Improper Pleasures (The Pleasure Series #1) (21 page)

“What are you doing out here? There’s a chill in the air.”
Astra’s voice had him turning abruptly with a jolt of excitement. He hadn’t
expected her at all.

“I used to smoke these when in port.” He lifted the cigar
in explanation though he was sure she smelled it the moment she stepped outside.
“I’ve missed them.” James turned and smiled at Astra, pleased beyond reason
that she had sought him out.

Her frown was clearly visible in the weak starlight.

“I won’t smoke them inside. Promise.” He held the cigar
downwind, hoping it would blow into the garden. Her tight features didn’t relax
in the least.

“Do as you please, James. It is your home.” She stiffened
and clasped her hands protectively in front of her.

James decided to ignore the quiet hostility in her words
until he could decipher what he’d done exactly to deserve it. After his misstep
with Lark, he was sure he’d said something thoughtless during the long day. Wesley
had returned with them in the carriage so they’d yet to have a chance to speak
privately. “Did you persuade Lark to go back to sleep?”

“I blew out the candle, but I suspect she’s still awake.” Astra
sighed loudly. “I must check on her later to make sure she doesn’t slip from
her room and try to find her way to Rosemound on her own.”

“Are you still angry with me?” James snubbed out the
cigar, suspecting her need to check on Lark again more of a ploy to avoid him.
Though he accepted her silence in the carriage as exhaustion, he no longer
could bear it. He stood and faced her.

She shrugged but the gesture appeared anything but casual.
“I was never angry with you, James.”

“But you didn’t enjoy yourself this evening. Are the
Bainbridges so beneath you?”

Even in the darkness, he could see her recoil at his
words. She blinked as if she held back tears, forcing James to feel like a cad
for directing his sudden burst of frustration onto her. He slipped an arm
around her waist and pulled her against him.

She tried to push from his embrace but he held her tight.
“Someone might see us.”

Keeping her close to his side, he guided her into a dark
corner of the patio. Most of the candles in the house had been extinguished.
Instead of resisting, she leaned into him. He felt her shiver.

“Are you cold?” Without waiting for her answer, he
shrugged out of his coat and draped it over her shoulders. He positioned her
with her back against the railing, his body pressed against hers, providing
enough warmth for the both of them. His face hovered above hers. She stared up
at him and even in the shadowed light, he could see the intensity in her gaze.
He intended to tell her he had no interest in the Bainbridge girls but stopped
himself. Did he really have no interest in such a logical match? As soon as the
question formed in his mind, the idea that to have everything he ever wanted he
would have to give up Astra was suddenly unthinkable. Instead, he lowered his
head and kissed her.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and parted her lips
to welcome his kiss. A hunger James had not expected surged inside him. He
crushed her to him and deepened the kiss, possessing her with his tongue. He
was instantly hard. He needed her. Wanted her. Now.

He cupped the back of her neck, caressing the bare skin
there. “Come to my room.”

She turned her face away from his, catching her breath.
“So, you are considering Bainbridge’s offer?”

“I wouldn’t call it that.” That she instantly knew what
lay behind his desperate lust disturbed him. He tried to kiss her again, erase
both their reason to think, but she put her hand on his chest and tried to push
him away.

“You enjoyed yourself tonight, did you not? More than you
ever have here.”

“That’s not true and you know it,” he whispered near her
ear, using his breath to caress her neck.

“His daughters’ are lovely. You fit in well with the
family.” Her voice held a cold detachment that sobered James as good as a slap.

“I hardly know them.” James straightened. “But yes, I
enjoyed being able to act freely without correction or instruction.”

“I have a right to know, James,” she said, meeting the
sudden anger in his voice with her own. “If you recall, part of our agreement
involved your pursuit of other women.”

“I’m not pursuing anyone, but I would be a fool not to
continue my friendship with Mr. Bainbridge. I think we could help each other in
many ways.”

“Oh yes, you are just what Mr. Bainbridge has been
dreaming of. A desperate aristocrat that likes to play loud parlor games,” she
said heatedly.

