Hidden Paradise

chapter FIVE



“You wish,” Lou said. Even to herself, it came out as unconvincing, her voice throaty with desire—no, not desire, pollen. Yes, that must be it, those damn oversexed trees jerking off shamelessly all around them.

“Look, I’m not suggesting we f*ck,” Mac said. “Peter and Chris told me about your husband, and I’m sorry. They said you’re pretty fragile. Anyway, we’re not each other’s types and besides…”

“Besides what?” she asked, eyes still closed. “I know. You’ll be saying next that you like me against your will, against your reason and even against your character.”

“You’ve got to admit that I’m probably the only guy you’ll ever meet outside your work who can identify an Austen quote when it’s slapped around my head.”

“Well, that’s something.” She opened her eyes. “So what are you suggesting? Do I possibly have something Viv doesn’t?”

“Well.” He stepped away from her, hands linked behind his back, and smiled. A friendly, sexy sort of smile that she told herself sternly to ignore. “It’s up to you. We could make out or do…other things. You look really horny and I know I am. No obligations, nothing more.”

“Or I could walk into Meryton to buy some ribbons.”

He laughed. “Come on, Lou. Make up your mind. It’s pretty damn uncomfortable in these leather pants.”

“You really are a romantic, aren’t you?”

“No,” he said. “I’m honest. It’s about all I can offer you, a bit of no-strings fun. Think of it as a physical necessity.”

“Even worse. And where do you propose this lovely consummation of honesty and physical necessity take place?”

He grinned that wolfish grin. “I should tell you that your strict-schoolmarm act turns me on. I love a woman who can use the subjunctive correctly.”

“A*shole,” she said with more friendliness than she intended.

“You realize you keep looking at my cock?” He took her gloved hand and placed it on the fall of his breeches.

Her fingers closed around the hard length pushing against the leather before she could stop herself. “I’ve seen it in action. Remember? And it was certainly on display at dinner last night.”

“Good thing there was a tablecloth to give me cover,” he replied. He took her hand off his cock and tugged her forward. “How about the summerhouse? Alan and Cathy gave it a test run and it seemed to work for them. Nicely set up, with those stone benches and the view over the lake.”

“A nice view for whom?” she asked. But she walked forward with him, hand in hand, their feet sinking into leaf mold. “I guess there might be some sort of cosmic balance if someone else watched us.”

He handed her up the stone steps into the summerhouse.

* * *


Mac

WHAT WAS HE DOING? DESPITE HIS good intentions, it was still his cock driving him forward, to do something he might regret with a woman he didn’t even know and who might not even like him. Same old, same old. He’d look damned stupid if he backed out now, although the temptation to run from her was almost overpowering. He could always take care of things later, alone.

Her hand was still in his. Naturally, idiotically, they still had their gloves on. Amazing how readily they could fall into their roles, half-crazy with lust but with not a stitch of clothing removed. He cleared his throat.

“Yes?” Cool as a cucumber, eyebrows raised. Wait, remember her last night, sprawled on her bed and crying, vulnerable, talking nonsense. Did she remember that?

She removed her hand from his and slowly began to work at her glove, twisting the fingers and easing the fabric from her hand. He watched with all the attention of a teenager in a strip club as she peeled the glove off and fluttered her fingers a little, airing them out. Then the other. It wasn’t meant to be seductive, he was fairly sure of it, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away.

“Well?” She stowed the gloves in a pocket at the side of her dress. “Don’t tell me you’re turning chicken on me.” She raised her hands and unbuttoned what he thought was part of her gown but was, in fact, a sort of short jacket over it. What was the name of that piece of clothing? He couldn’t remember for the life of him. Pelisse? No, he didn’t think so. Spencer, that was it.

She folded the garment and laid it on one of the stone benches. Nice to see someone else was scared of Viv.

He stripped off his own gloves with more haste than elegance, quite unlike her slow unpeel and reveal. There wasn’t room for them in his pants pockets, so he shoved them into his coat pockets and then started the laborious process of shrugging and wriggling the coat off.

She sat on a stone bench and watched him. “Let’s establish ground rules.”

“Okay.” Coat off, he removed his waistcoat and sat opposite her.

“Contact?”

“What?”

She rose to her feet and he tried not to shrink back as she covered the space between them in a few swift strides. She pulled at the knot in his neckcloth and loosened it, slipping her hand beneath the folds and loops of muslin to unbutton his shirt. Her fingers fluttered on his chest, cool and gentle. “Who does what to whom?”

“Kiss me.” His voice was throaty and uncontrolled. Immediately, he was mortified. He’d asked her to kiss him?

