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“As long as you don’t tell your mother.” She brought her gaze back to his. “She’ll alternately tease me and lecture me on how it’s a bad idea.”
“This will remain exclusively our secret.” Then he put his hands on either side of her waist and hoisted her upward to plant her arse upon the desk. When her legs naturally splayed, he scooted his chair closer so he could comfortably settle between them. The second she stared at him with slightly parted lips and curiosity in her eyes, his tenuous control slipped. “Ah, Felicity, what a fetching picture you make.”
Bartholomew kissed her again and this time he did so with banked intensity. No sooner had he encouraged her to open for him than she did, and he slid his tongue into her mouth, flirting with hers. She gasped, her eyes wide open and watching him, but he encouraged her to follow his lead. Oh, the woman was a quick study, for she dueled with him until it was he who was breathless, even more so when she smoothed her palms along his shoulders and pulled him closer.
Enchanted, or perhaps hooked was a better term—insane certainly—he dared to cup her modest breasts, and when she didn’t slap his face, he worried her nipples into hard peaks through her dress. A gasp of surprise escaped her and mingled with a soft moan of pleasure. Those sounds both spurred him onward and threatened to break him. He was naught but a cad, a churl, a rogue perhaps, yet the urge to see those charms circled like a hungry beast in his gut. “Shall I continue? I don’t wish to frighten you.” Ultimately, he refused to push her into something she wasn’t comfortable with. If she wanted to beg off, he’d leave her be.
“Yes.” Excitement, curiosity, and perhaps a trace of trepidation fought for dominance in her eyes. She trembled in his hold. “It might, perhaps, be my only opportunity to experience any sort of pleasure by a man’s hand.”
What a sad admission that was. “Then men are blind, for if they don’t see what I do, I fear for our society.” It was the truth, and she deserved to hear it.
Shock reflected on her face, more so than when he’d touched her. Had she truly not heard compliments often? “What a lovely thing to say.”
“Ah, Felicity.” Gently, slowly, he encouraged her bodice down, peeled away the layers of fabric beneath until those perfect globes were revealed to his hungry gaze. “Gorgeous,” he breathed as he looked upon them, glanced his knuckles over one of the pink, pebbled tips.
“Gammon,” she whispered back, ever the contrary woman. “I fear they’re too small to gain notice. Certainly that’s been my understanding when following gossip.”
“Poppycock. They’re perfect. Forgive the trespass.” He leaned forward and took one of those tempting buds into his mouth. She jerked from that touch and raggedly inhaled. Bartholomew chuckled, held her steady with a hand at her hip and another kneading the opposite breast. “Relax. Give yourself over to what you’re feeling.” Then he set out to supplement her life’s education.
“Merciful heavens,” she said, her voice shaking. “This is… I didn’t know… No one ever told me…” Her hand at his nape pressed him closer, and her obliged by rubbing the flat of his tongue over that nipple until another moan was tugged from her throat.
The smugness of pure male victory came over him as the image of her lying naked and stretched out on his bed took hold. The proper thing to do was leave off and beg her pardon, but she was easily the most delicious bit of womanhood he’d held in a few years, and he wanted to see how far he could push her before she remembered propriety.
Needing a better position, he pushed out of the chair. With little effort, he eased her backward to recline onto the desk, resting on her elbows, her knees framing his hips. Slowly, he slipped a hand beneath her skirting, rucking it up so he could explore the soft skin of her outer thigh, her hip. The scent of violets worked at his undoing as did the desire clouding her eyes and making her face soft with need. Closer he pressed between her legs, his engorged length rubbing against her center.
Felicity gasped. “You’re, that part of you is…”
“I fear so.” Damn if she wasn’t a tempting baggage draped over the desk with a flush in her cheeks and her breasts on display. He bent again to the task of pleasuring those dual mounds of flesh, of worrying those pert nipples with the knowledge no other man had had cause to look at her, touch her as he did now.
Jackanapes, all, for Felicity was magnificent, and he couldn’t wait to gaze upon the whole of her naked glory, perhaps with her tresses unbound. All of which was in direct opposition to his vow of swearing off women.
She whimpered, squirmed from his attentions, threw back her head and arched her back, which thrust her breasts more fully into his hand and mouth. “Oh, Bartholomew, I… I can’t think when you do that.”
“Then don’t.” His hardened shaft pulsed with urgency, for it had been long indeed since he’d buried his prick into a woman’s honeyed heat. Most times he found release by his own hand, for it was less dangerous than engaging a female’s charms, but damn if wanted Felicity writhing and screaming beneath him. He caressed her inner thighs; her trembling transferred to him and urged him onward, but the second he brushed his fingers through the feminine curls that hid her sex, the cheerful tinkling of the tin bell in the outer room broke into the passionate haze he’d fallen into. “Buggar.”
Felicity raised her head. The blatant desire and innocent confusion in those rich depths nearly pulled him under again. “It’s perhaps a client who hasn’t received their promised goods.” Disappointment clung to her whisper.
It was just as well, for he would have taken her right there on her father’s desk like an uncouth youth. No woman’s first time should be so savage. “I’ll see to it.” But before he did, he caught her mouth in an intense kiss he hoped would leave his imprint upon her. Reluctantly, he pulled away and thanked God he’d worn black trousers. They’d hide his cockstand well enough.
“Hello? Is anyone here?” The call in a male voice drifted to their location from the reception area.
“One second,” Bartholomew said in a lifted voice. He left the tempting display on the desk and soon had shucked into his greatcoat and had slammed his hat onto his head.
She struggled into a sitting position. The wicked grin she gave him nearly had him shooting his wad. “Well, Captain, I’m not certain that was a proper way to encourage me in the import business, but if I’m treated to more of the same, I might just have an aptitude for it after all.” The throaty whisper sent raw need shooting through his shaft.
“We’ll continue this discussion later, Miss Cowan.” Then he slipped from the office and made certain he’d firmly closed the door behind him.
Damn, damn, damn. I’m in a spot of bother. For he might like her more than he should, all lust aside.
