Eugenia rolled her eyes. “What is your point?” She kept her eyes on his but her hand stole down his front, caressing his taut stomach and then lower.
“Haven’t you ever been to dinner when the chamber pot was behind a screen, in the corner?”
“Alas, yes.” Eugenia edged closer, feeling a restless surge of energy that had everything to do with the hard length throbbing against her middle.
“I was perhaps fifteen the first time I was bid to join the adults at dinner,” Ward said. “I remember hearing a lady—I’ll spare you her name—disappearing behind that screen and the most extraordinary sounds soon after.”
Eugenia snorted and hid her face against his shoulder.
“It sounded like a waterfall,” Ward continued. “Yet all the guests sat there and made insipid conversation while pretending not to hear anything. It was at that moment I decided that I had no interest in polite society—or any society.”
“Is that why you have never attended balls and the like?”
“Exactly,” he said, nipping her lower lip. “My point is that you shouldn’t worry about propriety, Eugenia. Stay with me.” He rolled on top of her. “My body is at your service.”
She let out a startled giggle.
“Take me,” he said, his voice dropping. “I’m yours. No one will know. As far as the world is concerned, you are generously paying me a visit until a new governess can be found. Miss Lloyd-Fantil assured me that she would send someone as soon as possible.”
“Oh, Susan,” Eugenia said a bit crossly. “She thinks—”
“I like her,” Ward interrupted. “Give me a fortnight.” He dropped a kiss on her lips. “The court case is approaching frighteningly quickly. I need you to help with the children’s instruction. What if they are summoned before the House of Lords?”
“That is most unlikely,” Eugenia said. She considered. “Although it would be well to prepare them for the possibility, however remote.”
“My solicitors tell me that they might ask Otis, in particular, about his father’s wishes.”
Eugenia’s mind fell into chaos because Ward had slid down, just enough to kiss her breast.
Why shouldn’t she stay? No one knew she was here. No one would care, her mind prompted her. She was a widow.
Squirming under Ward’s attentions, she felt alive.
“I’ll think about it,” she said, the words escaping on a pant. “I promise to . . .”
Ward had never expected rational thought to work.
He didn’t need logic. Eugenia’s breast was luscious and perfectly rounded, her nipple a small, ripe cherry. He kissed her until her legs were moving restlessly under him, her hands slipping over his back and shoulder, skating lower.
Then he moved up to take her mouth with a needy moan. She tasted like woman and desire and everything good in life. Slipping one arm around her slender waist, he pulled her tightly against him, loving the way her curves slipped into his body’s hollows.
They were made for each other, like Adam and Eve.
He took in a ragged breath and rolled over, bringing her with him so he could run his hands over the silky skin of her back, over her arse, curving inward. “I want you,” he said in her ear. His hand slipped between her legs.
His fingers slid through wet folds and air whooshed from Eugenia’s lungs in a strangled moan.
Ward reached over and grabbed a French letter—pink ribbon this time. Eugenia slid backward, waiting, her teeth biting into her lush bottom lip so hard that he could see a mark.
“I want to taste you first,” he said, tying the ribbon.
“No,” she choked. “Now, Ward, now!”
“Or what?”
She shook her head, and the fog of desire cleared from her eyes. “Or I slip this knee toward the middle of your body?”
“Stay a fortnight,” he commanded.
“I shouldn’t,” she mumbled. Ward pulled her over him and rubbed her in all the right places.
“Yes, you should.”
Eugenia’s eyes flew open. “Are you trying to blackmail me?” Her tone was outraged, and pink popped up in her cheeks.
Ward couldn’t hold in his laughter. “Would it work?”
“No!”
“I’m begging you. See . . . ? I’m begging.” He flipped her over, pulled her legs apart and slid down until his head was close to the pinkest, sweetest part of Eugenia’s body.
A cry broke from her lips the moment he licked her. Ward found himself smiling as he loved her until her legs were shaking.
He moved up, positioning himself in just the right place. He let go with the full force of his being, dimly aware that he’d never before made love with this wild, keen concentration, his hips thrusting in tandem with his pounding heart.