Seduction in Mind

Chapter Nine

"What are you doing?" Harry lamented, gazing at her with his puppy-dog eyes as she walked up to him in the garden.

"I might ask the same of you." Alex sighed, the summer light illuminating the youthful beauty of Harry's face, his pale golden hair, the dew-fresh texture of his skin. "Darling," she said in a kinder tone, "you can't do this. You know I see other people."

"I wish you didn't."

"But I do and I will and I made all that perfectly clear from the beginning."

"I adore you, Alex… I can't sleep-I can't paint…"

"Don't talk like that, Harry. You're too good a painter not to concentrate on your work."

"Come and see me. Then I'll work."

"Don't you dare do that to me. I'm not taking responsibility for your career." Having spent enough years subordinating her own wishes to those of others, she turned to leave.

"I'm sorry." The young man grasped her arm. "Alex, please… I'm sorry. Tell me you'll come and see me again."

Tall and coltish at twenty, he towered over her, but the misery in his eyes was plain to see. She was overcome with guilt. "I'll come over on Friday, but promise me you'll work."

"I will… absolutely." Swiftly bending, he kissed her and as quickly said, "I'm sorry… I couldn't resist. I'll finish the Brighton seascape by Friday and you may have it."

"You'll sell it to Beecher. He's been waiting for it for months."

"Yes, ma'am," he said with a grin, his spirits restored. "Whatever you say. And I'll have flowers for you on Friday because the roses in Hyde Park are in full bloom."

She smiled at him. "You're a cheeky brat and I forbid you to steal any more flowers."

"Didn't you like the larkspur? I did a small pastel sketch of them before I brought them over. You may have that if you won't take the Brighton painting."

"Harry, darling. Sell the pastel too. You can use the money for new paints, and Beecher will buy anything you have."

Pushing his hair behind his ears in a quick, brushing gesture, he smiled. "Now that I'm painting again."

"I'm going to have to find you a nice young lady your own age, so you'll settle down and work," Alex declared.

"I don't want one. I want you."

"But I can't always be there to inspire your painting mood. Now, be a darling and go home. I have company."

"Ranelagh came back, didn't he? You know, he's not your type, Alex. He's notorious."

"Thank you for the advice, you wet-behind-the-ears pup."

"At least he won't stay long. He never does, they say. And then you'll have more time for me," he observed cheerfully.

"You're full of pleasantries today," she remarked, although she was pleased at his altered mood.

"You'll see. While I'll be faithful forever because I love you with all my heart."

"I don't want you to love me with all your heart. I've told you before, I want you to find other amusements, Harry. I'm too old for you."

"Of course you're not." But he had no intention of arguing now that she'd agreed to see him again. "Do you want me to cook dinner on Friday?"

"You work. I'll bring something."

"Just you is enough." He quickly kissed her again and then turned with a wave and, whistling, walked away.

"No more flowers?" Sam asked as Alex reentered the bedroom.

"Harry says you're notorious and won't stay long and he was quite cheerful when he left."

"You must have promised him something."

The man was prescient and she hesitated, debating how truthful to be.

He recognized the moment of evasion and obligingly changed the subject. "He's young. Where did you find him?"

"He found me. You don't approve?"

He shrugged. "It depends how young, I suppose, although it's none of my business."

"That's true."

"As long as we won't be interrupted again, it's not a problem." He'd had time in her absence to come to his senses.

"I doubt we will, although, as you say, Harry's young-and rash." She smiled at him. "Not altogether a youthful trait."

"My reckless behavior doesn't include voyeurism."

"Really… never?" She'd heard of the tableaux vivants in the brothels.

"I recognize a leading remark when I hear it-but I'm too involved"-his smile was lush with suggestion-"in my own affairs to worry about others."

"Like now."

"If you're still in the mood after your adoring swain."

"Adoration has its disadvantages."

"So I've discovered."

"We've become blase, it seems," she said with a small smile. "Do you ever wish for the naivete of adolescence? Or perhaps a man like you was never naive."

"Like me?" He grinned. "What the hell does that mean?"

