Leslie Lafoy (27 page)

“No.”

So softly. So gently and sincerely. If she didn’t find some way to work up an anger, she was going to make a cake of herself. “Are you afraid you’d lose?”

He shook his head. “I’d win. And you’d be angry with me for it.”

So confident. “As opposed,” she countered, arching a brow, “to my being angry at your presumption of superiority?”

He considered her for a moment and then his smile went full as he eased himself away from the crate. “Tipped or not?”

Oh, thank God he’d relented. If they were whaling away at each other with fencing foils, she wasn’t likely to do or say anything remarkably stupid. “Tipped,” she replied, reaching into the box to get the second épée. She tossed it to him, adding, “I don’t want to hurt you.”

He opened his mouth as though he was going to say something in response but closed it and laid the foil on a crate. She waited, watching him remove his suit jacket and roll up his shirtsleeves. If his intent was to be comfortable for their contest, she allowed that he probably was. If his intent was to distract her with a fine display of rippling muscle and sinew … Damn, he was good. Really good.

She stared down at the floor and focused on fitting the hilt in her hand, trying to ignore how fast and hard her heart was racing.

“Ready, Simone?”

She stepped back the required distance and set her feet. Lifting her chin and the foil, she met his gaze and formally, crisply, saluted him as a respected opponent. She sliced the air with the blade to end the salute and waited. His eyes twinkling, his smile quirked again, and he lifted the blade before his face with an easygoing, devil-may-care nonchalance that her rational mind said should be insulting. The rest of her, though … God Almighty, the man was positively delicious.

His blade sang through the air and in that second she realized that he had reason for his confidence and ease; Tristan Townsend was good.
Very good,
she allowed as he came at her in a low-line lateral attack. Septime? Nice. Aggressive. She parried instinctively, her body and blade moving in perfect coordination to execute a one-two disengagement. In the split second that his advance was checked, she initiated her own, taking the attack to the high line.

“You’re very good,” he allowed, neatly fending her off and advancing again.

She parried and advanced on him, bringing the line of attack low again. “Yes, I know.”

“You’re supposed to tell me how good
I
am,” he said, grinning, turning her blade aside effortlessly, and stepping into an attack of his own. “How equally matched we are.”

Parry-reposite. Advance. Low line. “You’re already sufficiently impressed with yourself. A compliment would make you insufferable. As for being equally matched…” She parried and lunged. “We already know that.”

He turned his body and stepped to the side to avoid her thrust. “That we do,” he agreed calmly even as he swept his blade down in a swift, vicious arc.

Her point struck the floor and skidded forward, driven by the commitment of her lunge. The force he’d put into the blow vibrated up her arm and into her already-outraged brain.

“Foul!” she cried even as he stepped closer and increased the pressure on her blade, preventing her from lifting it to continue the match. “You can’t—”

“Yes, I can,” he murmured, slipping his free arm around her waist and hauling her against the length of his body. “I just did.”

It wasn’t right. It wasn’t within the rules. But the power and heat of his body was radiating into hers, and her will to protest was melting right along with her bones. The look in his eyes … Dark and hungry and searching. Heat flared in her core, stealing her breath and tripping her heart. “Let me go, Tristan,” she whispered.

“I seem to have a problem with doing that,” he murmured, his gaze still caressing hers. “Deep down inside, I don’t want to. What do you want, Simone? Deep down inside.”

You.

One corner of his mouth lifted in a slow, certain smile. She closed her eyes in the face of it and waited, hoping with all her heart. The brush of his lips over hers was feather soft and she sighed as a tremor of anticipation cascaded slowly and deliciously through her. If he stopped now, if he released her and stepped back … She’d fall over. And cry.

His lips brushed over hers again, harder this time, more deliberately. “Tristan,” she murmured against them, pressing her body into him and stretching up to keep him from withdrawing. “Tris—”

He moaned quietly in response, pulled her hard to his chest, and closed his mouth over hers. At the very edge of her awareness, for the barest fleeting moment, there was a clang of metal, and then there was only the taste of him, the feel of him. And the heady, driving swirl of heat and absolute need.

