Chapter 16

Granville put away the last of the plates from their dinner and turned to watch Portia wipe down the table where he'd enjoyed the most explosive sexual encounter of his life. While he'd loved what they'd done in the hay, his awareness of her inexperience had helped him maintain some vestige of control. Astonishing to think that soon afterward, he'd swive Portia in brazen abandon across a table.

She was the most exciting woman he'd ever known. Even here in the kitchen performing the most everyday of tasks, something about the sway of her hips and the deft movements of her hands het him up like a randy adolescent.

He was in a ferment for her. He'd hungered for that exquisite body. Now that he'd had her twice, he should feel less on edge. But the craving to tup her again left him strung as tight as a violin.

"We could have cleaned up in the morning," he said with a mildness that in no way reflected his desperation.

She glanced up with a smile, as she untied the apron that she'd found in the larder and laid it over the back of a wooden chair. "I know."

"But you like things done right."

For all his ravening impatience, there was something deeply pleasing about watching this woman he wanted beyond all others pottering about like a middle-class housewife tending to the man in her life.

"Juliet made sure her sisters were proficient in the domestic arts. She said we couldn't run a household if we didn't know how to do everything ourselves."

"That sounds like Juliet."

His attempt at a neutral tone must have failed, because Portia cast him a troubled glance. "I suppose you hate her. With good cause. But she's my sister, and I love her."

"As you should." He might have no experience of the love between siblings, but he'd noted that the three Frain sisters formed a close-knit unit.

"I won't mention her again." He hated to see her mouth turn down with a hint of sadness. "But she was like a mother to me and she sacrificed so much to bring us up. Papa was useless."

Her father was completely stagestruck. Unless the topic was Shakespeare, he had no interest in it. Granville blamed Lord Portdown's inadequate parenting for the recent scandals that had engulfed the Frain family.

"You mustn't feel bad talking about Juliet." He examined his feelings. "You know, I don't hate her."

"You're being a gentleman again."

His gesture was apologetic. "I can't help myself."

"No, you can't." Her smile indicated that she wasn't displeased.

However she teased, something told him that she liked him as he was. And for who he was. Not because he held a great title and had riches to burn. "I mean it. I don't hate her."

Her flattened lips dismissed his statement. "She treated you shabbily. I love her, and even I think that."

"But you see, that's it. She didn't love me. She loved Evesham. I despise the bastard, but I'm sure he loves her back. Better all round that they marry each other, than someone else, don't you agree?"

Portia still didn't look like she believed him. "That's very generous."

"Not at all." He'd never eaten his heart out over Juliet, although she'd given his pride a good kick when she eloped with his worst enemy. "Anyway…"

"Anyway?"

"If I'd married Juliet, you and I would never have come together." He spoke from absolute conviction. "I'd give up an awful lot, if the end result was having you to myself like this."

She stood stock-still and regarded him with an expression that he couldn't altogether read.

"Say something," he said, half-joking.

She shook her head, as if aligning thoughts in complete disarray. "I'm…"

Another silence.

"Pleased? Relieved?"

The soft light in her blue eyes made something unfamiliar inside him unfurl like a flower opening to the sun. The sensation verged on painful.

She raised her hand to her lips, as if holding back a confession. That newborn corner of his soul reached toward her, but when she spoke, it was in answer to his remark. "Pleased."

For a charged moment, they stared at each other. Granville couldn't help but feel that a separate conversation took place out of earshot. He'd hand over half his fortune if he could eavesdrop.

"That's…that's good," he said gruffly.

She blinked as if fighting tears, which made no sense. Her smile hinted at a tremble, too.

He couldn't bear the thought of her crying. It made him want to rampage around, breaking the expensive china. Given how carefully she'd washed up, she wouldn't appreciate that at all.

Then brave, forthright Portia returned. She squared her shoulders and held out her hand. "Did you say you'd take me to bed?"

Her voice sounded normal, with a rich undercurrent of sultry invitation. Relief tinged Granville's exhalation, although for the life of him, he couldn't say what had scared him just now.

Portia wanted sex. Sex he could give her. He forced that strange, vulnerable part of him back into the darkness, where he hoped it would fade away and die. He strode past the table and lashed his arms around her, kissing her until she turned into a bundle of molten pleasure. If truth be told, his knees felt a little unsteady, too.

