“One day I’ll do more than touch you, Ivy. I’ll make you mine.”
“Will you dismiss me if I deny you?” she whispered, opening her eyes.
“I don’t think you understand what I just said. You won’t deny me. I think you want this even more than I do.”
She felt his shoulders tense and realized she was holding him so tightly that her fingers had gone numb. He stared at her, his eyes unfathomable, before he lowered his gaze to the juncture of her thighs where his fingers played her. She should have been ashamed that he would see her unraveling bit by bit, but her pleasure only mounted, a tautness inside her that he seemed to control.
“Tell me how badly you need this,” he said in a low wicked voice.
She bit the inside of her cheek.
“Tell me or I’ll stop.”
“I need . . . you—you—”
He laughed in delight. Her hips twisted, and then they both lost control. Her belly clenched, and a power rose from inside her that plunged her into oblivion before she broke into fragments and knew vaguely that when she was put back together she would never be the same Ivy Fenwick again.
She swallowed a sob and felt the pulsations of pleasure ebb from her body. The duke did not say a word. He merely withdrew his hand, sighed deeply, and rolled to his feet. Ivy drew up the shift and cloak to cover herself, still shaking from what he’d done to her.
He paced at her side, debonair to her tousled muss despite his disheveled fine linen shirt and black pantaloons. She hoisted the cloak over her shoulders.
“That was quite bad of you, James,” she said with a broken sigh. “I don’t ever expect to find you lying in wait for me in my room again.”
* * *
He hadn’t expected her to find him, either. How could he explain that an attack of nerves had ambushed him when he’d searched her room and realized she hadn’t returned? And then, because the children had exhausted him, he had stretched out on Ivy’s bed, intending to rest his arm, and had fallen asleep?
“I would have been fine if you hadn’t taken off your clothes,” he remarked as she picked up the dress she had discarded.
“Then it’s my fault that you brought the children in here and broke the screen? That you didn’t announce yourself to me as soon as I walked in the door?”
“I didn’t say I wasn’t at fault for that.” He frowned. “I hope you don’t go to supper, looking that—that disarrayed.”
She bent at the washstand, talking again to his reflection. “Well, who disarrayed me, James?”
He watched her pat water on her cheeks and wrists. He was beginning to feel like a damned fool. He’d never touched a servant in his life, and she wasn’t acting anything like one now. Still, he wanted to kiss her sweet mouth and punish her for her ability to bewilder him with a show of power. He had always believed himself to be above such abuse.
But his body was pulsing with intense urges he had never known. He wanted to throw her onto the bed and fill her with his cock. “I don’t know what happened to me just now,” he said crossly. “I was asleep, susceptible to you.”
She splashed a little arc of water back his way. “As if it’s never happened before.”
“Not like this. I told you.”
“Susceptible? Tell me more. You said I didn’t understand what you meant. Well, explain.”
He couldn’t. He wasn’t sure now what he meant. An arrangement with a governess? Never. Set her up as a mistress? Unlikely. Marriage? His mind evaded an answer.
She patted her face and décolletage dry with a second towel that hung on the washstand and retreated into her small dressing room. When she returned, he could see that she hadn’t correctly laced her gown. The imperfection would bother him all night, not due to any obsession for neatness on his part, but because he knew how beautiful she was underneath her clothes. He would look at her and remember how her soft body had cushioned him when he should not be thinking of her at all.
Her voice underscored his lapse in attention. “Am I going to be dismissed, James?”
“You will if you refer to me by my first name outside this room. Not that I mind. But the servants will think it peculiar.”
“Since we will not be alone together in here again, I will only use your title from now on. Or perhaps I shall refer to you as ‘His Disgrace.’”
He narrowed his eyes. “Of course I won’t dismiss you.”
“Then I won’t resign.”
“You can’t resign. Our contract is binding. Besides, I understand you need the wages.”
She brushed around him. “I’ll go about my duties now if I have your permission.”