How To Host a Seduction (13 page)

Her insides went all mushy, and the journal's entry kept fading in and out of focus. Just holding the book became an effort and she found herself relaxing back against Christopher, just sinking into every curve of his hard body.

She let her lashes flutter closed.

Christopher must have sensed her surrender, because his hand was suddenly trailing down her ribs, skimming across her hips, gathering up wads and wads of fabric along the way.

And when he slipped his fingers beneath her skirt toward
that needy ache between her legs, Ellen didn't question, she didn't protest, she just let her thighs drift apart.

She might not even have bothered wearing the thong-that-wasn't, for he easily brushed it aside. She had the vague thought that she should drop by Toni Maxwell's shop before leaving town, to thank her for designing this line of ready-for-anything clothing—but Christopher's forefinger found her most intimate place and Ellen stopped thinking at all.

With deliberate thoroughness, he rolled that nub round and round and round. The pressure just enough to make her yearn with a delirious ache that spread inside, until her breathing grew shallow and her legs felt like lead.

She felt Christopher shift slightly, heard a sound that might have been him placing the journal on the floor. Ellen wasn't sure. She didn't really care. As long as he didn't stop that steady, exquisite motion.

Round and round and round.

Her sex grew wet with a creamy heat. The thong strap wedged between her thighs. Her inner muscles gathered tight in time with those slow steady circles, deep yearning clenches she was sure Christopher could feel.

He didn't say a word.

He just propped his chin on the top of her head, curled his body around hers and dipped his finger deep into her heat.

She sighed.

He stroked.

She trembled with the strength of her approaching climax. His every push magnified the sensation, played her like he had last night, stealing her reason, until all she could do was ride his hand and let him lead her down the path to exploding senses.

And explode they did.

Time drew to a complete stop, and only slowly did Ellen come back to herself, recognizing the noises that had faded beneath the rush of blood in her ears. The steady
whoosh, whoosh, whoosh
of the shoofly. The deep inhalation of Christopher's breathing.

Ellen couldn't think. She couldn't marvel at how her body responded to this man, how she seemed primed and ready for his slightest touch. She couldn't have moved if her life depended on it. Her sex still clutched him with greedy squeezes that were slowly lessening in frequency.

“Make love to me.” His breath was warm against her ear, his voice gravelly in a way that revealed how watching her climax had aroused him, too.

“Here?”

“I'm so hard I won't make it back to the suite. I don't think I can walk.” His laughter came easily.

“What if someone walks in on us?”

“Your gown will cover anything that might be showing.” He nipped her earlobe with his teeth, sent a frisson skittering straight down to her toes. “Be a little daring, love. I'll be worth the effort. Trust me.”

Trust him?

“You're impulsive.”

“You play it too safe.”

Play it too safe? Said whom?
She was lying here with his hand wedged between her thighs, recovering from another of those debilitating orgasms. “I prefer to avoid situations that might result in profound embarrassment.”

Another nip. Another corresponding arrow of pleasure.

“I won't let you be embarrassed.”

She wanted to argue that he'd already failed in that department by distracting her from the introductory events, by distracting her from work so she'd had to face her authors and admit her objectivity was lacking.

But she couldn't form the words, not when he was wiggling that devilish finger inside her to convince her otherwise.

One part of her, a very daring part, urged her to give in, to give excitement a try. Christopher had just pleasured her so incredibly, and one good turn deserved another….

But he'd touched upon a conflict so deeply ingrained that even longing couldn't bridge it. Ellen was strong-willed and usually grateful for the trait that allowed her to discipline herself enough to follow the rules. She didn't act unless she was willing to live with the consequences of her actions.

Except, of course, when she was with Christopher.

He was the only one who tested her limits, but even so, she wasn't willing to have someone walk into this library and catch her in mid-thrust on top of him. She'd made this mistake before and had learned the hard way not to get caught in compromising positions.

No matter how much she ached.

His breath gusted softly against her cheek. His finger applied just enough pressure to let her know he was still intimately inside her.

But he didn't say anything else. He just waited.

In that instant, Ellen's whole life whittled down to her willingness to take a chance. Could she let go of her firmly held limits and make love to this man right here, right now? Could she allow herself to be swept up in the moment, to chance that someone may walk in?

She couldn't see Christopher's face, but there was a tenseness about him that made her feel as if her entire life had boiled down to overcoming past mistakes.

There was a part of her that wanted to give in so much.

