Not Proper Enough (A Reforming the Scoundrels Romance) (10 page)

She kissed him back.

The meeting of their mouths was instantly carnal, desperately so on his part. She had no trouble keeping up; neither of them were sexual innocents. He set his forearms above her shoulders and let the weight of his pelvis sink onto her.

Her fingers twined in his hair as they continued like this, so close to out of control and headed for dangerous shores. Oh, but he craved this, touching her with his hands and his mouth. His body quivered with need, and, for pity’s sake, he felt like some green boy, on the edge of disgracing himself. He pulled away enough to slide his lips downward in that so-intimate contact with her skin, and then to her arm below the short sleeve of her gown. The tender underside first, the inside of her elbow, down to her wrist, and all the while, his hips pressed against hers. He rocked once because
he was hard now, and he was feeling a very male imperative to thrust. His other hand trailed across her upper body, fingers sweeping over her skin.

He lifted his head, staring at the mirrored walls at their reflected image. “Look, Ginny.”

She turned her head, and once he knew she’d looked and seen, he came back over her, taking her head between his hands and holding her in place while he kissed her throat again. He slipped deeper into the urgency of his arousal when she answered the pressure of his hips with a slow roll of her pelvis. The contact pulled a groan from him. He continued the pressure of his hips against hers. He put his mouth by her ear. “Beautiful, Ginny. Lovely.”

“Fenris.” His name was half groan, half plea as she brought him closer.

With what felt like the last of his restraint, he lifted his head. Some little part of the fog of his passion lifted. “Not here.” He understood this might be his only chance for coitus with her, but he wanted more. More than once. He didn’t want her to hate him or resent him afterward. “God, Ginny, not a quick fuck.”

She looked at him with eyes drugged with passion. “Why not?”

The question stunned him to silence.
Why not?

She slipped her hand between them and her fingers stroked the length of him from base to tip. Her fingers curled around him as best she could with his trousers impeding her access. “Why not, Fenris?”

He drew a ragged breath. His thoughts were on a fast descent to incoherent. “Camber will be looking for us before long.”

“Then why not quick?” Her fingers stayed on him, and her eyes, so full of desire, Jesus, he might give in just to have that passion right now. “I miss feeling like this.”

That was it for him. “Why the bloody hell not?”

While her fingers tightened around his prick, her other hand, the one on his shoulder, drew him closer. His eyes were nearly closed, but not quite, and he saw what she hadn’t
meant for him to see. He touched two fingers to her cheek, making sure with the touch that she did not turn her head from him. “Ginny, this should not make you grieve. What makes you so sad?”

“Nothing,” she whispered. She lifted her hips, arching against him.

“Not nothing. Tell me.” He kissed her once. Hard. He pulled back just enough to say, “Whatever you say, I’ll still fuck you. But I want the truth before I do.”

“I miss Robert.” She blinked rapidly and touched his lips, a finger laid across his mouth. “I’m sorry. Sorry to say something like that when we are—like this.”

His heart broke again, and as he gazed at her, he gave up the very last of his reserve with her. “What do you need? Tell me, and it’s yours.”

“You. This.” She squeezed him. “You, desperate for me. Helpless with want. Touching me.”

“You have that.” His words ended on a sharp gasp because her first finger reached the head of his cock and swept over the tip, and Jesus, she knew what she was about.

“Is it too wicked of me to say I want to see you when you spend?”

The heat in her eyes nearly stopped his heart. He held his breath while a dozen thoughts and ideas whirled around in his head. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. “In you?”

She shook her head.

“Is that all you want?” he asked. “To bring me?”

She nodded, and the way she looked at him, with frank lust, about ended him right there.

“Just my cock?”

“Yes. Just that.” Her fingers moved again, this time finding the buttons of his trousers, and he, he assisted with the venture of unfastening him. He threw back his head when she drew him out, and then she curled her fingers around his sac. Bliss.

