the spark or . . . he could just ask. Presumably, a woman knew her own body and what it wanted.
“Show me how you like it,” he murmured.
And she did.
Oh, she did.
Her dark gaze met his as she closed her hand around his. She guided his fingers to exactly the spot she liked, demonstrated exactly the amount of pressure that made her moan and close her eyes. A soft gasp of pleasure escaped her lips as she showed him exactly where and how she liked to be touched. And there it was again, that spark between them that crackled into a fire.
Her cheeks were pink, almost feverish. Her lips parted, reddened from his kiss, and she was close, so close.
“How do you know this?” he asked in a whisper.
She gave a soft laugh. “How do you think?”
“I think I’ll be imagining that later.”
But for now he was content to revel in the here and now. Her hips started to rock and he moved with her and that drew a low moan from her lips.
Her soft, sweet lips beckoned and he was helpless to resist. Theo kissed her. But not before stealing a glance at her. Eyes closed. Flushed cheeks. Lips red from his kiss and parted. A glimpse of a woman losing herself to pleasure; a glimpse of true beauty.
The city roared outside the carriage, but Daisy barely noticed. Her dress was undone. Her hair was probably a wreck. But who could care about that at a moment like this, when Theodore Prescott the Adored had worked her up into this state of frenzy with his kiss, his touch, his naked desire to pleasure her.
She forgot that she hated him.
That until recently, they had been enemies.
That their first kiss was merely whelming.
Because this kiss—this everything—was something above and beyond anything she had ever imagined as she touched herself at night, learning what she liked.
Now Theo knew.
Now Daisy knew that he knew.
Daisy gripped the handles on the carriage door, holding on for dear life as this intense pressure built within her from her core and spread out through her limbs. Heat suffused her. She was nearly at the breaking point.
So much for being enemies.
So much for hating him.
He kept touching and teasing and kissing her.
So much for being business partners.
And he did something designed to push her over the edge.
He dropped to his knees. Right there on the carriage floor. She gasped and then smiled as she realized what he was about to do. Theodore Prescott the Adored on his knees, for her. There was a rustle of fabric as he pushed her skirts aside. She let her legs fall open and she discovered the exquisite pleasure of being kissed on the inside of her knees, her thighs, and higher and higher still . . .
This was outrageous behavior to engage in anywhere, let alone in the backseat of a carriage while stuck in traffic. She gave a little laugh of shock, delight, wonder. His strong hands gripped her thighs. He wanted this as much as she. Then Theo pressed his mouth to her sex and she didn’t laugh; oh, no, she gasped.
Yes . . .
She let her head fall back. What a day it had been. This was the perfect way to celebrate, to relax, to let go and just revel in pleasure.
Oh, yes . . .
She closed her eyes and gave in to the feeling. The warmth of his mouth. The danger of his touch. The fire of her wanting.
Yes . . .
The heat raging within her. This dress. Too much. She wanted it off. She gripped a handful of fabric. The pressure inside her was building and building and building until there was no room left for her lungs to expand. Breathing. She could not catch a breath.
Her heart slammed in her chest.
And then just like that the orgasm rocked through her and she wasn’t exactly quiet about it.
A few blocks later the carriage rolled to a stop.
It took her a moment to realize that they had arrived at her destination—home—and she was in no condition to leave the carriage. Her hair tumbled around her shoulders. Her dress was unbuttoned, her breasts bared to the air. Her breath was still uneven and her heart was still tripping to an erratic beat.
And the infamous Theodore Prescott the Third was looking right at home between her thighs. His blue eyes were heavy-lidded and his own lips were reddened and full from all the pleasure they’d pressed upon every exposed inch of her skin, and then some. His hair—those pretty blond curls—was a tussled mess. His suit was terribly rumpled.
He was gorgeous.
Heart-achingly gorgeous.
A girl could get used to this.
A girl probably shouldn’t though.
“This doesn’t change anything,” she said as her fingers trembled with her buttons and he sat
back and pulled her skirts down.
“Everything is exactly the same,” he said, voice rough.
It was a lie because everything had changed.
