Chapter Eight

Giles had no interest in choosing between the two things he loved best. He’d been going back and forth about what he should do first—dip his brush or…dip his brush. Now that he had her here, he wanted it all. And he wanted it with a snap of his fingers. Or a flick at the buttons of his falls.

Letter sealed and franked, he turned his attention back to Miss Emery, standing before her with one hand clasping the wrist of the other behind his back.

And froze.

The desire to paint her exactly as she sat on the fern-green damask chaise longue, calm and composed, hit him so profoundly, he almost called for his painting things. The softness of the expression on the beautiful lines of her face…as if nothing existed in her world more complicated than tea. Proper gown for traveling, sturdy in its light wool. Proper bonnet. Proper posture. The light came from the west and stretched in long strips over the floor, not quite reaching her toes. The painting would be a window into a private world. One he wanted to examine with minute care.

She glanced up. Their eyes met. Giles still didn’t move, and under his scrutiny, her color heightened.

He cleared his throat. There were things that needed to be addressed plainly and openly before they could commence. Never let it be said that he, the depraved and lustful Marquess of Ashcroft, would be anything but absolutely correct in matters of fucking.

“We’re going to play in a variety of manners. I have dozens of options for you. I like them all, so listen carefully­—this is important. You must like them as well. You may say no out of hand. You may say you’d like to try it, but stop partway through—or even as we’re getting started.”

She set down her tea. “I don’t think I understand.”

“Two things.” Giles nodded. “One, the choice is always yours. You have all the power here, Miss Emery, no matter what we do or try. And second, you always have the power to say no. Always. It doesn’t matter if you said yes previously. It doesn’t matter if we’ve tried something previously. It doesn’t even matter if we’re partway through what we’re doing. The second you say no”—he snapped his fingers in the air—“that’s it.”

Her mouth parted. Her lips were generous, like the rest of her. Large and full. Sinfully sensuous. They exactly matched his memory of her quim. A memory he’d like to revisit.

“Thank you, my lord.”

“You’re new to this, so I’ll let that pass. Going forward, you must know that any partner you take to your bed—or anywhere you please, for that matter—should offer you the same terms. He doesn’t need to be thanked. If, however, he is a selfish cur and does not offer you these terms, he’s not worthy of you or anyone. Tell him to go fuck a dead horse.”

“I don’t approve of defiling corpses, human or not.”

The rarity of having anyone surprise him spurred a frisson of delight. “No, you’re quite correct. It would be a detriment to the horse.”

She flashed a smile, pleased with herself—and rightfully so—before her expression went serious again. “I ask that you do me the same honor.”

He gave her a quizzical glance. “Do you the same honor?”

“By which I mean, your terms are my terms.”

Though he stared directly at her, Giles did a mental double take. The woman’s face was stone sober; she meant what she’d said. How unexpected. Nobody, innocent or experienced, had ever reciprocated.

Giles took the conversation in another direction. “I have another question. What is it going to mean when you give yourself to me?”

“Mean?” She started. “What does that matter?”

“It matters.”

“How?”

“Virginity is a monumental absurdity. It’s a means for men to control women, little else.”

The way she looked at him, she could have been connecting the pieces of a puzzle that had hitherto eluded her for years. “I don’t know if I have an intelligent response to that. I’ll have to think about it.”

“Mmm.” He nodded, not doubting that she would. “But what I think and what I believe doesn’t matter. It’s about what you believe. If you think it’s going to alter you or sully you…”

“I hope it alters me, but I know it will not sully me.”

She turned to him with her eyes lowered. Then her gaze lifted.

“I think before we begin, you ought to open your falls.” Miss Emery tugged the ribbons of her bonnet, tossed the hat aside, and swallowed, as if gathering courage.

“You do, do you?”

“You’ve seen me. Stands to reason I should see you. It’ll keep us on equal ground.”

“A week ago, I’d wager you couldn’t ever have considered saying such a thing to a man.”

“No, indeed.”

“How was it?”

“Easier than I could have imagined.”

“Are the ballrooms of England in danger?”

“While I wouldn’t refuse to have a peek down men’s trousers should the opportunity arise—some men’s trousers, I should say…” She paused, staring at him with heat in her eyes. “The man I’m most interested in seeing, my lord, is you.”

Giles had a cockstand unlike any other. His erection pulsed, ready to strut like the proud creature whose epithet it carried.

“Never let it be said I wouldn’t please a beautiful lady.”

He took one button at a time. Opening his falls hadn’t been this much of a thrill since one Mr. John Herbert, Esq., had cornered him in the back room of the fencing studio after a particularly lusty bout of sparring and asked Giles if he could see for himself “if it were true.” Always happy to oblige, Giles had done as Herbert had asked. Then allowed the man the pleasure of sucking him off.

The first time Giles had tried to be with a woman—a whore, for which he was not proud today, but he’d thought that was the natural way of things at the time—she’d taken one look and backed away, shaking her head, fear in her black-rimmed eyes. He’d been nineteen. She’d fled from the room and returned with her friend, demanding he show them both. The second whore’s bright-red mouth had dropped open.

As hard as ever and more frustrated than he’d been in his life, he’d left. He’d had to wait another year, finally parting with his accursed virginity after seducing a widow rumored to find pleasure in pain. She hadn’t balked at the sight of his arousal. Entirely the opposite.

From the first time he’d lodged his cock deep into the widow’s welcoming cunny, he’d known he’d finally found his second true calling in life. A calling as powerful as his first love, painting, that fed the other half of his hungry soul.

And now he was going to initiate another whose appetites he sensed were the closest another person’s could come to his own.

Miss Emery’s eyes were hungry. Her breathing was coming deeper, her breasts rising and falling. Giles wanted to rip open her bodice and shove his cock between the mounds, rutting until he came all over her skin.

One thing at a time. This was naught but the beginning. They had plenty to do in a scant few days, but he would rush nothing. Miss Emery was not the sort with whom one wanted to rush. She was a gift to be unwrapped layer by sensuous layer, reveling in the delights of exposure, course by silken course.

Falls open but not down, he paused. “Are you ready?”

“Never more so.”

Giles smiled. More than a few women had taken one look at his erection and flatly refused to go any further with him. An exercise in frustration, no doubt. He’d since learned to turn his unusual size to an advantage. Perhaps it was an advantage Miss Emery was a maid. She wouldn’t know the difference between himself and the average male.

His hand wrapped around the girth of his erection, the length hot and hard. Then he slowly withdrew it from behind the curtain of his tucked linen undershirt.

Her jaw dropped. Wariness flickered in her eyes. He immediately held up his free hand. “Don’t be frightened. It always works.”

If the display intimidated her, she gave no indication. “You like exhibiting yourself, don’t you?”

His cock pulsed once, ready to get good and wet inside the sweetness Miss Emery alone could provide. “I do rather.”

He reached to lightly stroke the top of her head, grazing the tips of his fingers ever so lightly down the side of her face. With one slightly crooked finger, he tilted her chin upward. Then he bent and caught her mouth with his own.

The spark lit between them burst into flame. Opening his mouth, he explored her with his tongue. Kissing and tasting. Drinking and devouring.

Her hand cupped his face. He pulled away, staring intensely into the depths of her eyes. “Are you hungry?”

“Hungry?”

“Yes. Are you?”

“No.”

“Good. We’ll have trays brought up later, then.”

“Brought up? Brought up where?”

“To our room, of course.” He gazed at her, certain that the all-consuming fire of his need burned brightly in his eyes. “I think it’s time to go to bed.”