An Heiress to Remember (The Gilded Age Girls Club #3) - Maya Rodale Page 0,54
like when they’d kissed all those years before, when they’d foolishly thought they would have forever and a day and the world wouldn’t make them choose between love and money. When they hadn’t known better.
He knew better now.
He knew to seize the moment and hold on because it might not last.
Dalton tugged her into his lap and she tumbled over in a mass of skirts of laughter, and something in his heart clenched because wasn’t this everything he ever wanted? Beatrice in his arms, looking up at him with blue eyes full of unconcealed wanting. She was in his arms, in his castle now.
He felt a surge of accomplishment so strong that he had to wonder if maybe this was what he really wanted all along.
“Kiss me, Dalton. We have lost time to make up for.”
And he did. Under the darkening night sky, under the light of the moon, in the ever brightening nighttime glow of New York, he kissed her. And he didn’t stop at her mouth, either.
He found the hollow of her throat.
He unbuttoned her jacket, her skirt and did away with all the things standing between her bare skin and his lips. There was unfortunately all the layers of skirts and petticoats and trousers between his rock-hard arousal and her most intimate spot.
Before he could let his thoughts spiral, wondering what it all meant, she murmured, “I missed you, Wes,” as she shrugged out of her jacket and unbuttoned the rest of her shirt and treated him to the exquisite sight of her breasts peeking above the lace edge of her corset. She writhed above him and he groaned. She was definitely going to destroy him.
He held on for dear life, holding on to bunches of skirts, his hands skimming around her waist, feeling her up and down and learning once again all the secret details of her body. The curve of her breasts, the flare of her hips. These things were no longer fantasies but known to him now. Again.
Buttons, undone.
His restraint, gone.
It was all happening so fast. Her hair tumbling down around her shoulders, bare under his palms. A little bite of her lower lip. A kiss on the lobe of her ear. His strong hands and her lovely breasts.
He had missed her with such a frightening intensity that he couldn’t get the words out. So he kissed her instead, letting himself get lost in the pleasure of her body, the soft sounds of her sighs and moans. He kissed her until the hour grew late, darkness had fallen in earnest, and he forgot all about revenge.
Chapter Twenty-two
Goodwin’s Department Store
The next day
It was not strictly for professional reasons that Dalton exited his own store and crossed Broadway and strolled into his competitor’s store near to closing time, when the shops were emptying of customers and the streets were full of people rushing home. The note had arrived earlier that afternoon, her exquisite handwriting requesting his presence on the third floor at the closing hour.
Business? Not at this hour.
Rivals by day, lovers by night.
Pleasure. Definitely pleasure.
Something like anticipation dulled his attention to the displays he walked by; it was hard to concentrate on how her fleet of employees had arranged parasols and reticules and whatnot when he was about to see Beatrice. See more of Beatrice than he’d glimpsed in the moonlight and city light last night.
He found the third floor, and found it was home to the ladies lingerie department, which brought a wry smile to his mouth. Beatrice had a wicked sense of humor.
A lesser man might have hesitated among the delicate, intimate garments and among the shopgirls tidying up after the last of the customers had left. Dalton strolled right in.
He didn’t see her at first, and while he waited, he considered the merchandise. Corsets and other underthings, all in soft, neutral shades. He found something about it wanting.
And then there she was: Beatrice. A vision in a blue dress, the color of the Newport ocean, to match her eyes. She strolled through like she owned the place. Which she did.
“Oh, hello, Dalton,” she said. She had to acknowledge him for the sake of the shopgirls finishing up, though after being on their feet since opening hours, they were more eager to depart than to gossip. He watched as they cast intrigued glances over their shoulders on the way out. A moment later, the lights dimmed all around the store.
“Have you come to spy on us?” Beatrice asked coyly.