“I just need to get my feet warm.”
Ian toweled his wet hair, and Beth leaned back against the curved end of the copper tub to watch him. He’d have to send word to Curry to bring them fresh clothes, but not now. None of the poor sods in this house needed to be running out in the storm.
“This hotel is rather seedy,” Beth murmured. She made little figure eights with her hands in the water, watching the ripples spread. “Not the sort in which respectable ladies and gentlemen stay.”
“Does it matter?” One room was much like another as far as Ian was concerned.
“Not really. It’s another wickedness in a night of so much wickedness. I never knew I’d like wickedness so much, Ian. Thank you for showing it to me.”
Her gaze roved his body and came to rest solidly on his erection. That organ pointed stiffly at her, and how could it help it?
Beth was beautiful. Her limbs were white against the tub’s copper bottom, her nipples pinched tight with cold and desire. Stands of dark hair floated around her shoulders, and the twist of hair between her thighs was darker still.
Her face flushed with heat, her red lips curved into a smile, and her blue eyes gleamed. She lazily licked a droplet of water from her lower lip.
The storm raged through Montmartre like cannon fire. No one, not even Curry, knew where they were. Tonight, Beth belonged to him.Ian’s life was dictated by other people—events and conversations swirled past him before he could follow them; other people decided whether he’d live in an asylum or out of it, whether he’d go to Rome or wait in London. Events flowed and ebbed, and as long as they didn’t interfere with his interests, like finding elusive Ming pottery, he let them happen.
Now Beth had landed in the swift stream of his life, and she’d stuck there like a rock. Everything else swirled past him, but like an anchor, Beth stayed.
He needed her to stay forever.
Ian bent and hauled her to her feet. Her body was slippery, sliding in a fine way against his.
“You’re still cold,” she said.
“You’ll warm me.”
He snatched another towel from the pile and wrapped it around her before she could start shivering again. The heat of her body was better than a fire, better than all the hot water in the world.
Ian lifted her, stepped carefully from the bath, and carried her to the narrow bed near the stove. The maid had and inserted hot bricks wrapped in cloth under the worn but clean linens.
Ian laid Beth on the warmed bed. She looked up at him, not in the least worried as Ian dropped his towel and stretched out beside her. He pulled the covers over them both, cocooning them in warmth. The heat of the bricks and Beth’s body permeated the bed, driving away the cold.
Beth wrapped her arms around Ian as he turned onto his side to face her. “What naughtiness are you going to teach me now?” She smiled.
She still didn’t understand.
“No games tonight.”
“Oh.” She sounded disappointed.
Ian smoothed her wet hair back from her face and leaned so he was half on, half off her. Her breath touched his mouth, fragrant and sweet.
“Promise me,” he said.
“Promise you what?”
“Promise you’ll tell me to stop.”
She gave him an arch look. “That all depends on what you start.”
Beth still thought he was playing. Don’t let me hurt you.
“Promise me.”
“Very well,” she said, still smiling.
Ian smoothed her eyes closed, brushed kisses down her nose and across her lips. Her mouth moved, her tongue darting out to catch his, but he moved out of reach. “I want you,” she whispered. A blush spread across her face. “But it’s been a very long rime. Perhaps I won’t be able to.”
Ian reached between her legs and sank his fingers into hot moisture. “You will.”
“How do you know?”
She pretended to have so much experience, but sharing a bed with a sedate husband and intense coupling with a lover were two different things. One was duty, the other . . . wildness. Perhaps her husband had made duty enjoyable, but what Ian wanted was not a dutiful wife lying on her back for her husband.
He wanted to show Beth every nuance of pleasure, from the incredibly gentle to the crazed and rough. He wanted them falling to the bed afterward, bruised and spent, both of them sated. He wanted everything with her, and he didn’t want it tame.
“Let me,” Ian whispered against her mouth as he slid his fingers inside her.
Beth gasped, and her hips rocked up. Ian stroked two fingers into her, then swirled them around her sleek tuft of hair. She was hot, wet, ready.
He’d been ready for weeks. He slid his knee between hers and let his tip part her opening.