Ah, business
. Lily could easily talk business, even with Aidan Huntington’s lean, hard body pressed so close to her in the crowd. “Do you?”
“Sir William Meredith.”
“I know him.” William Meredith was a silly looby who often lost a great deal of money to her brothers at the gaming tables, but she wasn’t one to turn away investment funds. “Are you here to advise him on his investment, then?”
“Oh, I would be the last person anyone would turn to for advice on that, Mrs. Nichols.”
What
would
he give advice on? Charming women? Walking so easily into any room as if he owned it? Belonged there? She couldn’t help envying him that. She was never sure she belonged anywhere. “Well, as you can see, his investment would be a wise one. We seem to have a great success on our hands.” Lily caught a glimpse of
blue from the corner of her eye and turned to see Dominic and his lady friend across the room.
“Indeed you do,” he said, still with that inscrutable smile on his face. “But it is early yet.”
“And fashion is fickle. Is that what you’re saying, Lord Aidan? That is true enough. But my family and I know how to adapt to fashion.” Some impulse made her brush her hand against his under the cover of a fold of her skirt. “We know what people want.”
Aidan laughed, a deep, rich sound that seemed to ripple through her body. He turned his hand along hers, sliding his fingers over hers. “And how to give it to them?”
Lily shrugged and moved away from him. She felt so strange tonight, not her careful, wary self. She handed their empty glasses to a footman and slid her hand into the crook of Aidan’s arm. “We all must live somehow, Lord Aidan. Come, let me show you our establishment. You’ll see what a fine investment it is.”
She gave Dominic a hard, warning look, telling him silently to back off, not to ruin tonight. He spun around and disappeared with his redhead, and Lily led Aidan into the crowd. He went with her willingly enough, their bodies pressed together in the crush. She could feel the flex and strain of his muscles under her touch, his body so hard under the soft, expensive wool of his coat. If she turned her head, she could rest her forehead against his chest and the brocade of his waistcoat. She could inhale deeply of his clean scent, dark male skin and expensive cologne, starched linen and wool. She could wrap her arms around him…
“You see we offer something for everyone,” she said, her voice unsteady. “Faro, roulette, loo, piquet, whist.
And if one does not care for cards, there is supper, dancing. Quiet parlors for conversation.”
He looked down at her, and she could feel the warm brush of his breath over her hair. “Quiet conversation, eh?”
She glanced up at him. He no longer smiled, just watched her steadily, closely. As if he waited to see what she would do next.
Somehow that quiet, steady waiting was more frightening than any aggressive threats.
Lily shook her head. She suddenly felt too warm, almost faint. The crowd, so welcome because it was necessary to the success of the business, seemed to press in on her with all their perfumed heat. She had been drinking champagne on an empty stomach—that was all. It had nothing to do with the nearness of Aidan Huntington.
She swayed, her head swirling, and his arm came around her waist.
“Too much champagne,” she whispered.
Aidan chuckled, and his arm tightened. “Perhaps we should find one of those quiet parlors for a moment.”
That was the last thing she should be doing with him; Lily knew that very well. But the room swayed again, and his arm seemed to be all that held her steady. She nodded. “For a moment.”
She led him out of the crowded salon, his arm still around her as they left the cacophony of the revelers behind, and silence slowly enfolded them. They made their way up a narrow flight of stairs to the third floor, their way lit by a few hissing wall sconces that flickered over the white walls.
She could hear only their footsteps on the wooden
risers and the rustle of her silk skirts and net petticoats. The soft sound of his breath. The silence was almost deafening after the roar of the party.
The corridor at the top of the stairs was for storage and offices, not meant for public view. Lily led Aidan to the darkest end of the hall and slowly opened the last door there.
It was her own private sanctuary, her office where she could be alone and attend to business without the constant interruptions she always found at home. No one was allowed here, not even her brothers. Yet here she was with Aidan.
She ushered him in and lit a lamp on the desk as he leaned back against the door. The soft glow illuminated the old desk and shabby leather chair, the chaise piled high with pillows in the corner, the small fireplace. It also showed her books, on the shelves lining the walls, stacked on the floor, piled on the windowsill. Her treasures.