And couldn't.

“Let's go back to our suite,” she said.

“I don't mind waiting until we finish up here, love,” he said easily. “You're worth the wait.”

He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. His finger slipped away, leaving her aware of just how wet she was, how much she wanted him.

Maybe it was this sudden emptiness that made her question herself. Or perhaps it was that Christopher seemed okay with her refusal, as though he'd expected her answer. Either way, Ellen wondered now what it would feel like to take a chance, to lift her skirt and straddle him, take him inside her and go for it.

Rule number three for survival:
When in doubt, don't.

Christopher was exactly the man she didn't need—a man who made her second-guess herself. She'd had her whole world nice and orderly and manageable until he'd come along. Now he was shooting her emotions all out of control, pushing her limits.

Normal people didn't get touchy-feely in potentially embarrassing situations. Except for Christopher. Like the time at the art museum when he'd cornered her next to the Chagall. Or the time she'd dropped by his office for lunch and he'd swept the contents of his desk onto the floor and invited her to be the main course. The man was simply outrageous, impulsive.

Sure, one part of her wanted to give in, but another, louder part resented that he would ask this of her. She'd just let him bring her to orgasm on an antique carpet, for goodness' sake. Didn't that count for something?

Didn't he understand what it had taken for her to sacrifice her biggest and most firmly held relationship rule last night?

Relationship rule number one:
Senators' daughters do not get caught sneaking out of anyone's bed the morning after.

Maybe they hadn't been caught, but she'd certainly awakened the morning after with him. And here he was, still pushing her, still wanting more. Who did this man think he was?

And why did she care so much about whether she met his expectations?

The Dining Room

C
HRISTOPHER GRABBED
the breadbasket under the pretense of taking another dinner roll, although one already sat untouched on his plate. The breadbasket put him within range of Ellen, who was currently engaged in a whispering session with Lennon.

“What's Susanna doing?” He heard her ask. “Is she looking for something?”

“She's moon-pieing at Olaf,” Lennon said, and Christopher had to strain to hear her because she was seated on Ellen's right.

“She'll be lying in her plate if she leans over any more.”

“At least she'll get his attention. You should have seen her during the introduction last night. Olaf walked into the room and she hasn't been right since. She thinks he's cute.”

“Olaf?” Ellen shook her head, her disbelieving gaze riveted on the head of the table, where the host in question had paused in his address to accommodate the arrival of the sommelier. “He's a very striking man, I'll grant you, just not what I'd have envisioned Susanna going for. You know her heroes. They're all medieval knights with manes of tawny hair.”

Lennon nodded. “I think this is another side effect of
Joey going off to college. Mom has just realized that less laundry means more time to have fun.”

Christopher sat back, placed the roll on his plate and reached for his wineglass. Casting his gaze around the table, he noted how the guests settled into conversation to fill the sudden quiet. Tracy was whispering excitedly to Susanna, while casting not-so-covert glances Olaf's way. Miss Q sat at the opposite end of the table with a smile on her face, not missing a thing with her big blue eyes. Even Mac and Harley seemed to be communicating without strife—or kissing—for the moment.

Only Josh, who, like himself, had been excluded from the analysis of Susanna's romantic interest, directed his attention to his plate.

Christopher wasn't interested in speculating on a potential romance between Olaf and Susanna, although Ellen and Lennon seemed fascinated with the subject. He'd rather expend his energy assessing his own progress with Ellen.

And it needed major assessment, because their encounter in the library had taken a wrong turn. He hadn't meant to push her into doing something she found uncomfortable. She'd simply been so relaxed and so irresistible that he couldn't keep his hands off her.

This wasn't the first time that Ellen had had this crazy effect on him. She aroused him, made him feel excited by everything around him. She accused him of being a daredevil, but Christopher had never before wanted to make love to a woman so much he'd been willing to risk being caught in the act. He'd been tempted often with Ellen. He'd wanted her to want him so much that she'd lose herself in the moment, forget all her rules and trust him to keep her safe.

He'd overplayed his hand—
again.

She'd retreated. A subtle retreat, nothing more than a contemplative silence when they'd returned to their suite to change for dinner and a withdrawal into the bathroom for privacy, but like any distance between them, one closed door had effectively shut him out.

After taking another swallow of cabernet, he set the glass back on the table for a refill, and found that Ellen and Lennon had concluded their analysis of their friend's behavior.

“Enjoying dinner?” he asked.