His tongue stabbed at the seam of her lips and she opened for him, grateful and greedy. He fed her desire, tasting her deep and boldly, exploring her body with deliberate hands. She was on fire, melting from the inside, pulsing and pouring out. Her knees quaked and she fisted the front of his shirt, frantic to keep herself from slipping away.

He growled low in his throat and cupped her behind, lifting her from her feet. The movement was quick and roughly deliberate, the end abrupt enough to startle her and break their kiss. Gasping for breath, she opened her eyes and met a gaze that was as burning and determined as she felt. Sitting on a crate, cradling his hips between her knees … Oh yes. It would work. “God, Tristan,” she murmured, sliding her hands down his chest to the waistband of his trousers. “This is insanity.”

“Yes, it is,” he said, his voice raspy as he caught her hands and stilled them. “We have to stop.”

Stop? Stop when satisfaction could be so easily had? “Do you have a French letter?”

He shivered and clenched his teeth. “Not here,” he growled.

Doing without flitted through her mind. Begging did, too.

“It’s for the best,” he said on a ragged breath as he squeezed her hands and stepped back. “This is dangerous beyond excuse, Simone.”

“I know,” she admitted as desire began to cool and hope ebbed away. Disappointment rose up and sparked anger. “And I don’t care.”

“But we should. It could end very badly.”

So calm. So goddamned rational. And chivalrous and in control of himself. “Yes, it could,” she replied, pulling her hands from his and hopping down off the crate. She stood directly in front of him and tilted her chin up to meet his gaze. “Maybe. Perhaps. But I don’t want to think about and plan for and anticipate only the bad things that
might
happen, Tristan. I enjoy being with you. And if given a choice in the matter, I’d much prefer to spend the hours of my day thinking about and planning the next time we can be together. I want to anticipate the thrill of making love to you. I don’t want to give all that up for no more of a reason than there’s a shadow in your life.”

He cocked a brow and said, “That was certainly eloquent.”

“And heartfelt, Tristan,” she countered. “If you don’t want to be my lover because I’m not good enough or you’ve found someone else, that’s one thing. Just say so and I’ll move on as well. But if you’re pushing me away because you’re worried Lucinda might come after me … I appreciate your protectiveness, but not nearly as much as I appreciate the extreme pleasure to be had in bedding you.”

His eyes sparkled and the corners of his mouth twitched. “Extreme?”

She had him and she knew it. All that remained was to make the—

“Simone! Simone, where are you?”

Damn Emmy and her sense of timing! Simone looked off toward the front of the warehouse and called, “Stay where you are and keep talking so that I can work my way toward you!” Emmy did as she’d been bidden and as she rattled on, Simone met Tristan’s gaze and said, “It would probably be easier for us if your sister and clerk don’t know you’re here and that we’ve spent the time together.”

Furrowing his brows, he shook his head. “Don’t you think they heard us fencing?”

“Frankly? No. I’ll see you again soon, Tristan.”

She could see misgiving in his smile, in the depth of his eyes. She stretched up on her toes to press a kiss to his lips, to trail the tip of her tongue along the soft seam. He moaned ever so softly and slipped his hands to her waist.

Grinning, certain of her course, she stepped back, whispered, “Trust me,” and then left him standing there looking for all the world as though he’d been dragged through a knothole backward.

And, interestingly enough, she thought as she came out of the box maze, Mr. Gregory looked very much like he’d been pulled through the same hole. A couple of times more than Tristan had.

“Ah, there you are,” Emmy said from his side. “We were afraid that you were lost, Simone.”

“Lost in appreciation,” she replied. “I found a foil in one of the crates. It’s a very finely made weapon. How soon do you think Lord Lockwood would be willing to sell it, Mr. Gregory?”

He sighed in what looked to her like relief and then reached into his jacket pocket while he answered, “I’ll have to ask him, madam.”

Simone fought back a smile as Tristan’s clerk considered the mangled mass of glass and wire he held in his hand. “What happened to your glasses?” she asked ever so innocently. “They look as though they’ve been crushed.”