"I can't picture you in an adoring mood."

"Just because I don't have long blond hair and calf's eyes?"

"No, because you're too jaded and cynical."

"But not worth dismissing for all that," he said, one dark brow raised in conjecture.

"No," she replied softly. "Even for all that."

His smile was distinctly uncynical. In fact, it was gloriously inviting. "I'm glad."

"These feelings we have-I have-"

"We have," he countered. "Have brought us here against our best judgment."

"And kept us here when we both know if we were thinking clearly, we'd walk away."

"While we could."

She looked at him for a salient moment. "Surely, it's not that dramatic."

He shrugged. "I can't leave, and I told myself I should when you were outside with that damned child."

"I told him I'd see him on Friday."

"I know. He wouldn't have left otherwise."

"You've done this before."

"Probably," he said.

"And does it work?" He was importuned ceaselessly, she suspected.

"Sometimes."

"And when it doesn't?"

"You switch to another plan."

"Do you continue switching, or are you rude eventually?"

"I'm not going to tell you. You have to do what you have to do."

"But none of that applies to us, because we're going to be adults about this."

"Fucking, you mean."

"Yes. And you didn't feel the need to dress, for which I'm grateful."

"I wasn't going anywhere."

"How cool you are. Does it take enormous practice?"

The amount of practice he'd had wouldn't be something she'd appreciate, so he answered with diplomacy. "My nannies beat good manners into me. Now, come here and we'll see about you having some more orgasms."

She moved toward him, wanting what he wanted, feeling famished when she never did, feeling as though he'd been away a month.

And when she came to rest before him, he slowly unwrapped the sheet covering her, let it slide to the floor, untangled the knot in her chemise ribbon, eased off the filmy garment, and drew her close with such aching slowness, she moaned softly as he bent low and touched her mouth with his. "Now then," he said a moment later, raising his head. "Are you going to insist on the bed again?"

Wondering how he could bring her to fever pitch with a mere kiss, she drew in a calming breath. "At the moment, I'm not sure I'm capable of insisting on anything save speed."

He lifted her chin with a crooked finger. "We can do that. Is he gone?"

"Does it matter?"

"Not particularly."

A frisson of excitement flared through her senses at the casualness of his reply.

"Let's go outside and see."

"Like this?"

"What's left of the sun will feel good." He picked up the sheet from the carpet. "So your delicate skin isn't damaged."

"Or yours, and I'm not sure I can do this in daylight."

"I'll show you how." Taking her hand, he drew her out into the studio and through the terrace doors.

He moved with an uninhibited grace, at ease with his nakedness, and she regarded him from under her lashes as they moved outside. As an artist, she viewed the perfection of his form with both an objectivity and a keen eye for detail, and she wondered the degree of activity necessary to maintain the steel-hard muscle tone and the lithe grace of his limbs. He had the body of an athlete, broad-shouldered, lean-hipped, long-legged, and his hand holding hers was callused from riding.

"So you don't normally make love al fresco," he remarked casually, skirting a beautifully clipped boxwood.

"I don't even normally make love-only on occasion."

He shot a glance at her. "I would have thought your dance card full."

"I have other interests."

"I see," he said politely, moving down a grassy path alongside a trellis of flowering jasmine. "But not right now."

"You're much too smug, Ranelagh."

"Call me Sam." He smiled. "I feel I know you."

She stopped abruptly and tried to pull her hand away.

And when he turned to look at her, her temper showed.

"I've changed my mind."

He was instantly apologetic. "Forgive me. It was tactless and rude of me"-he suddenly smiled-"but I couldn't resist when you said 'I have other interests' in that decorous, prim tone. And at the risk of offending you further-why the hell did you marry two old men?"

She was every man's dream standing before him, gloriously naked, her voluptuous body as perfect in person as in the paintings she'd posed for, the auburn hair on her mons still wet from their lovemaking.

"You wouldn't understand."

She hadn't moved, but she'd not withdrawn her hand either. An encouraging sign, he thought. "Tell me anyway."