"Have you finished down here?" he murmured, nipping her earlobe.

She gave a start. "I have."

"Good." He released her and went around the room, extinguishing every lamp but one. After stopping to kiss her again, he took her hand. He collected the last lamp from the bench and mounted the stairs.

Granville pushed open the door to his suite and placed the lamp on a chest. Before Portia's arrival, he'd always slept alone in this house. It felt significant that she was the first woman to share the big bed with the carved oak headboard.

Portia gave a muffled giggle. "I feel like a heroine in a gothic novel, lured to her doom by the seductive villain."

She giggled again when with a fiendish laugh, he pushed her against the door. "There's no escape, my pretty."

Placing her hands on his waist, she spoke in an exaggerated tremolo. He approved of a heroine with a heaving bosom. "What shall I do?"

He nibbled a path along her elegant neck. "Yield to my satanic demands, my dear."

She gave a whimper of pleasure, and her hand slid down to fondle his buttocks, bringing him closer. He stiffened in an instant and groaned, as his lips explored the shoulder bared beneath her stylish blue gown. Her breath changed, and she squirmed against him.

"You're not supposed to encourage your evil seducer." His voice was rough and unsteady. He enjoyed the game, but he had trouble thinking past the ache in his balls. "They'll banish you from the league of Minerva Press heroines, if you keep doing that."

"I'll have to take up a career as the evil villain's mistress." Her words emerged in fits and starts. The game turned serious for Portia, too.

He flattened his palms on the door and pushed back to break the contact. "The evil villain is on board with that."

Her theatrical pout made him laugh. "So why is my ruthless seducer playing coy?"

"Because this time he wants to savor the experience." His voice lowered into longing. "I've dreamed of seeing you naked more often than you can know."

"Why do you say things like that?"

"Because they're true?"

"How on earth can I say no?"

"I hope you won't."

She observed him through her lashes. The effect was intoxicatingly seductive. "You know, I'd rather like to see a naked man myself."

"A naked man or this naked man?"

"Do I have another option?"

He laughed and swung her toward the center of the room. "No, you do not, my lovely."

"In that case, I'll settle for what I've got."

She rose on her toes and kissed him quickly. Before he got too interested, she stepped back. "What should I do?"

Granville told himself to simmer down. To think, he'd once considered himself a civilized man. He'd certainly believed that he was immune from ever becoming a slave to physical impulse. Portia Frain transformed him into someone at the mercy of animal appetites, someone he had difficulty recognizing.

"Take down your hair." The words emerged as a command. This close to the edge, soft entreaties were beyond him.

She pouted again. Somewhere since he'd stumbled across her in Wapping and now, she'd learned a coquette's tricks. Damn it, those tricks worked far too well. "I've got to do all the work?"

A self-derisive laugh. "Better I keep my hands to myself for the moment."

The answer didn't placate her. "From whose point of view?"

"Portia…" he growled with a mixture of reproof and pleading.

She sighed and lifted graceful arms to the loose confection of gold curls. The posture arched her back and raised her opulent bosom until she threatened to overflow her dress. Her eyes made promises that she was his for the asking.

Her gaze clung to his as very slowly, she drew out a pin. One long tress unraveled downward.

Air was suddenly in short supply. Something about the leisured play of her hands in that shining mass of hair and the sulky look on her face turned Granville's blood to steam.

She must guess how aroused he was, because the next pin came out even more slowly. She held it in her hand before dropping it to the carpet.

His hands closed so tight that they ached. How could she do this when he wasn't touching her? How could she do this when he'd already lost himself twice this evening?

For pity's sake, she was touching her hair. Only her hair.

How the devil was he ready to explode, just looking at her bedamned hair?

Another three pins. Another three serpentine locks draping those magnificent curves. Another shuddering inhalation from Granville.

Most of her hair remained up, displaying her slender neck. To his surprise – and discomfort – she stopped playing with her coiffure and her hands descended to filmy blue skirts.

"What are you doing?" Could that strangled voice be his?

Her glance was searing enough to melt iron. Portia knew exactly what she was doing and she relished every moment. "Undressing."

Granville closed his eyes in frustration. Only briefly, because he didn't want to miss a moment of the spectacular show. "God help me."

