AllFreeNovel
Share Us
They had only sounds to inform them. A key slipping into the lock. Jiggling. “A bloody nuisance:” That was Mr. Prescott’s voice. A click as the lock gave. A moment’s pause. Their own breathing, suddenly too loud.
Juno squeezed further into the space, checked her feet, her skirt, hidden by the curtain. Leo still held her hand, and as they jostled for position, each helping the other hide, their fingers briefly tangled as they might while making love. His hand was warm, and reassuring, and then gone.
* * *
The door opened.Prescott again, saying, “Lord Renshaw has mistaken the date. I would not have made an appointment at the same time as my wife’s party.” The other man, his secretary perhaps, saying, “I’ll check the schedule.” Scrape of a chair, rustle of paper, Prescott’s voice: “Don’t bother. I cannot send away an earl. Just find the paperwork.” A drawer opening. “We don’t have much time.”
* * *
Time stopped.Leo’s world narrowed to this tight space, with the oak of the cabinet hard against his skull and Juno’s softness warming his arm and hip and thigh. Her hand rested on his sternum, under his racing pulse. Lowering his eyes, he saw— Oh, so help him, her breasts truly were glorious. Her whole body was. Her skin looked almost golden, as a strip of sunlight bathed the side of her face. Her lips were parted; she moistened them briefly. Then she glanced up with a jaunty lift of one brow, merriment dancing in her eyes. Leo had to breathe, so he breathed her in, capturing her warmth along with the reassuring hint of linseed oil under her floral scent.
* * *
“Here’sthe provenance sent from Milan,” came the secretary’s voice, then Prescott: “Have you the original bill of sale? Damn, I wanted time for this later.” “You’ve made a note of the price here,” said the secretary. “Show me? Ah yes. But Renshaw will pay more than that. He doesn’t know any better.”
* * *
If she didn’t knowany better, Juno would swear her skin was vibrating like a leaf in the wind, fancied something similar emanated from him. Never had they stood this close. She basked in the pleasure of sharing air with him, of sharing this adventure. How wicked she was, to keep her palm pressed to his chest. She was taking advantage of the situation like a rake with a debutante, but she was not sorry, because his closeness was just that delicious and she was just that wanton. He smelled so good, his scent and heat sliding right through her skin and into her blood. Poor Leo was probably mortified. But this was a once-in-a-lifetime experience and, besides, he would never know of her wicked thoughts.
* * *
“What wasthe price on the one we sold to Renshaw’s crony?” More paper shuffling, an exasperated huff, fingers drumming on wood, and “damned nuisance, though I suppose my wife will be pleased.”
* * *
Leo could not stophis wicked thoughts. But sensation was in charge now and— Sod it, it was delicious, this desire, and, oh so help him, all the places where he could plant a kiss: her earlobe, her neck, her collarbone, the swell of her breasts.There, he thought,I would touch her there and there and there.He gripped the wooden carvings behind him. If he were to touch her, would she welcome him? What would she enjoy? She would be a selfish lover, he thought happily, and he would give her everything she asked.
* * *
“We can’t expecthim to pay us what we ask, so nudge it up,” Prescott was saying, “then he’ll feel good when he bargains me down.” The scratching of a quill, a pause, then, “Yes. Right. I’ll fetch his letters from upstairs. Can’t keep him waiting much longer.”
* * *
Juno might not survive much longer,but it was almost over. Her body was awash in sensation and desire. Later, tonight, when she was alone, she would think about how much her body wanted to be with Leo and what she might do about it. Nothing, of course: He did not want her that way, and he meant to marry soon, and besides, he was aduke.
* * *
Paper shuffling,wood knocking wood, the door opening, closing, the bite of the key in the lock. Silence.
* * *
Leo’s brainwas in a fugue. His body was in a state. Juno was no innocent; if she looked down…
She didn’t. She glanced up, with her tempting smile, her laughing eyes.
“I think we’re alone now,” she whispered, and peered around the edge of the cabinet. He dragged his eyes off the smooth skin of her neck to somewhere safer: her hairpins. But then he could see how her hairstyle was constructed, and how he might bring her wayward curls tumbling down.
Yes, they were alone. Alone in a locked room. No one to see if he touched her, kissed her, hiked up her skirts.
Her palm was still flat against his ribs, pressing harder as she used him for balance, casually, heedlessly, as if their closeness did not sear her from the inside out, as if the air in her lungs was not sultry like a hot summer’s night, as if he was someone easy to her, someone comfortable.
A piece of the bloody furniture.
Then she looked back at her hand, and then up at his face. For three wild thuds of his heart, the air seemed to buzz like the hours before a summer storm and the space closed around them like a feather quilt, and Leo thought he could do it, she would welcome him, they could enjoy each other right here. The thought stunned him with its vulgarity and urgency and rightness and wrongness because this was Juno and they didn’t, he mustn’t, it wouldn’t—
“What an unexpected adventure that was,” she said brightly. She tilted her head and studied his chest. “Standing this close, I see you’re broader than I realized. Did that happen when you became a duke? Do you dukes receive special feed supplements, like prize stallions?”
With an impish grin, she slipped away, around the cabinet and out of his sight.
