The Problem with Seduction - By Emma Locke Page 0,42
to get himself under control. Somewhere between Will’s and this door, his imagination had run afoul of him. He was frustrated, emotionally, intellectually and now sexually. His body thrummed as though he really were about to enter his mistress’s house. Not a mistress in name only, but a beautiful woman who’d see to his pleasure until he opened his pocketbook and dumped it across her bed.
Curse his need to play the gallant. And double-curse the fact that it was much safer to keep their important bits at arms’ length. He would do well to remember that his pledge to Oliver came first.
It was with this professional mindset that he knocked upon her door. The butler saw him into a room Con vaguely recalled from his last visit. A window stood cracked open, letting in the night breeze and the occasional sounds from the busy street below. Candles wavered in the draft. It seemed the entire room was one warm glow, in fact...
To and fro his head jerked as he took in the multitude of tapers arranged on every surface. This wasn’t right. He was here to be seen coming and going, not for what his peers would assume went on in between.
What he hoped…
Absolutely not. He might not understand this setup, but he knew how far it was going. Nowhere.
Piqued by her presumption, he stalked to the window. His ire had a long time to build. She kept him waiting half an hour. An infuriating half-turn around the mantel clock. Long enough to play a dozen scenarios in his head, all of them ending with her back pressed against that window seat, her legs draped over this chair…
No.
A swish of skirts behind him broke into his latest fantasy. “Lord Constantine,” Elizabeth murmured in a voice made to drip down his spine, “how thoughtful of you to see me tonight.”
He pulled the window frame closed and snapped toward the voice. He expected to see her in her customary garb: a modish day dress that complemented her dark locks and fine gray eyes. Not a plunging neckline outdone only by tantalizing black lace, and trimming a pale peach skirt so sheer and clinging, he could see the curve of her thighs and the outline of— “Good God, woman, what are you wearing?” He wrenched his right arm from his coat. His shoulder twisted painfully as the garment protested removal from his person. He muttered another oath and fairly ripped the other sleeve from his left arm. By God, he wouldn’t be tempted like some sex-starved sailor facing his first dockside wench.
“Oh, this? Do you like it?” She trailed her fingertips over one rounded hip. “It’s been some time since I had cause to wear it.”
Sleeves freed, he thrust his coat out and marched toward her. The closer he came to her, the more aware he was that he’d just lost a key barrier between his skin and hers.
She watched his approach with curious amusement. When he stopped before her, her eyes roamed his person from the top of his head to his arms extended toward her, to the coat gaping before her hips. “Here,” he said, giving the coat a little shake, because he was suddenly aware he couldn’t very well put his arms around her, and even if he could, what would he do? Tie the sleeves behind her? Then he would be close enough to smell her hair, or her skin, or press his lips right there… “Here,” he said again, “take this.”
Her lips curved in a slow, seductive smile. “I’m not cold, my lord.”
“You ought to be,” he said with as much hauteur as he could muster. “You’ve dampened your skirts. You’ll catch your death.”
“I’ll have the fire built up. Rand?” She turned as she called, giving Con a view of her backside torturously swathed in peach silk. “Have a maid sent in. And brandy. Lots of it.”
“This isn’t a social call,” Con said, still holding his coat out. The room had seemed cold in the split second when he’d removed his coat, but now he didn’t need the fire stoked. His body was warming by the second. Her slender spine and generous hips were cast in a golden glow that slid and dipped into the shadowy crevices created by the dampened silk. Curls large enough for him to wrap around his fist had slipped from their hairpins, giving her a bed-tousled look. His traitorous body responded with barely-leashed desire. He wanted her.