Leslie Lafoy (17 page)

But Tristan … Dear God. Long legs, a narrow waist, and trim hips. Broad shoulders. Muscles and sinew that rippled when he moved … Never in her less than sheltered life had she seen a man so powerfully, so magnificently, built.

He stepped into the pillows and eased down onto his knees in front of her. Trailing his fingertips along her shoulders, he asked softly, “Are you nervous, Simone?”

He wanted her to think, to talk? She shook her head and closed her eyes, savoring the pleasure that flowed from his touch. It cascaded through her, deliciously warming and liquefying. To feel this alive, this perfect, all the time …

He leaned forward, his chest brushing lightly over her breasts as he slipped his arms around her and pressed a kiss to the shell of her ear. Warmth turned to heat and sent her senses reeling. “Tristan,” she murmured, her hands skimming to his waist as she turned her face to his.

He obliged her desire, brushing her lips with his own and drawing her body along the length of his. “Tell me what you want,” he whispered, laying a trail of slow kisses down her neck.

“You.”

“How?”

“Slow and gentle,” she answered, kissing his shoulder. “Fast and rough.”

He laughed and slipped his hands lower to cup her bottom. Holding her hips hard against his, he slowly, deliberately, rotated his pelvis. “You can’t have both at once,” he said over her gasp of appreciation. “I’m good, but not that good. Choose.”

She kissed the hot satin of his shoulder again, her mind buffeted by the swirl of heady sensation, her pulse pounding through every fiber of her body, and her core molten. “I’m not good,” she admitted, turning her head to lightly nip his neck, “at patience. Are you?”

He drew back to look down into her eyes. “I can try.”

“Please don’t.”

He cocked a brow and a smile slowly lifted the corners of his mouth. “There’s a French letter under the pillow to your left. If you’d be so kind…”

“It would be my pleasure,” she whispered, easing out of his embrace. Balancing on her knees and one hand, she pushed her hand beneath the pillow. And froze, her breath caught and her heart dancing as his hands went to her waist and he trailed his tongue languidly over the curve of her backside.

“Do you like that?” he asked, doing it again.

“Yes,” she gasped, her body quivering with delight.

He shifted behind her, placing his knees between hers. Her heart stopped in wondrous delight as he cradled himself snugly against her. Heated and hard, heated and wet. God, could you die from pure pleasure?

“Don’t you have something for me?”

Oh yes, the French letter. She’d forgotten all about it. If she could breathe, she’d apologize. If she could move, she’d hand it to him.

“Permit me,” he whispered against her ear, leaning over her and slipping his hand under the pillow. He drew back, the letter in his hand, his lips grazing her skin and making her whimper in anticipation.

Sheathed, Tristan held her hips tightly and sucked a deep breath, willing himself to go slowly, to give her time to accept and adjust to his invasion. She gasped as he pressed forward, raising her head as she dropped down onto both elbows. He pressed deeper, struggling against a too rapidly building desire.

She didn’t cry out, didn’t resist. Neither did she passively accept his halting advance. She pushed back against him with a hunger every bit as demanding as his own. The wonder and power of it quickly swept him past noble intentions and into the realm of ageless instincts. Simone went with him with a low moan of acceptance and pleasure. He held her hips and let her set the rhythm of their dance.

Nothing had ever felt as right, as destined, as this did. Nothing. He tightened his grip on her and drew back, willing himself from the edge.

“Tristan!” she cried, her voice strained as she struggled against his hold. “Don’t stop! Please!”

God help him, he couldn’t deny her. He slipped a hand down across her abdomen, and his fingers arrowed into the wet nest of curls and found the swollen nub at its heart. She moaned and bucked back, pulling him deep, and over the brilliant brink.

Her bones were gone. Every single one of them. She’d never move again. Not that she cared. Simone sighed and let Tristan ease her down into the pallet of pillows.

“Simone? Are you all right?” he asked, gathering her into his arms and rolling them onto their sides.

She managed to hum a response. And she thought she was smiling. It was hard to tell, though. Her mind was adrift in the most wonderful sea of contentment. If she never came back … As long as Tristan came along, that would be fine, too.