She watched Aidan’s face as he took it all in. If he could truly read her secrets with those beautiful eyes, Lily thought, then she might as well have opened her heart for him to look at rather than bring him here. This was
her
room, her secret place, the shelter of a street girl who had spent much of her childhood illiterate and ignorant and now craved all the wonders books could give her.
Why would she show it to him at all? But he had once said he wrote plays; perhaps he would understand her need for escape. For new realities.
“What is this place?” Aidan said quietly.
Lily leaned her palms on the cool, scarred surface of her desk and took a deep breath. “It’s my office.”
He pushed himself away from the door and moved to
one of the shelves with a quiet, catlike grace. “Sophocles, Plato, Milton, Byron. Shakespeare, of course,” he said, running the tip of his finger over the worn leather bindings. “You have quite an extensive library, Lily.”
“I must be a bluestocking, then,” she said lightly. But she had to swallow hard against the imagined vision of that caressing touch tracing the curve of her bare back, the swell of her backside. “I could not be an actress, so I read plays instead. That is all.”
Aidan shook his head. He turned away from the books, his body close to hers in the small space, and he reached out to touch her just as she had imagined. He traced the spiral of one of her loose curls where it lay against her neck, one long, slow caress that made her shiver. “You seem to be a lady of many talents.”
Lily could hardly breathe. Her skin tingled wherever he touched, a rippling, sparkling ribbon of feeling right into her core. She only wanted him to touch her again, wanted to explore this some more. She braced herself against the bookshelf to hold herself upright and reached up to catch his hand in hers. She held it tightly as she stared up into his eyes and tried to read his thoughts there. But his eyes were still veiled to her as he stared at their joined hands. He slowly twined his fingers with hers.
“Whatever my talents might be,” she whispered, “I’m sure they’re nothing to yours, Aidan.”
“Oh, I’m utterly useless. Just ask my family,” he answered roughly. His blue-sky stare slid from their hands to the lacy edge of her bodice, along the pale swell of her breasts. His avid gaze felt like a physical touch, hot and needful.
Lily couldn’t stop herself. She went up on tiptoe to
frame his face in her palms, tracing the sharp line of his cheekbones, the wings of his brows. She gently used her fingertips to urge his eyes to close, and when they did, she kissed him.
She had never craved a kiss so much. Aidan tasted of champagne and mint, of that deep, masculine darkness that was only him. She traced the tip of her tongue over the softness of his sensual lower lip, craving more. Craving all of him.
With a groan, his mouth opened under hers, and his arms came hard around her body, lifting her against him. His tongue pressed past her open lips to touch and tangle with hers.
It wasn’t a soft, tentative kiss, a gentle seeking. Aidan devoured her, his lips and tongue and teeth seeking out every part of her, claiming her, possessing her. And she
wanted
it, wanted more. It was as if his taste intoxicated her, and something white-hot exploded inside of her. She felt him press her back tightly against the shelf, bracing her there as he lifted her higher against his body.
Her skirts fell back in a ruffled froth as she wrapped her legs tightly around his lean hips and let herself fall completely into his hungry kiss. She shoved his coat away from his shoulders and dug her nails into his linen-covered back.
“Lily,” he groaned. His lips tore away from hers, and she cried out in protest, only to moan as his mouth trailed down the arch of her neck, his tongue tasting her skin. He licked and nipped at her, until her head fell back, and her fingers drifted into the waves of his hair to hold him to her. He bit down hard on the sensitive spot between her neck and shoulder.
“Aidan!” she cried, and her hips arched into him. Through the silk of her underthings and the wool of his trousers, she could feel his iron-hard erection. Wetness slid down her inner thigh, proof of how much she wanted him. How much they wanted each other.
She spread her legs wider and dug her heels into his taut buttocks. She let herself rock against him, her tight heat sliding over his hardness.
“Damn it all, you are killing me,” he growled, and Lily laughed at the deep, hoarse sound of his voice. At least she was not alone in this madness.
She closed her eyes tightly as his mouth trailed over the soft curve of her breast. He nudged the edge of her bodice out of his way until he could circle the tip of his tongue between her cleavage, on the bare, soft skin just above her corset. Her nipples tightened, and she wanted to feel his tongue on them, the heat of his mouth as he drew them in deep.