A short while later
Daisy shut the door to her bedchamber, fell back against it with a thud, and slid down to the floor. She offered up a silent prayer of everlasting gratitude that she made it into her room undetected. Her mind was so overrun with thoughts and feelings and memories it just gave up and went blank. She had to sit down.
Wait—she already was sitting.
So that was how well functioning her brain was at the moment. And to think, she was a smart girl. Theo had just been that good. She was lucky that breathing was an involuntary action because she was so distracted by what had just happened that she could think of little else.
Her legs had given up on her completely.
Her heart was still bopping around like an erratic and unchoreographed display of fireworks.
If she was not mistaken, the golden boy of the Four Hundred, the object of many girls’ fancy, and her longtime enemy, Theodore Prescott the One and Only, had just made love to her in a carriage. With his mouth. All the way uptown.
She reached for a pillow to scream into it.
It hadn’t been her first experience with pleasure, but it had been her first time sharing it with another person and it happened to be the very last person on earth who she had ever expected to indulge with.
Now he was also her business partner?
There could be no mistake; they were in business together. They had a shop. They had employees. And best of all, they had customers. A whole store full of customers who raved and purchased and not all of them were Ladies of Liberty. Together she and Theo had created something new and exciting and possibly life-changing.
Business. Just business.
Face cream. She was thinking about face cream.
She was so not thinking about face cream.
Daisy clutched the pillow to her chest and . . . smiled.
Oh, she smiled like she had never smiled before. Like her cheeks hurt from so much joy. Because suddenly her whole world had cracked wide open. Today had been an undeniable success both professionally and personally. And that success went straight to her brain and told her in no uncertain terms that the possibilities were infinite. Endless. No dream was too big. There was no prize she couldn’t reach for and seize.
She felt pretty. And giddy. And possibly feverish.
Daisy put her hand to her cheek and found it hot to the touch.
Daisy dragged herself up and over to her dressing table. She plunked down on the tufted seat and took a good look at herself in the mirror. She wanted a glimpse of herself as joyous, and well-pleasured, and outrageously optimistic for her future. And so she lifted her gaze to Daisy in the mirror.
For the first time she thought, I am pretty.
And then she looked longer and thought, No, I am beautiful.
Nothing about her features had changed. Nose: still a trifle too large. Eyes: still a little too close together. Mouth: still not an alluring rosebud of a mouth. Her buttons were unevenly done—once again she thanked God that she hadn’t encountered anyone on the journey from the carriage to her bedroom. Her hair looked exactly like a man had dragged his fingers through it as he cradled her head and kissed her deeply. Which was exactly what had happened.
But . . .
Her eyes had a brightness, a sparkle.
Her lips were fuller, redder.
Her cheeks were pink with the sweet flush of pleasure.
Nothing had really changed but everything had changed. She had succeeded at something she’d long dreamed of succeeding at. A man had made love to her, had brought her to dizzying heights of pleasure. While Daisy had daydreamed about one or the other she had never expected to actually experience them both together, on the same afternoon.
Both success and pleasure gave her a glow.
There was no denying it: she felt beautiful. She looked beautiful. She felt like she could take the world by storm.
What if I could feel like this all the time?
Perhaps not the messy hair, but the wide eyes, the pink cheeks, the just-made-love-to glow? She wouldn’t mind looking like this all the time. She wouldn’t mind people looking at her, wondering what put this sparkle in her eyes or this flush on her cheeks. She wouldn’t be bothered if people thought she had just been kissed.
What if any woman could look like this whenever she wished?
Her brain slowly but surely resumed its basic function of thinking actual thoughts. Her brain presented the obvious answer first: kiss Theo all the time. But this would be logistically impossible for all sorts of reasons: technical, practical, and emotional.
What if any woman could look like this whenever she wished, and a man wasn’t necessary for it?
A second thought was more promising though: What if she could make, say, a powder to give a glow of blush across a woman’s cheeks? What if a lip tint could make a girl’s mouth seem just-kissed? What product could she make—using her training in chemistry—to make eyes seem brighter? Perhaps with her training she could improve the formulations that people had been using. And perhaps with the help of Theo, Harriet, and the Ladies of Liberty, she could make them seem respectable. With her shop, she could certainly make them accessible to her customers of the Midnight Miracle Cream.
