spent a damned second in her intoxicating presence.
He took a sip of his coffee, attempting to concentrate on the papers before him, and grimaced. “Macfie!”
His bellow was loud enough to hurt his own ears, it was true.
The door to his office opened. His stalwart aide-de-camp poked his head into the chamber. “Ye hollered, sir?”
“I did not holler, Macfie,” he corrected icily, though it was a wretched lie. “I called for you.”
“Aye, Mr. Decker.” Macfie raised a bushy orange brow. “And if that is what ye’re tellin’ yerself, go on. What is it that ye need, sir?”
“My coffee is cold,” he said, unable to suppress his disgust.
“And well I’m sure ‘tis,” Macfie dared to tell him. “I brought it tae ye an hour ago or more. Ye dawdle, and yer coffee goes cold, just like my sainted Ma always told all her bairns.”
Decker raised a brow. “I thought you had no siblings, Macfie.”
Macfie locked him in a death stare. “Aye, and just as I said. ‘Tis what she told all her bairns.”
Decker huffed out an exasperated sigh whilst extracting his pocket watch to check the time. Surely he had not spent the last hour lost in thoughts of Lady Jo Danvers, ignoring all the papers awaiting him on his desk, consumed by his need for her…
Fucking hell.
He had. Worse, his ears were hot. He refused to believe the warmth on his cheekbones meant he was flushing. He had not blushed since he had been a lad touching his first cunny.
“Did your mother also tell her bairns they ought to be polite to their employers?” he demanded of Macfie.
“Nay, sir.” Macfie had the daring to wink. “She told us we should make ourselves indispensable tae the cantankerous sons of bitches. Ma’s words, sir. Not mine, ye ken.”
Decker’s nostrils flared. Macfie was lucky he was so damned valuable. And that Decker liked him and his excessively bushy eyebrows. “Have you considered trimming those monstrosities, Macfie? They bloody well look like a pair of ravenous caterpillars about to make your eyes into their meal. A proper razor ought to settle it, I should think.”
“Not with the eyebrows again.” Macfie’s eyes narrowed to a blue-eyed glare. “I’ll be fetching the fresh coffee for ye then, Mr. Decker. I hope ye shan’t burn yer lordly tongue upon it.”
He was sure Macfie would make certain the coffee was roughly the temperature of lava. The man was deuced protective of his eyebrows.
“We both know there is nothing lordly about me,” Decker told him, frowning. Once born on the wrong side of the blanket, forever tarnished. “Go, then. You are aware how much I dislike cold coffee, Macfie.”
“About as much as I like threats tae my puir eyebrows.” Waggling the facial feature in question, Macfie took his leave.
“And do not slam the damned—”
The calamitously loud closing of the door drowned out the rest of Decker’s words.
“—door,” he finished, glaring at the offensive portal.
One would think that by the ripe age of thirty, Macfie would have grown accustomed to his own strength. Decker sighed and rose from his desk, needing to pace. He felt restless and nettled and confused.
He also felt as if he needed to bed a woman.
Nights—and mornings and days, too—spent frigging his hand were not enough. Surely that was the problem. Surely his unquenched lust—that natural urge which had raged and plagued him since he was a lad—was the reason his chest was tight, the reason he was on edge, the reason everything irritated, the reason he had snapped at Macfie, the reason he could not concentrate on his business matters.
Any woman would do, would she not?
He paced to the end of his office again, then back up and down thrice more. There were ladies in his acquaintance who would be happy to be called upon for such a favor. Susannah, the blonde actress who had last acted as the serving vessel at one of his dinner parties, for instance. Her bubbies were the size of melons, and she knew how to suck his cock straight down her throat.
Strangely, the thought of her deflated his cockstand.
What in the hell was this?
He stopped in his tracks, staring down at his trousers, bemused. Perhaps he had merely needed to work off some of his steam by striding up and down the length of the chamber several dozen times, barreling locomotive style. Yes, that had clearly been the solution.
Decker sighed with relief. And as soon as he had his warm coffee in hand, he could proceed with his day. The