“You cannot possibly think to deny that you are the author of Nocturne now,” she managed to say, though her words were decidedly breathless and infused with desire. “Not after I’ve seen all this.”
She turned her head slightly to gesture to the papers and photographs on the table. The moment she did, Phineas moved in, brushing his lips against the top of her neck where her jaw met her ear. He kissed and nibbled his way down to her pounding pulse-point as his hands journeyed farther up her sides to cradle her breasts in earnest. “Do you like what you see?” he asked in a wolfish whisper.
The question came just as her gaze settled on an etching of a couple engaged in a decidedly gymnastic tangle. “Oh, yes,” she sighed, snaking her arms around him and dropping one hand to his firm backside.
Phineas jerked straight at her possessive touch, staring into her eyes with a combination of surprise, fire, and amusement. “Good God, Miss Garrett. Is this the sort of behavior a darling of high society should engage in?”
“Who said I was anyone’s darling?” Lenore asked in return, lowering her head just enough so that she could stare up at him through coquettishly lowered lashes.
“I knew you were the minx for me right from the moment I met you,” he replied with surprising passion.
He leaned in to kiss her, but Lenore was fast enough to raise a hand to his mouth, blocking him. “Ah-ah,” she scolded, grinning. “You’ll get nothing from me unless you admit to the truth of your literary activities.”
He leaned back, a positively devilish grin on his face. His eyes looked more impish than Lenore would have thought possible behind his spectacles. “You plan to resist me until I confess to authoring Nocturne?” His sensual mouth quirked into an amused grin. “It might be fun to work against that resistance and to see how quickly I can break it down.”
“I’m afraid you would be sadly disappointed at how firm I can be when I set my mind to something,” Lenore said, far calmer than she felt. In fact, her insides were burning and her sex was throbbing and wet for him already, to the point where if he changed his mind about the seduction, she would have to turn the tables and move heaven and earth to break down his resistance.
But Phineas replied, “I like the sound of that,” in a voice so rough with desire that Lenore was tempted to sweep everything off of his desk so that he could take her right then and there.
“You tell me your secret and I’ll tell you mine,” she purred, circling her hand around the tempting muscle of his backside before squeezing, and flashing a seductive smile up at him.
She knew she’d won when he sucked in a breath and involuntarily jerked into her, pressing the sinfully hard bulge in his trousers against her. He wanted her to the point where he would do or say anything to have her. Knowing that made her positively giddy with power.
“All right,” he said, bringing his mouth to within inches of hers again. “I’ll admit to it. I am, indeed, the author of Nocturne. I have been all along. Are you satisfied?”
Lenore laughed deep in her throat in victory, moving her arms to slide over his shoulders in a move that invited him in. “Not yet,” she hummed. “But I have a feeling that in no time at all, I’ll be very satisfied indeed.”
“Give a man a little credit,” Phineas growled, pressing into her and spreading his hands across her back. “I’m much better than ‘no time at all’. You’ve read my stories, after all. You know just what I’m capable of.”
Lenore barely had time to catch her breath in excited anticipation before he slanted his mouth over hers, drawing a kiss from her that spun her head and curled her toes. He absolutely knew what he was doing, knew how to part her lips and stroke his tongue against hers in a way that ignited her passions and threw her into a fire of wanting. He knew how to use his lips and teeth to enhance the sensation and make it difficult for her to draw breath. And as she’d suspected, he knew how to use his hands to tease her breasts in a way that had her wishing her corset and the rest of her clothes would burst into flame and disappear so that he could touch her directly.
“We could do this right here,” he whispered, kissing and nibbling his way to her ear, and wedging her harder against the desk in a way that forced her to stand on her toes, “but I believe we would both enjoy it more if we decamped to my bed.”
“I thought you would never ask,” Lenore told him breathlessly, pushing him away enough so that she could lunge forward, grabbing his hand as she went, and fleeing to the hall and the stairs. Phineas followed her, laughing richly for a moment as he let her lead him. The moment they reached the stairs, he darted in front of her and drew her up to the first floor.
Thankfully for the limited amount of patience Lenore had, which was fading fast, his bedroom was right at the top of the stairs. He pulled her into the room, then shut the door behind them.
“Not that there’s anyone to disturb us,” he said as though he’d given a long explanation for his actions instead of simply doing them.
As soon as he turned back to her, Lenore slipped into him, tracing her hands over his shoulders so that she could remove his unbuttoned waistcoat. She was dexterous enough to kiss him as she did, taking the role of the aggressor and running her tongue along the seam of his lips.
