The Merry Widow (2 page)

“And make sure you apologize for your tardiness,” the housekeeper directed as if scolding a child. She finally stopped at a set of double doors and knocked softly.

“Come in!” called a feminine voice on the other side.

Reggie braced himself as the servant twisted the brass handle fixtures and gave the doors a healthy push inward.

“Mrs. Jones, your gentleman caller is here,” the housekeeper announced with the gravity she might use if he were a doctor making a house call.

“Go on. You can go in. She won’t bite.” The housekeeper stepped out of the way.

Reggie was no stranger to a woman’s private chambers, having been the invited guest on many occasions, but somehow he now found himself wavering on the threshold. Then he saw Mrs. Jones sitting on a couch of sage green chintz, pretending to read a book. He knew she was only pretending because she flipped through the pages of the worn volume as if it were the most recent issue of
Queen
.

As he entered the room, his boot heels clicked on the mahogany floors, drawing her attention. She turned her head in his direction and immediately laid the book aside. As he closed the distance between them, she stood to greet him, a polite smile playing on her unusually full lips.

So the rumors were true, he thought. Phillipa Jones was not the raving beauty so in vogue today, which favored delicate blondes with milky white-skin so fragile they looked like they might break at the slightest provocation. Instead, she was uncommonly tall, possessed of a smooth olive complexion allegedly inherited from an East Indian ancestor, and her ebony mane rippled over one shoulder to her knees. With this and her voluptuous figure accented by a lavender dressing gown, she was far from unremarkable.

When he finally came to stand next to her, she held out her hands in greeting. Reflexively, he enveloped them in his own and then brought them to his lips. As he pressed his mouth to her slightly trembling fingers, he glanced up and was instantly jarred by the unusual color of her eyes. From across the room he had guessed them to be light in color, possibly blue. But he was mistaken. They were a startling shade of violet, similar to the fields of pansies he played in as a child in Lincolnshire.

At that moment, Reggie wondered if the proper Mrs. Jones, so unyielding in business, would be agreeable to him laying her back in a bed of such flowers and hiking up her skirts as he burrowed his head between her creamy thighs and feasted on her sex until the countryside filled with her screams.

Unfortunately, his vision was broken when she slipped her hands from his. She retook her seat and carefully situated her skirts, but he noticed she’d left enough room for him on the couch to join her. When he did, a sudden whiff of her perfume drifted to him, a mixture of patchouli, lavender and something else he couldn’t quite name.

Something exotic, much like its owner.

“You must excuse me if I seem rather nervous,” she volunteered, her voice a husky contralto, its timbre almost bordering on the masculine. But not quite, he surmised as his cock twitched with every enunciated syllable.

She continued, “I almost sent a missive to Madame Valant to cancel the entire thing. Alas, care killed the care. And now I’m happy you are here, for I suspect your company will be far from unpleasant. So, what shall I call you?” She fixed him with a pensive look.

Reggie stiffened. He could barely believe his own ears. The virtuous widow was a patron of the infamous Madame Valant, the grand dame of Pall Mall, legendary for satisfying the secret desires of the ton or anyone else who could pay her price?

It clarified everything! It explained the housekeeper allowing an unannounced guest into her mistress’s home and leading him upstairs to her mistress’s quarters, where the lady had welcomed him in her private salon wearing nothing but a dressing gown.

Yes, Mrs. Phillipa Jones was very, very far from being unremarkable!

If it wasn’t for the spark of intelligence she discerned in the depths of his brown eyes, she might have thought him dense, Phillipa mused as she patiently waited for him to offer his name. What a shame it would be if he was unintelligent. In appearance he was the Byronic hero come to life, dark, foreboding, and full of sexual energy.

He was much younger than her thirty-eight years, probably just entering his thirties. And from the looks of him, he’d been designed for his chosen profession. Thankfully, this was a clandestine meeting. She inwardly cringed at the possible headlines for Lady Cherbourg’s next column, were they to be seen in public. The article would call her a cradle-robber, and the headline would probably read something like “Weary, Lovelorn Widow of the Grand Surry Docks Finds Perfect Gift for Her Newest Paramour. A Beautiful New Silver Cross Pram.”