*   *   *

Wakefulness came slowly, her mind rousing first to note the smooth warmth of the silk brushing her breasts as she breathed. Simone smiled and shifted, stretching and sighing with lingering satisfaction, and opened her eyes. Tristan lay on his side beside her, his head propped in his hand and a length of silk draped haphazardly across his midsection.

“Hello,” he said quietly, trailing a fingertip over her cheek and smiling. “Welcome back.”

“I didn’t mean to fall asleep and be such poor company.”

He chuckled and his dark eyes twinkled. “I’ve enjoyed watching you. Did you know that you smile in your sleep? And that you have the most luscious way of whispering my name while you dream?”

No, she didn’t. And neither did she know why his knowing that made her feel suddenly awkward and … caught. She moistened her lower lip and shifted beneath the silk sheeting, desperately searching for a diversion. Deliverance came from the very edge of the lantern light. She sat up and leaned half across him to get a better view. “Is that a birdcage over there?”

“Lady Fiona’s birdcage, to be exact,” he answered, rolling onto his back and drawing her onto his chest. “Is it what you had in mind?”

“It’s perfect.” Everything was perfect again. She stretched up to graze her lips across his chin. “Absolutely perfect.”

“When’s her birthday?”

“A week from today.”

“I’ll see that it’s delivered that morning. Would you like it wrapped with a big bow?”

“Oh, that’s not necessary. Fiona will be so excited about the cage that she won’t even notice whether it’s decorated or not.” She wiggled closer so that she didn’t have to stretch to feather her lips over his. “She’ll love it, Tristan,” she whispered, adoring his generous heart. “It’ll be her best birthday ever. Thank you.”

He cocked a brow and smiled. “There is the matter of payment for it, you know.”

Her pulse quickened with delightful possibilities. “Of course. Whatever you ask, I’ll pay.”

“Within reason.”

“No,” she clarified, leaning down to gently nip at his lower lip. “Whatever you want. Name your price.”

He made a humming sound and then ever so slowly rolled her over. His weight balanced on his elbow, he gazed down at her and, dragging a fingertip down the length of her throat, warned, “If given free rein, my wants might shock you.”

“That’s what I’m hoping.”

Grinning, he rolled off the pallet, gained his feet, and then extended his hands for her. She took them, letting him pull her from their nest and to his side. Skin brushed skin, sending a ripple of delight through her. He feathered a kiss across her lips, then released one hand and reached down to snag a pillow. Even as she was puzzling the action, he drew her away from their bed and toward the lantern.

“Bring the light,” he murmured.

She obeyed, intrigued, and let him lead her farther into the warehouse. God, what could he have in mind that required a lamp and a single pillow?

The answer came in the moment he rounded a corner and drew her into the space between two stacks of crates. A huge mirror sat on the floor, leaning against one side of the corridor. Its frame thick and ornately carved, its face reflecting the opposite wall of wooden boxes, it fairly shouted of decadent possibilities. He drew her forward until they were centered in the reflection.

“Still feeling brave?” he asked, grinning and dropping the pillow at his feet.

Simone smiled and set the lantern atop a crate. “More than brave,” she whispered, placing her hands on his shoulders. “Wicked,” she added as she leaned forward.

She heard him suck his breath through his teeth as she trailed her tongue boldly down the center of his chest and her breasts brushed over his abdomen. Her hands skimmed over his nipples and he threaded his fingers with hers, drawing their hands behind him as she knelt on the pillow. Making slow circles with the tip of her tongue, she moved lower still. His knees quaked. Reveling in the power she had over him, she slowed her descent to savor his shudders, his gasps of pleasure, letting them feed the quickly rising tide of her own desire.

“God,” he moaned, releasing her hands to thread his fingers in her hair. He bent his knees ever so slightly and angled his hips forward, growling, “Please, Simone.”

Please? Well, since he’d asked so nicely, so desperately … And since she was so very close to her own edge …

Chapter 10

Tristan considered the situation with a frown. The city was still asleep. He had an incredibly luscious woman sitting across his lap. He’d spent the last four hours having truly wonderful sex. He was sated. Beyond sated, actually. Finding the wherewithal to get up and dressed had been nothing short of an act of supreme will. How the hell he could feel anything at all was a puzzle in itself. But that he felt so damn irritable …

Simone stirred in his arms and sat away from his chest. “You should put me down here, Tristan,” she said softly. “I’ll go the rest of the way on foot. It’ll lessen the chances that anyone will see you.”

