Naughty Bits 2 (34 page)

WATER TRICKLED DOWN HER ARMS AND OVER
her shoulder, running in streaming rivulets down her back. Her nipples tightened, crinkling beneath the thin chemise. Dipping the sponge into the basin, Amelia wrung out the excess and brought the sponge to her throat, squeezing the water down her neck, soaking the front of her shift so that the fabric clung to her breasts.

The water had grown cold as she sat before her dressing table. In a daze, she repeated the motions of the sponge bath, lost in thought, drowning in pain.

What was he doing now? Laughing at her? Her, a plain little peahen, desiring someone like him, a handsome and wealthy earl. What a simpleton she had been to let him in, to speak of things she could barely even admit to herself. He had used her, had made her feel small and insignificant—
invisible.

“Amelia?”

Jumping at the sound of his voice, the sponge dropped from her hand and splashed into the basin. The door of her room clicked quietly shut, it was followed by the sound of his footsteps on the wooden floor.

He stood behind her, and Amelia felt his heat warming her back. His hands rested on her shoulders, and she stiffened, feeling
her eyes immediately flood with tears. She would not cry before him. Never again would she allow herself to be vulnerable.

“Will you not look at me?”

Reluctantly she turned her head so that she faced the small mirror that sat atop her dressing table, and there he was, his reflection shining back at her. He bent down so that his face was even with hers and she watched him close his eyes as he pressed his cheek against her temple.

“I brought these for you. I had them with me at Highgate. I…wanted you to have them.”

“Another bribe?” she asked bitterly, turning away from the image of them together in the mirror.

“Amelia—”

“There is nothing more to be said, my lord. I may be a servant but I have my pride. That pride cannot be purchased. And yes, I may be poor as a church mouse, but I'm not so poorly off that I need to consider bartering my sex for your amusement.”

He nodded, then slowly stood. He turned to leave, then stopped, took her face in his hands and brushed his mouth against her lips. “It was never a game to me, Amelia.
Never
. You've never been just an amusement to me.”

“What was it then?”

“Perfection.” Such a simple word and said with such stunning honesty. Amelia could not help but turn her face up to him in wonder. “It was everything to me, Amelia. Every day spent with you meant so much. And not just at Highgate. I have wanted you since the moment you came into my study to interview for the position. Do you think me so shallow that I would not see you behind your uniform and spectacles? I did look, Amelia. And I thought—think—you're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. You have a gift of giving me something I could never buy myself and that makes you a woman of incredible wealth and beauty to me.”

“What gift is this that you speak of?”

“The gift of being myself. There are no courtly airs with you, no pretences. I am just myself. Something I have never felt comfortable being with any woman other than you. If you don't believe me, at least open the package on the bottom. Perhaps then you might have some understanding of how I feel about you and what we've shared.”

It was agony waiting for her to decide, and when Adrian feared she would not agree to his request, he turned and walked away, his heart bleeding in his chest. When he reached the door, the sound of her weeping forced him to stop. Looking back at her, he saw that she held his gift in her hands and that she was looking down at the burgundy leather, crying.

“This can never be. How can you want someone like me? I cannot even read,” she choked, then looked up at him. “I only pretended to, that day you saw me in the cemetery.”

“Emmy,” he said, not knowing whether to go to her, or stay away. What did she need from him? What did she want?

“I am not ashamed of what I am,” she sniffed. “I am a domestic. I am not humiliated that I must work for my survival. I am honest and hardworking and take pride in doing my job well. There is no shame in that. But I knew the kind of thoughts I had about you were not proper. And I knew that what I was doing at Highgate was not right. But I had to discover, you see, what it would be like to be with you. To experience what it was like to be touched by your beautiful hands. I am ashamed to admit that I willingly misled you. I let you think I was a stranger to you, when I knew I was only just your servant. You asked why I did not come to Highgate today, and the reason was that I have allowed myself to think of the future. To ask myself, ‘what if?' I understand there can be no future, and so I did not go this morning, and I resigned because I felt I could not see you every day and not yearn for what we had.”

