Page 16 of The Secret of My Seduction
Chapter Eight
Liam brooded over her words. Briskly and efficiently! What sort of woman wanted that? Not that he hadn’t thought of taking her roughly and quickly, especially after she closed her soft pink lips around his erection and suckled so hard her cheeks hollowed out. He’d been about three seconds away from throwing her onto the hearth rug and riding her to the hardest, fastest climax of her life, and had counted himself very virtuous for restraining that urge.
And that, perhaps, was the problem. He was not accustomed to virtue; it didn’t suit him. He wanted Bathsheba. Even worse, he wanted her more desperately every time he saw her.
That was not what he had expected. At first he had thought there was a chance she would change her mind and decide she didn’t want to continue, after lesson one. She’d come apart in his hands, and deep inside Liam knew it would forever alter their relationship. He didn’t think he would be able to read her manuscripts without imagining that Bathsheba was Lady X and he was her lover, whoever that lover was, whether they were embracing against a tree in Hyde Park or on the finest linen sheets in Lady X’s town house. It wouldn’t stop him from publishing her tales—that would be stupid, as those stories accounted for a significant percentage of his income—but it would be an image lodged in his mind forever.
Then tonight, he’d thought she was embracing the spirit of the enterprise, unflinching in her admiration of his body. Liam had felt that to the marrow of his bones, the realization shocking him but also enthralling him. This was a side of Bathsheba he’d not guessed at. It was one thing for her to respond to his touch and follow where he led her. Tonight she was the leader, and he thought shecouldmake him lose all sense if she kept it up. Perhaps this relationship didn’t need to expire after she’d satisfied her curiosity. They were both discreet adults, living in the same town and well able to contrive reasons to see each other. This could become a lasting affair, stretched over as many sensual months as pleased them both.
But then she’d gone mad:would you just get on with it?She didn’t want the affair to last. She wanted a quick coupling, maybe two, so she could get back to her life and not be hampered by coming out to St. John’s Wood and spending the night in ecstasy with him.
He stalked back into the library, where things had gone so splendidly until her last outburst, and scowled at the scene. His clothing was scattered on the floor where she had thrown it—she might be innocent but she wasn’t shy. He dropped the banyan and snatched up his shirt to fling it over his head, then stepped into his trousers. Was the woman totally deranged? She asked him to show her passion and pleasure, then grew impatient when he did so. Liam knew she’d had the best climax of her life. When she screamed in release and he threw himself on top of her to ease his own raging lust, he’d seen the awestruck wonder on her face. Whoever her inept previous lovers had been, Liam was very certain neither of them had ever made her scream like that.
His gaze fell on the chaise. He could still picture her sprawled on the pillows, legs spread wide, all that silky wavy hair lying around her, her eyes starry and her mouth pink. He could still taste her on his lips, and he could still feel the hot suction of her mouth on his erection. God. What more could any woman want than the incendiary passion they shared?
There was something under the chaise. He reached down and picked up her reticule, a sturdy plain bag of dark gray wool. He pulled the string and looked inside, not surprised when he shook out a small notebook and short pencil. She’d planned to take notes again, even after the first lesson.
Liam knew he had a reputation for being cold. He preferred to think of himself as focused, rational, and logical in every situation. In fact, he thought Bathsheba was like him in that; her practical streak went bone deep, and once her mind fastened on a problem or question, she would pursue it until she conquered it. He flipped through the little book, wondering what she would have written, and saw, with some surprise, it was half full of notes already.
He shouldn’t read it.
He shouldn’t evenlookat it.
He sat down on the end of the chaise and opened to the first page.
It began with scribbled ideas for her next book. He’d read the first few chapters of that manuscript and recognized the plot and character names. Then came a list of queries, some answered, some not, about practical matters:schedule of mail coaches to Kent? Ease of sailing from Deal to Calais? Visit British Museum and assess possibilities for rendezvous locations.The last made him smile, picturing Bathsheba striding through the museum, her head swiveling from side to side in search of an alcove or closet where two people could conceivably be intimate, briskly and efficiently.
He kept reading. Her notes changed as she wrote more of the book, deciding that Lady X would not meet a lascivious country vicar after all, but a strapping blacksmith instead, when her horse threw a shoe.A rough man, powerful and large in all ways, she’d written, a faint line under the wordall. Liam smirked; he knew what that meant, but had Bathsheba? She must have done, but now he was very curious to read those chapters of the tale. Without thinking, he picked up the pencil.
Make him a clever fellow—a gentleman’s bastard, educated with his half-brother or similar—or else it will seem coarse and depraved of Lady X, he wrote.Surely you don’t expect her to be satisfied by an ordinary brute.
He turned ahead and read more. Several queries about fashion, which he mostly skipped, and a few about the timing of certain events. Bathsheba delighted in working in mentions of notable occasions, and in two places she had copied in reports of a ball and an art viewing for possible inclusion.
Liam made a few more notes—consider some public spectacle, such as the King’s progress to Parliament, as a way to introduce her to a new gentleman—and was feeling entertained by the whole thing when he reached the last pages with writing.
Seduction, read the title on one page.Clothing or not? Who removes? What clothing is most suitable?There was space below, but no answers.
Timing, read the next page.Duration of the act? What shortens or lengthens? How long does seduction last before, and what does one do after?
Again there were no answers.
Damn.
Slowly Liam turned another page. Location was the next subject.Is a bed the best place? What other options? Can it be done against a wall? In the manner of animals? Benefits and drawbacks of various positions?
But the worst, Liam discovered, was the last.Kissingwas the title, and it was underlined heavily.Is it important? How does one do it well? What does it mean for the rest? Why do men avoid it? Is it a sign of true affection?
Liam ran one hand over his face.Bollocks.He couldn’t pretend he’d never read it, because he’d rashly written on earlier pages. But he sensed Bathsheba would be both furious and humiliated if she knew he’d seen these notes on seduction, these questions she’d yearned so desperately to answer that she asked him to make love to her.
Was it only for her writing? Liam had never really thought so, but he had to admit he hadn’t spent much time wondering exactly how much of her motivation was due to the tales and how much sprang from her own personal desires. Now…he wondered. She’d only known lovemaking from a callous seducer and a grocer more in search of a mother for his children than a woman to love and cherish. Bathsheba had told him from the start that she wasn’t a virgin, but Liam thought she’d only forsaken that condition on technical grounds; she’d never known passion or even physical satisfaction in her liaisons. And now he suspected no one had ever really kissed her.
Including him.
He surged to his feet, recoiling from that. That was not a fair comparison. He deliberately hadn’t kissed her. She said she only wanted some experience of lovemaking itself, as if a few encounters would answer all her questions about how it ought to be done. She’d never mentioned kissing, or embraces, or anything else that might hint at a deeper connection.
He hadn’t kissed her because she didn’t want to fall in love with him, and therefore he didn’t want to fall in love with her.
And yet…he’d wanted to kiss her. When he put her in the carriage a few nights ago, the thought had crossed his mind. Tonight, after he’d spent himself against her belly, imagining all the while he was driving himself inside her, he’d come within a moment of kissing her when she looked up at him with glowing brown eyes and said something about lesson two. It was so like her, and so like him, that he’d wanted to laugh and kiss her and repeat the lesson all over again. He’d had the unexpected thought that he’d finally met a woman who thought the way he did, who understood—and wanted—him as he was…
