“I told you not to get too excited. That this was all conjecture.”
“All I heard was the word excited. And then I thought about your chest and the muscles in your arms!”
“That’s not my fault.” He leaped up after her. “I propose instead that you live in London with my family, and we hire a confectioner to tutor you. Plus—”
“You’ve already mentioned that, and I said no.”
“That’s not the extent of my proposal. A trip to Paris can be arranged. You’d go with me and the women of the family. We could stay for several weeks. Perhaps a whole month.”
She hesitated. “That’s a generous offer. But I’ll need more than several weeks or a month. You know if I go with your family, it will be difficult to meet with Monsieur at all, especially as I’ll need to dress as a man. Your mother wouldn’t approve.”
“No, she wouldn’t,” Gregory said, “but dressing as a man wouldn’t be necessary. I’d pay him such an incredible amount of money, he wouldn’t dare turn you away, even as a woman.”
“That would be a great relief.” Slowly, she began to unwrap the ties of her banyan. “But I must say no. I can’t have you paying my way. It isn’t right. And I want to stay half a year at least.”
“You need to learn how to compromise, young lady.”
She raked a hand through her hair. “If I asked you to compromise on pursuing your dream, would you?”
He hesitated. “No, but—”
“Never mind,” she said. “I’m not sure you do understand because I’m not sure you have a dream!” She let the banyan drop to the floor. “I’ll get to Plymouth without you.”
“Oh, no you won’t.” He picked up the silky garment and threw it in the corner.
She turned her back on him and began to unlace the tie at her neck.
“What are you doing?” His tone was low, threatening.
She paused. “Nothing that would interest a man immune to my charms.” She braced herself, and then she lifted the edge of her shirt, pulled it over her head, and dropped it to the floor.
Why not?
She was never going to marry. She had nothing to lose. And she’d already bared herself to him anyway.
Nakedness was nothing to be ashamed of, either. She was a girl who’d walked her whole life on the moors, had felt a kinship with the earth and all of nature. She wasn’t ashamed of her body. And she knew that Gregory, of all people, would be the one person she’d be tempted to share it with.
She already had.
Not that she really intended to do so again tonight—but she would entice him with her form. Oh, yes, she would. Call her a tease—she didn’t care. She was frustrated with this man who was controlling her life, and if it meant she had to strip naked to shake his smug confidence, then she would.
“It’s not going to work,” he said, already guessing her plan. “If you think that this display is going to make me forget my duty, you’re wrong, madam.”
She walked over to him, reached up on her tiptoes, and kissed him. “I want you to think worse of me,” she whispered. “I want you to be tortured by the sight of me. Maybe then you’ll let me go.” She ran a finger down his neck. “But first, you’ll teach me to shoot. And loan me a pistol.”
“No,” he said softly, and took her shoulders. “You’re not going. At least not alone.”
She couldn’t help the little tears that welled in her eyes. “I can’t ask you to make this into a Sherwood family holiday. You’re not my husband, Gregory. Nor will you ever be.”
“You’ll take no man to be your husband,” he said. “So what am I to do with you?”
“Resist me,” she whispered, and ran a finger down his shirt.
“Stop it.” He grabbed her hand. “We can figure out a way—”
“Resist me, Gregory,” she said again, and nuzzled his neck with her mouth.
“You’re being ridiculous,” he said. “I won’t think the worse of you and give up the role I told Bertie I’d play. I won’t let you go, no matter how many times you try to seduce me. I can’t believe I’m even saying those words—you trying to seduce me. It’s outrageous, preposterous—”
“Resist me,” she said for the third time, then looked straight into his eyes and cupped him between the legs. He surged to hardness—and despite every ounce of will that flared in his eyes, she knew she had him where she wanted him.
“Damn you,” he said, and lifted her in his arms.
Heady with victory, she wrapped her hands around his neck and kissed him with lush abandon. So there, Gregory Sherwood, Earl of Westdale!
He pulled back. “Where did this she-devil come from?”
She smiled. “I’ve been here all along. You told me yourself at the Old Oak Inn you knew I was this way. But you still did your best to ignore me all these years.” She kissed him lightly on the lips.
He released a sigh. “I suppose I did.”
“Certainly you did. Just as you also know you’re a gifted architect and are ignoring that.”
“I’m not ignoring it.”
“Yes you are. You’re brilliant at it. You have a chance to design a dog cottage that John Nash himself will look over.”
“To hell with John Nash,” he snapped. “It’s a damned dog cottage. I should be building museums, theaters, grand mansions—”
“Exactly!” Her eyes sparkled with triumph. “So what’s holding you back?”
“I’m a busy man,” he muttered.
“Yes, you’re a future marquess.” She tried to put as much stuffiness into the title as she could.
“Hah,” he said.
She knew she’d made him angry because his pupils narrowed.
“I know you’re letting your own dreams go to the dogs,” she blithely went on, “but what are you going to do about mine? Force me to let them go, too? I suppose misery loves company. Well, here I am. Company. What do you intend to do about it?”
“You’re diabolical.”
“Not nearly as diabolical as you.”
“What is it with you tonight?”