She tipped her head back to look at him, her lips parting. Her bosom, ridiculously high from her stays, lifted a little more as she sucked in a breath. The muslin scarf at her neckline, fine white cotton with subtle shiny white dots on it, parted to reveal a shadow of cleavage. Something was definitely wrong with him, that he was taking note of her clothes and the fabric first, and what lay beneath after. Maybe he’d learned more from Viv than he knew, or else he was about to channel Henry Tilney and advise her on laundry.

“You don’t have to do anything,” he said. “I mean, if you want to, I could, well, I—”

“Oh, shut up, Mr. Darcy.” She raised herself on her toes. “Your reputation is entirely safe with me.”

“My reputation?”

“I won’t let anyone know you succumbed to sentimentality.”

Her lips brushed against his as she spoke, a gesture that would have seemed almost innocent if her hips had not ground against his erection. Her tongue darted against the corner of his mouth, soft and wet.

He thought for one shameful moment he was going to explode in his pants.

He stepped away, loosening his hands from where they’d clamped on to her butt, and cleared his throat. “Yeah, look, we don’t have to—”

“Yes, we do. I do.” She glared at him. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m, uh, surprised.” Yes, he was surprised and lustful and a little afraid of this volatile creature. “What exactly do you have in mind?”

“You want me to spell it out?” She sat on the stone bench again, and propped one ankle on the opposite knee, pulling at the laces of her slipper. It dangled briefly from her foot and fell to the ground.

Another quick gesture released the ribbon holding her stocking up—not very sexy, these Georgian stockings, with all the allure of a tube sock and much the same shape. She unrolled the stocking and wiggled her toes. And that, somehow, was amazingly sexy. Her toenails were unpainted, her feet and calves muscular and pale.

A quick flash of white thigh and white petticoat—he remembered her petticoat floating from her last night and the sudden shock of her corseted breasts, round and constrained, almost under his nose—and she started on the other foot. “Come on,” she said, “you wanted to see what I look like when I come. So do something about it.”

She raised one foot onto the stone seat, turning so she sat sideways, and lifted her skirts. Fabric rustled as she raised skirts, revealing long pale thighs. She ran her fingertip up the inside of her thigh, back and forth.

Her fingertip slowed.

He groaned. He couldn’t help it.

“Do it to me,” she said breathlessly.

Today she wore a gown that pinned at the front. She undid the pins and laid them carefully aside, one-handed, her other hand on her thigh. The fabric fell, revealing the top of her petticoat and her stays, and she released one breast, pausing to stroke the nipple.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay.” And he was beside her, having made those few steps across the summerhouse, pulling her skirts all the way up around her waist, loving the way her thighs parted for him, the way she turned to reveal herself to him.

She made a small, excited sound as he gazed between her thighs, at the tuft of dark blond hair and wet, plumped lips. She could wait a little, he decided. He leaned to take a nipple into his mouth, feeling it swell and harden against his tongue.

She made a sound of appreciation, of pleasure, and her hips moved slightly in invitation. He hooked her raised leg over his arm and touched her where she was wet and warm and her * was a raised, hard ridge beneath opulent silkiness.

“Yes,” she said, and reached to adjust his finger a fraction of an inch. “You… Yes.”

He moved his mouth to her neck and collarbone, then back to her nipple.

She raised one hand to her bodice and fingered her other breast, and he wondered if she could come like that, if she would come like that, and would he feel cheated? He bit gently on the nipple in his mouth and knew from its sudden swell and her quickened breath that she was almost there.

Her legs flexed, hard, and she moaned loudly. She was there, she’d gone, her eyes half-closed and he slowed his pace.

“Wow,” he said.

“That was so…so sexy.” She smiled at him, all her former tension gone. “And so fast.”

He loved seeing her so relaxed, her breasts and her splayed legs, unaware of how sexy she looked. Probably. Meanwhile, his cock shoved painfully against his pants. He stood and moved away from her and tried not to look at her.

She shifted, and her eyes took on her familiar wariness. “What?”

As much as he wanted release, he wanted to touch her again, take his time, make it even better for her. Suck her nipples and kiss his way down her to bury his face in that gorgeous p-ssy. He wanted to wring more soft cries of pleasure from her and feel her warm skin heat beneath his hands, but he fell silent. He shook his head and stood, looking at the view over the lake.

She tucked her breasts away and pinned her gown back into place, but she delayed putting on her stockings and slippers again.

“We won’t make a habit of this,” she said. “It was one time only, right? It was very nice, but—”

“Sure.” He tried to keep his voice casual.

