Not Proper Enough (A Reforming the Scoundrels Romance) (23 page)

“There’s no denying your good taste.”

“I’m glad you think so.” He wanted very much to go to her, pull the pins from her hair, and thread his fingers through those thick straw-colored tresses.

Still with the end of her shawl dangling, she moved to the next painting, one of his favorites. She stood facing it. “Is this from Anatolia?”

“Persia. A depiction of the Festival of Fire.” Sumptuously dressed Persians danced outdoors, to a tune played by musicians at the outer edge of the gathered people. The top and sides of the painting were of an inverted teardrop-shaped window, intricately decorated, and painted in exquisite detail. In looking on the painting it was as if you were yourself in the center of that window, watching the musicians and dancers outside.

“It’s very old, isn’t it?” She looked at him over her shoulder. “The painting, I mean. The colors are just lovely.”

“It is.”

She returned to her study.

“Above all else,” he said softly, “my staff is discreet.”

After a bit, she faced him again. “Nothing less for you.”

“Not if they wish to remain in my employ or get a character from me if they should leave.” He walked to the table and surveyed the repast of fruit, cheese, thinly sliced beef, quail, bread already sliced, and, in a welcome touch, a plate of marzipan, another of sweetmeats, and a bowl of candied almonds. He made a note to give the entire staff a bonus. “Would you like some wine with our meal? It’s an excellent vintage.”

“Yes, thank you.” She joined him at the table, standing, as he did. She touched the flowers. One of the petals drifted to the table.

“Not so potent as the whisky.” He poured two glasses of the Burgundy and handed one to her. Before she accepted the goblet, she draped her shawl over a chair. She sipped so small an amount he doubted she tasted it. He busied himself with selecting a plate of food for her. He added a section of orange then ate one himself. It was still cold from the ice it had been sitting on in the larder. The fruit was sweet, and, without much thought, he took another and held it to her lips. “Taste.”

She put down her wine, untouched but for that one sip, and did. She ate it slowly, half the slice, then the other, eyes closed, and one hand just under her mouth to catch the juice until she’d swallowed the last bit. Her eyes opened. The tips of her eyelashes were blonder than her hair, her irises blue as the sky. “Mm. That was delicious.”

“So, my dear Ginny.”

She didn’t need him to say more. Her cheeks pinked up. “Give me a little more whisky first.”

He laughed, at his expense, not hers. “I am too full of myself tonight.”

“That’s always so.”

“Boiled too long in the wine of my self-importance.”

“Boiled, you say?” She laughed softly. “It’s not fair to
amuse me so. How can I hate you when you make me laugh?”

“I use every weapon to hand.” He waited until her attention returned to him. “It’s a rare vintage, Ginny. A lesser man than I would be drunk on it.”

“I’ve not given you leave to call me Ginny.”

“Your point?”

“None, I suppose. An observation is all.”

“I’ve learned that if I do not take what I want, I am not likely to get what I want.” She made a face at him, and his mouth twitched up. “Besides, it’s what your friends call you. Lily calls you that.”

“Yes, but you and I, we’re not friends.”

“No.” He slid an arm around her waist and brought her close. “Not friends at all.”

Her hand got in between them, but instead of pushing him away, she ran her fingers down his waistcoat and past the waist of his trousers until her palm curved over his not entirely soft sex. With her hand firmly covering him, he was getting harder by the moment. She pressed lightly, and two of her fingers swept over his balls.

“Mm. God, I do love your cock.”

He let out a slow breath, as soft as he could, but there was no hiding his reaction from her. Then he ruined the illusion of his self-possession by sucking in a breath when her fingers moved over the top of his cock.

“It
is
very large.” She leaned against him, and when was it, exactly, that he’d lost control of the encounter?

Eyes closed as he savored her handling of him, he pressed his hips forward. “Ginny—”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Ginny, my love.” He opened his eyes and stared into hers. She lifted her chin. “I’m going to put that inside your naked body, and you will scream my name before I’m done.”

“I won’t.”

He absolutely refused to smile. It was a near thing, though, stopping himself from that. “Several times, in fact.”

“Never.”

He brought her hard against his body. His senses were completely overrun. She was smiling at him, a smug, private knowing smile. She smelled like orange water. Common everyday orange water, and the scent was driving him mad. He lowered his head and kissed her. Hard and fast, mouth open, not waiting to ease her along to kisses that invaded her mouth. He started there. Taking her mouth.

She did her share of taking, damn her. When he pulled back, they were both breathing hard.

He held her by the shoulders. “I like a woman who wants to be fucked hard, and not necessarily in a bed. I like a woman on top and when she’s on her knees and I’m behind her. Or up against a wall.”

“A wall? You’ve done that?” She stared into his face, eyes wide, and he kissed her again. A little slower, but no less carnally. The woman still had her hand on his sex.

“Yes.” He permitted himself one very tiny smile. “Have you?”

She let the hand that wasn’t on his cock fall away from his shoulder. She leaned toward the table and with her bare fingers picked up and rolled a slice of roast beef. She ate slowly. When she was done she wiped her hand on a napkin. “That’s none of your business.”

Fox returned her wayward hand to his cock, and got a smug look in return. Followed by another stroke along his length. “I’m happy to close any and all gaps in your sensual experience.”

She made a face at him.

“Now, perhaps?”

“You’re being crude on purpose.”

“If I were being crude, Ginny, I would have told you I want to fuck you against the wall right now. If I were being crude, I’d ask you if you know that if you were to shave the hair on your quim, your newly bare skin would be unbearably soft. And then I’d demand that you do so before our next fuck.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes.” He pushed his pelvis forward and was amply rewarded for his crudity. “If you were to do such a thing, I would write my name there, above your slit, in purple ink.”