“Perhaps that’s how you see me, but I happen to know quite
a lot about the shipping industry. I think I’d make Bainbridge an excellent
associate.” James squared his shoulders, wanting to make her see him as more
than just some unaccomplished fool who had stumbled into a barony.

“And an even better son-in-law.” She folded her arms over
her chest, trying to block him out though he towered over her.

James braced his hands on the railing on either side of
Astra. “I thought our priority was Eastlan’s recovery. Which, by the way, is
what will provide your inheritance, not to mention your daughter’s dowry.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” Her trembling become more
noticeable and he realized her state had nothing to do with the night’s chill.

James touched her chin and forced her to face him.
“This—our relationship—is more difficult for you than you anticipated.”

“Yes.” She met his gaze and he saw her unshed tears. “I’m
sorry. I fear you meet my needs far more expertly than I have met yours.”

“Another patent untruth.” James rested his hand on the
side of Astra’s neck and caressed his thumb against its smooth curve. He
dropped his gaze to the luminescence of her lightly powdered breasts that rose
and fell above the snug fit of her bodice. All he wanted to do was to take
Astra to his bed and make love to her until they both forgot their
circumstances and, more importantly, the future. “For the record, I have no
intention of agreeing to a betrothal anytime soon.”

“It is torture for me to sit across the room from you,
while other women vie for your attention.” Her voice had lowered and she leaned
against his caresses like a cat that wanted to be rubbed. He lowered his hand
and covered her breast.

“Not that you didn’t have your faithful lapdog, Wesley, to
attend you.” Neither their argument nor the damp night air cooled his surging
lust. If anything, their spat only enflamed him further. He’d not say another
damn thing to turn her against him. He wasn’t even close to ready to end their
arrangement.

James braced his hands on the stone railing and pressed
into Astra. “Wrap your hands around my neck. Tightly,” he whispered near her
ear. She did and he gripped her waist, lifting her onto the railing’s ledge.
His coat slipped to the ground below.

“James!” Her outrage was laced with pleasure.

They were nose to nose, and Astra had to part her legs to
make room for his body. He positioned her so she had to cling to him or tumble
over the rail along with the garment.

“I wanted to touch you, you know. When you were sitting
across the room, composed and regal. You could have joined the game.”

“I didn’t know how.” She kissed his neck, hiding her face.

“Ah yes, you were an only child.” Her confession slipped a
hook into James’s heart that he didn’t need or want. He stroked her hair,
encouraging the little kisses she’d drifted up to the raging pulse point below
his jaw. “But surely you must have had the chance to play with other children?”

“Yes, there were other children about but I was always the
reserved one.” She punctuated her words with more soft kisses. “My mother was
always so outlandish, I suppose I felt that I must be composed lest something
awful happen.”

James slipped his hands beneath her skirts, and gripped
the back of her knees. “How about doing something outlandish right now? Something
awful won’t happen. In fact, I anticipate just the opposite.”

“I should check on Lark,” she said, but her voice was
breathless, unsure.

“We can be quick.” He captured her mouth with his before
she could speak again.

She clung to his neck, returning his kiss with a hunger
that matched the one that had been gnawing at James since he had caught his
first glimpse of Astra. A hunger that refused to be reasonable. He moved his
hands to her thighs, spreading them while caressing her soft skin with his
thumbs, readjusting her balance. The railing wasn’t the perfect height for what
James had in mind but the less-than-ideal setting only fueled his determination
and imagination.

He slipped his thumb up to the sensitive spot in the folds
of her woman’s flesh. Her shivering intake of breath at his first light press
was more encouragement than he needed.

“Lower your gown for me. I want to see your breasts. I
have you,” he said in a husky voice.

He gazed down at her with focused intensity until she let
loose one of her arms to yank at the front of her low cut gown. Her small firm
breasts were freed from their tight binding. Her swollen nipples showed a deep
red in the darkness. The dress’s loosened support thrust her breasts up so he
only had to lower his head slightly to take one into his mouth. She clutched
his head to her, her fingers tangled in his hair.

