London Lace #1 Read online

  She cleared her throat and his eyes shot up to meet hers. She watched his Adam’s apple rise and fall as he swallowed, and then, in a low, husky voice, he said,

  “Can I kiss you?”

  Eliza surprised herself—at least the tingly part of herself located between her legs—by saying, “No.”

  She pushed the door open to the flat, followed by a frowning Todd. She took two small mugs down from the open shelf above the counter and poured out the hot coffee. It smelled delicious. She handed him a mug.

  “I don’t suppose you have any wine?” he said.

  She laughed. “I thought you came over to sober me up?”

  “Only enough to let me in the door.”

  He smiled again, but this smile was different—sexy, daring, invitational, and accompanied by a searing gaze. Eliza felt a fluttering in her belly. That smile, that look, had a more sobering effect than the coffee. But only for a second. Because the implications of that look, once combined with Eliza’s imagination, were entirely intoxicating.

  Todd shrugged out of his tweed coat. “Do you mind? It’s warm in here.”

  It was more than warm. It was hot with him in the room.

  “I just had a bath.”

  “Yes. The wet hair gave it away. Plus it smells good. You like fancy soap.”

  He was observant, especially from the way he described finding her apartment, and Eliza liked that, but it also worried her. Good observers noticed the good and the bad, and the inadequate. She pulled her robe closer to her chest.

  Setting her coffee mug down, she retrieved a wine glass and pulled the cork out of a recently-opened bottle of Italian Chianti. She poured him a glass and exchanged it for the coffee mug.

  “Thank you,” he said. “May I?”

  He sat down on the couch even before she nodded.

  Somewhat sarcastically, she said, “Sure, go ahead. Make yourself at home.”

  He gave her a sideways glance. “You’re a tough one to crack, aren’t you?”

  “Takes one to know one, I guess. I’m still not sure why you’re here.”

  “Are my motives not transparent enough?”

  She shook her head, downed the rest of her coffee and then poured herself a glass of wine. Why not? Apparently, the night was still young.

  “Well, let me summarize. Firstly, I wanted to apologize.”

  “I thought you wanted to sober me up.”

  She dropped onto the other end of the sofa, a safe distance away, and covered her crossed knees with the longest section of her robe.

  He said, “That was secondary, and came after you called me. I was quite worried about you actually, because I couldn’t be sure how many others you had called before me or who else you might call after.”

  “Hey! I didn’t —”

  “—I was only kidding.” He grinned. “But that was my second motivation for coming here. I’ve been wanting to apologize since you stormed out of the coffee shop this afternoon.”

  “I was across the street all afternoon. I also have a phone. Or you could have waited until tomorrow.”

  “That’s what I was planning to do before you called me and reamed me out. Clearly tomorrow was going to be too late.”

  He had relaxed somewhat, turning his body toward her and laying his arm across the back of the couch. With his jacket off, his T-shirt hugged his sculpted chest. His bicep was also beautifully on display, and close enough for Eliza to touch. She had a funny feeling he knew the power of his pose.

  “Well, you’ve apologized now. And you've sobered me up. Mission accomplished.” She held up her wine glass. “Even if now I’m choosing to rebel.”

  “You are a bit of a rebel, aren’t you?” He smiled. Damn that smile was charming. “You’ve probably been able to guess that I’m rather stubborn, and a tad impulsive.”

  “I can be pretty stubborn, too,” she said. “I’m not terribly impulsive. Well, unless I’ve been drinking.”

  She looked at the wine in her hand, and then set her glass on the coffee table. She was giving too much away.

  When she looked back at Todd, he held her gaze. “I do have to confess that I had one more motivation. I hadn’t planned on acting on it, at least not until I got here…”

  “Oh?” Eliza was curious. Then she remembered what he said on the landing. “Oh.”

  He lifted his knee onto the couch, an open triangle that made his whole body turn to her, and effectively pulled his jeans tight across his crotch.

