He imagined being more to Violet than her bodyguard. Imagined being the man she came home and shared a drink with on a cold winter’s night. What would it be like to follow her to bed and wake beside her every morning?
If he had a woman like Violet at his side, he would do everything in his power to make her happy. The sweet flare of pain in his chest burned bright for one bittersweet second before reality doused it.
Even if Violet were to ignore the difference in their stations, she could not forgive the notoriety his past would bring.
“The Omnis managed to get the drop on you once already,” said the earl. “How am I to trust they won’t surprise you again?”
“Don’t worry about the element of surprise,” Arthur replied.
Reaching over, he grabbed the earl’s obnoxious pointing finger and pivoted on one heel.
Grantham’s arse hitting the floorboards made a massive noise. More gratifying was the sheer astonishment on the earl’s too-pretty face. It couldn’t banish the pain, but it made Arthur chuckle.
“Come back here, you insufferable ba—”
Arthur flung open the door and nodded at the gaping footman, ignoring Grantham’s complaints as they followed him down the hall.
Violet would be settling for less if she married Grantham. The man treated her like a younger sister. She deserved a man who found her irresistible. Who got down on one knee and told her that life could not and would not be worthwhile if she wasn’t at his side.
Violet deserved to be loved.
13
BOLLOCKS!”
There were many benefits to Violet’s widowhood. The most obvious being that she no longer had to tolerate her husband and his bullying tirades.
Widowhood also allowed liberties like cursing at the top of her lungs without having to hear a single word of reproach. As she rubbed her sore head, Violet reviewed her other vocabulary options.
Bollocks was fun to say and covered an extensive range of circumstances. Much better than damn.
Of course, her favorite word was . . .
“Are you all right?”
Violet smacked her head against the bottom of her coffee table for the second time at the sound of Arthur’s voice. She had been certain she was alone. Cautiously, she backed out from under the table on all fours until her head was clear.
Arthur stood in the doorway of her workroom, a candle in one hand and a frown on his face. He leaned a hip against the doorframe, one leg crossed over the other. He’d left off his coat and loosened his cravat. She’d never beheld him in shirtsleeves before. What a fascinating body he had. Violet wagered he would look as compelling out of his clothes as he did in them.
That blow to her head must have knocked the sense out of her. She should not be thinking about seeing Arthur naked.
“I am fine, thank you,” she said. “Why do you ask?” She pulled at the neck of her dressing gown, struggling to appear unruffled even as her skin heated.
His thick black brows dipped in confusion. “You shouted, ‘Bollocks.’ I assumed something was wrong.”
“I did not shout . . . that word you said,” Violet said with a sniff. “I shouted, ‘Buttons.’”
“Why were you under the table?” Always on alert, Arthur scanned the room from corner to corner as he set down the candle.
Violet rose from the floor and collapsed onto her sagging sofa. “I set up an experiment and knocked over a jar of lemon drops—for me, not the experiment.”
Winter held London in its grasp, tapping at the window glass, finding its way in through tiny cracks and fissures, even through the sturdy walls of Beacon House. Despite the fire laid earlier, the workroom had a slight chill, and she’d donned an enormous old night rail of thick knitted wool. Beneath it, a simple, unadorned cotton gown covered her from her clavicle to her ankles.
“Will you sit?” she asked, patting the cushion next to her. “Come now. I won’t bite.”
The memory of Arthur setting his teeth against the soft column of her neck made her flush. “I mean, I won’t bite in a rabid dog way . . . Not that I would bite you in any other way . . . Unless you wanted me to.”
One thick eyebrow lifted in question, and Violet sighed.
“I told Caro Pettigrew we should never use the word ‘stupid.’ Yet that is how I am around you. Tongue-tied and stupid.”
For the past two days, a chorus of voices had been raised against her association with this man. The fate of Athena’s Retreat hung over her every minute of the day, and yet she could not believe what she wanted was wrong.
He made his way toward her, and Violet marveled at the way his body moved beneath his clothing, the waistcoat pulling against the breadth of his shoulders.
“I don’t care what everyone says,” she muttered. “I wish I could . . .”
“You wish you could do what?”
“More than anything, I wish I had the confidence to seduce you,” she confessed.
There it was again—that way he had of switching from protector to predator in an instant. A shift in the way he held himself, thighs tensed and ready to spring, fingers flexed. He cleared his throat as his gaze dropped to her bare toes.
“I wish I could get my hands on whoever took away that confidence,” he said.
His words smashed the walls around her to pieces.
“I cannot believe you doubt your allure. It hasn’t gone without notice that I am . . . affected by your company.” He rubbed his jaw. “Not that it’s a good idea, seduction. I shouldn’t be here.”
“I have been given the same warnings.” Violet hugged herself at the memory of Letty and Phoebe’s critique. “From the moment we returned from the ball, I have been told what not to do.”
A fire had smoldered in her chest since her friends’ visit the other day. Grantham’s words had added fuel to the blaze.
“Do you know how it made me feel, to be told I was irresponsible and letting down the club members because I chose to dance with you?” Her hands clenched into fists.
