Heiress in Red Silk (Duke's Heiress #2) - Madeline Hunter Page 0,77
when she sees what a mess you made with washing my hair. You should have let me do that part.”
“I am here to serve, my lady.” He lifted one of her legs and soaped down its length. Shapely. Even her feet were pretty. It was a wonder she had not married by now. That was because of her misplaced devotion to that scoundrel of course. He should probably send her seducer a gift of thanks.
Only that man was no longer available to make her unobtainable, was he?
“I expect that you have had a lot of men like Forestier,” he said. “Men who pursued you.”
She shrugged. “If so, I did not notice most of them. Only the bold ones.”
“You were never tempted to give up on your lover and—”
“I don’t think you understand how it is for my kind. I was working. Long hours. Even if a man was so bold that I noticed his interest, I hardly had the time to indulge in temptation.”
He could be an idiot at times. She was not some lady of leisure who collected flatteries during the fashionable hour in the park. At least not in the past. Now she was, if she wanted to be.
That notion did not sit well with him. She was not just an heiress, but a very beautiful one. He couldn’t keep an eye on her every day, all day. The last weeks had been spared those advances because she was settling in and setting up that shop and planning her grand reunion with that rogue. All of that would change, very soon.
He moved so he was behind her. He began washing her breasts and chest. “When we return to London, I would like this to continue.”
She managed to look back at him. “You don’t mean giving me baths, do you?”
“That too.”
She untwisted herself and rested back. He lathered her breasts and watched the tips tighten.
“I see difficulties with that, don’t you?” she asked.
“Not at all. It will require some discretion, of course.”
“I have no experience in that kind of discretion. Do you?”
“How hard can it be?”
She laughed. “Spoken like Mr. Kevin Radnor. I doubt there are books on how to do it well, though.”
“I’ll ask. Nicholas and Chase will know where the lines have to be drawn.”
She grew thoughtful. He decided that such contemplation would not benefit him. Affairs like this rarely ended well for women, and she was smart enough to see that.
He set about rinsing her body and kissing her neck.
“See here,” she said. “I don’t think of myself that way. As a man’s mistress.”
“Heiresses are not mistresses. They are not kept women. They are lovers, if anything. Or wives.” He angled around so he could kiss her fully. “I asked before. You declined, but I think the biggest reason was your old lover. Perhaps we should reconsider that idea.”
She did not say no right away, but then, he kept her mouth too busy for that. Still, a quick refusal did not come.
“I will want to think about it,” she said. “I also will want a frank discussion of what it means to both of us, and to the enterprise.”
He stood and grabbed a big towel. “Think all you like. Now, up.”
She stood, a Venus rising from the sea, all slick and creamy and more beautiful than she knew. He bundled her in the towel, then lifted her in his arms and carried her into the bedchamber.
* * *
She opened her eyes a slit and looked down her body and her position. She held her bent legs by the knees the way he had told her. It exposed her in a scandalous way.
He held up his own body on extended, taut arms in a position that left a gap between them. And so she could see how his long, hard cock was right above her, and how his head angled so he could watch himself. She could watch too.
He began entering, then stopped. She throbbed around him, aching. Wanting. He was good at doing that. Making her want him. She relinquished her pride when he brought her to this state of craving.
She could not even caress him while she held herself like this. She could only watch, noticing the way his hard body dominated her. Odd for a man so involved with his thoughts to have a body like that. It seemed he imposed the same discipline on his physical self as he did his mind.
He pressed further, then stopped again. He closed his eyes. She guessed