A carriage pulled up and Mr. Taylor climbed in. The front door of the house opened and Sudworth and Jane followed him in, both glaring at him.
“I’m off to London.” Mr. Taylor gave him a look of complete pity before saying, “Enjoy your evening, Lord Valdeston… please. Please enjoy your evening.” Then he tapped the carriage and was off.
Francis turned to look at the house and every emotion he’d felt for the last five years filled his mind with images of the past and the indecisions of the future.
If he and Genie could keep their affair hidden from the world then perhaps he could…
There was much to consider, so he headed to his horse, intending to leave and return when he was sure Lord Buckley wasn’t in the vicinity but movement from a window on the side of the house caught his eye. He moved closer and through the thin material of the curtains could make out a passing gown. He banged on the window.
He heard the startled noises from within and was greeted by the sight of Sophia as she opened the curtains. She glared at him and Francis heard her muffled voice speak to the room.
“It’s Francis.”
There was a squabbling sound and then Genie was at the window.
Her reddened, pained face made him want to do harm to himself if it would relieve hers. The evidence of what he’d done was clear.
“I’ve come to tell you to go away.” She pressed her lips together to hide their obvious trembling.
Francis glanced at the space of the window and then started to climb in.
“No,” Genie hissed. “I told you to go away. “
There were more quiet hisses at him, all the women telling him just how very little they thought of him at the moment.
“Get out,” he told them.
Lorena stepped forward. “Francis, never in my life have I ever—”
“Get out of the room,” he growled.
Everyone but his sister shrank away.
The Cullips glared at one another.
Lorena turned and began to grab the others. “Come, let us leave them alone for a moment.”
“But, Lorena,” Genie whispered.
“Let him have his say,” Lorena told her. “We’ll be back shortly.” Then, with a final cut direct at her brother, she let them be.
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CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
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“I want you to leave,” Genie told him the minute the door closed. She was aware of the guests who were still in the rooms on the other side of the house and kept her voice low. Just looking at him made her want to scream but, kiss or not, if he were to be discovered in her room alone, they would be forced to wed.
The thought of entrapment now gave her as much pleasure as the smell of spoiled milk. She was done with Francis, done with her obsession, her love. “How silly I’ve been to have wasted all these years on you. Leave at once.”
Francis closed the curtains and looked around the room. “Is there not an ounce of liquor in here?”
Genie blinked. “It’s a lady's bedchamber. Why would you expect liquor to be found here?”
Francis narrowed his eyes, dropped to his knees, and looked under the bed closest to the window. He came back up with Sophia’s bottle of gin and a triumphant smile.
She watched, spellbound, as he turned to one of the chairs in the corner of the room and took a heavy seat. He faced her as he pressed the bottle to his lips and drank heavily. Then he held it out to her. “Surely, you wish for some of this.”
She did but she didn’t want anything that he had to offer. “That gin is for when the Spinsters swear in at meetings.”
“Very well.” He placed the bottle on the table and turned to her. “Let’s try this again, shall we?” His eyes were anxious.
Genie stared. “What?” Surely, he didn’t mean what she thought he meant.
He leaned his head back against the chair. “Kiss me.”
She took a step back and touched her belly to try and calm its insistent aching. “How dare you? Do you think I wish to embarrass myself again? I understand that you do not want me, Francis. Now, please leave.”
“Kiss me.”
She shook her head. “What did I ever do to deserve this cruelty from you?” The tears began to fall again.
Francis stood. “Very well, if you’re not going to kiss me then I’ll simply have to kiss you.” He stalked over with long strides.
Genie watched spellbound as he approached her.
His hand went to her cheek and she turned her head just before his mouth descended on hers. His kiss landed on her wet cheek and she prayed he tasted the sorrow in the salt of her tears.
“Evie—”
“It’s Genevieve or Genie. Don’t call me that anymore.” She couldn’t bear to hear him say it again. It hurt too much.
She remained still with his mouth touching her cheek.
“Evie.”
Her hand flew across his face faster than he had time to react, yet his eyes didn’t appear at all startled. Instead, they reflected a level of anguish that matched her own.
“I want you to leave,” she told him and she’d made her own plans to depart as well the very next morning. She needed time away from him and even the place his memories laid. She couldn’t be in England. She planned to take her allowance and rent a home in Scotland where she could mourn the death of her father and her heart.
Where her hand had collided with his cheek was red. She hated that he’d gotten her that angry. She’d never hit anyone before. “You need to go.”
“I wanted to kiss you.”
She started to shake her head.
“Eve… Genie, I’ve always wanted to kiss you.”
The lies, instead of restoring her confidence as she knew he was trying to do, made it worse. “Francis, please.”
He turned away from her and Genie bit her lip to stop herself from crying at his departure. She jumped when she heard the lock twist. She looked over and watched Francis approach her again. His hands went to his cravat, undoing it in the same fashion he’d done in the forest.
