Page 42 of Indecently Employed
Ajax stopped fiddling with the books and turned to glower at her, but half of her face was obscured by the wing of the armchair. “Oh, he told you that, did he?”
She leaned forward so she might look him in the eye. Her cheeks were red, which he found alluring. “Yes, he did. He’s been very kind to me.”
This was ridiculous, envying Gideon for the time he’d spent with her. Especially when Ajax could’ve squired her about at any time, or even had her on her back weeks ago, were he not too cowardly to take a chance on whatever domestically stable kind of life that could potentially lead to.
The pause in conversation stretched out far too long, for Ajax didn’t want to talk about his estate manager right then. But he didn’t know how to lead the discussion where he wanted it to go, to the joining of their bodies. A ridiculous notion, really, considering his usual ease when it came to such matters,but Miss Abbotts was different. She was of his household. She seemed to think him a decent man. How did a decent man woo the object of his desires, especially a woman he saw every morning at breakfast?
“Mr. Sedley,” she said as she shifted in her chair. “Sir, about our last discussion, if you’ll recall…” She swallowed, and Ajax nearly fell apart.
“Please,” he said, his voice low and strained. “Call me Ajax, if only that I might call you Susanna.” He couldn’t bear it any longer, these false and performative strictures keeping them from one another. He thought of the small canvas that Joseph Palgrave had snatched away from him. He wanted her like that. Her hair loose, feet bare, posture relaxed, and countenance happy. If she could be brave, so could he. He could make it so.
He kept his eyes locked on hers. It seemed like a very long time before she responded.
“Very well.” She looked up at him expectantly, her chest rising and falling with each breath. “Ajax.”
“Take your boots off,” he instructed.
She wrinkled her brow, but acquiesced, reaching down to unlace them even while managing to keep her eyes on him. She kicked them away from the chair and readjusted herself, positioning one stockinged foot behind the other, and gave him a shy smile that was so endearing it pierced him through the heart.
Keeping at a distance from her was almost too much to bear, but he held firm. “Your stockings as well.”
She gasped, a tiny little sound, searching his face for any hint of a jest. He raised an eyebrow. She pursed her lips and looked away as she bent over to roll the plain wool garments down her legs. She set them gingerly on the side table, next to her forgotten book. From what he could tell, her calves were as shapely as the rest of her body. Christ. He wanted them wrapped about him.
“Let your hair down.”
“My hair?” she asked, and her color heightened. “But—”
“Let it down,” he said, his tone unyielding.
She plucked out several pins and dropped them atop the book on the side table, still staring at him, her gaze strong and defiant. He could feel himself getting hard, anticipating the things he might do now that he had her here as he wanted, watching her as her fingers combed out her plaits.
Her hair was as he’d expected: wild, tight dark curls. He desperately wanted to touch it, to breathe it in, but he remained still, watching as she twisted it about and arranged it loosely over one shoulder.
“Anything else?” she asked, her voice breathy with excitement.
He moved now, positioning himself in front of her, drinking in the sight of her hair down and her doe eyes looking up at him from her position in the armchair.
“Now I’ll kiss you, if you’d allow it.” He placed his hands on the arms of the chair, trapping her as he leaned over, as close as possible before he murmured her name practically against her lips. “Susanna.”
“Yes,” she gasped, her lips grazing his, and he needed no further invitation. He took her mouth slowly, deeply, hungrily.
God, yes. This was it. This is what he’d craved from the moment she’d stoically strode into his office in London nearly three months ago. He had already lost himself in her feel, her scent. He laced one hand through those thick curls, gently pulling her head back, exposing her neck to his mouth. She made a tiny moan against him. Without breaking apart, he gently lowered himself to his knees, pushing her legs wide underneath her skirts to allow him room. Fuck, he needed more.
Deepening the kiss, he wove an arm around her back, pulling her forward, up against him. She fell back from him as he shifted her, gasping for breath.
“Mr. Sedley—” she whispered, her voice thick.
“Ajax,” he corrected, catching her lips between his again.
“I’m not leaving, I—” she moaned again as he slid his mouth to her neck, “I promise to stay on, even as…” She shifted against him, pressing her chest into him as she turned her head away, once more allowing him better access to the fine porcelain skin of her neck. “No matter what you… what transpires between us.”
He lifted his head, taking in her dreamy gaze, her glistening lips. She was beautiful. She was his. He’d a hand on her waist, and he gave it a little squeeze before moving for her chest, groping at her breast. How unfair that they were here, in the library, in his least favorite chair. For he wanted her naked—no raggedy governess’s gowns, no chemise, no corset, no flannel petticoats. But for now, the promise of the ample, yielding flesh beneath all those layers was enough to make him painfully hard. He kissed her hungrily as she moved underneath him, lifting off the chair and pressing herself against his hand.
Finally he could bear it no longer, and he hitched her skirts up to her lap with only some difficulty.
“What… what are we going to…?” she wondered aloud, pausing to gasp when she felt his hand on her thigh, caressing it through the thin fabric of her undergarments. “Is this…” She shuddered as his hand grazed between her thighs. “Should I remove my drawers as well?”
Ajax shook his head gently, unable to keep a sly smile from his face. “Hush, darling. I wouldn’t dare, not to you. Not in this hideous orange chair, not when there’s hardly enough time.” He kissed her again, more gently this time, as he slid his hand back up her leg until he reached the slit in her drawers, then worked his way under the cloth. She shuddered against him.