He seemed taller, standing on her grassy path-larger than life-more perhaps than she could comfortably deal with considering the scope of his wildness. But she wished to find out now that she had him… here, and while her feelings were chaotic and unsure, whether he wanted what she wanted. "Do you want to make love or not?"

"You don't wish to tell me."

"No." How could someone like Ranelagh ever understand?

"I'm sorry I asked… and I do want to make love." He dropped the sheet he was carrying and pulled her close. "I won't ask another question. I'm here only to serve you, ma'am…"

His cheeky smile matched the impertinence of his remark, but she wanted him, cheeky or not, inquisitive or not, disreputable or not, for the sheer beauty of his lovemaking. She nodded, a moment of truth for herself perhaps, or perhaps only affirmation of his statement. "Good… because I enjoy the quality of your"-she glanced down at his beautifully formed erection-" service."

He took a small breath, the provocation in her words highly arousing. "Would the grass suit you, my lady?" His voice was soft, low, touched with a tantalizing deference, artless in its single-minded purpose.

"Perfectly."

"Is the sun warm enough?"

"Very."

"The scent of the flowers-is it adequate?"

"Completely."

"Then I should see if you're ready for me," he whispered.

She felt his words in the heated core of her body, in the fevered rhythm of her heart, and when she said "I've been ready for you since yesterday," her voice trembled at the last.

He smiled. "And I've been wanting to take out these hairpins since the first time I saw you at Leighton's," he told her, reaching up to lift one of the ruby pins from her tousled hair.

"You were much too arrogant at Leighton's and last night. I told myself I wouldn't do this," she said on a small caught breath as a tress of her hair tumbled onto her bare shoulder.

He reached for a second pin. "And here we are."

"Lost to all shame."

He stood arrested for a flashing moment, the jeweled pin between his fingertips.

She smiled. "I didn't mean it literally."

He looked relieved.

And she laughed. "So you're aware of respectability."

Amusement flickered in his eyes. "Only from a distance."

"You were actually worried."

"Not worried, thinking," he replied, pulling out the second pin. "Such moral integrity is offputting."

"You mean you wouldn't be able to perform?"

He chuckled. "No, I didn't mean that."

"Because you always do."

Pulling out two more pins, he shrugged faintly. "I'm not about to answer that."

"As long as you perform for me, I'm content."

He tossed the pins in his hand onto the sheet and ran his fingers through her loosened hair. "No problem there," he assured her. Sliding his hand under her chin, he lifted her face. "How many times do you want it?"

The grass was cool on her back even through the sheet, and she trembled as he gently eased her thighs open. He was kneeling between her legs, his broad shoulders blocking out the sun, his lean torso limned by the light, and there was no explanation for the intense, fevered lust she felt. Nothing in all her past that would serve as a reference-not one lover, not one husband, not a hero from the pages of a book had ever made her feel such mindless desire. It was as if he exuded some potent allure, or cast a magical spell and, mesmerized, she was in thrall.

But he had more than bewitching allure, she realized, gazing at the enormity of his upthrust erection lying flat against his stomach. And she ached with longing to feel him deep inside her.

There was no question of his sexual accomplishments, nor of the reason he was so much in demand. Neither could she begrudge the legions of ladies in his wake. Like them, she'd been given the benefit of his virtuoso talents.

And like them, she wanted more.

He seemed to understand, or perhaps his emotions were in accord, for he entered her short moments later with a soft apology for his impatience, gliding in with a silken friction that touched her to the quick, overwhelmed her senses, gave credence to the phrase lost to all reason. And when at last he filled her completely, when she felt as though she couldn't breathe for the size of him, when ravishing sensation strummed outward from her tautly stretched tissue and pulsed through her body, she sobbed from the sheer, sublime, overwrought pleasure.

"Don't cry," he whispered, terrified he'd hurt her.

"I'm-not…" she sobbed, her hands hard on his back.

And then he understood and put away his brief apprehension and did what he did so well-what made him vaunted, pursued, cherished by females far and wide. He made love to her as though she were the first in his heart-in the world-taking care to please her, knowing how to please her, going slowly when she wished it and not slow at all when she wanted more. And when she came that first time-quickly, as she had before-and melted around him, the sun on his back and the heat of ardor merged in an uncommon feeling even he was forced to recognize as rare.