“Yes,” Genie agreed. “I need my locket back.” She held out her hand and waited, keeping her eyes away from his chest and squarely on his eyes.
He held no expression as he shrugged out of his shirt.
She frowned as he moved to the bed, sat, and began to remove his boots. “What are you doing? There’s no need for all of this simply to give me the locket.” Her eyes betrayed her and fell to his flat chest and watched the muscles move with every twist of his body, her gold chain glittered against his skin.
He looked her over as he stood bootless before her. “You should remove your dress.”
She took a step back. “I don’t understand, what are you trying to prove?”
“That I want you.” His hands went to his breeches and Genie’s eyes narrowed in on the fingers that worked briskly at the buttons.
He groaned, hooked his fingers around the edge of his smallclothes, and shoved them down.
The evidence of his wanting jutted out, swung, and pointed at her. Genie had never seen one before and couldn’t look away as all her aching moved to the place between her legs.
She allowed her eyes to take Francis in and she shook her head at his beauty. “What does this prove? You already told me Fanny meant nothing to you. Perhaps it is easy for a man to want any woman.”
Francis frowned. “Fine, then I won’t convince you of my feelings but I do owe you a rendezvous.”
She remembered forcing the issue at the forest but that was before he destroyed all her hopes of happiness. “Just give me the necklace and leave.”
“Shall I help you undress or are you capable of doing it yourself?”
A knock sounded on the door, startling her.
She looked between the door and the naked man in her room.
“Gen
ie?” Lorena called.
Genie looked at Francis. “They’ve returned. Put your clothes on.”
“Tell them to go,” he told her. “We’re not finished. In fact, Sophia should find another room to sleep in tonight.”
Genie’s lips parted and hung open. “You’re insane.”
He walked over to her and placed his hands on her cheeks. His gaze was acute. “Two weeks ago, the woman I’ve been in love with since the day I met her kissed me. Circumstances prevented me from returning that kiss. So, right now, I need to show her just how very much she means to me. Go to the door and say you are unwell. Ask Sophia to give you the room so that you may be alone.”
Genie was still stuck at his confession of love and the circumstances he’d mentioned. “You love me?”
“Genie!” Lorena banged on the door.
Francis tightened his hold on her. “If you don’t get rid of them, Lorena is likely to break down the door and, if that happens, everyone is likely to see just how much love I have for you.”
Genie looked between them at his shaft and then back at his eyes. “Give me a moment.” She turned to leave.
Francis grabbed her arm. “They can never know of this night. Our happiness depends on it. Do you understand?”
She didn’t, but she nodded and quickly went to the door. She did as he instructed, telling the women she simply wished to go to bed and be left alone. Sophia quickly understood and said she’d borrow another woman’s night rail.
Genie turned from the door and looked at Francis. “They’re gone.”
“Come here.”
She walked over to him and stopped a few feet away, more unsure of herself than ever. She’d been so very prepared to seduce him when she’d hoped for his love but now that he’d expressed it and was willing to show her evidence of it, Genie’s virgin state made her cautious.
He closed the distance and lifted her chin. “We don’t have to do anything if you’re not ready. We could simply kiss, I could hold you, and we could talk. We could do more than kiss. We could go further. It’s up to you.”
Genie frowned. “More than kiss?”
He smiled, leaned forward, and brushed his lips against her. “Whatever you want?”
Genie nearly swooned. She placed her hands on his arms. “Why now? Why tell me the truth after all this time?”
“Because the thought of a life without you was too painful to bear.”
She did swoon then.
He caught her at her hips. “Shall you undress yourself or shall I assist?”
In the firelight, gold ran through her crimson hair. Her face was flushed, her pale lips slightly parted, her green eyes warm. She turned from him in her seductive confection of a dress and presented him with the ribbons at her back.
The black silk gave under his fingers and he quickly removed her stays, slipping them down over her hips, pooling like a black lake around her. She remained in her stockings and pantaloons and turned to him.
His cock responded by straining to reach her. “Sit on the bed.”
Genie covered her breasts and did as he told her.
Francis knelt before her and slid his hands up one leg and down the other. She trembled as he continued to stroke her over the stockings. He felt like a hungry man with a feast prepared for him and felt his need rising with every moment. “How long I’ve waited for this.”
“Why did you wait?” Her voice was strained.
He looked up as his fingers slipped to her garter. “It’s a long story.” He slipped one stocking down her leg, did the same with the other, bent forward, and delivered a kiss to each of her knees. “I’m still unsure of what to say.”
Her fingers brushed his hair and forced him to meet her eyes again. “Please, tell me. I don’t understand.”