“Do what you will, dear Ginny.”

They ended up with him leaning back, his weight on both forearms supporting him. He stared at her fingers around
him. She knew what to do and did it very well, thank you. He managed a steadying breath. “You have good hands.”

A smile flashed on her mouth. “Thank you, my lord.”

“Under the circumstances, I give you leave to call me Fox.”

She trailed her fingertips along his member, then circled him, pressing her palm against his shaft and sliding her hand up. “Dare I be so familiar?”

“Madam, your hand is on my cock.”

“And what a lovely cock it is.”

He gasped and felt himself slipping away. “Any liberty you like. I warn you, I won’t last long.”

“Very well. Fox.” She understood precisely the pressure and rhythm he needed, and before long, the power of speech was no longer his.

He let his head drop back. There was almost nowhere he could look where he did not have some reflected angle of her or of her and his sex. He arched his pelvis toward her, and that brought him along even faster. Too fast. Rushing headlong toward completion. He didn’t even care that he was about to spend on his clothes. But she wasn’t as far gone as he, for she fished his handkerchief from his coat pocket.

His state of arousal moved quickly to the crisis point, and she, plainly anticipating just how badly he’d want to be inside her, tightened her fingers and quickened the rhythm of her strokes. He came, hard and fast, and, as he discovered only afterward, she used his handkerchief to save him from having to hie off to his rooms for a change of clothes.

She leaned close. “Thank you, Fox.”

He worked at recovering his breath and wits. He had to blink once or twice in order to focus his eyes. “Thank
you
.” She’d damn near killed him. He reached for a curl that had come free of her hairpins and tucked it behind her ear. He’d longed for just this with Eugenia, and he’d got his wish. Perversely, his anxiety about what would happen between them was now a thousand times worse. His lack of restraint might well have ruined everything. He was no more certain of winning her heart than he had ever been. Less, actually.

“It was my pleasure.” She smiled, and Eugenia was just so pretty when she smiled like that.

“Did you like that?”

“I did.” Her smile was too sweet to bear. “I watched you in the glass.”

“Us.” He swept back that same curl. “You watched us.”

“Yes, Fox. Us.”

He sat up enough to cup his hand over the back of her head and bring her down to him so he could kiss her. He captured her mouth in a kiss that was all tongue and strongly suggested she was not repelled by him or what they’d done. They were both a little out of breath when he released her. “I like my sex hard. It needn’t be that way between us, of course. But I want to fuck you, and I would like it very much if it was hard and fast and both of us naked. Do you mind me telling you so crudely?” She shook her head. “Good. I like that, too.” He kissed her again. “I know it’s unfair you’ve not had pleasure.”

“I did.”

“Well.” He couldn’t help a smile. “I believe you’ve paid me a bigger compliment than I deserve, for I’m sure I’m the only one who came.”

She shook her head ruefully, but she was smiling, thank God.

“Soon, Ginny. I want to take you there with me next time.”

She tidied his clothes for him, and what she thought of that revelation about him, that he could speak to her using such words and brazenly promise her satisfaction, he had no idea. “We ought to get back, don’t you think?”

A week later. No. 6 Spring Street.

E
UGENIA ADJUSTED HER MEDALLION AND WONDERED
if she ought to change the ribbon it hung from. “What do you think, Martine? Is this the right blue? Look in the box and see if there isn’t a better blue than this.”

Her maid stood behind her, examining Eugenia’s reflection in the glass. “You look lovely, milady. And the ribbon is perfect.”

“Perhaps we ought to do something different with my hair.” She touched the fall of curls around her forehead. “I wish I had darker hair and that it didn’t curl so.”

Martine laughed. “Milady, half the ladies in London wish they had hair your color and the curls as well.”

She sighed and poked at her hair. She didn’t need curling papers; that was true. “I always wanted dark hair like Mountjoy’s. So much more dramatic.”

Someone tapped on the door and called out, “Milady?”

