“Let you,” she murmured, laughing softly. A beautiful sound. God, he wanted to hear that again. “So polite. So formal.”
Then she put her hands against his chest and pushed him down on the bed, until he was on his back. James watched as she settled on top of him, thighs on either side of his hips. His cock was flat against the wet heat of her and he bit back a groan.
“I am,” he said. “Far too formal. I’m beginning to appreciate the French.”
She laughed again, and pressed a kiss to the underside of his jaw, his cheek, his neck, his lips. “Well, I have a better question,” she whispered, kissing the shell of his ear. It surprised James when she wrapped her fingers around his wrists and brought his arms over his head. Stretched out beneath her. At her mercy. Then her voice, a purr in his ear: “How about I fuck you?”
James had barely managed a response before she shifted her hips and sank down on his cock.
“Yes.”
She felt better than he imagined. Warm and slick and tight — so tight. And when she moved . . . it was beautiful and graceful, without a hint of doubt or shyness. Her hips rolled with the confidence and elegance of a dancer; the lines of her form were exquisite in motion. And when she released his wrists, her lithe body arched toward him like a strung bow.
Unable to resist, James settled his hands on her hips and guided her movement. Their bodies moved together as if in dance, their sighs as if in song. James loved the sounds she made, the way her breathing grew uneven when he lifted his head to suck one of her nipples. He slid a hand between their bodies and found her clitoris. One stroke and she shuddered above him.
“Better than I imagined,” she said with a gasp. “So, so much better.”
That made him smile. “What did you imagine? A boring Englishman?”
“No, not boring.” She pressed a kiss to his lips and breathed something he wasn’t sure he understood: “Never boring.” Then she dropped her head to nip at his throat like before. Just as firmly, enough to leave a mark. That small hint of pain mixed with pleasure while she fucked him almost brought him over the edge. “I love how you feel inside me,” she whispered against his pulse, breath shuddering again. “I’m so close.”
James circled her clitoris again and again as she rolled her hips. He was almost there himself, but he wanted her to finish. He wanted to watch her take her pleasure.
“Take it,” he told her.“Take it all, sweetheart.”
She cried out as she came, her fingernails scraping the skin at his shoulder. Her quim clenched around him, but it was the bite of her fingernails breaking through skin that unexpectedly brought him over. James lifted her off him to spill into his cupped palm. He came so hard, he thought he saw stars.
God.
James bowed his head, his breath beginning to slow. My god.
His lovers had all spoken highly of his prowess in the bedchamber. James had prided himself at how methodical he was in every aspect of lovemaking.
But he realized just now that he had never — not once — yielded to a woman.
It hadn’t been a conscious decision, but an inclination to be as in control during sex as in every aspect of his life. This woman, in one night, had upended it. Had upended him.
And he wanted her again.
Chapter 6
“Here,” Emma said, sitting beside him. She took a cloth out of the provided washbasin on the bedside table. “Let me.”
Let me. She had said that before when she unbuttoned him. Now she used the cloth to wipe down his hands, his cock. Then she dipped it into the water again and cleaned the tender skin between her own legs. Let me. Even here, while pretending to be someone else, she couldn’t help but say things the way a servant would.
James glanced at her, and Emma knew he had noticed.
“I’ve never known anyone more attentive.” James said. “Are you someone’s mistress?”
Emma dropped the cloth into the washbasin. Her limbs still trembled from their fierce lovemaking, but her joy dampened at his words. James didn’t know who she was; she had deceived him.
And god help her, she wanted to do it again.
She turned away sharply. “No. I’ve never been any man’s mistress. I’m surprised that was the first conclusion you came to.”
“My apologies. You’re married, then?”
Polite conversation, it sounded like, but his vivid blue eyes were sharp when he looked at her. With clothes on, Emma might have felt less vulnerable, but she was naked and wondered if he could see through her lies. If they shone in her gaze. If her performance as some wanton siren had dropped away and left behind Emma. Simply Emma. The woman he treated as politely as his sister.
“I thought it didn’t matter who I was,” she replied. “Is that not why we wear masks, sir?”
James stared at her, and for a moment she wondered if he would do something irrational. Remove his mask — or, perhaps, ask her name.
He did neither. Instead, he murmured, “Of course. Forgive me.” He reached for her hand, and pressed a soft kiss to her palm. When he smiled, it was a touch wicked. “Who would you like to be, then?”
Emma liked this question. It held infinite possibilities. She wanted to be everything. She wanted to be everyone.
But she couldn’t tell him such things; he wouldn’t understand. So she pulled him against her and whispered, “How about just your lover?”
“Good answer,” he said, as she settled on top of him again. “Very, very good answer.”
After they made love again, Emma reluctantly rose from the bed to gather her clothes. It was late, and she needed to return home before James.
“Time for me to go.”
James propped himself up on an elbow. Emma couldn’t help but pause for a moment of appreciation. He was every bit as beautiful as she had expected — his body muscled from sports Alexandra had informed her were too numerous to list.