He walked to her and crouched down before her. She looked away as she swiped at her tears, but he took her chin and turned her so that she was looking at him.

“If you cannot read, Amelia, how were you able to recite that poem?”

Closing her eyes, she drew in a deep breath. “I was listening to you and your sister one evening. I was taking away the tea things. I took my time so I could listen, and as I stood at the table, I closed my eyes and listened to the poems as you read them. I memorized a few of them, and when I finally opened my eyes, I saw your reflection in the mirror. You were looking at me, and I thought…that is…I fancied that perhaps you might have been saying those words to me.”

“I was. It's only ever been you that has seen beneath the mask I wear.”

She looked at him through her spectacles, and he smiled, his heart finally feeling as though it were done bleeding. “This book, Amelia, is a collection of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poems.”

“I am sorry I cannot read it.”

He took the book from her and set it atop her dressing table. Then he reached for the bun at the back of her head and pulled a pin free. Amelia allowed him the intimacy of letting down her hair. Slowly, one by one he pulled the pins from the tight bun at the back of her head. He placed each one on the table beside him before returning to pull the next free. She felt the heavy bun begin to loosen, felt the first curling tendrils slip forward so that it tickled her ears, then her chin.

Closing her eyes, she breathed heavily as his fingers raked through her hair, loosening the bun. “Curls,” he said with surprise. “I never would have guessed it, you pull it so severely back that you give the illusion that it is straight. And so long,” he murmured as he brushed some of her hair over her shoulder. “It goes to your waist.”

His hands smoothed over her hair, and she watched as he
studied the strands in the glow of the firelight as they slid between his fingers. When his gaze slid up to hers, she felt her breath hitch and her breasts push against the wet muslin of her shift. She was exposed, almost as if she were naked. Her hair was unbound and hanging over her back. No man had ever seen her hair down. In fact, she rarely saw it down herself.

As if she were watching it all in a dream, she saw Adrian's hands leave her hair, then come up to capture the sides of her face. His thumbs stroked her jaw, then her bottom lip, only to slide up her cheeks and rest against the arms of her spectacles.

“Please, no,” she said breathlessly, not wanting the last of her armor to fall away. She did not want to feel this naked with him, this exposed. The cool metal slid down her nose, then away from her face. Unable to bear it, she looked at him, wondering what he was thinking.

“You said you were nobody,” he whispered, tracing his thumbs over her lids, then caressing her lashes with the tips of his fingers. “But I see someone of worth sitting before me. I see someone worthy of being seen.”

She looked away, but he caught her chin in his fingers and turned her to look at him. “Speak to me, Amelia.”

“What are you thinking?” she asked, fearing his answer. “This very moment, what is running through your mind?”

“I am thinking how much of a challenge you are going to be to paint. How any artist would love to be able to re-create the brilliance in your eyes. I am wondering how I will be able to capture the intelligence, the sensuality I see in them.” Pressing forward he tilted her face up to his and looked down into her eyes. “I am thinking how easy it would be for a man to become obsessed with you—how very easy it would be for me to be consumed by you.”

Pulling her close, he raised their hands to his mouth and pressed a kiss to the soft flesh above her thumb. Closing his eyes, Adrian inhaled the scent of them together—hers the
clean, pure scent of lemon, and his, the warmth of eastern spice. Together, it was an erotic, heady scent that went straight to his head.

He pressed another kiss to her hand and watched the line of her throat move up and down as she swallowed. He trailed his fingers along that smooth skin and felt how fast her heart was beating for him.

“Come to me, Emmy.” He pulled her closer. “Come to my bed. It's been waiting a long time for you.”

Her breath caught, and the sound wreaked havoc within him. Nodding, she took a tentative step closer to him. He swore he could hear Emmy's heart beating from deep within her chest. He could smell her—lemon and feminine arousal, and his cock stirred.

“Come,” he whispered. “Come to my bed where I can spoil you.”

 

This was not a dream or an illicit fantasy while she was making beds and dusting furniture. This was real. His hands truly were on her flesh. It was really his breathing she heard, his lips she felt kissing her cheek. His soft sheets and feathery mattress she felt beneath her.