"You don't have to be so polite," she breathed, knowing he'd withheld his orgasm.

"It's not politeness." His voice was low, hushed, the warmth of his breath caressing her cheek. "It's a fucking game…"

She could feel him hard inside her, the smallest of tremors beginning again, rippling, shimmering up her stretched tissue. "I'm pleased you came back…"

"Not as pleased as I." He kissed the tender flesh behind her ear.

"I haven't had a playmate before."

He smiled at his good fortune when it shouldn't have mattered, when he'd had playmates galore. "I haven't either," he whispered, understanding he spoke more truth than lie. She fit perfectly, they fit perfectly, the notion of play had taken on a degree of pleasure hitherto unknown-the fluid rhythm of his lower body a gratifying case in point-and hedonist that he was, he wasn't about to let her go. "I'll be staying…" he said, sliding in deeper, holding himself hard against her womb.

"I'll… let… you." Breathy pauses punctuated her words, her fingers tightened on his back.

"Much obliged," he drawled softly.

But she didn't hear him, or if she did, the impudence in his tone didn't matter with another orgasm beginning to overwhelm her. And her soft cry a moment later drifted up into the bank of yellow roses tumbling overhead.

After a time, the scent of crushed grass rose in the balmy air-and the aroma of sex, and were it possible, the fragrance of bliss would have mingled as well in the sweet-smelling air.

She was insatiable, he thought, indoors and out, and he wondered if she'd truly been without a man at all. From a personal point of view he wouldn't have thought it possible, but after her fifth climax he was no longer so sure. Although, perhaps the lady was just hot-blooded.

No matter the reasons for her demanding sexuality, the mutual ravishment couldn't be faulted, and much later, when he considered his gentlemanly duties sufficiently performed, he finally allowed himself release.

Gazing up at him, she smiled sweetly and said "Thank you. I've really enjoyed myself" as though it were over.

"No need to thank me yet, I'm not finished." And grabbing a corner of the sheet, he wiped the come from her stomach, rolled away, and lay spread-eagle under the sun, content. "This is much better than being polite to the Prince of Wales all afternoon…"

"Your politeness to me can't be faulted," she replied, a small drollery in her tone.

Turning his head, he offered her a lazy smile. "But then, I'm having fun too."

"Fun?"

"Isn't it?"

Quicksilver, she rearranged a lifetime of perceptions. "Does anyone ever disagree?"

A transient pause brought the trill of birdsong suddenly to the fore.

"I've never actually-"

"Talked to a woman?"

He rolled upward into a seated position, the play of his abdominal muscles dramatic. "I'm not so sure I like your insinuation," he said, frowning faintly.

"Answer my question."

He exhaled softly. "If you must know, most women aren't interested in talking."

"Or you don't give them time."

"There're better things to do."

"What if I wanted to talk?"

A sportive grin lifted his mouth. "What do you mean 'what if?"

"I mean really talk."

Leaning back on his hands, he tipped his head. "Talk away."

"You'll listen?"

"I've plenty of time."

A small silence fell while Alex mentally scrambled to find a suitable topic.

"There. You see?"

"I dislike smug men."

"Do you dislike men who can make you come another dozen times?" His gaze flicked downward to his erection and then back again to her.

"That's exceedingly smug, Ranelagh."

"Answer my question," he said as she had only moments before.

"I suppose I don't," she noted grudgingly.

"You suppose?"

Her glance fluttered to his rampant erection and as quickly away.

"Why let this go to waste?" He looked up at the sun as though gauging the time.

"Is your schedule busy?" Taut, thin-skinned, not wishing to feel so needy and overwhelmed, she sat up quickly. "Don't let me keep you."

His laugh was beguiling. "I don't have a schedule, and if I did, I'd change it to stay here with you."

She found her temper subsiding under the charm of his reply.

"I'll have to mind my manners," he observed playfully. "Your temper is damnably quick."

"I'm sorry."