This was no longer just about wanting to escape a marriage or earn enough money for her freedom. Daisy felt so beautiful for the first time, and she wanted any woman to be able to feel this way. If she wanted. The only question was: Did she dare?
Chapter Sixteen
It’s not every day that one of the darling sons of Manhattan’s elite is involved in a skirmish among women in a new shop selling ladies’ toilet preparations. When it does happen, it’s on a Wednesday and the playboy in question is none other than Theodore Prescott the Third. Dear Reader, I shall explain . . .
—The New York World
The offices of Prescott Steel
Theo and Daisy made the newspapers the following day—and not just a write-up of the store opening in the ladies’ section, either. They made the gossip columns. Because what reporter could resist writing up the story of the Millionaire Rogue inserting himself into a skirmish over the morality of complexion balm amongst a throng of women?
None of the lady reporters who had been present, that much was clear.
It was their big chance to get a byline beyond the women’s pages and they took full advantage. There was Theodore Prescott the Third “attempting to charm an old crone lecturing a fashionable set of ladies about the evils of cosmetics at the otherwise successful grand opening of Dr. Swan’s Apothecary.” Another reporter wrote that “Theodore attempted to broker peace amongst an anxious crowd of women forced to confront the morality of their shopping.”
It wasn’t terrible. Not at all. To mention the shop name and fashionable women in the same line was better publicity than the half-page advertisement he had taken out. To be written about in all the papers thusly would spark conversation, arouse women’s curiosity, and perhaps inspire them to visit the shop. That was all he could do: get them into the shop and give them the opportunity to say yes.
The mentions in the newspapers were only remotely terrible if one was trying not to draw the attention of Theodore Prescott the Second.
Theo wasn’t ready for that—not yet.
His father summoned him.
Theodore Prescott the Second, through one of his secretaries, let Theodore Prescott the Third know that the hour of one o’clock on Thursday was held for their conversation at the offices of Prescott Steel.
Theo entertained the outrageous thought of not going.
After all, he had business of his own to attend to.
Theo knew what to expect and yet he harbored hope.
Perhaps this time, it would be different.
And so here he was, in his father’s suffocatingly opulent office, suffering thr
ough his aura of disapproval. Theo had taken a chance on coming today because the write-up hadn’t been entirely terrible. If there was the slightest chance that Prescott Senior would be glad that his son had finally found an occupation, Theo wanted to be there for it. He made a silent vow to himself: if his father asked the questions that would make Theo feel like he could share the news, he would.
This could be the day. The moment he’d always wanted.
But first, The Stare.
A selection of newspaper clippings were in an array on his desk. One as busy and important as Prescott the Second didn’t browse the newspapers himself, for that took time, and time was money. He had people to do that. They clipped the relevant and interesting articles and presented them in order of importance. Theo had long been aware of this and knew that getting into the newspaper was the best way of getting his father’s attention.
Prescott Senior launched right into it. “Would you care to tell me why you were engaged in a ‘skirmish’ at a ladies’ cosmetics store?”
“Not particularly.” Because to do so would begin to unravel the barely concealed fact of Daisy’s involvement. They had discussed it and decided for the moment that it was best if they kept it quiet. People would certainly figure it out and talk about it, which would be fine. But Theo and Daisy wouldn’t, say, put an ad in the newspaper about it just yet.
“Do you think I called you here for such a vague, impertinent answer?”
Theo waited a beat before answering. “Not particularly.”
“I find it curious that you were at a store that shares a name with your fiancée. Do you?”
Theo bit back a grin as he replied. “Not particularly.”
At which point his father leveled him with The Stare.
At which point Theo discovered it didn’t have quite the same hold on him.
The reason: not just something else but someone else. An outstanding first day of sales and the promise of more. His own sense of self-worth. And Daisy.
Just tell them we’re engaged, she said.
We’ll go our separate ways, she said.
She was gloriously, wonderfully wrong. They were friends and lovers and business partners. And when he phrased it like that . . . Theo’s breath hitched in his throat as he finally, truly noticed how his feelings for her had changed. They were . . . intense and complicated and not what they used to be. They were definitely maybe not just business partners. Or just friends. This was something he didn’t have a quick name for, or a pithy label. Just a feeling. In his heart.