Gorgeous As Sin

taste it.

She was agitated, uncertain.

He knew better than to make a sudden move and frighten her.

Then she swayed forward an infinitesimal distance; to anyone not involved in the fevered encounter, the movement would have gone unnoticed. “I’m very pleased you came tonight,” she whispered.

“Then we both are.” A velvet soft utterance freely given, knotty issues dismissed.

She knew he wasn’t alluding to the art show or the paintings he’d purchased, and drawing in a small breath, she wondered how long it had been since she’d lain with a man. Or more to the point, a man of unparalleled physical perfection and immoderate charm, a man for whom she felt a fierce, wild passion unlike anything she’d ever known.

“Perhaps kismet actually exists,” he offered with a smile.

Her eyes flared wide. “Do you think so?”

He was about to say no, but she looked so genuinely artless, he didn’t have the heart. “I do.”

“You’re not just saying that.”

“No.” A kindness not a lie. “People more clever than I subscribe to the theory. And consider how many thousands of years the concept has shaped people’s destiny.”

“So you’re saying destiny is involved tonight.”

By any standard her smile was flirtatious, her uncertainty suddenly replaced by a playful drollery. “All I know is there’s no place I’d rather be,” he said very softly, astonished at the pleasure he felt quite apart from lust.

“Well put, although I suspect you’re better acquainted with these situations than I.”

“Not this particular one.” His brows rose. “I have no explanation.”

She smiled. “How sweet-and generally effective, I expect.”

“On the contrary, I’m quite sincere.” He had no idea why he felt compelled to such frankness when prevarication had always rendered better service in circumstances such as this.

She held his gaze for a second, weighing her preconceived notions against Groveland’s candor. Quickly deciding that truth or pretense mattered little when their desires were so clearly aligned. “I suppose,” she said, perhaps just a trifle briskly for the world of dalliance, “we shouldn’t just stand here.”

A teasing light instantly warmed his eyes. “I know I’d rather not.” He couldn’t accuse her of coyness. She was so obviously unfamiliar with the game, it was going to be like deflowering a virgin.

Not that he had personal knowledge, having always avoided virgins. But Mrs. St. Vincent was definitely an innocent when it came to amorous play. Of that he was certain.

“Should we go upstairs?”

But she’d balled her fists again when speaking as though facing the hangman instead of a night of pleasure, so he decided kisses might be in order first for the widow. “In a minute,” he murmured, and dipping his head, he kissed her gently in reassurance and even more gently placed his hands on her shoulders and slowly drew her close.

Allowing her ample time to change her mind should she wish to.

But when her soft, warm breasts first came in contact with his chest, she didn’t pull away, and as his erection immediately sprang to life, surged upward, and pressed into her stomach, she didn’t flinch.

Instead, she gasped-in astonishment and wonder. Had he known…

But he didn’t. And he debated how long he would be obliged to play the modest lover and restrict himself to kisses. Sweet as they were, he thought with an equivalent astonishment.

But suddenly, she threw her arms around his neck, melted into his body, and breathed against the warmth of his mouth, “Forgive me for being so brazen, but you make me feel ever so good…”

“I’m glad,” he whispered, sliding his hands downward, cupping her bottom, holding her hard against his cock.

Another little gasp, and she breathed whisper soft, “You’re… enormous!”

Suppressing his impulse to say, “The better to fuck you with,” he kissed her less sweetly, with the novel urgency Mrs. St. Vincent inspired even as he searched for the door to her upstairs apartment. Finally- there-stairs were visible through a half-opened door in the far corner. Quickly lifting his head, he swept her up in his arms and said with a smile, “I’m taking you upstairs. Feel free to stop me at any time.” A politesse only; God himself couldn’t have stopped him.

“I won’t,” she whispered, clinging to his neck, her words excusing him from possible sacrilege. “I want you too much.”

“I want you more,” he said with an easy smile.

“Impossible.”

“I doubt it.” The lady smiling up at him was a restorative to his jaded soul, tremulous and needy, dew fresh and beautiful.

Her brows rose. “Care to make a wager?”

He almost took her right there, the possibility of dueling lechery racheting up his libido another ten notches. “Anything you like, darling,” he said, controlling his lust with effort.

“Do you feel lucky?”

He laughed. “Damned right.”

“Me, too.” Tonight was serendipity, pure and simple, she thought, reveling in the blissful illogic. After a lifetime devoted to undeviating steadiness, she was experiencing a degree of covetousness beyond the perimeters of memory.

The rapturous feel of his hard, muscled body against hers, the intoxicating, soul-stirring passion warming her body and soul were unutterably joyous. Perhaps Sofia was right; perhaps it was time she began to live again or finally live or flamboyantly live. Or resist such base urges, a muted voice of reason obstinately submitted.

But muted voices were easily brushed aside when under the spell of high-flying lust and fevered desire. And who better than Groveland to satisfy her salacious urges-a man who was a byword for vice?

And while she’d not yet experienced the full extent of his sexual renown, the hard, splendid length of his erection against her thigh suggested satisfaction on a grand scale.

Chapter 8

I CAN PERFECTLY well walk upstairs,” Rosalind said as Fitz began mounting the stairs.

“But why should you?”

Her first thought shouldn’t have been that Edward never could have carried her up the stairs so effortlessly. Or at all. He wasn’t tall and powerful like Groveland, nor corded with muscle. Shameful thought; why was she comparing her husband to Groveland? And then, as if the devil were whispering in her ear, she heard Mrs. Beecham’s voice saying, You’re not getting any younger, and she found herself thinking, I deserve this.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Fitz murmured, aware of the lady’s reflective silence.

“Do you think I’m old? Oh Lord, pretend I didn’t say that,” she quickly declared, blushing furiously.

In the dim stairwell lit by a single electric light sconce at the top of the stairs, he glanced down and was charmed to see the most fetching, rosy-cheeked mortification. Mrs. St. Vincent was a rare delight; no aristocratic lady he knew would have called attention to her age. “I think you’re absolutely gorgeous,” he murmured, smiling, “and what-eighteen or so?”

She laughed, a bright silvery sound. “You’re a darling.”

“Wait,” he said with a grin. “It gets better.”

“So I’ve heard. Sofia tells me you’re celebrated for your expertise.”

“Hardly,” he modestly replied. “But I’ll contrive to amuse you in whatever fashion you prefer.”

“Is this about amusement?”

Uncertain of her tone, he gracefully replied, “It’s about whatever you want.”

“Because you’re versatile.”