  Eliza quickly lifted her eyes to his face. “Um. This has all been a bit unexpected…”

  “Would it make any difference if I told you I wanted to kiss you the first moment you walked into the coffee shop?”

  Had that feeling been the source of that momentary open look?

  He continued, “And that I was angry at myself for thinking, for feeling, that? The fact is, I was humoring Tatum and Victoria by meeting with you.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “That’s not what I meant. They want to turn me into one of them, and there are some strings attached to the family fortune, so that occasionally I have to jump through hoops to keep the strings from snapping. But when I saw you…”

  He stared into his wine glass. “…I just got confused. And when I’m confused I get angry and turn into a rude prick. The guy you met today. But I’m not confused anymore, or at least I’m less so.”

  He laughed at himself and stole a glance at Eliza, whose head was swimming with all of this new, strangely intimate information. He waited for her to say something.

  She said, “This is all a bit unexpected.”

  He frowned and looked into his wine again. Then he lifted the glass to his lips, tilted his head back and downed the remains.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Maybe I shouldn’t have come.” He straightened his knee to the floor. Impulsively, Eliza reached for his arm before he pulled it from the back of the sofa.

  “Wait, it’s all right.” Then she was tongue-tied. All she was aware of was her hand on the skin of his forearm. It felt like there was a layer of flame between her palm and the tawny hairs covering his skin—a low, thin, blue flame, like a glass of ignited Sambuca, or a Christmas pudding. A caressing, burning, barely visible current of energy.

  Todd watched her, his eyes penetrating, searching for something in hers.

  In that low husky voice of his, he said, “What if I told you I wasn’t going to leave until you kissed me?”

  Eliza realized she might at first think him a stalker. He was a volatile combination of stubbornness, anger, impulsiveness, and virile grace. He was a seducer, but he was also a loner. He was reaching out to her, but also wanted to keep her at bay, at a safe, controllable distance. He was conflicted. Intense. Sure of himself but less sure of her. She knew she should be cautious, that she could get hurt, but her deepest intuition informed her that he wasn’t dangerous. He was enough of a gentleman to not physically hurt her. And as her hand lay upon his arm, her deepest intuition also informed her that he would be most capable of giving her exquisite pleasure. At what cost, she couldn’t be sure.

  She said, “Then I wouldn’t let you kiss me.”

  He frowned, looked angry, and the muscles under his T-shirt flexed. She leaned forward.

  “I wouldn’t let you kiss me because I wouldn’t want you to leave.”

  A small intake of breath and his eyes closed for a fraction of a second. She saw him clench and unclench his fist.

  “I really should go,” he said, standing suddenly.

  “Why?” Eliza stood, too, surprisingly sober all of a sudden. She really didn’t want him to go.

  He turned to her with what seemed like pain in his eyes. “If I kiss you I won’t be able to stop.” ’

  “Maybe you wouldn’t have to.”

  “I told you before, I don’t do ‘proper’. I won’t be able to stop at one goodnight kiss, Eliza.”

  He was warning her. Why did he feel the need for that? Did he really have no control ov
er himself? If she set aside the red flag element of that statement, she noticed the thought excited her. To think she might be matched in uninhibited wildness gave her a thrill. But there was the possibility of disappointment too. Were his words a cryptic way of saying he was a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am kind of guy?

  His whole body had tensed as he stood in front of her, holding himself back. Clearly, he was controlling himself now. She looked at his chest, rising and falling with his breath. She stole a glance at his jeans, below the belt, and saw a tempting shape sculpted there, tempting enough to risk the disappointment part of her assessment.

  “I’m not a delicate English rose,” she said, taking a step toward him, letting her robe drift over her skin according to gravity’s pull. She was still covered, but less so, the V at her neck diving deeper, the slit of silk over her thighs sliding open.

  She reached for his hand so that she might unclench his fist. He took her hand in his and lifted it to his lips. He kissed the back of her hand.