He leaned away from her and studied the woman before him. She was there, in reaching distance, and yet so much stood in the way of them being together. Telling her the truth would only put them at more risk of having everything they could want. If he told her now, Genie would gladly leave England with him. They were that much in love, but Francis wanted to give her everything and to do that, he would have to wait. “I can’t tell you. Not yet, but I swear that one day I will tell you everything. Can you trust me?”
She reached out and stroked his cheek. “How long must I wait?”
“Only a little longer.” He was waiting to hear word from Morris’ and Frank’s solicitors then he would tell Genie everything and let her make the decision.
“But you love me?” she asked.
Every word he knew seemed to be inadequate to describe how he felt about her and he’d felt it for so long that the word for it had to be ancient. The need for her, the eternal longing, engulfed everything he was. “Desperately.”
She smiled. “Then I trust you.”
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CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
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Francis returned her smile, rose, and kissed her, leaning her back until her body hit the bed.
Genie moaned as Francis’ naked body touched hers. His chest grazed her nipples and his erection brushed her stomach. His mouth found hers and Genie experienced her first true kiss from him. She opened for him and his tongue invaded her mouth, twisting and tangling with hers, his thrusts matching the movement of his hips. His shaft rubbed against the bud between her legs and worked Genie into a state of need that had her trembling and writhing under him right before she felt her body explode. His mouth absorbed her cries and then he picked her up and laid her head against the pillows.
His elbows settled into the bed beside her and he lifted just enough to meet her eyes. “We can stop here if you wish.”
She shook her head and grabbed his shoulders. “I’ve waited too long for you. I want you. All of you.” The need for him throbbed between her legs like a second heart and she knew it to be an ache only he could soothe; his body completed hers. “I want you.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
He kissed her again and Genie took deep breaths, breathing in his tantalizing scent and her own aroused aroma. His mouth moved to her throat and lower until his tongue settled over her nipple. A shot of pleasure shot through her. His other hand kneaded her other breast, causing her nipple to pearl right before he took it between his teeth. Another jostle of need coursed through her and she moaned.
She was neither unsurprised by her heightened awareness nor the wetness that seemed to continue to seep from her. Sophia had described the experience with accurate detail, giving her a lesson in the foreign language of lovemaking but words scarcely touched the surface of what it truly felt like. The scrape of his rough skin against her softness, being bathed in his warm breath wherever his mouth went, the smells.
“You’re so beautiful.”
She smiled and moaned again when he bit her.
He lifted his head and touched her lips with his thumb. “Lower your voice or we’ll be discovered.”
She nodded against his hand and tensed as his mouth settled over her navel and his tongue swirled its way toward the patch between her thighs. His body moved lower, her legs widened to accept him, and then his lips closed over her clitoris.
Pleasure tore her apart, and she choked back a groan as she came again.
He rose and she noticed his lips glistened with her essence. His eyes had gone from an early morning blue to that of midnight.
Her eyes moved to the member that seemed to beat with life at his center. She reached out and grabbed it.
His head shot back and liquid slipped out of the slit at its tip. His cock was warm, silky, and hard between her fingers, which slipped over his skin easily now that he was wet. She flipped her body toward him, settled into the bed, and licked the crown of his prick.
Francis grabbed her hair, fisting it in an effort she knew was to pull her
away. She closed her mouth over the head and sank lower, taking nearly half of him, as that was all that would fit.
“Oh, God, Genie.” He shuddered and his fingers tightened deeper into her curls. Pins fell out.
She pulled away and whispered, “It's Evie.”
His chuckle was cut off when she took him between her lips again, sucking hard and deep. She stroked the rest of him with her hand.
Francis’ roaming hands took the rest of the pins from her hair and the feel of her locks against her skin only made her shiver. His hips started to thrust forward, hesitantly at first, then more erratic and deep.
Genie eventually stopped moving and allowed him to use her mouth as he worked himself into a frenzy, bathing her mouth with his seed, groaning low.
He lifted her and kissed her then
pushed her back against the bed and lowered himself back on top. Then he flipped them over and Genie came to rest on his chest, his limp member between them.
She smiled down at him. “This is fun.”
His hands ran up her back and between her hair. He grinned. “I’m glad you think so but the next part might not be so fun for you.”
“Well, we’ve time before that. Your body will need time to regrow, won’t it?”
As if in answer, she felt him grow against her stomach.
Francis laughed at her surprised expression. “Sophia didn’t calculate just how much I want you. We’ve years to make up for.”
He flipped her over and Genie opened her legs wider as he settled between them. He positioned his now swollen shaft at her entrance and pushed forward.
Genie swarmed with uncertainty. She remembered being told it would fit but perhaps Sophia didn’t know just how large a man could be. Francis hadn’t even fit in her mouth all the way. Maybe it was she who was the problem.
Genie’s Scandalous Spinster’s Society Page 13