She nodded, sending waves of dark hair bouncing softly around her cheeks. Lips moistened from the wine she'd just sipped tipped upward in a smile. “The filet mignon is unbelievable. As good as Kevin's.”

High praise, indeed. Kevin was a chef back in New York, whose upscale eatery they'd discovered and frequented during the time they had dated. He couldn't help but wonder if her reference to a place they'd considered “theirs” meant she might be moving past their encounter in the library.

He also wondered if she had been back to the restaurant since the last time they'd visited together. He would have asked her, but Olaf chose that moment to continue his address.

“I'm suggesting a game to play after dinner,” he said. “Southern Charm Mysteries calls it ‘Giving Away the Farm.' The goal is to assess your competitors' progress in solving the mystery, and the rules are simple—each couple chooses to share a piece of information they've discovered today, and each of the other couples gets to ask a question. The clues can be big or small. Either way, you'll be required to exercise critical thinking skills under pressure.”

He raised his wineglass in salute. “So take this time to
finish your meals and discuss with your partners what you can reveal without
giving away the farm.
”

Christopher thought the game a clever way to aid everyone in working toward the mystery's resolution. Sharing clues would foster cooperation between the teams—and just might foster a little between him and Ellen.

“What clue do you think we should share?” he asked her.

With her fork poised in midair, Ellen leaned close enough to gift him with a waft of her delicate floral fragrance, which he hadn't noticed earlier.

“What about our secret clue? Maybe everyone's questions will help us figure it out.”

“That could work, but I don't want to share our ace in the hole until we have at least an idea of what it means.” She must have applied the fragrance while she'd dressed in the bathroom—in a button-front gown that hadn't required his assistance to fasten. “What about the captain's title?”

“That'll invite questions about his upbringing and why he left France, which just may send the others looking backward instead of forward if they don't already know about it.”

“You're sharp, love. Have I mentioned lately how much I admire that about you?”

Clearly surprised, Ellen inhaled deeply, her chest rising and falling and making him decide that she looked more edible than the filet in her scarlet gown. The design was simple in comparison to the ruffles she'd worn earlier, but the shiny satin molded her every curve, drew his gaze to the creamy cleavage swelling above the neckline, capturing his imagination with the memory of the sweet-tasting skin below.

She shook her head, and the golden lights flickering in her eyes convinced him she'd been pleased by his praise.

“So you think we should reveal the title?”

“I think the journals would be overkill, don't you?”

“Definitely. The journals would raise questions about what happened
after
they left France. We shouldn't go there.”

“Agreed.”

The journals had revealed a decent amount of information about the family's journey to the Caribbean. The captain's father had indeed been executed and all the Lafever holdings lost to the new regime. Mother and son had survived some tough years, but Christopher and Ellen hadn't uncovered any specifics about the sister—or
half
sister, as they now believed her to be, from a letter they'd discovered folded between the pages of a journal.

“I know what we should do,” Christopher said, casting a surreptitious look around the table.

The other couples were engaged in similar conversations. Josh and Lennon whispered to each other while sipping from the same wineglass with a freedom that Christopher envied.

Across the table, Mac and Harley had squared off again, their strained voices drawing an annoyed glance from Tracy. Susanna, by comparison, appeared preoccupied with Olaf, who sat upright and handed her a linen napkin, apparently having retrieved it from the floor.

“What?” Ellen asked.

“The letter. Let's tell them about the signature.”

Ellen's mouth tipped upward in the most delectable grin. “Ooh, you are just too sneaky.”

“
Good.
I prefer to think of myself as
good.
”

That gorgeous mouth widened a bit more, prompting a grin of his own. “No argument. The signature is a legiti
mate clue, but it doesn't give away anything we discovered. Maybe the questions will help us fill in the blanks about the captain's sister.”

Ellen's smile gave Christopher hope that he just might overcome her latest retreat, too. And as the meal wound down, she seemed to bridge the distance, locking him in a debate about the best way to present their clue.

By the time the plates had been cleared away and the coffee served, they'd honed their strategy and Christopher's adrenaline pumped. Not for the game, but for some alone time with Ellen.

He was glad when Olaf finally stood. “Who's brave enough to volunteer sharing their clue first?”

“Shall we?” Christopher leaned close to whisper into Ellen's ear.

Before she could reply, Tracy was already sliding her chair back from the table, commanding everyone's attention. “Susanna and I will. We discovered that the captain's sister was fifteen years younger than he was. This is a great clue, so fire away with your questions, folks.”