  “And you say you don’t do proper,” she whispered. He looked along the length of her arm until his eyes were locked on hers. His cool blue gaze made her breath catch in her throat. He held her, barely, by one hand, yet she felt frozen in place by that look.

  Slowly, very slowly, he turned her hand over in his. Gently, very gently, he kissed the inside of her palm. Her eyes closed for an extended blink while she felt that sensation travel through her body right to her toes. Then she felt a hot, soft flick of tongue on the inside of her wrist. She gasped and opened her eyes.

  He was focused on one extremity and yet she felt as if he already controlled her entire body. He looked at her in that sexy, daring way, only now there was more hunger, more fire, more power barely reined in and ready to explode. He looked up through his dark lashes and a few locks of hair that had fallen over his forehead.

  In a husky whisper he demanded, “Where is your bed?”

  Eliza swallowed, turned so that she might point to the curtained-off alcove, but no sooner had she taken her eyes off him than she felt herself grabbed and lifted forcefully off her feet. It happened so quickly, she felt instantly dizzy and had to clutch at his shoulders while the butterflies untangled in her belly. She felt herself carried several quick paces across her apartment. Her legs drove the brocade curtains apart until Todd was standing right next to the bed. As forcefully as he had lifted her up, he set her down slowly and tenderly. Eliza was aware of each of his heavy breaths, and she sensed it was from his desire rather than her weight. His mouth was close to her ear.

  “I’m going to kiss you soon,” he whispered.

  “Now,” she said. His lips were so close to hers.

  But then he was gone, away from her ear, her cheek, her watering mouth. He was standing his full height over her, his arms crisscrossed in front of his waist. In a flash, his white T-shirt was above his head and then on the floor.

  His chest was the color of smooth toffee, his nipples nut brown. No smattering of hair, not even at his waistline. She shifted on the bed to prop herself up so that she might reach up and grab his belt, draw him close.

  “Don’t move,” he said. He undid his belt and slipped out of his shoes. He coiled up his belt, set it carefully on the side table, giving her a sidelong look. He was enjoying making her wait!

  He pulled off his socks and then stood above her again. She tried to reach for him but he moved out of her reach and toward the end of the bed. He undid the top button of his jeans.

  He said, “Let me look at you.”

  “You are looking at me.”

  “I can’t see enough of you.”

  There was light from the sitting room angling in through the half-open curtains, and some streetlight from the window. Eliza wanted to light candles, to add more romance, and more flattering light.

  She said, “I have some votives on the window sill.”

  “I can see just fine. Just not enough. Of you.”

  He bent one knee onto the bed, between Eliza’s ankles, and then leaned over. One arm supported his weight, the other reached for her robe. Without touching her, he fingered the sash of her robe, pulled on it. Then he put a finger on her sternum and slid it down across her belly, separating the silk panels from each other. His finger trailed lightly, soft and warm, below her belly, to the dark triangle, downy and fragrant from bathing. He stopped and looked into her eyes. Eliza didn’t know if they gave off a look of fright or anticipation, but she did know she was holding her breath and she tried very hard to relax and breathe. A deep trembling sigh escaped. Todd’s finger continued its journey. Slowly and softly. Eliza wanted to lift and roll herself toward him, but she held herself back. She kept herself still, waiting. His finger had slid over and past her mons. He was going to touch her, there, and they hadn’t even kissed yet.

  “When are you going to kiss me?” She had to bite her lip to keep herself from writhing.

  He didn’t answer. His finger slid across her clit and she gasped, her thighs pressing together from the shock of his electric touch.

  “Whoa, there,” he said softly nudging her thighs apart again. He kissed one knee, and the inside of her thigh. And then, without warning, she felt his lips where his finger had been.

  She cried out, her arms reaching across either side of the bed, her fingers clutching the quilt spread.

  His tongue swathed her labia in commanding swirls.