“Yes?” She reseated the comb in her hair. She knew she wasn’t anywhere near as beautiful as Lily, but she had something, and now that she was back in colors, she could wear rich shades in combinations that complemented her so often
lamented coloring. Martine was right. She might have grown up wishing for Mountjoy’s dark hair, but her blond hair and blue eyes were the fashion, and that was something, to find one’s looks fashionable through no effort at all.

One of the upstairs maids opened the door. “His grace the Duke of Camber and Lord Fenris are downstairs for you, milady.”

“Thank you.” She didn’t dare turn around and let anyone see the color in her cheeks. That was the problem with having such fair skin. She had mixed feelings about seeing him again. Half the time she was ashamed of herself for what had happened at Bouverie, and the rest of the time she wanted the sex he’d warned her he liked. She wanted his cock in her hands, in her mouth, and inside her. All the pleasure with no risk to her heart.

She touched her hair comb once more. Fenris, that horrible, awful man, made her pulse race. “Have you told Miss Rendell they’re here?”

“I’m on my way to her now, milady.”

“Excellent. Thank you.” She took a deep breath and turned away from her image in the mirror. Whatever the state of things between her and Fenris, driving out with him and Camber was nothing short of a triumph. All London would see Hester and who she was with. After all, what greater proof of social acceptance was there than to be seen with those two men, riding in Camber’s new landau? “My cloak, Martine?” She half turned on her chair as she called to the maid who was on her way to tell Hester that Camber and Fenris were here. “Sally, please tell them I’ll be down shortly.”

Sally curtseyed. “Yes, milady.”

Martine fetched Eugenia’s cloak, helped her into it, and brushed off every last speck of lint or dirt. Eugenia stayed motionless during the process. She would be serene, she decided. Perhaps even a bit icy, lest Fenris get the idea that she was prepared to enter into an affair with him. She wasn’t, she’d decided. Nothing formal. Nothing he could control. If she did take him to bed, it would be on her terms. Not his.

“Thank you, Martine.” She waited while her maid finished with three more swipes of the lint brush before she went to Hester’s room. She wasn’t much surprised that Hester was nowhere near dressed. One gown lay abandoned on the bed. One of the upstairs maids held another, while Hester’s maid shook out the skirts of yet a third. Hester herself sat at a desk writing out something in a notebook, wearing only stays and her chemise.

“Lady Eugenia, good afternoon.” She pointed at one of the two potted plants sitting atop the desk. One was in a blue pot. The one she indicated was in a white pot with a red and gold Chinese dragon painted on the side. “How would you describe the color of those leaves?”

There were dozens of leaves, all no more than the size of her fingernail. They formed a domed shape that rose some two inches above the pot at the center and high point. “Green.”

“Yes, but what color of green? Would you say the leaves are dark, medium dark, medium, or pale?”

She faced the maid. “Has she decided what gown to wear?”

The maid curtseyed and held up the gown in her hands while pointing to another on the bed. “This blue or the citrine, milady.”

“I think we must call this a lighter medium green, not now pale.” Hester wrote something in her notebook.

Eugenia tapped Hester’s shoulder. “My dear, Camber and Fenris are here. You must get dressed.”

“I am dressed.” She looked at her lap. “Oh. Well, I thought I was.”

Eugenia waved to Hester’s maid. “She’s wearing the blue.”

Hester sat sideways on the chair. “Have I a gown that color of green?” She pointed at the potted plant on the desk.

“I don’t know. Do you? Does she?”

The maid returned to the wardrobe and brought out a green muslin.

Hester squinted. “Is that a good match, do you think? I don’t think so. It’s not the right sort of green.”

“Why does it matter? You will look very pretty in that frock. Or the blue one.”

“Because it would be so very amusing to tell Camber that the leaves of his violet are exactly the color of my gown.” She half stood and stared at the pot, then at the gown. “That green is too pale.”