Page 33 of The Art of Sinning
As she reached it, he called out, “Yvette?”
She halted. “Yes?”
“I promise not to overstep my bounds again. You needn’t worry about that.”
All she could manage was a nod before she fled. Because the truth was, she would much rather he overstep his bounds and sweep her back into his arms than play the gentleman.
And that was the cruelest turn of all.
Eight
Morning had barely dawned and Jeremy was already busy setting up for the formal portrait in the music room. He wished he could have risen later. But last night, even after “boxing the Jesuit,” as Damber so crudely called self-pleasure, he’d been restless and aroused and incapable of doing more than sleeping in fits and starts.
He kept seeing Yvette in that chiton that left so little to the imagination. Kept hearing her ragged breaths, tasting her hot mouth, feeling her softness against his groin as he pressed into her.
Damn it to perdition!
How was it that none of his other models through the years, even the naked ones, had made him feel such intense need? Some had stirred his lust, but it had never lasted beyond a quick tumble if they were so inclined. Once they turned coy and flattering, they destroyed any lingering fantasy that painting them had aroused.
Not so with Yvette. She parried his barbs with a clever wit that made him want to tease her more. Yet she could also be as sweet as forbidden candy.
Maybe that was why she tempted him. She was forbidden. That was all. It wasn’t her soft smile. Or her kindness to Damber. Or the vulnerability beneath her prickly exterior that made him want—
Thunderation!
Work. He must work. That was preferable to driving himself insane.
“Not that color,” he snapped as Damber stirred the paint in one of many clay pots set out on a tarpaulin they’d laid on the carpet. “I told you burnt umber, not burnt... whatever that is.”
“Toast, mayhap. The kind I didn’t get to eat.” Scowling, Damber closed up the pot. Then, with a heedlessness that bordered on dangerous, he tossed it back into the box of paints. “I’d be happy with even burnt toast, but oh no, that ain’t acceptable. Not when a certain gentry cove has taken the bloody notion in his head to rise before sunup and force me right to work.”
Jeremy rolled his eyes. “Yes, you suffer so. Last night you probably dined like a king and slept on the softest bed you’ve ever—”
“Didn’t matter, seeing as how you made me leave it so bloody early.” Damber rooted around in the box for the burnt umber pigment. “And the gentry mort—” He caught himself. “Theladyain’t even up yet!”
Thank God. Jeremy had to get his wits about him before she arrived. Last night he’d insulted her in every way possible—first by not kissing her, and then by kissing her too erotically. The way a man kisses a whore.
Or a lover.
No, never that. She couldn’t be that to him, no matter how much she tempted him. And, God, but she tempted him. He itched to kiss her again, to run his hands up her thighs and touch what he’d stopped himself from touching last night. He ached to domorethan touch.
How he would make it through the next several nights without trying to bed her was beyond him. But he must. Last night’s activities couldn’t be repeated.
“She’ll be here soon enough,” Jeremy told Damber, ignoring the leap in his pulse at the thought. “Then you can have all the breakfast you please down in the servant’s quarters.”
Damber shot him a sly look. “You want to be alone with her, is that it? Got the urge to give her a bit of the old rammer—”
“Don’t talk about the lady like that, or I swear I’ll turn you off.”
Since Jeremy threatened that at least once a week, Damber didn’t much react to that. Instead, he narrowed his gaze on his master. “You like her.”
“Of course I like her. I wouldn’t have taken a commission to paint her portrait if I hadn’t thought I could endure her presence.”
“I mean youfancyher.”
Like a desert fancies rain.“Don’t be a sapskull.” Jeremy set up his easel with quick efficiency. “She’s English, an aristocrat, stiff-rumped, as you put it. What would I do with her sort?” When Damber opened his mouth, Jeremy said, “Don’t answer that. You know that’s not what I meant.”
“Wasn’t it?” Heedless of the foul look Jeremy flashed him, Damber said, “You got up at dawn, which ain’t like you, and you’re trying to rid yourself of me so you can be alone with her. Seems pretty clear.”