But only a lover would know how the candlelight kissed every dip and contour of him, and made his blue eyes blaze with inner light. Or that there was a small scar just over his hip bone, and another across his left shoulder. Emma knew the texture of them both; she had licked her way across his skin, but not as much as she had wished.
She still had more to discover. One night wasn’t enough.
“Members have permission to stay in the rooms here until morning,” James said. “Interested?”
Emma sighed at him again, and he smiled because she was ogling. Damn the man. “Yes. But I can’t.”
For a moment, he looked as though he were going to ask her questions. A why written in his features.
In the end, he let out a resigned breath and said, “Very well,” and helped her with her clothes.
When Emma had her cloak buttoned, she turned to him, uncertain now. After what they had done . . . she was afraid to voice anything. Afraid of what she might say.
“Thank you,” she managed. “For tonight.”
James pulled her against him, and she could feel the heat of his skin through her clothes. His eyes met hers, so bright even through his mask. “The next Masquerade is in a sennight,” he said. “Will you meet me here? Same room.”
Emma hadn’t expected this to last more than a night. She had hoped that whatever lust she’d felt toward James Grey would wane, that it was but a fancy, an itch to be scratched. But Emma Dumont was her mother’s daughter, and the Dumont curse would not spare her.
“Yes,” she whispered, lifting her chin to kiss him. “Yes.”
Their kiss was hot and hard. James murmured against her lips, “If you think of me at all during the next six nights, use my name when you make yourself come. James.”
Emma almost froze. He’d given her his name — his real name. Didn’t he understand this wasn’t supposed to be real? She was torn between wondering if he had lost all his senses and burning with incandescent joy because his name, his name, his name. He wanted her to use it.
“James,” she breathed, kissing him again. “James.”
He tore away with a groan, stepping back from her. “If you don’t go now, I’m dragging you back into that bed.”
“Right.” Emma sounded breathless.
She barely remembered making it to the door when she heard his voice again. “Wait.” When Emma turned back, James said, “What shall I call you? When we meet again.”
When we meet again.
She hadn’t made plans for that. There weren’t supposed to be names or questions. But now she found she wanted to keep this — keep him — close to her heart, a secret just for herself.
So she said the first thing that came to mind: “Selene. Call me Selene.”
Emma heard him whisper that name in wonder behind her as she closed the door.
Chapter 7
James needed to hit something.
“Christ,” Richard said, backing away in the ring.
They were at their boxing club at the usual time on Thursday — which had the unfortunate designation of being five days after the Masquerade.
Five.
Days.
And James was so bloody agitated he felt as if he were going to crawl out of his skin. Two days left.
Two days.
He couldn’t stop thinking about Selene, and there was no cure for it, except to hit something. His brother, preferably, since Richard was the most convenient. There was a reason many among the ton regarded pugilism as ungentlemanly, it being the sport of two men pummeling each other.
“Stop retreating, Richard,” James said.
“I’ll stop retreating,” Richard said, “when you stop looking at me like you’re going to murder me with your damn fists.”
“Don’t be dramatic.” James advanced, and Richard tried to get in with a jab, but James was too fast. He buried his fist in his brother’s gut.
Richard staggered back. “No more.” The words were laced with pain.
“You’re not even on the ground—”
His brother threw up a warning hand and said, “We’ve been here for two hours. My knuckles are bleeding, and I would like to return home in something resembling a single piece. I’m finished.” Then, as if he couldn’t resist: “And you look like hell. When was the last time you slept?”
“If I wanted to talk, I wouldn’t have asked you to meet me here.”
James knew what he must look like: disheveled, exhausted, halfway to madness.
The first night after the Masquerade, he’d slept more soundly than he ever had in his life. But by the second night . . . he was restless. Aching. And damned hard all the time just thinking about Selene.
He could barely focus on his duties without picturing her naked, her hips moving as she rode him. Without hearing her whisper in that breathy French purr of hers.
Why don’t I fuck you?
He needed to punch something again. Punish his body until he was so exhausted, he couldn’t even think about her. Even now, he was sweating, panting, bruised and in pain, and it did nothing.
It barely fazed him.
Richard must have seen something change in James's expression, because he backed away. “No. You’ve got that look again, and I’ve no intention of encouraging it. Find someone else to hit.” He strode out of the ring.
“Shit,” James muttered.
He grabbed for one of the provided towels and followed his brother into the change room. Thank god it was empty; he didn’t want anyone to be around to witness them argue.
“Richard—”
His brother shot James a look that shut him up. “Alexandra said you’ve been brooding all week, like some hero from one of her trite Gothic romances.”
“Alexandra gossips too much,” James snapped. “I ought to feel sorry for the poor bastard who eventually weds her.”
“Don’t change the subject.” Richard roughly removed his shirt and wiped the sweat from his face. “I thought you went to the Masquerade and found some willing woman to have you.” He nodded to James’s neck. “Unless you bit yourself there.”
James sat down on the stool. “Don’t be an idiot.”