“Angry?” For a moment, pride filled his eyes. The next second, his brows lowered in worry as he hunted for a handkerchief.
“I’m not going to cry,” she promised. “Yes. Angry. And guilty. And sad.”
Still holding the handkerchief, he waited for her to finish, cradling them both in that miraculous stillness he carried with him.
“Mostly, I was tired,” she said. “Tired of hiding my passions to accommodate others. Tired of pretending to be what I am not. Tired . . .” Violet’s voice broke. “I am tired of being alone.”
A precipice awaited, and she threw herself over, wrenching herself wide open to him. “I do not want to be alone tonight.”
Had she ever not known him? He must have lived on the edge of her dreams. Only years of familiarity could have allowed her to read the stillness in his face. Prickles of anticipation lit her skin even before he lowered himself to the sofa, ready to give in to desire.
“It has been a long time since anyone offered to seduce me,” he said. His weight on the couch caused her to tumble toward him. “How will you begin?”
She exhaled, squeezing her thighs around a quiver of pleasure. “Well, you are retiring to a farm, are you not?”
The hard body now pressed against her made it difficult to concentrate, even more so when he wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
That must be why she blurted out the least seductive suggestion one could imagine.
“We could examine the subject of agricultural use of chemical methods to increase yields and disease resistance in various strains of wheat.”
He tilted his head as he considered her words. “Or I could kiss you.”
A tiny squeak of relief emerged, and she tilted her head upward for the promised kiss, but he set a finger to her lips.
“I want you to ask for anything you want. A
nything.” He wiggled his eyebrows. “Tell me as well if there is anything you do not want,” he said, his voice softening as he traced the arc of her bottom lip. “I will be listening.”
Violet wanted him to stop talking and start touching, but he hesitated. “Tonight is about physical passion. There can be no sentiments involved. We cannot be discovered.”
“Of course.” She nodded like a fool. “We are going to indulge in our physical urges, nothing more.”
She paused, then added, “Maybe in more than one position?”
He laughed. He laughed. Low and smooth like the rush of river water over rounded stones, the sound covered her in a lusty awareness, and she plunged ahead without fear.
Dark and soft and tasting of smoky gunpowder tea, Arthur kissed her over and over again, and she met his mouth with an unabashed hunger, her fingers running through his hair as she pulled him flush against her.
He’d pounced on her hungrily, pushing her further into the couch, like a wolf hovering over his prey, and the image sent a wicked thrill through her.
Arthur broke away and raised himself up on his forearms.
“Why are you wearing so many clothes?” he asked.
She chuckled in answer, and his predatory grin made her open her legs beneath him. In response, his heavy cock stirred. The lightness of the moment vanished, and her hands fluttered to the ribbon at her neck.
Arthur stood from the couch, pulling her with him. He kept his gaze locked on hers while he unknotted the frayed ribbon at her throat and slipped the worn wooden buttons through the holes on the front of her hideous robe.
“You have beautiful eyes,” he told her.
“Oh.” She was fascinated by his clever fingers as he worked to free her. “What a lovely compliment.”
When the robe hung open, he slipped it from her shoulders.
“It’s a terrible compliment,” he said. Spinning her around, he put his mouth close to her ear, his breath tickling it. “I should be telling you that your eyes are like the pools they talk about in fairy stories. The ones that call to men in the darkest part of the forest, pulling you in with the promise of pleasure, where even as you drown you are grateful for such a perfect death. I should have said that, but better.”
Gently, he lifted her hair back over one shoulder, fingers brushing the base of her neck as he now attacked the tiny buttons down the back of her gown, huffing in frustration. She turned her head, and his movements stilled.
“No one has ever said anything half so nice about my eyes, Arthur,” she whispered.
“Then you have been surrounded by fools. Where do I start?” he asked. “Odes to your lips? Sonnets praising the line of your neck, the sweetness of your mouth?”
“Oh, yes, please,” she murmured. “Then it will be my turn. I am particularly enamored by the angle of your jaw and the backs of your hands.”
This was meant to be Violet’s seduction of Arthur. Instead, he’d turned it around.
Fairy pools.
What would fall next from his lips? Compliments to her skin? Perhaps he’d recite a piece of poetry to her, stroke the hair from her forehead, hold her hand and kiss her palm as he gently—
“What the devil?” she cried out as a freezing draft from the nearby window lashed her naked arse.
He’d torn off her nightgown!
Allowing a fraction of a second for her shock to subside, he spun her around and pulled the tatters of the gown from her arms, picked her up, and set her back on the couch. Violet pulled an afghan blanket from beneath her and covered herself. The room was cold!
“Now I understand why you curse using the word ‘buttons,’” he said. “There must have been thousands of them. Much better like this.”
No trace of his smile remained. Instead, he stood over her, hands busy removing his cravat, the outline of his thick erection pushing at the confines of his trousers. His gaze swept her body like that of a starving man surveying a meal.
She should be outraged.
Instead, she was thrilled—right down to her bare toes.
“I never liked that nightgown anyway,” she said.
