Not Proper Enough (A Reforming the Scoundrels Romance) (9 page)

“Not here. In the Turkish room.”

“The Turkish room.”

“It would be wicked of me to show you.” A smile flickered at the edges of his mouth, and then his gaze landed on her rather than their surroundings. Another image flashed through her head. His pale brown eyes locking with hers after he’d come, his arms tight around her. A ridiculous and personally humiliating mental slip. He was laughing, though. Or nearly so. Taunting her with that sly smile. Daring her.

“I feel I can withstand the shock.”

“If you’re sure.”

“I am.”

He picked up the lantern again and headed for the door. “Have you a vinaigrette on hand in the event your delicate sensibilities are offended?”

She snorted and felt very wicked, which was, she imagined, precisely what he intended. “Lead on.”

With a hand on another door, he said, “I’ve seen the bills for the construction of this room. No expense was spared. I daresay that’s the real reason for Camber’s objection.”

Eugenia put her palm to his chest and pushed her fingers off that broad and solid expanse. He didn’t move. “You, sir, are an awful tease. There weren’t any orgies, were there?”

He did not open the door. “There were.”

“You were ten. Honestly. How would you know? No one would tell a ten-year-old about orgies.”

“As Miss Rendell would undoubtedly point out, I did not remain ten.” Fenris opened the door, and they went in. He set the lantern on a low table. “Voilà. My grandfather’s folly.”

The Turkish room was a quite large square with a divan constructed along most of three sides of the walls. The chimney glass stretched from the fireplace mantel to the ceiling. The fireplace had been carved in an Ottoman motif, with the same exquisite scrollwork and curlicues worked into the tiles around it. Crimson velvet curtains with gold
tasseled ties draped along the walls between the mirrored walls, single pieces of glass that must have cost the sky.

Hands on her hips, she surveyed the room. “A bit ornate for my tastes. But I fail to see what’s so wicked about this. Why do you call it his folly?”

“The expense, for one.”

“Yes. I can see that.”

Fenris set a hand to the small of her back and walked her along the perimeter of the divan. There were two other doors, one of them covered, like the walls, with mirror glass. Satin-covered pillows remained on the divan as if awaiting the sultan.

“And the other?” She glanced at him. “Reason you say this is his folly?”

He stopped in front of one of the curtained sections where, instead of a fancifully decorated and gilded wall, there was a door, gilt of course, like every other surface here that was not mirrored. “It’s said my grandfather brought the women through here.” He turned just his head toward her, watching her. “I don’t know if it’s true, but the passage behind this door does lead to the street behind Bouverie.” He touched the gilt-covered door. “It would have been easy enough to arrange for a certain sort of female to arrive without disturbing the household. Without anyone but a trusted servant or two knowing any better.”

“Oh. That sort of folly.”

He smiled at her, and there was something deep and intimate in his smile. “A den of iniquity, I fear.”

“The things you men do baffle me.” She frowned at the door, but all she could think about was the parade of women who must have come through that doorway. He’d said it was his grandfather who’d arranged for orgies, but in her imagination it was Fenris she saw surrounded by a dozen naked women. She turned away, disturbed and unsettled as she walked to the divan. “May I?”

“Please.” He gestured for her to sit, which she did.

She smoothed her hands on the divan. “This is quite comfortable.”

“It is.”
He crossed his arms over his chest and stood by the door, legs apart, like some ancient Turkish potentate. He had the prettiest eyes, didn’t he? He grinned, and that fanciful thought flew from her head. He was only Fenris now, a man she might actually come to like. “I confess, Ginny, I’m equally baffled by you women.”

“You? Baffled by women? Which sort of women?” She waved a hand at the room in general and laughed at him. “The sort who come through doors like that or the sort who don’t?”

“Both sorts.” He leaned against the door. What a delightfully wicked smile, and how very handsome he was. “With the former, of course, one has the advantage of prior agreement as to the term of relations. A few hours. The course of an evening.” He gestured. “The acquaintance is over.”

She looked around the room. “You could never bring the other sort to a place like this.”

“I don’t see why that should be so.” She wasn’t looking at him, but she heard his voice change and take on a silky tone. “After all, I’ve brought you here.”

She looked at him. “That’s different.”

“In what way?”

“We know each other.”

He held her gaze, and her belly did a slow flip. “Not as I’d like.”

Eugenia blinked. He did not mean that as she’d initially taken it. He couldn’t have meant
know
in the carnal sense. The man, with his infernal good looks and tales of wicked orgies, had sparked her body to life. He’d reminded her she missed the physical intimacy of her marriage, and that was quite apart from the way she missed Robert. She missed Robert with her heart, but her body missed being touched, and there were times, she had to admit, when she thought any man’s touch would do. Even Fenris’s.

Especially Fenris’s.

She cleared her throat. A proper woman would leave. “You never did tell me how you know there were orgies here.”

“Servants gossip.”
He cocked his head in that infuriating way.

“Not just that.”

He shrugged and gave the floor a long look before he returned his attention to her. There was something wicked in his eyes. Lust. That was lust in those lovely brown eyes of his. “I’ve seen the bills.”

“Oh.” She breathed in and found herself struggling not to laugh when she realized she wasn’t mistaken about his desire. “Oh. You wicked man.”

“What?” He leaned against the wall again and, without looking, fiddled with the curtain that partially hid the door.

“You’ve brought women here, haven’t you?”

Fenris pretended to be fascinated by the ceiling.

She followed his look then stared, as engaged with the view as he apparently was. The ceiling here was lower than one generally encountered in a house like Bouverie. With her neck still craned, she gazed upward at her face, and the contrast between the aquamarine silk of the divan and the rose pink of her afternoon frock. “Why,” she slowly asked, “are there mirrors on the ceiling?”

