“Oh, you would have the cheek to bring him up. I’m aware of my responsibilities as Lady Mercy, trust me.” Her fingers clenched around the bouquet. She would find that he was fully willing to put that spark of temper to good use. “Yes or no, DeWitt?”
He tapped his trouser pocket and the folded scrap of vellum inside it. “You’ve sketched me already, remember? The summer days of charcoal and hedges.”
Her smirk was cunning, her slender body encased in that scrap of a gown calling to him as she opened the door and marched up the staircase. He watched her bottom swing, vowing to discover every delectable curve.
“Darling, you misunderstand,” she called from the flight above, “you were wearing clothing that time.”
Mercy would have laughed at her model’s hesitancy if she didn’t fear it would send him racing back into the streets of Fitzrovia. Her hesitation was suppressed but present in the rapid beating of her heart, fueled by the intimacy drifting like London’s miasma about the space.
This little production wasn’t wholly about art.
And they both knew it.
From his spot on the settee, Damien plucked at his shirt’s bone buttons until it hung open, giving her a wondrous view of the rippling muscle and thin trail of hair leading to his waistband. He had a physique like no professor she’d ever met. (Not that she’d met any.)
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” he murmured in a vexed tone, “sit, stand, smile, frown. This feels ridiculous.” He gave his spectacles a bump up his nose. “Why did you have me put on these if you want me to take everything else off?”
Because you look so handsome in them, she thought but didn’t dare say. “Artistic license,” she teased.
Mercy sketched madly while he brooded, warming up her mind and her fingers. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor, leaning against a scuffed cupboard that had come with the flat. She was close enough to see every twist of inky hair on his head, every half-dimple marking his cheek, every scar cutting into his upper lip.
She was, however, not close enough to touch.
“Look properly serious, as usual.” She smiled, unable to hide it. “Like a scholar. I’ve never had the chance, except for the summer of charcoal and hedges, to capture the image of such a rare creature.”
He grumbled but, happily, surprisingly, let his shirt slide off his shoulders and to the floor—and her breath stopped. Dear heaven, he was a sight.
When his gaze met hers, he paused, dusting his hand down his body. “Is something wrong?”
She chewed on the end of her charcoal pencil. “I don’t think most professors look like this. In fact, I’m sure they don’t.”
He grinned and puffed out his chest. “Twice weekly boxing sessions, minx. Knox got me into it at Gentleman Jackson’s when I was a lad in need of toughening up. I’ve continued at Oxford with a fierce brute who kicks my arse sideways.”
“I should thank your brother then, because artists like to capture shadows and light. Musculature, bone, sinew. Corpulence makes for hideous art.”
“Tell that to Botticelli,” he whispered, resting back against the settee, the glass of brandy she’d poured for him balanced on the flat plane of his belly. Closing his eyes, he fell silent until she wondered if he’d dropped to sleep.
In the charged silence, she created a rough outline of his lean body, adding the details particular to the man. The arm hanging near the floor, fingers spread as if he was trying to catch a sunbeam. The patrician arch of his nose, a feature he shared with his brothers. The delicate curvature bordering his top lip. The hip bone exposed by his low-hanging trousers. The long, dark lashes teasing the sweeps beneath his eyes.
She would ask, and soon, that he remove the rest of his clothing.
She didn’t realize her breathing had sharpened with her awareness of him, blood pulsing, skin tingling. If was as if he touched her with each stroke of her pencil capturing him.
She halted, exhaling softly, and looked up to find his hazel eyes hot and steady on her. “Come here, minx,” he whispered, placing his glass to the side and rolling to face her.
She had no choice but to obey. When she wouldn’t have obeyed if she didn’t want to. Dousing each oil lamp until she’d left only one burning, she kneeled by the settee. Fulfilling a years-old desire, she reached to trace the scar on his lip. His scent, a unique blend all his own, drifted through her, strengthening her yearning. “Finally,” she whispered, “I have Damien DeWitt where I want him.”
Growling, he caught her hand and pressed it to his mouth, taking a tiny bite from the center of her palm that sent longing darting between her thighs.
Never, never, had she felt the like.
Rising to a sit, he tucked her into the warm shelter between his spread legs. “Give in, minx. Because I vow I’m going to.” Cradling her face, he dipped his head and seized her lips, gently, fully, pulling her against him until they were where they’d left off the day before. He tasted like brandy and sin, passion and hunger. Bodies bumping, grinding, they moved into each other’s space until there was nothing left between them.
Her hands roved his shoulders, sliding slowly down his chest, the tight line of hair trailing to his belly tickling her skin. He murmured against her lips in response to her touch but continued the kiss until she craved nothing more than to collapse beneath him, let him crawl over her and show her the world. She hadn’t explored Pierre in this way, speed to the finish line being his quest. Oddly, unimaginative for an artist. She hadn’t felt this much, wanted this much.
Damien was everything he’d not been. Vulnerable, patient, passionate.
And so beautiful, he made her want to weep.