He followed her down, his body pressing hers into the bed. She saw his hot gaze travel over her face, then lower, to fix on the bounding pulse in her neck. Leaning toward her, he inhaled once, softly, almost imperceptibly, then again, deeper. Then his lips were pressing against the quivering pulse that leaped with his touch.

“You smell so good to me, Amelia. So right.”

Closing her eyes, Amelia tilted her head farther back, her lips parting just enough to allow the barest movement of air between them. He sighed and she felt the smooth tip of his finger trace her mouth. “Innocent, perfect lips,” he whispered darkly, stroking his thumb along her mouth. “I want to feel
them sliding along my body. I want them hard and soft, savoring and hungry.”

She couldn't think, her mind was a whirlwind of thoughts and emotions, as if she were drugged, disembodied. She was conscious of the moan that escaped her when he slanted his mouth against hers, encouraging her to open for him. He parted her lips and slid his tongue deep into her mouth. He groaned, and his hand left her face to cup her breast. Hungrily he kissed her, his mouth moving over hers, faster and faster. His tongue drove into her, and she could do nothing but reach for him and wrap her arms around his neck and hold on as he swept her away.

He kissed her for what seemed like forever, before he moved his mouth from hers and whispered, “I need to touch you.”

His big hand, with its long, elegant fingers, slid along her waist, curving over her hip and skating over to her belly where he kneaded her until her womb ached. When he sat up, she whimpered and forced her hands to lie limp at her sides. She wanted to reach out to him, to beg him to come back to her. He smiled, as if he could read her thoughts, and reached for her, tugging her up from the mattress. When she was kneeling before him, he took the hem of her worn chemise and pulled it up over her head, letting it fall from his fingers to the floor. He sat back and surveyed her with his hands and his eyes.

Strong fingers gripped her thighs, pulling them apart with the barest of pressure. His fingers trailed up the inner facings. “Beautiful, Emmy,” he said as he came around behind her. His palms swept up her thighs to her bottom. He gripped her in his palms, stroking and kneading as he kissed his way up her spine. With his tongue, he licked a path down her spine at the same time his finger smoothed between the crease of her bottom and stroked her, his fingertip circling her slowly, teasingly, until he rested the pad of his thumb against her and pressed.

“Adrian,” she pleaded.

“Say my name again, in that same breathless way.”

“Adrian,” she whimpered.

His hands came around to cup her breasts and toy with her nipples. The sensation of his hands at her front, and his lips on her lower back made her feel boneless. He was cherishing her as if she were a fragile figurine he was terrified of breaking.

“With other women, it was only ever sex for me, Amelia. But now it is so much more. It has become about us. You have made me see beauty where none existed before. You have made me yearn, when I only ever had a need. I yearn for you, Amelia. I yearn—need to be inside you—everywhere.”

“I want this, Adrian. I want you.”

“Do you?” he asked. She heard the bedspring creak. Felt the mattress dip as he shifted behind her. Then she felt the warmth of his palms on her outer thighs, it was followed by the slow, steady glide of his wet tongue along her inner thigh. He stopped just short of her sex and she groaned in expectation.

“You accused me of playing master and servant with you. I swear, Amelia, I never did. But I would give anything to play that with you now.”

Her unbound hair spilled down her back. She looked over her shoulder, watched him trail his tongue up her thigh once more, then he licked her slick sex, tasting her. His eyes closed as he made love to her with his mouth. Unable to resist, Amelia reached out and ran her fingers through his hair.

“Which you do want to be, Amelia? Master or servant?”

She waited until he looked up at her. From this distance, his was a bit foggy without her spectacles, but she could still make out the desire in his eyes. “Servant,” she said, watching as his pupils seemed to widen.

“Dutiful little servant,” he said, reaching for her hands. But
she brushed his hands aside, turned and reached for his trousers. Opening them, she slid them along his hips and reached for his erection. Bending to him, she took him in her mouth, closing her eyes as she listened to his sounds of pleasure.