His eyes widened in feigned astonishment. "Have I finally done something right?"

"You've done any number of glorious things right, as if you didn't know," she said with a sudden grin. "And perhaps we really shouldn't waste our time."

"Are we done talking, then?" His voice was smooth as silk.

She nodded.

"Thank you, ma'am." Leaning over, he lifted her onto his lap, minutely adjusted her as though it mattered where their bare flesh met.

His power was awesome-the startling width of his shoulders, the solid, honed muscles of his chest and arms, the iron-hard thighs beneath her. "You're very strong," she said on a caught breath, feeling exceedingly small against his body.

"The better to handle you, my sweet."

"Even if I don't wish to be handled?"

"Even then," he replied quietly, swinging her around so she was straddling his thighs.

She touched the dark curve of one brow with her fingertip. "Should I take offense?" Their eyes were almost on a level, desire mirrored in their depths.

"You probably should," he whispered, lifting her bottom with one hand, guiding his erection to her damp cleft with the other. "If you didn't want this cock I'm putting-"

She sighed softly as he thrust upward.

"Here," he breathed, pressing her hips firmly downward.

She purred, a low, pleasurable sound, and clung to his broad shoulders, giving herself up to the rush of pleasure, no longer questioning his power to incite, only reveling in the wondrous feeling. Every cell, every nerve, was alive with delirious sensation, the world distant and ordinary, delectable rapture coiling in the pit of her stomach and in her brain, in the heated silk of her skin, most exquisitely where he rested deep inside her.

As he gently raised her, she resisted.

"There… there," he whispered, forcing her upward. "I'm coming back." And he held her suspended on the very crest of his erection.

"Now," she insisted, struggling against his strength.

"Soon…" His breath brushed the jewel-hard tip of one nipple. "If you behave," he promised, drawing the taut bud into his mouth.

She should repudiate his authority; she shouldn't be so in thrall, but at that instant his mouth closed on her nipple, a racing heat melted downward to the pulsing core of her body, and covetous lust inundated her brain. "Please… please-oh, God, please…"

"Are you begging me?" he asked against her skin, pausing in his sucking.

"Yes, yes, whatever you say… please…"

Such sexual largesse was too much for even the most practiced libertine, and the concept of casual play gave way to a more avaricious hunger. Precipitously, she was impaled on his engorged penis, his large hands spanning her hips, holding her motionless while she panted in ecstasy. Struck by his own irrepressible sense of engagement, he decided there must be a God after all-why else would he be here with this particular woman in this particular garden, feeling these staggering sensations or, more pertinently, why was he feeling as insatiable as she? The question was briefly disconcerting; he was never insatiable. But male impulse quickly took over, obliterating intellectual preoccupations. Leaning back on his elbows, he focused on her delectable offer to do anything. Which thought brought a new dimension to his erection.

She moaned, a full, lush sound.

He briefly shut his eyes against the need for restraint, and then he said, his voice husky with passion, "Ride me, Miss Ionides. Show me what you can do."

It was the voice of authority however softly put, and were she less insensate with desire, she might have responded differently-slapped him for his effrontery perhaps, or lashed him with her tongue. As it was, she was too much in rut to experience anything but a stabbing rush of longing, and she complied, because she desperately needed what he could give her.

He watched her raise and lower herself, once, twice, three times, while an unnerving tumult coursed through his brain. Her large breasts quivered as she moved, he noted with a reckless lack of detachment.

Her cheeks were flushed, her flamboyant eyes half-hidden behind her lowered lashes, and he wondered why he felt such a headlong need to master her.

Her fevered gaze met his as she slid downward again and traced her forefinger down his chest with just enough force to leave a mark on his bronzed skin. "Who's winning?" she whispered as if she could read his mind.

He brushed her hand away, the stinging path left by her nail as provoking as her gaze. "It depends on who wants to come the most," he muttered, not sure of the answer for the first time in his life.

She drew in a sharp breath. "Bastard."

"Bitch." But the word was dulcet and low, without rancor. "Sweet, fucking bitch…"

He abruptly took over then, because he suddenly couldn't wait any more than he could pretend this game was like the others.