“You may call me Reggie. All my friends and family do.”

Reggie. The name suited him perfectly, she conceded. Despite the fact that he was essentially the god Apollo come to life, he had an odd mix of devil-may-care attitude and a youthful exuberance about him that only a man named Reggie could pull off.

“Well, Reggie, you may call me Phillipa,” she offered in return. “Normally, such impropriety would not be warranted, especially since we just met. But as we are meeting under special circumstances, I think it appropriate.”

“And what special circumstances are we meeting under?” he interjected.

Phillipa frowned. He should know the reason he was here. It would become awkward if he expected much more than a friendly game of checkers. However, she had no time to ponder his motives because he suddenly leaned forward. She tensed when he lifted his hand and placed a finger against her brow. But when he proceeded to rub his finger back and forth across the delicate skin between her eyebrows, she relaxed along with the muscles untightening under his present care.

His ministrations put her so at ease that she didn’t notice when he’d edged closer to her. His thigh brushed her hip, and for the first time since she’d lost Harry, she felt the telltale tingling in her breasts. The tiny bud between her legs jumped spasmodically and filled with a rising heat.

As she allowed the long-buried sensations to resurface, her eyes fluttered closed and she leaned into him.

“You really shouldn’t frown like that,” he murmured, his warm breath teasing the skin on her cheek.

Her eyes popped open as she bristled at the mentioning of the tiny lines beginning to rear their ugly heads against her otherwise smooth brow. “Why?” Although she thought there couldn’t be any way he could put a damper on her rising ardor, he’d done just that. There was nothing more deflating than having a beautiful young man call attention to time’s ravages, no matter how minute. Suddenly feeling inadequate, she made to move away from him. But he reached out and forestalled her with a touch of his hand on her arm.

“When you frown, it takes away from the beauty of your eyes,” he offered. His finger trailed down her nose and settled on her upper lip.

Phillipa bit her lip as his words and his touch sent her stomach into somersaults.

“And you shouldn’t bite your lip either. It detracts from their enticing fullness.”

“You think my lips are enticing?”

“Mmm-hmm,” he murmured, his finger tracing her lips. “But for me to be a hundred percent sure, I must be allowed to taste them.” His fingers trailed from her lips to slide along her jaw. Instinctively she turned her head towards his touch. A sigh escaped her slightly parted lips and a jolt of heat shot down her spine when his thumb brushed her cheek.

“I think that would be most inappropriate,” she breathed. “But since these are special circumstances—”

“Then a kiss would be most warranted,” he finished for her. The sensual timbre of his voice effectively stemmed her growing anxiety at allowing a complete stranger such liberties. So much so that she didn’t move when he lowered his head and placed a light kiss on each of her cheeks.

Even though she should have, she didn’t protest when he melded his muscular frame against her own, his hard chest flattening her ample bosom and his cock pressing suddenly and hard against her belly.

While he nibbled on her lips, Phillipa parted her own without any coaxing from him. Not because she’d suddenly found it difficult to breath, but because she was eager to enjoy the pleasures of a kiss once again. And caution be damned. After being alone for so long, she would no longer be denied.

“Kiss me please,” she urged. Reaching up, she placed her palms on his broad shoulders, and rubbed them against the warm wool of his evening jacket. To her surprise, the slight friction of her skin against the course fabric sparked her rising ardor. Wanting more, she slipped her hands inside the tailored garment and slid her hands greedily over the soft linen of his shirt. To her delight, his muscles bunched and rolled under her touch.

She opened her mouth again, this time to demand that he kiss her. But his mouth slashed across hers, cutting off her words. Instead of a chaste pressing of lips, the sort she’d read about so often in throwaway novels, his tongue pushed past her lips to plunder her mouth.

For several moments she just lay there. His kisses assaulted her basic tendencies almost to the point of overwhelming her. However, as his tongue swirled inside her mouth and touched pressure points that triggered long-dormant sensations, she finally awakened to desire. Her nipples grew and distended. And a vibration, one she’d not experienced in several years, settled between her thighs.

