Page 3 of The Butler's Forbidden Fancy
Still, Simms responded, “My cousins.”
“Lovely people.”
Polite and cool, Simms nodded, then motioned for her to precede him into the foyer.
Once inside, she paused as she tugged off her gloves, “The last time I was here you were not butler then.”
That last was a question and he had no reason not to answer it with truth. “I am recently employed here. May I take your coat?”
“No. I will wear it upstairs.” She spun to her maid. “Stay here, Clara, and count the pieces. I must have it all, you know.” Then she turned back to him. “I do wish to go immediately to my room, Simms.”
“Of course.” He noted with a glance out the open front door that the footman would take quite awhile to count and bring forth all her baggage. “This way, if you will.”
He led her up the staircase. He had not intended to show her to her rooms, or to talk privately with her at any time these next few days. Instead, he’d vowed to himself to be quick, formal and unfazed. He took the landing and then around and up another flight to the floor where all guest suites were located. She was to have the one opposite the secret stairway to the downstairs library. He’d planned that for her, knowing her penchant to require new reading at all hours of the night. Rapacious in her desire for good books, she read whatever was at hand. Even the Bard—his favorite, too—was one she sought at any hour she felt so inclined. In fact, she’d taught him the versatility of Shakespeare. The man’s words fit almost any occasion. Even this one in which he had to escape her to kill that itch in him to possess her.If it were done…then ’twere well it were done quickly.
At her door, he turned the handle and pushed it open. He pressed backward to allow her enter.
She swept past him. But her arm swiped his chest. The feathers in her hat tickled his nose. Her perfume—roses, delicate roses—rushed up to fill his nostrils.
He seized his sanity, bowing to denote his impending exit.
But she whirled to face him. Caught his chin and raised his face, smiled, the witch, then pressed her lush body against his. Her voluptuous breasts warmed him. She stretched up on her toes and brushed her rich full lips across his.
She was heaven.
And he was in delicious hell.
“Hello, my darling, Octavian. I’ve had the very devil of a time finding you. Where in the world have you been, eh?”
Chapter 2
His lips were the sweetest thing she’d tasted in years. Full and plush. Few men had such rich and willing lips. Few men rubbed their lips on hers in ready lust, but he always had. Few would gasp and yank her closer, as he did then—and now. Few would thrust his tongue into the willing recesses of her mouth, linger and moan. But he did. And she let him. Oh, yes, she let him. Always she would let him have whatever he wished of her. This Christmas she would give him any part of her—nay, all of her—because she’d learned so violently, so thoroughly that no other man would do.
She flowed full against him and he sank to the wall with her in his arms.
“Minx,” he murmured between kisses to her cheeks and her ears and down her throat. “Hell, why did you come here?” he asked but his hands didn’t want her to answer. His hands crushed her against him, molded her breasts and pushed her hips against his own. As he sought out her lips with his own, he thrust his leg to one side so that she could curl her own around his and feel the rigid length of his interest in her. “No good, Eliza. We must stop.”
She did not agree and gave his thick brown hair a little tug before she stepped backward. As she moved away, she could still smell him, fragrant with a manly mix of sandalwood and cardamon. Tempting, spicy man. She was loathe to part from him, though she must because he had had a satisfying taste of her…at least, for now.
To get him truly primed for her goal, she’d have to torment him with offer of a bigger bite of her, wouldn’t she?
She ran her hands down her torso. Her nipples ached to have more of him. Her belly warmed to the idea. Planting her hands on her hips, she surveyed him.
Buttoned up, tied in knots, her formal Octavian Simms breathed heavily. His mouth was swollen from their kisses. His cheeks were pink from their passion. He was quite a picture of manly restraint and mad desire. And that desire was only, all for her. She smiled because he was the only man she’d ever wanted in her arms or inside her body. He was the only man, the first man and would be the last man, who valued all she was as a person, not as an heiress or an earl’s daughter. Most important of all, he was the one man who had saved her from so much harm…and who had always left her because society demanded it.
She seized a breath and reached for the objectivity that he so clearly wished at the moment. “How are you, Octavian? You look well. Hearty. Like your new position here, do you?”
“I do. Very well, thank you.” Looking a bit forlorn, he straightened, then yanked his waistcoat into proper place. “Why did you come?”
She opened her mouth to say, “You know I like a party—and you!”
But he hauled her against him, his fingers digging into her shoulders. “We won’t kiss again, Eliza.”
No?
She drifted an iota farther from him and his grasp. Then she walked round him to close the door and sank back against it.
He raised his face to the ceiling. “Be prudent, Eliza.”