It wasn't.

She wasn't.

It wasn't even a fucking game anymore.

He wanted her as much as she wanted him-maybe more-because he knew his eagerness and impatience had nothing to do with any possible celibacy. Quickly rolling her onto her back, he covered her, engulfed her, drove into her welcoming heat with an unnecessary ferocity, as though he could possess her and obliterate his own chaotic feelings by brute strength alone.

She was literally panting in his arms, his own breathing equally labored, when voices intruded from beyond the jasmine hedge and rose trellis and a conversation about watering hydrangeas brought her rigid in his arms. Not about to stop this side of death, he quickly covered her mouth with his, inhaled her soft cry of alarm, and tightening his grip on her hips continued his hard-driving rhythm until she no longer cared about the neighbors' discussion or no longer heard it. She was clinging to him now as if he were her last hope or her best hope or her own personal savior, and when she came, she bit down hard on his lip, sank her nails into his back, and silently died away in his arms.

No more than a second after her climax ended, he followed her to his own blissful fulfillment and, braced above her, panting, he tried to catch his breath.

"I might have to move away after this," she whispered, the neighbors' voices having drifted away. "Oh, dear-you're bleeding!"

"It's nothing." He licked away the blood on his lower lip. "And consider, I learned not to overwater hydrangeas."

She laughed. "And I learned not to make love in my garden."

"No one even knew we were here."

"Nevertheless, you're corrupting my sense of propriety."

One dark brow rose. "It's a bit late for complaints, isn't it?"

She blushed a deeper shade of pink. "I don't know what's come over me. You've quite turned my head."

A number of replies having to do with turning various parts of her body sprang to mind, but interested in continuing their pleasurable acquaintance, he only smiled. "Then I should beg your pardon and say please consider me your servant in all things, ma'am."

Her purple eyes sparkled. "Do you mean it?"

"Have I been somehow obtuse in pleasing you?"

She had the grace to look embarrassed. "No, and never, and I apologize profusely."

"No need to apologize. Just tell me what you want."

She blushed again.

"Or I could tell you," he said.

She took a small breath and said so low he could scarcely hear no matter they were only inches apart, "Or we could tell each other…"

His heart skipped a beat. "What a good idea," he replied gently.

Much later, when the sun was almost set, when there was no longer any question of who wanted whom, or how much or how often, they lay side by side, both in full measure replete and content.

A rare feeling for a man of Ranelagh's restless temperament.

As rare for Alex, who had filled her days of late with a multitude of well-ordered, useful efficiencies.

Lying on his back, his eyes were shut, his hand lightly touching hers. "Do you still want to go to the exhibition?"

Sprawled beside him, Alex turned her head. "Do you?"

His eyes opened and he glanced at her. "I asked first." Inexplicably, he felt like an adolescent with his first lover. He wished to show her off, wanted everyone to know that she was his, that the flush on her cheeks was because of him. But when she didn't immediately answer, he said, "If you'd rather not."

"No, I'd like to."

He rolled over and kissed her, and smiled from mere inches away. "Do you know when I last lay in the sun like this?"

She looked amused. "I'd rather you didn't tell me."

"I meant myself, alone"-he smiled-"content like this."

She reached up and touched the dip of his brow. "In that case, tell me."

"I was twelve and at the beach in Brighton, or near the beach, lying on the grass. I was completely alone-no servants, no family." He grinned. "That's probably why I was content." He shrugged. "Anyway, it's been a long time. So I thank you."

"My list is long in terms of thanking you." Her voice was very soft. "I won't forget this…"

"Consider me available to refresh your memory anytime," he drawled.

"How kind of you," she teased.

"Kindness has nothing to do with it. Now, before I lose control again, which I never do, by the way-like lying in the sun-why don't we dress and you can point out your paintings at the show."

They dressed, but leisurely as it turned out, because Sam was particularly good at putting on her silk stockings, Alex discovered, and then inevitably, taking them off again. Until as twilight fell, they agreed that if they didn't dress themselves, it would soon be too late to go to the gallery.