Attuning herself to his mouth’s movements, she began to match them. When his tongue flicked at the top of her mouth, she followed suit. When he nipped at her bottom lip, she bit his as well.

When did I forget to breathe? she wondered while their tongues dueled. When did the simple act of breathing become secondary to being kissed by him? She might die of suffocation, but she didn’t break off their kiss even when she became light-headed and fell into him.

She must have startled him. He unexpectedly pulled away from her, his chest heaving as he supported her in his arms. Feeling strangely bereft, she grabbed the front of his shirt and tugged him back to her. But he shook his head.

“No, ma petite fille. I’m greedy for your other lips,” he purred.

She looked at him in confusion. The change in his eyes gave her pause. Where they’d once been light brown, they were now an inky black, their depths swirling with desire.

“M-m-my other lips?” she asked, her voice rising on the last syllable because his hand unexpectedly bunched into her gown. Her hem was rising faster than the River Thames at high tide.

Her heartbeat quickened when his hand disappeared under her skirt and slowly traveled over her silk stocking and up the inside of her thigh. She gasped when he made quick work of her drawers, laying them open to questing fingers that dipped inside and parted the crisp curls covering her quim.

“Yesss, ma petit fille. I want to taste you here.”

He’d called her his little girl! That and the hand resting against her womanhood sent a shiver of pleasure shooting through her body. Even her toes curled with wanting. Phillipa reached down to the hem of her dressing gown and hiked it over her hips. She brushed away the last of her reserve and allowed her thighs to fall open in invitation. Her gaze swung to meet his again so she could gauge his reaction. She had to suppress a nervous giggle as a lascivious grin lit his full sensual lips.

But all humor flew out of the window when he shifted and came to kneel in front of her. She visibly tensed when he leaned forward to place a gentle kiss on the inside of her knee.

“Shhh. There is no need to feel tense. Just lie back and enjoy,” he whispered. His fingertips brushed the sides of her thighs and his hands settled on either side of her hips, lifting her buttocks and drawing her towards him.

She was unprepared for the fire that ignited in the pit of her stomach when his tongue sliced through her curls and parted her nether lips. He licked her once and then again and again until she was completely open to him. He took the tiny throbbing nubbin into his mouth and rolled it around his tongue several times before his lips closed around it.

Rattled to her very core, she cried out and reached to steady herself, for she now felt out of her realm. When her hands found him, she twined her fingers into his sable curls and a low, feral growl erupted from him that both exhilarated and frightened her.

Suddenly filled with self-doubt, she pushed at his shoulders. “Maybe we shouldn’t be doing this.”

“I will not do anything that you don’t want me to, Phillipa,” he murmured, rubbing his cheek against the inside of her thigh.

She gasped and clutched at his hair as the faint spattering of hairs along his jaw line tickled the delicate area.

“So would you like for me to finish?” he asked, his voice unbelievably even.

“If I say yes, will you not push me for more?” She was more certain of her crumbling reserve than his, if truth be told.

“As I said, ma petite fille, I will not do anything that you do not want me to. Now may I continue?”

She breathed, “Yes.” And cried out as he buried his head between her legs once again.

As if he had all the time in the world, he traced the lucky pair of lips with his tongue before slicing through the tight curls covering her sex opening her to him.

“Oh!” she cried as he started to lick, suck, and nibble at her most sensitive flesh. Yet in spite of the immense pleasure she derived from his lovemaking, she tensed when his tongue rimmed the entrance to what was once again virgin territory. But young Reggie would not be denied in this, because his tongue plunged inside before she could forestall him.

“Oh, Reggie!” Her hips lifted of their own accord, but a calming hand on her belly brought her down to earth once more. Then the tongue spearing her hot channel sent her soaring to the heavens.

“Reggie! I think I’m going to faint.” She was panting. “Please stop!”

But he didn’t.

In self-preservation, she squeezed her eyes shut. She’d become lightheaded. Her world spun, but her inner turmoil only increased with the thrusting of his tongue.