“Stop covering yourself,” Arthur growled. “I worked hard to be able to see your body.”
A sweet lash of pleasure warmed her skin at the command. He pulled the cravat from his neck and ran the strip of cloth over his knuckles. Something about the way he glanced between the cloth and her body aroused her even more, and she licked her dry lips.
His expression bordered on feral. “Another time,” he mused, his voice low and dark with need. “Not tonight. Tonight, I have no patience for games.”
Had she found the room cold? His words had heated it to one hundred degrees. Good thing, because she discovered the thrill of watching Arthur’s face as she peeled back the blanket. His eyes darkened to black, and he dropped the cravat. As the rough yarn snagged on her nipples, he rubbed a hand over his mouth, making a sound she interpreted as interested.
“Will you undress as well?” she asked, eager to view the body she’d imagined all this time.
His fingers went to the fastenings at the front of his trousers, then paused.
“Do you remember my disdain for distractions?” he asked. When she nodded, he reached over and pulled the rest of the blanket away from her.
When she opened her mouth to object, he swallowed her words with his soft lips, curled his velvet tongue around her grievances, and stole her complaints. The slick caress of his satin waistcoat against her skin made her restless, and he broke the kiss. Carving a trail of bliss down her neck with the tip of his tongue, he lingered in the gentle dip of her clavicle. Wanting to assuage the need at the juncture of her thighs, Violet shifted below him.
Large, calloused palms gripped her thighs, and he widened her legs. A fleeting embarrassment at her wet core against the fabric of his trousers vanished in the wake of pleasure.
Her hands slipped over his shoulders, hard and heavy as rocks beneath the linen of his shirt. He held the bulk of his weight on his elbows; there was not an ounce of give in the back beneath her roving touch. Growing impatient, she dug her fingers in and pulled him even closer. Tiny sparks set off beneath her lids when he rewarded her by thrusting his hips at the right angle while stroking her nipples with the flat of his tongue. Violet groaned at the sensation.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Not sorry,” he whispered against the curve of her ribs. “Never that.”
Not content making her crazy with his tongue, the wicked man proceeded to take her hardened nipple in between his teeth and lightly bite down.
She cried out as he alternated between suckling and nipping, while pinching and rolling the other nipple with his fingertips. Her awareness narrowed to his hands and his mouth and the havoc they wrought on her. A prickly swath of heat exploded through her. She shuddered, craving something out of reach.
Her body begged for the warmth of Arthur’s skin against hers. She wished more than anything to give him pleasure in return, but he continued to deny her. Instead, he abandoned her nipples for an openmouthed exploration of the valley between her breasts, then her belly, and finally, toward her aching center.
“Are you . . . ?” She forced the words out in anticipation, wanting to be certain this appealed to him.
“Oh, yes,” came his reply.
Arthur’s thick curls tickled the bottom of her stomach, and she threaded her fingers through them, relishing the texture of his hair. When his thumbs parted her vulva, she bit her lip to keep from making any more noise. It wouldn’t do to divert him from his path.
The instant his tongue tapped at the tiny bud at the red-hot center of her, she let go a cry of approval. Threads of bliss spread out through her body while he traced ever-tightening circles. Every time she made a sound, he rewarded her with more pressure. Even so, her culmination was unattaina
ble. Whenever it approached, he would slow his pace until she could no longer bear the torment.
“Oh, you are cruel,” she cried.
A horrible moment ensued when he paused. “My apologies,” he said. “Did you want me to stop?”
“No, no, no,” she begged. “When I said ‘cruel,’ I meant ‘clever.’ Please, please . . .”
Stop? Never. Never in a million years. She wanted to tie him to her couch and never let him leave. Having only read about this activity, the real-life experience far exceeded her most heated imaginings.
“Please, Arthur. Please,” she mumbled in an unsteady chant of need.
Taking pity on her, he accepted her command, tending to her intimate flesh until the coil of tension snapped, and a blaze of pure bliss tore through her.
Her shouted praise—of him, of the heavens, of whatever god might be responsible for such a sensation—echoed through the room, and she melted into a puddle of joy.
* * *
THREE YEARS AGO, Arthur had stopped a man from being pushed off a building by throwing himself across a gap between two town houses. Hanging by his knees from a gutter to save the bloke was an incredible sensation.
His sense of accomplishment at that stunt was nothing compared to the ocean of satisfaction he was swimming in right now.
“. . . understand the underlying physiological mechanism to a certain degree,” Violet rambled, eyes closed and hands waving as she emphasized her points. “The reality cannot compare. This was . . .”
Sublime. Amazingly, he’d given her control, although she was the one lying supine beneath him. Her sighs had commanded his attention. Each moan, each plea was a directive to him for more or less of what she needed.
Arthur raised his head from its comfortable resting place on the soft swell of her stomach. His hand made lazy circles on her plump thigh, relishing the delicate skin beneath his calloused fingertips.
“You’ve answered many questions tonight,” Violet said. “Still, I am curious.” She slipped her hand to where his aching cock was trapped behind the fall of his trousers.
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