“I’m not being an idiot; you’re being unreasonable.” Richard had the rest of his clothes off and he slipped on a robe for the baths. “So the question remains: did you scare her off with your glare, or was she a terrible shag?”
“Neither,” James gritted. “She was . . .”
Indescribable. Beyond words.
Lately James had begun to wonder if he’d dreamed her up. Five days was just long enough that the image of her — the touch of her hands, her lips, her body — had begun to fade around the edges. More an illusion than reality. He began to regret that he hadn’t kissed her enough, explored her curves more thoroughly. That he hadn’t spent the time to linger over the taste and texture of her skin.
If he never saw her again, he knew without a doubt that she would become more myth than real.
“Bloody hell,” Richard murmured, staring at his brother in shock. “Bloody hell. You’re besotted.”
“No.” Yes.
Richard clicked his tongue. “You’ve no talent for lying. Admit it, you’ve been thinking about her all week. She’s confounded you and you don’t know how.”
James set his jaw. “If — hypothetically — I were besotted, how would I — hypothetically — put an end to it?”
His brother raised an eyebrow as if to say, Are you serious? “Hypothetically.”
“Recall that I have violence in my gaze and may punch you in the jaw.”
Richard rolled his eyes. “It’s a mere infatuation, Kent. You’ll leave her at the end of the month with a nice bauble like you always do. If she doesn’t tire of you first.”
“Quite the romantic view, you have,” James said dryly. “No wonder you’re with a different woman each week.”
“They know what they’re getting into when they become my lover. I make them no promises. Take note for your little infatuation.” Richard reached for his own towel. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to wash and get home. I’m leaving town for a month.”
“Visiting your factories?”
Unlike many second sons who received an allowance, Richard chose not to live a life of leisure. He was the owner of several successful factories and invested in other businesses. Both gave him an income to rival his brother’s.
Richard shrugged. “Among other things. The Duchess of Hastings is having a house party at her estate. I’ve a mind to attend.”
James raised his eyebrows. “You detest house parties.”
“This one has a certain incentive.” Before James could ask further questions, Richard started for the baths. Over his shoulder, he called out, “Another word of advice: the next time you want to distract yourself from your cock, don’t take it out on me.”
Chapter 8
Emma was beginning to understand why the Dumont women embraced ruin.
It began with temptation, a desire for things they could never have. For her grandmother and her mother, it had been the love of titled gentlemen. Emma strove for something so uncomplicated that it ought to have been the easiest thing in the world: she simply wanted.
Love, safety, a partner, friendship.
For a woman — especially a servant, even if she had the special designation of co-writer — these were too much. Emma expected too much.
When she was a child, Emma’s father, The Duke of Southampton, would visit her mother's flat in Paris every so often. He travelled voraciously for an Englishman, and Emma suspected he had mistresses in the places he frequented most.
But he returned to Paris because Marie Dumont was the Great Beauty. Her passion, looks, and intelligence made her an ideal mistress.
Like her daughter, Marie was illegitimate and educated — which for an unmarried woman left few options for an income. She was too pretty and young to be a governess, so Marie’s body became her currency, and she wielded it like a weapon. Emma’s father could never resist her lure, and he never stayed away for long. Love cannot prevent complacency, darling,
Emma’s mother had said. The key is to always leave him wanting more.
Emma had made the mistake of never asking her mother what to do if that wanting cut both ways.
She ought to have known that James Grey wasn’t a man she would be content with for a single night. Since the Masquerade, he’d occupied her thoughts most often in the dark, when she was alone in her bedchamber. She’d do as he asked and touch herself and say his name.
No — she’d whisper it, for it was her secret. There was too much risk in saying it aloud.
So Emma kept his name on a breath, until she saw him again.
Tonight.
“Alexandra?”
They were together in the drawing room, reading as the rain poured outside. Well, Emma was staring at the words; she couldn’t remember when she had last turned a page.
The earl’s sister was at the window seat, engrossed in one of her romances. She didn’t even look up. “Hmm?”
Emma set her own book aside. “I was wondering . . . may I borrow your friend’s mask again tonight?” She cleared her throat, rather awkwardly. “And another dress. If you don’t mind.”
Alexandra’s lips curved into a delighted smile when she looked over. “So, you did enjoy yourself last time. I'd hoped you would bring it up.”
“Yes.” Emma’s cheeks heated. “That is . . . yes.”
Her friend laughed. “Oooh, it must have been deliciously wicked. Tell me everything. In detail, if you please.”
“Well.” Lord, please kill me now. “We kissed. And then we—”
“For god’s sake.” Alexandra shut her book and waved it in the air. “If I wanted to know about kissing, I’d ask anybody. How does he look without clothes? How big is his co—”
“Alexandra!” Well, if Emma wanted an implication to the non-existent state of Alexandra’s virtue, she had it now. “Why don’t you admire your own lover nude?”
“If I had taken a lover, I wouldn’t be asking.”
A Touch Wicked (Private Arrangements) Page 3