“Your entire name?” Her eyes opened wide, but her innocence was disingenuous. He had not ever been this aroused in his life, he was certain of it. “My lord, I don’t think there’s room there for all those names.”

“I would write
Fox
, and when the ink was dry, I’d put your back against the wall there—” He nodded in the direction of the door. “I’d lift you up, and I’d push inside you, and you, my dearest Ginny, would be wet for me, and I’d take you hard and fast.”

“I think you’re all talk.”

He leaned in and nipped the side of her throat. “Imp.”

“Incorrigible.”

“Oh yes. I’m a hard case.”

While he drew a hand down the curve of her back she said, “Do you even have purple ink?”

“I
DLE CURIOSITY
?” H
IS HEART LURCHED ALONG WITH
parts south. “Or something else?”

Her smile was secret, unreadable, and it put an ocean’s distance between them. “What would I write on your noble skin, I wonder? In purple ink.”

He laughed, looking at her, drinking in the sight of her, hardly able to believe she was here with him and following him down indecent paths. No matter what she was thinking about him or feeling about him, she was here. In his house. In his private rooms. “
Where
is more my concern.”

“Just above, I think.” She cupped him again. “Perhaps I’d draw a picture.”

He stood his ground, and the tension between them filled the room. His prick was now at painfully full attention. “Your name would suffice.”

She put her free hand in the center of his chest and pushed. “Get your purple ink, my lord.”

His mind filled with images of him with his hand over her freshly shaved mons, and he forgot how to breathe. She
gave him another push, and he took a step back. Not very far, though. “A pen, as well?” he asked.

“What did I say?” Eugenia tapped his chest again.

“The ink.” Fox took a backward step, toward his bedchamber. “Which, I feel I ought to point out, is useless without a pen.”

She tapped her chin. “A pen, too, sir.”

“Your wish is my command.” But as he retreated, he grabbed her hand and brought her along.

“I’m hungry,” she said, looking back at the table with the food Golde had laid out for them.

He stopped. “Take the plate, then.”

She picked up not the food he’d assembled for her but the plate of marzipan.

And then, there they were. In his bedroom with the fire just warm enough and the candlelight casting a glow that did not reach all the shadows. He took her hand and walked her to the desk. He retrieved his bottle of purple ink from the drawer where he’d stashed it the day the gift had been delivered to him. He held it up with a flourish. “Behold.”

Eugenia moved to the side of the desk, set down the marzipan, and leaned her forearms on top of the desk. “Lady Tyghe gave you this, didn’t she?”

“Mm. Arrived last week as I recall.”

She licked her lips and considered the ink he held. “Unopened, I see.”

“I’d not thought I’d ever have a use for it.” He put down the ink and opened the drawer that contained his quills. He fished out a scrap of blotting paper as well. Would she really? Would Eugenia Hampton Bryant, who had every reason to dislike him, do this and more with him?

“Are you going to tell her that you’ve used her ink?”

Supplies in hand, he faced her. His attention went to her bosom and lingered. He imagined his hands covering her bare breasts. Such charming curves. He wanted her naked in his arms. Now. Ten minutes ago. A year ago. “What do you suppose?”

“Not.”
Eugenia considered the candies on the plate. “She’s not as stupid as she pretends. Am I right?”

“No. She’s not.”

She grinned. “Purple ink is a gift you are to use for her benefit. To write her poetry and lavish her with compliments.”

“Precisely.”

She ate a piece of marzipan, and while he watched her, he wondered if Robert had understood the treasure he’d had in his wife. Of course he had. Robert had never been any sort of fool. There had been times when the man’s enormous intellect consumed him. Some subject caught his fancy, and he was never satisfied until he had reduced the idea to nothing but bone and gristle. When in the grip of intellectual curiosity he had often been curt to the point of shocking rudeness. Had Robert, with his brilliant mind trapped in a deficient body, been able to satisfy his wife? He saw no sign that he hadn’t.

When she was done eating the candy, she smiled. Slowly. Wickedly. Hers was not the smile of a woman who did not understand the pleasures of the body. They had managed, those two. Imperfect Robert and perfect, happy Eugenia.

She held out a hand for the pen and ink, and he handed them to her. Was she really going to be so bold? “If you’ll just remove your britches. And lie down on the bed, there.”

“I warn you, you cannot help but see my nether regions.” He was jealous of a dead man. The man who’d been his closest friend until he’d ruined it.

She gazed at him without smiling. “I’ve seen your parts.”

“By God, you have. But that was in the heat of passion. This is different. There is a certain intimacy gained once a man allows a woman a close acquaintance with his parts.”

“Yes.” Her tongue came out and ran the length of her bottom lip, and he was instantly thinking of her mouth on him. “That’s so.”

He let the silence build, and while he did, she licked the residue of the candy from her fingers. He removed his watch, taking a moment to touch the medallion hanging from the chain. Quickly, he stripped down to his shirt. The clothes
he removed, he threw over the back of a chair. Boots next. Then his breeches. He’d always believed in being master of himself, and that meant being master of his body, too. He worked himself hard to maintain that physical control. Clad in only his shirt, he sat on his bed, pushing himself back until he was on the piled-up pillows. He crossed his arms behind his head.

Eugenia put the supplies on the nightstand by the bed: ink, pen, and the bit of blotting paper he’d taken out. She sat on the edge of the mattress. His cock was hard, tenting his shirt. The idea of her writing on his bare skin was titillating, of course. Even more arousing—and he was certain she understood this—was the implied promise that she would allow him to do the same. Or nearly the same. Another night, when they were more familiar, he would shave her and write his name on her.

She drew his shirt up high enough to expose his hip and his sex.

“Have you decided what to write?”

“I believe I have.” She turned to the nightstand and opened the ink. She laughed. Giggled, actually. “Oh, my heavens.”