“It might be the wine,” she said. “Or it might be that—” Oh, bother. She didn’t know how to explain that around him she felt alive, not afraid of anyone or anything—including him. So she kissed him again, and when she pulled back said, “Please drop me on the bed. I want to bounce into decadence.”
So he did. And she did bounce. After which she stood on her knees and kissed him while he stood guard of her virtue at the side of the bed.
“That’s enough of your seducing me,” he said when she’d finished unwrapping his cravat. “It was a lovely game—you proved your point that I can’t resist you and, in fact, lose my head seeing you naked—but now it’s done.”
But she ignored him—she could tell he wanted her to, anyway—and unlaced his shirt, her mouth as prim as a schoolteacher’s. “If we’re going to ruin our long acquaintance—I wouldn’t dare call it a friendship—we might as well do it in as pleasant a manner as possible.”
“I told you, Pippa, this is enough—”
No it wasn’t. Not yet. He was still too controlled. He was on to her game, and so far, all the risks she’d taken hadn’t paid off.
So she kissed him again, and somehow she managed to get his shirt off. It involved her rubbing her naked breasts against his chest until he capitulated, but her strategy worked.
And when he refused to lower his pantaloons, she knew instinctively to turn her back to him, lift his hands to her breasts, and grind her bottom into his belly. If that didn’t work at getting him to disrobe, then she was out of ideas.
Or perhaps she wasn’t …
Surely, there were many ways to seduce Gregory, and she intended to find out what they were. She wouldn’t stop until she found one that worked.
With her hand cupped over his as he massaged her breasts, and with every gyration of her hips, she felt him surrender a little more, until she turned to face him again and had no problem unbuttoning his placket and sl
iding his pantaloons down. She merely distracted him with more kisses, this time to his ridged belly.
It was such a pleasurable way to bring him down a notch.
“God, you slay me,” he muttered as his erection sprang free. “You beautiful, beautiful girl.”
And with those words, her heart softened—but only a tad—because in his voice she heard such—
Such feeling.
What was happening to the aloof Gregory that she knew?
She was afraid she was getting in over her head. But before she could think another thought or kiss another part of him, he jerked her up by the elbow. Not hard, but firmly.
He kissed her now—not the other way around. His kisses were controlled, taunting—and when she reached down to touch him, he swiped her hand away.
“I’ve let you think you had the advantage,” he whispered. “Get ready to learn a lesson.”
“I don’t think so,” she said, but she was afraid. The place between her legs was moist and wanting. Her breasts ached for his touch. And her mouth longed for the invasion of his tongue.
Naked as the day he was born—which was the most attractive way she’d ever seen him—Gregory crawled onto the bed next to her and pulled her down beside him. She landed on his chest, and he pinned her by wrapping one leg around the backs of her knees. An instant later, he’d rolled over—and she was beneath him.
She pushed against him, but he held her fast. “No,” she said. “It’s not going to work.”
“Oh, really.” His tone was skeptical.
“Yes.”
“Don’t move,” he said.
Not that she could. He had her legs good and trapped. He reached to his left and took a goblet of wine, a tiny dollop of which he then poured into her belly button.
“I said it’s not going to work.” But she secretly thrilled at the action.
He ran his tongue around the tiny pool of burgundy-colored elixir while caressing her rear. She arched her belly toward him, wanting more. It was torture—exquisite torture—what he was doing to her. Finally, he licked and kissed the wine away.
It made the kiss he bestowed on her mouth next extra sweet. His hard, manly chest covered her breasts, his legs mastered her own, and he hooked her left knee with his elbow and brought it high. Her sex was exposed like never before, and she felt an intense thrill that turned to deep, erotic pleasure when he played with her softest flesh with his fingers, skimming it with a featherlight touch that drove her mad.
When he managed to suckle one of her breasts at the same time, she moaned with the pleasure of it, so intense, so unexpected, yet so right—
A bit of heaven.
Who else? she thought. Who else but Gregory?
She needed him to do more.
“I’ll be furious if you stop,” she said. “You really won’t want to see me in that state.”
But he did stop. He stopped everything, sat up on his haunches, and picked up his cravat from the bottom of the bed.
Her heart was racing, the place between her legs was wet, and her breasts tingled in the open air. “What are you doing with that?”
“I want to put it around your eyes,” he said. “You’ll feel me. Not see me.”
“Can’t we simply blow out the candles?”
He chuckled. “But then I won’t get to see you.”
“That’s not fair. Why do you get to see me—and not the other way around?”
“Because it’s enjoyable.” He leaned over her and kissed her deeply. “You said you liked simple things, frivolous things. Things that make you happy. This is one of those. It will make us both happy. I promise.”
“Your version of marzipan,” she whispered.
“Yes.”
So she allowed him to tie the cravat around her eyes, which he did with many kisses to her mouth, her ears, and her jaw.
And then he laid her gently down and licked delicious circles around her nipples. When he took one in his mouth and teased it with his teeth, she jerked with the sheer delight of it and cradled his head with her hands.
“Gregory,” she murmured, while he suckled and nipped at her breasts. “I didn’t know it could be like this between a woman and a man until this afternoon. And now—there are more wonders, aren’t there?”