“If that concerned me, I’d have given you the horse at the warehouse and thanked you for the evening.”

She looked up at him, her brows furrowed. “Is something wrong?”

Nothing. And everything. He kept his gaze fixed on the looming garden gate. If he looked at her … If he tried to be nice …

“Tristan?”

He clenched his teeth and swallowed down a swell of sadness. Why the hell that was swirling around under the anger … God, he needed a drink. Several of them. Actually, he needed to get sloshed. Odds were that by the time he sobered up, whatever was bothering him would have either gone away or resolved itself.

“Oh, damn.”

He blinked and focused on the world around him. Or, more accurately, on the man standing at the now open garden gate. Tristan’s irritation flared for an instant and then, as inexplicably as it had come over him, it was submerged under an equally unfathomable certainty and calm. “Mr. Haywood,” he said, reining in his mount. “Good evening.”

“It’s morning.”

Simone shifted again, arching her back and angling her legs to slide down the side of the horse. Tristan tightened his arm around her and hauled her back against him. “No,” he said quietly while holding Haywood’s gaze. “We’re caught. We face the piper with dignity.”

He could feel her heart thundering even as she asked breezily, “What are you doing out here, Haywood?”

“Waiting for you,” he replied coolly. “In the event that you might be interested, you have a nephew.”

Her heart jolted hard enough that Tristan felt it in his own. She pushed against his arm, and rather than make a scene fighting her, he let her go.

“Is Caroline all right?” she asked as she dropped neatly to her feet. “Is the baby all right? He’s two weeks early.”

“She’s fine,” Haywood assured her as Tristan swung down from the saddle. “The baby’s fine. You, however, are in a great deal of trouble.”

Simone looked at the house and shoved her hands in her trouser pockets. His mind rapidly sorting through the implications and possible outcomes, Tristan drew the reins down, saying, “I assume that His Grace is expecting to speak with us. We probably shouldn’t keep him waiting any longer.”

Haywood considered him in silence, then stepped aside and gestured toward the house with a sweeping motion of his arm. It was tantamount to an order and Tristan didn’t like it, but he moved anyway, determined to maneuver through the situation with all the grace he could muster.

“Let me do the talking,” Simone said quietly, falling in beside him, her hands still in her pockets.

“Thank you for the concern, but I’m perfectly capable of speaking for myself.”

“You don’t know Drayton. I do.”

“Yes, well, in about two minutes I’m going to meet the man and, considering the circumstances, there isn’t much chance that ol’ Drayton will keep his thoughts and opinions a mystery. It’s my task to talk with him, not yours.”

She looked up at him as they reached the rear of the house. “I don’t like imperious men.”

He shrugged and dropped the reins over the newel post on the back stairs. “That really doesn’t matter at this point,” he informed her as he went up the stairs and pulled open the door. As he held it for her, he added, “I make the decisions and you abide by them.”

She yanked her hands out of her pockets to march up the steps and past him. On the other side of the threshold she turned to face him. “What is wrong with you, Tristan?”

He didn’t know and now wasn’t the time or the place to enlist her aid in helping him figure it out. Especially with Haywood on their heels. Tristan glanced around them, noting they were in the winter kitchen. “Which way to whichever room your brother-in-law favors for inquisitions?”

Muttering, “It’s a damn good thing this engagement is a sham,” she whirled around and marched off.

Tristan followed, passing through a series of rooms while mentally sorting through an odd mix of emotions. This wasn’t going well with Simone and he felt bad about it. He wasn’t angry with her. What he was angry about, though … It was as much a puzzle as the sadness eddying just beneath it all.

Although, now that he took a closer look, he wasn’t nearly as melancholy as he had been a few minutes ago. Apparently the approaching humiliation of contritely dancing for the piper had fairly well pushed the gloom aside. Of course, being berated and threatened and forced to admit that he was a complete cad was the best of the possible ways it could go. Hopefully Lord Ryland wouldn’t come at him in a rage; he’d hate to have to punch in the nose of an old man.