  Her back arched, her hips rolled forward. Her whole body seemed ready to give itself to him, while her mind was saying, wait, slow down, I haven’t caught up to this moment yet. His tongue plunged between her folds, and lapped up over her clit. With flicking licks he roused her to a sharp edge of climax. So fast, faster than anyone else had ever managed. She tried to shimmy up the bed, just an inch or two away from his insistent tongue, to slow things down, but her body resisted, desire and the promise of release too overpowering.

  She gave in to her body’s rhythms, her pussy’s drenched lips merging with his. His whole-mouth, tongue-probing kisses narrowed their focus on her clit. With a swirl of his tongue and a suck of his lips, her breathing grew ragged, her neck arched. He swirled and sucked, swirled and sucked. She barely noticed that her hands had left the sides of the bed and her fingers were now tangled in his hair.

  The soft thickness of that hair pressing into her palms induced more pleasure, and she pressed his face closer to her body, bucking against him. The sweet, sharp stabs of ecstasy sparked into flames in her center and radiated up and out through her limbs, her chest, her face.

  He drank great gulps of her as she came with a sudden bucking force. And then she held him still between her thighs as the waves pulsated through her. When his tongue swirled once more, at the height of her sensitivity, she bucked again, awash in pleasure, and trembling. She felt tingles in her fingers and toes.

  She opened her eyes. She had forgotten where she was, who she was with. She barely knew the man between her legs! This man she had so wildly given herself to, or more accurately, been taken by.

  “Why…” she whispered, her voice still gaspy, and husky from rapid orgasmic breathing. “Why did you do that?”

  When she finally relaxed her thighs, he slid up toward her belly, kissing her gently there, his soft hair falling lightly against her rising and falling ribs.

  “Some women ask how, no one’s ever asked why.”

  “I mean why did you do that first?”

  She looked at him across the mounds of her tits, her nipples still erect. His blue eyes looked soft and satisfied, but mischievous, too. She shifted onto one elbow. His elbows were on either side of her waist, his chest against her midriff, while his lower body, still bound in his jeans, lay between her legs. He couldn’t feel that satisfied, not with that bulge caught in denim, unless…

  “Why?” she asked.

  His chin was propped in his hands and he stared at her, a coy smile on his lips.

  “You are very beautiful when you are perturbed.”

  Beautiful? She di
dn’t think so. Not at this moment. Her wet hair had partially dried and was tangled at the back of her head from thrashing side to side. But she didn’t care. Who was this man? What did he want from her? She licked her dry lips.

  “Hold that thought.” In one swift movement he was off her and gone through the curtains. She lay there, spread-eagled and spent, far from dignified.

  She gathered her silk robe, damp now in several places, around her cooling skin, and sat up against the headboard. What had she done? What was she doing? And she’d asked him ‘why?’ of all the dumb things to say, and he had said some women ask ‘how’, but she didn’t want to think about him doing that to other women, though he couldn’t have gotten that good without a lot of practice.

  “Uh, oh. Still thinking?” Todd walked in with two full glasses of wine. As he handed her one, she saw the long hard bulge still in his jeans despite the trip to the sink and back. He adjusted himself slightly as he sat down on the edge of the bed beside her. He took a sip of his wine; she took a sip of hers.

  He said, “So, why did I do that first?”

  She nodded. He pushed his hair back off his forehead and furrowed his brow before continuing.

  “Well, the first reason is that I want you to know that kind of pleasure from me first because I want you to know that your pleasure, from now on, will be the first thing I think about upon waking and the last thing I think about when I go to sleep, and in between I hope to be doing it more than thinking it.” He gave her that look again, a glowering sexy look of untamed hunger.

  She took a huge gulp of wine, finishing it all in one go, but her hands were still shaking when she set down her glass.

  He set down his glass, not quite empty, next to hers.

  “And the second reason…” His voice was soft and tender all of sudden. He looked deep into her eyes, and she saw that small hint of pain again. He drew a finger along her collarbone. “…the second reason is because I don’t usually do that first with anyone, and I don’t want anything about you, or us, to be usual.”