“Yes.” He laughed against her skin. “This is only the beginning,” he whispered, and chose that moment to tease the pearl between her legs, making her moan against her will in the darkness behind his cravat, which smelled of him, all soap and linen and something indefinable that meant Gregory.
What would he do next? She couldn’t even guess and shivered at the excitement of entering a new world which she’d never imagined could entrance her so.
He spread her legs wide, and she winced at the knowledge that he was seeing her completely vulnerable in the candlelight. A bit of fear crept into her head—fear that he’d find her lacking somehow.
“Gregory,” she cried softly.
“You’re stunning.” He laid a hand on each of her knees. “I could look at you all night.”
“Really?”
“Yes.” He kissed her right knee. “Don’t be afraid.”
Even so, she couldn’t help giving a little whimper, but it turned into a cry of pleasure when she felt the trickle of something saturate the sensitive folds between her legs. Not wine, this time—something slightly more viscous.
But what?
Whatever it was that Gregory was stroking against her feminine core—up and down, over the nubbin that guarded her womanly harbor—was exquisite torture.
And then she knew. He brought something small, round, and smashed to her mouth—something pulpy, and she realized he’d taken a grape from the table and used it to tease her.
He rubbed it against her lips then licked off the juice. Then she felt a plump, broken grape around her nipples. She moaned at the indescribably pleasurable feeling—everything was so much more intense when she couldn’t see. Gregory sucked and licked her nipples bare again, murmuring how delicious she tasted while he did it.
And there was yet another spurt of juice against the place that most ached for him.
“No,” she protested.
“Oh, yes,” he replied.
And before she could answer, the heat of his mouth covered her vulnerability. She was lost for words. Gregory teased her with his tongue and his mouth—her chest rose and fell as she tried to catch her breath. But she couldn’t.
She couldn’t.
He put his finger inside her—then two—and she arched high, but he wouldn’t let her go. He was relentless in his pursuit, making her wrap her ankles behind his neck, his mouth merciless against her flesh until she gave a loud cry into wave after wave of pleasure. Her release was so intense, she cupped her breasts, still sticky and wet from the juice, for respite against the onslaught, kneading them as she slowly descended, her head tossing from side to side, helpless little sobs rending the silence.
Weak and wrung out, she felt him lay kisses up her belly—he was chuckling, damn him!—until he reached her mouth, where his kiss was musky and exotic with the scent of her. And then he unwrapped the cravat covering her eyes. When she looked into his eyes and saw a flicker of triumph there, she realized he’d won.
He’d seduced her.
Damn Gregory Sherwood!
She tried to slap him, but he caught her wrist.
“I hate you,” she said. “I wasn’t going to lie with you and do these things—”
“I know,” he said softly back. “It takes two to compete in these sorts of games, Lady Pippa, and tonight, you were outplayed. If it makes you feel any better, I’ve been in your position. You’ll get over it.”
And with that, he picked himself off the bed, blew out all the candles, and walked naked into the dressing room. The door closed behind him, and in the darkness, her body limp with exhaustion and sated with furious pleasure, Pippa fell instantly asleep.
Chapter Fourteen
Gregory woke the next mornin
g ornery but also with more energy than he’d had in ages, which surprised him as the pallet was comfortable enough but not nearly as pleasant as a plump mattress. But sharing a bed with Pippa hadn’t been an option. He’d wanted her to get some real rest, so he’d headed to the dressing room after their completely unexpected but highly memorable romp.
Guilt shot through him. Last night he saw so clearly how frustrated she was, how she’d wanted to rattle him. He’d let her go through with her ploy—then turned the tables on her.
Yes, she’d said some harsh things that still infuriated him to recall this morning, but had it been the work of a gentleman to seduce her into submission?
No. It hadn’t.
Now, with the early morning sun streaming through the tiny windows above the dressing table, he wondered how well she’d slept.
Raw carnal memories shot through his brain, and his body reacted as he knew it would. He craved her body, was enchanted by the way she’d responded so passionately to him. Even now, it made him happy to think of how spent she’d been when he’d left her on the bed, one arm folded under her head, her legs limp and tangled, her boyishly slim hip facing the ceiling, and her eyelids heavy with satisfaction.
Groaning, he rolled out of bed, ignoring the rod of steel between his legs that reminded him of how blasted attractive he found his country friend. It was inconvenient, this new fascination he had with her, but it existed. He’d have to deal with it by leaving her alone. He didn’t think she’d make any further overt sexual attempts to break his will and get him to do her bidding, but now that he’d had a few tastes of her earthy nature, he was hooked.
It would be a rough, rough road staying away, but he must.
Entirely naked, he cracked open the door to the bedchamber to see that she was gone and the bed neatly made. He couldn’t help feeling disappointed that he wouldn’t see her hair spread over the pillow the way it had been last night and maybe catch a glimpse of a strawberry-tipped breast.
But how had she got her clothes? Her wig? Her spectacles? They were all in the dressing room. He couldn’t have slept with her creeping about the pallet, could he have? Was he that pathetic—sleeping so deeply he hadn’t heard her?
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