“Aidan, please,” she whispered.
He held her between his body and the bookshelf, and one of his long, elegant hands slid down over her ribs and her corseted waist, grasping her skirts to pull them up even higher.
“What do you want, Lily?” he demanded, his mouth on her breast. “Do you want me to touch you? Kiss you?”
“Yes,” she said.
He pulled hard on the silk of her bodice and the boned linen of her corset until her breast was bare. He bent his head to press hot, openmouthed kisses to the pale skin, soft and slow, circling teasingly toward her aching, erect nipple, then easing away until she tugged hard at his hair and cursed at him.
Aidan laughed roughly. “Such an unladylike mouth,” he said, and took her nipple between his teeth to suckle it hard. In the same instant, his hand slid up between her legs, and his palm pressed against her through the damp silk of her drawers.
Lily cried out in a harsh voice she didn’t even recognize as her own. She had never felt this way before, drowning in so much pleasure she couldn’t remember anything but this moment.
“So hot and wet,” he said, and he sounded as if he were in pain, as if he would snap at any instant. “Damn it, Lily, I want to put my mouth between your legs and see if you taste as sweet as you feel. I want to drive myself so deep into you, feel you tighten around me, pull me closer and closer until I don’t know where I end and you begin. What kind of spell do you have over me?”
Lily frantically shook her head.
He
was the one who had cast a spell over her. All she could see were those images in her mind: Aidan kneeling between her legs as he licked her, Aidan plunging into her as she wrapped her legs around his waist. Her head arched back, her eyes closed in pleasure as he drove into her again and again.
Aidan sprawled facedown across her bed as she stood over him with a riding crop…
That last image, so vivid and explicit in her mind, was like a burst of cold water over her burning lust. Her eyes flew open, and her hands tightened convulsively in his hair.
No!
She was not like her mother. She wouldn’t be, couldn’t be.
Yet here she was in her office, her body open around Aidan Huntington as he drove her mad with his kisses, his words. She
was
under some spell. He had unleashed
something deep inside of her she had fought for years to forget. She couldn’t let it free now. Couldn’t let it destroy her again.
Aidan seemed to sense something was wrong. His hand slid to her knee, and he looked up at her. His eyes burned in the shadows. It made her shiver, and she closed her eyes tightly against the sight.
“Lily, what’s wrong?” he said. “Did I hurt you? I’m so sorry I forgot…”
She shook her head. She kept her eyes shut as he slowly lowered her to her feet, and her skirts tumbled back into place. He hadn’t hurt her—he had given her more pleasure in a physical act than she had ever thought possible, but she was shaking as if she stood in a winter storm. She turned away and pressed her hands to her burning cheeks.
“I’ve been gone from the club too long,” she said.
“Of course. Let me escort you back downstairs.”
Lily smoothed her hair back into its pins and tugged her bodice over her shoulders. She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the window glass and saw to her surprise that she looked almost like she had before. If no one looked too closely at her overly bright eyes and swollen mouth.
She touched the spot on her neck where he had caught her with his teeth and hoped fervently there was no mark. Her brothers would know at once what had happened, and she didn’t want a quarrel on top of everything else. Her emotions were in enough of a swirling turmoil.
She drew in a deep breath and slowly turned to see Aidan still standing half in the shadows. His hair was tousled over his brow, and he was retying his cravat as he watched her. He frowned as if he was as strangely affected by what had happened between them as she was.
Lily almost laughed at the thought. This sort of thing probably happened to Aidan every day. Probably he only wondered why she had stopped him before he gave her all of what she so clearly wanted.
“I’m sorry, Lily,” he said. “I don’t usually get quite so… uncontrolled.”
Lily shook her head. “There is nothing for you to be sorry for, Aidan. We kissed. That’s all.”
Kissed—and so much more. She had wanted so much more, wanted him inside of her, thrusting deep until she could feel him in her very core. But that would be so foolish. She opened the door and slid out into the corridor. Aidan followed behind her, close to her but not saying anything. As they made their way down the hall, the noise of the party grew louder and louder, the lights brighter. On the landing outside the salon, she turned to him with a smile she hoped looked cool and calm, not as shaky and unreal as she felt.