“My dear woman.” Fenris snorted, and she looked at him. He grinned. “Why do you think?”

“Well it can’t be for the light—” Oh, good God. She covered her face with one hand. She honestly didn’t know whether to laugh or be thoroughly ashamed of herself for thinking, once again, of Fenris with a dozen naked women. Laughter won out.

Fenris left his place against the wall and sat beside her on the divan, his weight on one hand propped behind him. She peered at him through her spread-out fingers but continued to smile because she couldn’t stop herself. He’d brought women here. He had. And he must have, had to have, looked at the reflections all around him. Including those reflections in the ceiling glass. Which meant he’d been on his back. She lowered her hands at last. “I’m not all that ignorant, I promise you.”

He smirked, and then his smile softened. “A woman’s skin kissed in the candlelight? A dance of veils?”

She dropped back on the divan, her feet still on the floor, and stared at her reflected face. “Gah. What a dunce you must think me.” She turned her head to look at him. “How many women? Not just one, surely.”

“Three or four. Half a dozen.”

“Liar.”

“There might have been more.” Fenris turned and bent over her, his hand now propped up on her other side. “Don’t look at me,” he said. “Look in the glass.”

“Why?” But she did, and she saw bits of her gown and her face over his shoulder, but mostly his broad back, and his dark hair. Her breath hitched. She was wracked with a longing to be touched. More than that. To be filled.

“That’s what they saw.”

“The women you brought here?”

“Mm. What women?”

“The dozen you brought here, obviously.” She fisted her hands at her sides because she had the most horrible urge to see her spread-out fingers pale against the dark material that covered his shoulders.

He laughed and moved closer until he was practically on top of her. She ought to move, to push him away. She didn’t. He lowered his head until his breath fell warm on her neck. “There. Are you looking, Ginny? You have only to imagine yourself naked in my arms to know exactly what happened here.”

“Fenris.”

“At such a moment,” he whispered in her ear, and Lord, but that sound was nothing but soft and secret silk against her senses, “I would expect you to call me Fox. It’s what my intimates call me.”

She didn’t move. Or push him away. Or make any sort of protest. And there inevitably came the moment when they both understood a line had been crossed.

Fox kissed the side of her throat.

H
IS SENSES NARROWED TO JUST
E
UGENIA AND HIM
. Aside from his physical reactions, what loomed large in his mind was that their relationship had just utterly changed. He’d succeeded during the time she’d been in London, not easily, though, in smoothing away her abrasive dislike of him. But this? This changed everything and he was half-mad with lust and desire, and something else he did not know how to name. This was Ginny. In his arms, beneath him. His mouth against her soft, soft skin.

What he knew was this: his touch was a lover’s caress, and she understood that very well. The very mouth that had once mortally insulted her now brought them together. His entire body was in sensual overload; on the edge of too much even as just this was in no way enough for him. He kissed her throat again.

Always, whatever happened here or afterward, there would be this between them. He did not want to ruin a moment so filled with sexual possibility and could not bear the thought that he might not have what he desired more than his own life.

The sheer effrontery of what he’d done astonished him. He should not have dared such boldness with her. He knew better than to impose himself on a woman who did not care for him. Yet here she was in his arms, with him wanting more than a single kiss, however tender, however sweet. Not enough. Never enough. The power of his desire for her terrified him.

He was very much aware that she wasn’t screaming murder or pushing him away. He was also aware that he was practically lying on top of her, pinning her with his weight, and that it was possible she was too horrified, or even too afraid, to object. Just as he was about to roll away, one of her hands left the divan and settled butterfly-like on the back of his shoulder.

Not pushing him away. Drawing him closer.

How quickly the world changed again. That touch was an invitation, and he meant to accept whatever she offered him.

He shifted so he was directly over her. If only they were naked, Jesus, he’d be sliding into her right now. Fucking her here in the bloody abandoned Turkish room, site of his grandfather’s sexual excesses and a few of his own. He kissed his way up her throat, slow kisses, tender kisses, a drag of his mouth toward her jaw. Somehow, he ended with one of his arms curled around the side of her head, exerting just the slightest pressure so that he could reach more of her neck.

Sweet, tender, fuckable Ginny.

All this time he’d thought of her as a tall woman. Substantial, because to him she’d always been larger than life. More real. Happier than other people. More vivid than any woman he’d ever known. Her body beneath his was slender, almost slight, but Lord, the curves. She smelled good. The taste of her spread over his tongue, and, just once, he nipped her skin. He reached the underside of her jaw and planted a slow kiss there, and then discovered his other hand had been wandering, too.

Eugenia’s leg was slender, firm, and aside from putting
himself inside her, there wasn’t much he’d like more than to have his palm on her bare skin, sliding along her skin from calf to knee to thigh…How far? How far did he dare take this with all the history between them?

As damn far as he could manage, because what if she came to her senses and remembered how much she disliked him?

A quick look to the side, and he could see their reflection in the mirrored walls. Her curls were a flash of gold. He buried his fingers in her hair just to see the contrast between the pale gold and his hand. He raised his head enough to see her eyes were closed, her lips parted. The loveliest sight he’d ever seen.

Half a second later, her eyes fluttered open and focused on him with frank lust. His breath caught, and his cock came to full life.

Whatever spell this was, let it never be broken.

He pulled himself up those last few inches and took her mouth the way he’d been imagining since just about the day he first saw her. He did. Oh, yes, he did. Her mouth opened under his, and her invitation—he knew damn well this wasn’t capitulation—was not one he considered declining.