The Madness Of Lord Ian Mackenzie

“Good, because I want to see your body.” Beth swallowed. “You’ve already seen a good portion of it.”

He sent her a dark smile. “And it was fine. I wish to see the rest. Right now.”

Beth darted a glance to the door. “Mac might return any minute.”

“He’ll stay away until we leave.”

“How do you know that?”

“I know Mac.”

“The window . . .”

“Too high for anyone to see in.”

Beth had to admit that he’d answered her most basic objections.  She knew she should have other objections, but she couldn’t remember them right now.

“And if I decide I’d rather run away?”

“Then we’ll wait.”

Beth hesitated, her legs feeling like water, but at the same time, she knew nothing would induce her to leave this room short of a fire. A very large fire.

“I’ll need help with the buttons,” she said.

Beth’s clothes came off layer by layer, like a complicated wrapping peeling back to reveal simple beauty. One by one, her garments fell across the studio’s sofa in a multicolored layer: rich blue bodice and overskirt, a brighter blue underskirt, the fabric light for summer. Two silk petticoats, both white, then her corset cover, until at last Ian unlaced the linen corset himself.

Ian’s arousal throbbed, and he knew he wouldn’t be happy until he saw her bared in her entirety. He untied her lacy pantalets, then unbuttoned the chemise. The silk garments floated gracefully to the floor, and Beth stepped out of them, nude for him. She reached for him, but Ian stepped away, and Beth stopped, confused.

Her hair was mussed from undressing, little ringlets falling from the mass of curls on top of her head. Her arms were soft and round, her thighs also, her waist nipped in by years of wearing a corset.

From her waist her hips softly flared to smooth and firm buttocks. He’d seen her vee of dark hair when he lifted her skirts in the little gilded room, but it was even more beautiful now touched by daylight.

Under his close scrutiny, she blushed and folded her arms over her breasts.

Ian leaned against the back of a chair and basked in her beauty. “You don’t need to hide from me.” Beth hesitated, then gave a little laugh and spun around, arms outstretched. She was so beautiful, with her curls every which way, her mouth laughing, her blue eyes flashing in the fading sunlight. The clouds thickened and rain began to fall, but that didn’t dampen the glow inside the room.  Beth laughed again. “How strange is life?” she asked.  “One moment you are a dowdy companion without a shilling, the next you are a wealthy bohemian in Paris.  One moment a drudge, the next you are buying gifts for your paramour.”

Her words slid over him like water. He’d remember each one in its precise order later, but he would never understand them any better than he did now.

Beth caught up the drape Cybele had dropped and spun it around herself. The gauzy folds caught her hips and breasts, not hiding her in the slightest. She spun around and around, laughing.

Ian grasped the drape when she whirled by, and used it to haul her against him. She stumbled into his arms, still laughing. His first kiss parted her lips, stopping the laughter as she melted to him.

Beth had seen him at his worst, and yet she’d come here today, bleating an apology and handing him a gift. He caught the glint of the gold pin on his chest and his heart warmed beneath it.

Other parts of him were plenty warm, too. He lifted her against him, loving her pliant, bare body in his arms. If she’d been a courtesan, Ian would have already bent her over the chair and taken her without further ado. But while Beth’s husband might have taught her the pleasures of the bed, she’d know nothing of the crude coupling of courtesans.  She smiled at him in perfect faith, a flower just opening.

Beth’s fragile trust was in Ian’s hands. He’d growled that he didn’t want to be protected, but the instinct to protect her was strong. Beth was so alone in the world, so vulnerable, and she didn’t even realize it.

Ian rubbed his hands over her warm body, wanting to gather her to him and not let go. The thought of anything happening to her, of other men demanding things from her, wound his thoughts into a frenzy.

“Kiss me,” he said.

Beth smiled into his mouth. She wrapped her arms around him, the gauzy drape coming around his neck.  She tasted like warm honey, incredible sweetness. Something deep inside him responded. Ian recognized wanting, but it was more than that.

He slid his broad knee between hers, coaxing her forward as he kissed her. He boosted her with his hands on her buttocks until she trustingly straddled his thigh.  Ian loosened his hold a little, letting her slide against his rock-hard thigh. Beth looked surprised, and then a soft sound escaped her lips.

Ian held his hands loosely on her hips, rocking her against his hard leg, teaching her to pleasure herself. Her sweet and exciting scent surrounded him. He kissed her, then left her alone to enjoy the strange sensation of the fabric against her cleft.

Beth scraped back and forth, her breath coming faster, cheeks pink and damp with sweat. She’d never pleasured herself, he realized. This was new to her, astonishing, delightful.  Her head went back, and she closed her eyes. Wisps of hair trickled down her neck, her lips parting in desire.  “Ian,” she whispered. “How do you know so well.. . what I want?”

He knew because her body told him. He liked a woman rising under his touch like Beth did now, eyes softening in delight. Women were more beautiful than ever when they gave in to pleasure. He loved how they smelled, how they tasted, the sound of their breathy sighs, the warmth of their bodies under his hands.

That meant that Ian could stand in Mac’s studio, fully dressed, and have Beth go crazy with pleasure. He liked the power of it, and the joy of watching Beth’s eyes widen and hearing her gasp turned to frenzied cries of delight.  Ian took a curl at her forehead between his lips. He wanted her in every way possible, but he was enjoying slowly spinning out the seduction, giving her one taste at a time, watching her learn to want him.

One night, he would have her. By then, Beth would want him so much he could make her his forever. Ian didn’t understand love, by his own admission, but he knew having Beth in his life was something worth striving for. She’d said no the first time he’d asked her to marry him; she’d explained in her sensible manner that she had no inclination to marry. But Ian would change her mind. Ian Mackenzie had learned to be good at getting what he truly wanted.  Beth’s cries rang against the studios high ceiling. She clasped his face between her hands and kissed him, hard.  “Thank you, Ian,” she whispered.

Ian sank his fingers into her bottom and returned the kiss, tasting her as her orgasm wound down. She’d thanked him in the duchesse’s tiny sitting room, yet she was the one who stilled the beast inside him. He should be thanking her for giving him this peace, if only for a few precious moments.

I have become a truly wicked woman, Beth wrote in her journal a few days later. I find myself looking forward every day to what naughtiness Ian and I might do together.

Yesterday he escorted Isabella and me to Drouant’s, that very fashionable new restaurant where everyone goes to see who is there and with whom. Ian doesn’t speak much in company and never minds that Isabella and I gossip like magpies—or rather, Isabella tells me all about the people she sees, and I inhale it with too much enjoyment.

Ian held my hand under the table the entire meal. Isabella knew—of course she did. She seems quite enchanted with Ian’s attentions to me. But if she knew how Ian held my hand, she might not be so sanguine.

Ian cannot do something so simple as hold a woman’s hand. He moves his thumb up my wrist and under my glove, finding points that shoot wild heat through my body. He caresses the inside of my palm with soft fingers, and then he threads his fingers through mine and holds hard, as though teaching me that my hand belongs there with his.  He calmly eats his sole meuhiere, or whatever exotic concoction Isabella has insisted we try, and says not a word.  Ian and I are lovers—how strange for me to pen the word.  And yet, we have not consummated our affair, not in the way of the marriage bed. I had thought, in Mac’s studio, that he would remove his clothes and couple with me on the couch.  But he did not. He didn’t take off one stitch, not even loosening his collar, while I lay against him in my altogether.  Quite disappointing.

However, my bare skin against the fabric of his coat was a strange but pleasing sensation. I