“You’re offended. I’m sorry.”

“No, no,” he lied. “I know, it’s nothing personal.”

“How could it be? I’ve known you all of twenty-four hours.”

“During which time, I’ve undressed you, seen you cry and seen you come.” He knotted his cravat, fished his gloves out of his pocket and walked away from her before he made an even greater fool of himself.

Very nice. What the hell had he done to deserve that?

* * *


Lou

LOU SMILED AS HE WALKED AWAY. What strange, delicate creatures men were, at the mercy of their cocks and yet so vulnerable. She remembered his touch, the way the tendons flexed on his forearm and the glint of sunlight that lit the lock of hair on his forehead, his face intent as he pleasured her.

And now he’d gone stomping off in a huff of male outrage. She closed her eyes. What did she look like when she came? He’d wondered, and now he knew. She ran her hands lightly over her bodice, meaning to tie her muslin scarf and tuck it away, but she encountered her nipples, still hard even through corset and petticoat.

Well, well.

She could do it again. She could open herself to the dappled sunlight and the breeze—her *oris zinged as she increased the pressure on her breasts. She squeezed her thighs together.

She knew he’d been about to ask her if she would touch him, or if he could do more to her, and now she wished her hackles had not risen. The thought of that mouth—how soft his lips had been, how lovely the scrape of his chin would be against her thighs. His cock would press against her thigh, through her skirts, then beneath her skirts, and press and slide inside her, if she said yes, and she knew she would.

And she wouldn’t once think of Julian. Next time, absolutely not.

Oh, who was she kidding? She might have come here chasing a ghost, but Julian was no closer to her here than in Montana. The only difference was that here every corner and room, every view outside, was not dull with memories, weighing her down with regret.

Paradise Hall had already worked its magic, its promise of escape and sensual adventure. Lou shook her head and laughed, sliding a bare toe over the stone floor. She should really go back to the house and see what was on the schedule for the morning or the afternoon or whatever time of day it was. With this unchanging, translucent leafy light, she had no idea of the time.

She bent to retrieve her shoes and pulled them toward her with her toes while retrieving her stockings and garters. Decently shod once more, she eased her gloves over her fingers—how he’d stared and she hadn’t thought she was doing anything particularly seductive when she’d taken them off—and placed her bonnet atop her head, letting the strings dangle. She should probably investigate what food was on offer, too; maybe she wouldn’t be so foolhardy on a full stomach.

But it hadn’t felt risky or dangerous. The only really uncomfortable moment was when she’d told him that it was a one-time-only thing. Mac obviously was used to being the one who called the shots in a relationship, if five minutes of friction could be called a relationship. Or two minutes, to be accurate.

But he kissed well.

As she took the path away from the lake and toward the house, a familiar ticking and metallic hiss arose behind her. A bicycle, and, as she turned, the head footman, in jeans and T-shirt, riding it. She stepped aside to let him pass as he slowed and came to a halt next to her.

“You’re quite an anachronism,” she said.

He smiled. “I shouldn’t be here, ma’am. But the path round the back is too muddy for the bike.”

“Where have you been?” she asked. “Not that it’s any of my business, but how do you entertain yourself off duty?”

“No problem,” he said. He dismounted and wheeled the bike beside her. “I’ve been down the village. Played some football with my little brother.”

“That’s nice of you.”

“He’s a sweet kid.” He stared at the handlebars of his bike.

“How many brothers and sisters do you have?”

“One of each. He’s seven. My sister’s older than me, and she’s going crazy with Graham—that’s my brother—underfoot. Her place is too small for all of us. And he needs… Well, I’m here.”

“Are your parents away?”

“My mum is. And my father, well. He’s got some troubles with his business. He’s depressed.”

“I’m sorry.” She touched his wrist. He gave her a startled glance from clear gray eyes. “Thanks for your help last night. I really appreciate it.”

“It’s okay.” He shrugged. “I’d better go round the back, ma’am.” He pulled the bicycle away and slung his leg over the saddle, turning swiftly down a side path.

Lou sighed. Another male fleeing her presence after revealing a little too much of himself. I’m here, he’d said. Taking on unexpected responsibilities at a time when he should be out exploring the world, not trying to repair the damage of a dysfunctional family. As a teacher, she’d become something of an expert reading between the lines of inarticulate students who sat in her office and threw out disjointed comments about why a paper was late or a grade not met. She had learned early on to distinguish between those with genuine problems and those too lazy or arrogant to put in the requisite work.

The house came into view. There was dancing this afternoon, she remembered, and smiled at the thought of the guests all stepping on each other’s toes in every way possible.