Ellen's knee bumped his under the table as if to say,
definitely a half sister.

“Who fathered her?” Josh asked, revealing he already knew about the execution, which didn't surprise Christopher in the least, considering Josh solved mysteries professionally. Mac and Harley would probably prove equally tough competitors.

“A man the captain's mom had known from her youth,” Susanna explained. “He was the youngest son of a minor baron who left France to seek out his fortune on the sea.”

“His family thought he was a black sheep and disowned him,” Tracy added.

Bingo.
He and Ellen had come across a letter tucked
neatly between the pages of a journal. It had been addressed to
My Dearest Love
and signed
Your Loving Allie
and very obviously had been written between lovers. But the date revealed that the letter couldn't have been written to the captain's father.

Christopher took a turn nudging Ellen's knee under the table. “Now we know who Allienor wrote the letter to.”

“They're giving away the farm,” she whispered under her breath in a singsong voice that made him smile.

“Lucky us.”

And Christopher guessed Josh must be equally pleased with the amount of information his question had yielded, even though he only inclined his head in polite acknowledgment.

Mac tossed his napkin onto the table and glanced up at Tracy, but before he could say anything, Harley cut him off. “Did the black sheep marry the captain's mother?”

Mac shot her a dark look. And he wasn't the only one. Josh was watching the two of them with a narrowed stare.

“A good question.” Tracy smiled a slow, dramatic smile. “We're guessing not, since Brigitte went by the name of Lafever.”

“We need to know why,” Ellen whispered. “How come his mother didn't move to New Orleans with her children? Did she stay behind to be with this guy?”

“Agreed. But that's three questions.”

Ellen gazed up at him from beneath thick lashes, a sexy, exasperated look that made his blood descend straight to his crotch. “Help me synopsize it, then.”

“Ask if his mother went to New Orleans with them.”

“But we already know she didn't—”

“But do Tracy and Susanna know? They've been giving away the farm. I'll bet Tracy gives us more than we ask for.”

“That's a gamble.”

One that didn't pay off, because Tracy and Susanna didn't have the information.

But Mac and Harley did.

They explained that the captain had earned enough wealth to formally educate his sister, which swung the conversation back around to New Orleans again—the captain's mother hadn't accompanied her children to New Orleans because she and her lover had died when their daughter was just two years old.

This revelation sent every romance writer, and one gorgeous romance editor, at the table into throes of melodrama.

“They
died?
” Tracy splayed her hand across her heart. “Their ship sank in a hurricane?”

“The captain wound up rearing his sister,” Susanna added. “How tragic. How noble.”

“You'd have rejected that manuscript, Ellen,” Lennon said. “Who wants to read about tragedy? The captain's mother loses her first husband to the guillotine, endures all sorts of hardships, and finally finds love again—only to drown.” She shivered, and Josh seized the opportunity to touch his wife, slipping an arm around her shoulders and leaning close to whisper in her ear.

“Not my cup of tea,” Ellen agreed. “Angst is fine for a little while. Readers want a happy ending and so do I.”

Ah, there she was…that idealist who hid beneath fiercely checked emotions. A woman who challenged him to slip past her defenses—not just for a day but for a lifetime.

“Dessert, sir?” an unfamiliar voice asked, and Christopher glanced up as a waiter motioned to a dessert cart.

He chose tiramisu, while Ellen declined dessert in favor of a cappuccino.

“You're sure?” Christopher eyed her skeptically. “I thought tiramisu was your favorite.”

“It's very good, ma'am,” the waiter said. “Captain Lafever used to have the cream whipped fresh whenever his sister, Miss Brigitte, came home from her fancy school in New Orleans.”

Ellen's gaze locked on to his, hazel lights sparkling.
A clue.
“Did he? How often did Brigitte come home?”

“On all her school holidays,” he replied.

“Did she ever bring friends with her?” Christopher asked.

“I don't think Miss Brigitte had many friends.”

“Did she have her own suite? I didn't see one on the map.”

“Miss Brigitte loved Félicie Allée so much that she decorated all the guest bedrooms and took turns staying in them when she was home. She didn't care much for being in one place. She had the wanderlust from her early years on the sea with Captain Julian.” He smiled fondly, as though remembering the young woman and her whimsical habits. “The master indulged her. Well, if not the tiramisu, ma'am, would you care to try the ladyfingers? They're light.”