Her heat and moisture coated her thighs, forcing him to
readjust his hot grip. He braced her on the railing so he could see if she were
as hot and wet as he suspected. He slid a finger insider her, then two. Her
moan and the grip of her inner muscles nearly drove him over the edge. His
breeches were so damn tight he was sure he had already pulled a seam. He’d
never been so driven by his own lust, so hungry.

“I’m taking you here. Now,” he said roughly, quickly
unfastening his breeches before she objected.

She tightened her grip around his neck which he took as
consent. Her hot breath, damp and heavy near his ear, fueled his heightened
senses. He eased her off the railing and onto his fiercely erect cock. She
gasped but had nothing to hold onto but him and he took full advantage of her
vulnerability. He buried himself to the hilt in her slick, warm body. He pulled
out and thrust again, harder, more desperate. His fingers dug into the soft
flesh of her bottom as he mindlessly drove into her. Her back was pressed
against the railing, providing little support for her but giving him more
leverage, pushing him more forcefully against her.

Too soon he was on the verge of spilling himself inside
her, and he didn’t care. A quick intake of breath, followed by a feminine moan,
exploded in his ear. She stiffened and began to pulse around him.

Either practiced behavior or a sliver of reason forced
James to abruptly withdraw, his release splattering the paleness of her thighs,
the folds of her fashionable silk dress. Carefully, he lowered her to her feet,
not sure he could still hold her with the hard spasms racking his body.

A window slammed from above cutting through the quiet of
the night and his own heavy breathing. They both startled. James yanked his
breeches up and quickly fastened them while Astra attempted to straighten her
gown. Another quick survey of their surroundings satisfied James that the ledge
above and the hidden corner shielded them from view.

“We’re safe.” James brushed a loose tendril of Astra’s
hair from her face. “I don’t know what came over me.” Though he did. It was
uncontrollable lust. The kind that had persuaded him once or twice to seek out
the first available port town whore after he’d been at sea for months on end.
But his appetite had been satisfied way too recently and regularly to be so
ravenous. Nor was Astra a back alley doxy.

Her continued silence unnerved him.

“I’ll buy you a new gown,” he blurted, but the quick look
of hurt he saw in her glance told him it was the wrong thing to say. It
emphasized exactly what they had been arguing about. She was his mistress,
something to be tossed away when she was no longer useful. He never thought of
their relationship as completely meaningless, and he didn’t want her to either.

“I must change and see to Lark. Hopefully she will be
asleep.” Astra brushed wrinkles from the folds of her skirt.

James grabbed her hands, stilled them. He pressed kisses
to her knuckles. “You, uh, you didn’t hate it, did you?”

“No, James. I didn’t hate it and you know it.”

He grinned remembering her wetness, her release. Oh, no,
she liked the wildly abandoned, purely physical melding of their bodies as much
as he. Still, she didn’t return his smile. “It was outlandish, was it not?” He
mimicked her proper accent with affection.

“Everything about our relationship is outlandish, James.” She
sighed deeply again and gave him a small smile, but he’d come to recognize the
resigned sadness beneath it.

“Do you want to end it, then? “His words were a bluff. If
she said yes, he would cajole, seduce or do whatever he had to do to convince
her otherwise. Anything but lie, that is.

“No,” she said, softly. He gripped her shoulders, gazed
into her eyes.

“Astra, you are the only woman in my life, in my thoughts—”
James stopped himself from saying in his heart. Not that it wasn’t true, but he
wasn’t ready to make that kind of statement, nor back it up in deed. These
days, he truly didn’t know what he wanted. His life had been turned upside down
at every turn. An American patriot ending up an English baron had been
disorienting enough. He wanted to hate the twist of fate by principle alone,
but Astra made that impossible. “If that changes, you will be the first to know.”

“Thank you. I’m sorry we fought and for the unfair things
I said. You are an honorable man, James. You have treated your predecessor’s
widow with more care than many in your position would.” She touched his cheek
briefly, then dropped her hand as if the contact burned her. “I really must go.
Lark has sorely vexed her nanny this evening and I fear the woman’s patience
has been tried.” After a half-hearted smile, Astra rushed into the house.