“They do, don’t they?” He twisted one of the wires. “It probably happened when I reached into a crate to check the contents.”

She nodded as though she believed the story, as though she didn’t notice that he was blushing scarlet and that Emmy was grinning from one guilty ear to the other. There was a great deal of wisdom in the old adages. Especially the one about people who lived in glass houses.

*   *   *

Soon.
Just exactly what was Simone’s idea of soon? he wondered, staring up at his bedroom ceiling. Obviously, he admitted on a heavy sigh, it was different from his notion of soon. If it had been left to him to decide the time of their next tryst, it would have been within minutes of making the promise to have another. And Emmy and her sensibilities be damned.

Hell, if Emmy hadn’t come along when she had, he’d have admitted to the French letter in his coat pocket, let Simone unbutton his trousers while he hiked her skirts, and they’d have had their pleasure right there. He smiled into the darkness. Their
extreme
pleasure.

The friction of the sheets against his growing hardness took the amusement from his smile. If she intended to make him wait for days, he decided, reaching down, then he had to do what he must to survive the tension.

The sound was sharp and quick and distracting. It came again, just as before. Sounding almost as though … He rolled out of bed and listened. Yes, someone was throwing pebbles against his bedroom window. He walked over, pushed the curtains aside, threw up the sash, and leaned out.

“Hello up there! Did I wake you?”

His heart raced and his grin was so wide it hurt his face. Good God Almighty, she couldn’t be that reckless. “Simone?”

“Do you want me to climb up the trellis?” she asked blithely. “Or do you want to come downstairs and let me in?”

“You’re insane!” And he was the luckiest fool on earth.

“Trellis or door?”

“Back door!” he called. She laughed, waved, and took off for the rear corner of the town house.

He snatched up his shirt and, shoving his arms into the sleeves, dashed out of his room and down the stairs hoping to hell that all the servants had gone to their part of the house for the night. If one of them happened to stumble into the pantry in search of a midnight glass of milk and a biscuit … The sooner he got Simone up to the privacy of his room, the— He grinned. The sooner he could make love to her.

He shoved the bolt free and jerked open the door. Simone stood on the step waiting for him, her hair tumbling over her shoulder and her smile wide and bright.

“Are you surprised?” she asked, slipping quickly across the threshold and past him.

“And delighted,” he admitted, closing and locking the door behind her. “You are absolutely fearless, aren’t you?”

“I believe in enjoying life with reckless abandon.” She stepped into him and wrapped her arms around his neck. “How about you?”

Abandon, yes. But there were limits to his recklessness. He gently took her face in his hands and pressed a quick kiss to her lips. “If I had a letter in my pocket, my darling Simone, I’d gladly enjoy you right here on the spot.”

“If you had any pockets, you mean,” she corrected, wiggling her hips against his bare thighs. “Where do you keep your letters at this time of the night?”

Bless her for not wasting any time. “Allow me to show you,” he offered happily. Bending down, he caught her around the knees and then hoisted her over his shoulder.

She laughed as he carried her out of the pantry. Midway through the dining room, she slid the palms of her hands down over the curves of his linen-covered cheeks and said, “This position has some distinct advantages.”

“Yes, it does.” And two could play the game. Holding her in place with one arm, he slid his hand under the hem of her skirt and up the back of her leg. His fingertips skimmed over the deadly little knife gartered to her calf and he smiled, glad that she’d had some way to defend herself as she’d come through the night to be with him, and making a mental note to put it on the nightstand before one of them found themselves accidentally stabbed. Having to compress a bloody wound wasn’t at all conducive to romance.

She sighed. “That feels too good.”

“There’s no such thing as too good, darling.”

“Well, in that case…” She shifted slightly on his shoulder to give him freer access. He was already taking advantage of the invitation and making his way to the inside of her thigh when she lifted the linen of his shirt and boldly stroked her hands over bare skin.

“Simone,” he groaned in warning as he kicked his bedroom door closed behind them and headed for the bed.

“What?”

He bent again and rolled her off his shoulder, onto her back in the center of his bed. “Thank you for wearing a dress,” he said, turning to pull open the drawer of the nightstand.