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“I—”
“Not another word. Let’s speak again tomorrow when you are calmer, and you’ll see you’ve made a big to-do about nothing.”
Wearied, Juno gave up. Arguing was only making it worse, and besides, she’d had enough of Beatrice for one day.
Alone again, she paced, shooting glances at the wall as if the painting might miraculously reappear.
Even now, someone in Renshaw’s household might be inspecting the frame. If she was very lucky, they would notice only that it was not new and ask Prescott to change it for another. If she was very unlucky, they would notice the cunningly concealed mechanism by which the frame split open to reveal papers inside. And if she was very, very unlucky, those papers would become known.
Papers covered with drawings of the Duke of Dammerton, each signed with her name. Humiliation would follow, possibly ruin. Leo would learn of it, of course, and he would think—
He would think she was in love with him.
Ha! Chances were the vain, arrogant duke already believed she was in love with him. That would explain his unkindness earlier, freezing her out as if he feared she might become emotional and—oh, the horror!—make mattersawkward.
Well, she had become emotional and made matters awkward, and serve him right.
With a sniff, she wandered into the studio. “Liar,” she muttered at the prop cabinet, crammed with gifts from Leo, then threw herself discontentedly onto the window seat. A simple gift, an hour or two a week: What did such things mean to a wealthy, busy duke? How she had cherished his visits—while he only ever gave her crumbs.
She hauled the curtains shut, kicked off her slippers, pulled up her feet, and hugged her knees.
Was he thinking of her now? Was he reliving their kiss, craving more, lost in a turmoil of emotions? Or had he shrugged off the whole episode? Perhaps he had gone home to place an order of flowers for Miss Macey. Perhaps he was calling on his future wife even now.
Closing her eyes, she relived the kiss. Relived those moments when he released some deep, wild part of himself that soared into the deep, wild parts of her.
Now she burned with wanting more. Her breasts were tender. Her belly was tight. Longing pulsed between her thighs. She rubbed her feet together, a futile attempt to relieve the pressure in her quim.
This is Leo, she scolded herself, trying to be sensible. Or rather, the Duke of Dammerton, who had insulted her, denied their friendship, disdained her. Yet he had also kissed her, with searing passion and tenderness, and how easy to imagine his hand around her breast, his mouth closing over her yearning nipples.
His eyes meeting hers as he honored her, pleasured her, and never rejected her again.
It was his slender, deft hand sliding up her leg, not her own. His fingers tracing designs on the soft skin of her inner thigh, while his eyes trapped hers, those blue eyes as full of promise as the morning, as his fingers feathered over—
Bang! A door slammed below. Juno’s eyes flew open. She froze, listening: voices, laughter, footsteps stampeding up the stairs.
With a yelp, she tumbled off the window seat, scrambled to her feet, shook out her skirts, and dashed into her parlor, just as a pack of her artist friends hurtled into it from the other door.
They were brandishing cheap brandy and bad jokes and promises of an entertaining night. “A new literary salon!” cried one. “Dancing!” cried another. “All of them!” cried Juno, almost in tears in frustration and relief and desperation to be rescued from her own confused thoughts.
* * *
Juno’s weightpressed down onto him, her naked body heating him down to his eager bones. Her soft, plump breasts, her round, lush buttocks, and her mouth on his, her hand gripping his cock, her eyes, laughing, blue like a forget-me-not, a butterfly, a Wedgwood vase. Yes, yes! Her mouth so hot, her hand so frantic, her hair tickling him, smothering him, choking him—
Leo’s eyes flew open. He sat up, gasping, spitting out the sheets that covered his mouth, sucking in air and painful reality. No naked Juno lying atop him, no mouths or breasts or buttocks, and the only hand on his tortured cock was his own.
Like a wounded wolf, Leo yowled into his dark, lonely bedroom. Squeezing his face with his spare hand, as if to crush his own bones, he finished himself off in a rage of despair.
Then he collapsed back onto the pillows, stewing in his own sweat and seed.
Hell.
One kiss at a garden party, and he was as delirious as a man with a fever, guiltily groping himself under the covers as he had when he was nineteen.
But that kiss…
He knew why she had kissed him: She had been angry and hurt, and one might do anything in such a state, especially someone as physically expressive as Juno.
What was his excuse? One touch of her lips, and he forgot everything but the flames of desire roaring into life like a furnace under the bellows. He could have taken her up against that jasmine-covered wall, where the scent of the flowers mingled with the scent of their bodies. He could have buried his face in her neck and nipped her skin and tugged down her bodice. He could have fallen to his knees and shoved up her skirts and tasted her and teased her until she—
