AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Then my intimate affairs are none of your concern.”
Conducting affairs was a risky business; slow, careful negotiations were required. She pursued liaisons for sensual pleasure and release. She pursued them because she did not want to lock parts of herself away. She pursued them because sometimes she felt lonely and craved another person’s touch.
She did not pursue them for passion.
But better Leo did not know that. Better to portray herself as a passionate lover, and for Leo to lie awake at night, ruing what he had missed.
Yes, she would very much like for Leo to rue what he had missed. It would serve him right, for casting her off like a troublesome lover when she’d never even enjoyed the pleasures of his bed.
He eased away from the desk, toward her. “If your lovers are none of my concern, why the effort to ensure I knew of them?”
Heat slithered over her at being caught out. “How very self-centered to imagine my story had anything to do with you. St. Blaise was asking questions and I had to answer them. Rules of etiquette.”
“You blithely ignore any rule you don’t like. If you didn’t want to answer his questions, you wouldn’t have. Come, Juno. You say you prize candor. Try some candor now.”
Still he advanced. Her heart fluttered with each slow, deliberate step. An answering pulse beat between her thighs. For Leo to speak so bluntly, to look at her so intently… How greatly everything was changing, and how fast.
“Very well, my criteria.” Leaning back against the cabinet, trying to appear worldly, she marked the items off on her suddenly shaky fingers. “I appreciate a lover with attention to detail, someone who is creative, someone who takes his time. He must promise mutual pleasure and commit to protecting me from consequences. Most importantly, he must be planning to leave London.”
“So, your ideal man is one who will not stay. Tell me.” He halted before her, just out of reach. Her fingers tangled around themselves. “Of all your lovers, were any special to you?”
Juno choked. “Ofallmy— How many do you imagine there were?”
“I am trying very hard not to imagine it.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “It is irrelevant how many in total. I’m asking how many were special to you.”
“I liked them all. I would never have … if I didn’t.” She shifted uncomfortably. Foolish of her to start this, but there was no stopping now. “My first drawing master in Vienna was very intimidating. He was so scathing about my work, I nearly gave up and came back home. Finally, I pressed him to tell me more clearly what I was doing wrong. He said, ‘The skill and talent are there. But to create true art, you must free yourself of that uptight English morality.’ So I did. It was easy enough to do, in Vienna. The world of European artists is far removed from the English gentry. I miss living in Europe sometimes, the freedom of those experiences.”
His expression told her nothing. She raised her chin defiantly. She knew she was no lady; she had burned her bridges to respectability, and she had done it deliberately. She had no regrets and she would not suffer his judgment. After all, it was his judgment—his rejection of her—that had sent her running down that path in the first place.
“I enjoy it, if you must know,” she went on. “The sensuality, the intimacy. I know how to take pleasure, and I know how to give it, and I won’t be made ashamed of it. When I was younger, what with my large bosom and low-born mother, men assumed I must be wanton, and I blamed myself for their unwanted attention. But I won’t do that anymore. I won’t be made to feel ashamed of it,” she repeated, almost belligerently.
“I don’t want to make you ashamed of it.” A new roughness edged his mild words. “I enjoy bedsport too. But you still haven’t answered my question.”
She examined her fingers, picked at a stubborn fleck of paint under one nail. “I’ve forgotten the question.”
Leo stepped closer. Her head jerked up. Another step. Every inch of him was taut and intent like a beast on the hunt. She did not recognize him like this; she wondered if he recognized himself. Call her terrible for provoking him, call her weak for wanting him, but oh, shedidenjoy watching Leo grapple with his own control.
He planted his hands on the polished cedar on either side of her, trapping her between his body and the cabinet. His scent and heat infused her. She straightened, but that served only to bring her face closer to his: to his firm jaw and tempting mouth and the pulse pounding at the edge of his cravat.
“Were any of them special?” he repeated in a low, velvet voice, better suited to pillows at midnight. “Did they keep you awake all night, aching with longing? Did they become so essential to you that losing them felt like slicing out a piece of your soul? Did their kisses seep so deeply into your blood that you would have burned down your world for one more kiss?”
She had no words. No thoughts. Only sensations remained: a fierce hunger, a wild fever, and somewhere deep and forgotten, a gaping emptiness that ached.
And Leo’s eyes, imprisoning hers, promising heady adventures like a distant mountain range.
He was going to kiss her and they both knew it.
This time, he would kiss her first, she vowed. She would wait for him.
He kept his arms braced on the cabinet behind her, caging her. He eased so close his legs nudged hers, with an electrifying touch that cavorted up her thighs, and he lowered his head to brush his lips along her jaw: soft, tempting, teasing. His warm breath tickled her. Need blossomed in her breasts and between her thighs and spread over her skin like watercolors.
Kiss me, touch me, want me.The plea pulsed through her veins, in time with her frantic heart. She had provoked him to this; she had won. But it would only end with hurt. She was no longer his friend, yet never his lover. She would never accept the unequal role of mistress, and heaven knew she could never be a duchess. No other options remained. They floated in a limbo, with nowhere to stand, nothing to hold on to, no future to dream of.
If we have no future, then all I have is now,she thought.Even if it is just an hour or a minute,Leo, be mine.
More butterfly kisses: His warm lips burned a trail to her temple, then he rested his cheek against hers.
She slid a hand over his chest, taking refuge in the wild thud of his heart under her palm, forcing herself to be patient.