Her lips twitched. She didn't look sulky anymore. She looked exultant. If at first his experience had given him an advantage, now they were equals in this sensual world.

Inch by inch, she lifted her skirts. Tormenting him, and glorying in his agony.

His attention dropped from that goddess's face to neat ankles above narrow feet in blue satin slippers. Shapely legs encased in white silk stockings. Higher still to pretty sky-blue garters. She sent him another of those goading glances that threatened to turn him to smoking ash. His breath rasped out, as if he was in danger of suffocation.

Whatever she saw must please her, because skirts and petticoats rose to uncover loose drawers. White, so delicate that they were near-transparent, edged with lace. The drawers split at the crotch to reveal feathery pubic hair.

His groan echoed around the room. Her smile intensified, as she caught her skirts in one hand and settled the other over her mound. "Goodness me, how…damp I am," she purred.

Every inch of his body caught fire. She'd kill him before she was done.

"Portia…" He pressed his palm to the throbbing weight of his erection. It didn't help. "You're enjoying this."

His accusation gratified her, he could see. "Indeed I am."

Her fingers shifted to the string on her drawers. One deft tug and it came loose. The garment sagged to reveal the sinuous curve of her hips. A couple of fiendish wiggles, and her drawers dropped to her feet. Without looking down, she stepped out of them. Instead, she watched Granville with an avid attention almost as arousing as the sight of her disrobing.

"Turn around," he croaked, crushing his hand to his rampant stand.

He wasn't sure that she'd obey. She'd seized control of the encounter. But praise all the angels – or Satan himself, because there was nothing angelic about this seduction – she presented her back. Bunched skirts covered her to behind her knees.

"Lift your dress." His voice sounded like it scraped over broken glass.

Again, she obeyed, although she didn't hurry. By the time he glimpsed the lush flesh of her bare buttocks, he feared that he was losing his mind.

He forgot good intentions. Hell, he came close to forgetting his bloody name.

"Lean over the base of the bed," he growled.

Portia cast him a questioning glance over her shoulder, but something in his face must have convinced her that this was no time for discussion.

Granville wasn't surprised that he looked determined. He was on the brink of going up like a gunpowder store struck by an enemy shell. If his face conveyed even half his hunger, he must look like he wanted to devour her in one bite.

She was still a few steps from the baseboard when he ripped at the fastenings on his breeches. Her skirts had tumbled down, concealing that superb arse. It didn't matter. The sight remained etched in his mind. "Bend over."

She took up her position. "Are you going to…" she faltered out in a breathless voice.

It could be excitement. Or it could be her stance, stooped over the bed.

"God, yes," he rasped, like a dying man given water.

"How…"

His hands seized her waist. He prayed that she wouldn't tell him to stop. If she did, he'd have to, but by all that was holy, retreating now would rip him to shreds. "Yes?"

The delay extended forever. In his mind at least. "How exciting."

A gust of relief escaped. "I don't deserve you, Portia."

Granville stepped closer, burying his dick in her skirts. It twitched in longing. So close to where it wanted to be, inside Portia.

"What should I do?"

"Brace yourself," he muttered, shoving silk and linen out of the way. The scent of her arousal was sharp in his nostrils. Even if she hadn't told him that she loved what he did, his senses would know. "Why do women wear so many blasted clothes?"

"To torture our lovers?"

Despite his urgency, a grunt of laughter emerged. "It jolly well works. Spread your legs for me."

Again she cooperated without protest. His heart slammed against his ribs, when he saw her glistening pink vulva. He wanted to taste her there. Take his time. Send her to paradise again and again.

Later.

With an unsteady touch, he stroked her, relishing the slickness and heat. The sight of his hand toying with those rosy folds made him bite back a groan. She moaned as his finger found her clitoris. With another of those heart-stopping wiggles, she pushed back.

He caught her hips and took in the perfect view. Portia's feminine roundness, and the long, graceful back, and the untidy golden hair. The intriguing valley between her legs.

Her hands curled into claws on the embroidered silk coverlet. "Don't…wait," she panted, angling her arse higher.

As if she had to beg. He was utterly at her command.

On that thought, he plunged forward. Heat. Sumptuous constriction. Home...

Her soft cry didn't sound like distress. Even more encouraging, she bumped back to take more.

On a profane prayer of gratitude, Granville closed his eyes and began to move.