But instead she ran her hands over his chest, straightening his cravat. Pressing her palm gently to his cheek. “Thank you for dinner.” Her eyes were still soft and vulnerable, and he practically vibrated with the need to ask her if she wasn’t feeling it too. That everything was changing. Instead he tucked an errant curl behind her ear because the other things he wanted to do felt too precarious.
When he could speak again, he took her hands in his and drew her toward the stairs of the cellar. “Let’s go.”
“We’re leaving?” She paused to grab her gloves and handbag.
“Yes.” Soon they were climbing the stairs, his eyes and hand on that delicious bottom. He intended to see her gloriously naked and in his bed within the hour. “I’m already craving seconds, and I’ll need a lot more privacy for that.”
Chapter Nine
The carriage ride had been…frenzied. They hardly could keep their hands off each other, and by the time they arrived at the townhouse, their clothes were in an extremely sorry state. Arlo was utterly shameless, and Marena was smitten. No, smitten made her think of wallflowers, ballrooms and longing glances across crowded rooms. What Arlo had started in her was far more explosive than that. Since that morning at the market when he’d looked on with fascination at everything she purchased, to when he kissed her and made her forget every kiss that had come before that one, she’d known. This man was a storm passing through her quiet life and there would be wreckage after he was gone. But Marena had allowed herself this night, and she would have it.
They’d arrived at the Place des Vosges and, after the usual formality of handing off hats and capes to his valet, they’d each gone to their rooms. Arlo had promised he’d come to her, and now she was waiting and feeling like she was on fire. Anticipation thrummed through her blood. It had been some time since she’d done this. Her sexual appetites were varied, and she wasn’t a novice. But she was cautious, not wanting a pregnancy or an illness. Nor London’s gossipmongers arriving at her shop’s door.
She was particular with who she took as a lover. She had to be. A Black woman running a business that served the rich had to be beyond all reproach, a guileless vessel with no opinions of them, of their lives…of their idleness. Or any life of her own. She loved her work, but it could be a lonely existence. Especially when you were ambitious. She worked at her craft, strived to master it. And in the years since she’d been running the apothecary, she’d discovered competent women tended to encounter at best disinterest and at worst scorn from men.
Not Arlo. The Duke of Linley seemed fascinated by every detail she shared about herself, and not once had he implied what she did was not important. He intrigued her so. He had no reverence for his title, yet cunningly used the power it gave him it to pursue what he felt was important. Damn the man for having morals.
Arlo was dangerous. Too handsome and imposing, too much like everything she’d never wanted. But in him, she could not seem to get enough of. A man who could satisfy her body and her mind. With all that power, he could decimate her, which was why she had to walk away. Because even after one day, she knew if he asked her for more—if he asked to see her in London—she wasn’t sure she could turn him down. As if he were waiting for the exact moment when her defenses were at their lowest, she heard a knock on her door.
“Come in,” she called as she walked to the table by the balcony doors where she’d placed the small silk pouch she’d brought with her from London. Proof that, despite everything she’d told herself about how things would be with Arlo Kenworthy, before she boarded that train in London, she’d already known the truth.
The door clicked as it closed, followed by footsteps. He was quiet too, and she wondered if he’d had his own reckoning in his room and was coming to tell her this had all been a mistake. After only a few days, she already knew he was the kind of man who would not take a woman to bed for the wrong reasons. The kind of man who would do the honorable thing.
She didn’t think he’d put her reputation at risk. Not if he wasn’t willing to face the consequences with her. She wondered if he’d go as far as offering marriage just so he could have her in his bed. Not that she would consider the offer. She had never been a fool, and letting herself get swept into a world that would despise her would be madness. But then she felt his hard chest against her back, and sensibility fluttered up and out the window into the Parisian night.
“I was hoping you’d still be dressed.”
“Mmm?” Enveloped in his touch, his voice, his heat, she let herself drift. This man could become an addiction, and she could not fall. “Are you going to take the place of the chambermaid again, Your Grace?”
“Call me by my name,” he demanded, his hands already possessing her. He palmed her sex over her dress and placed his other hand on her neck, the two places where he could feel her pulsing for him.
“Arlo. Are you going to undress me?” she asked, and brought her hands to cover his, his touch filling her head with things she ought not want. She’d spent so many years mastering the art of keeping everyone at a distance, yet with Arlo she craved closeness.
“Out of respect for your mother, I will mind the buttons,” he said, his hands sliding from under hers. He stepped back and she missed his warmth immediately, but soon he was making quick work of the buttons at her back. “The curve of your neck,” he said as he ran a finger on that very spot, “is why artists go back to the same model again and again.” He punctuated the last word with an openmouthed kiss at her nape. His hot, dark caress in such a sensible place made her tremble. “If I could paint—if I had the talent—I’d spend decades on your body. The lines and curves of it. How does a man attend to the demands of life once he’d had this?”
“I’m already letting you bed me,” she said unsteadily. He made a gruff noise at that and slipped the dress off her shoulders.
“I must invest in endeavors of the rational dress movement,” he said with appreciation as he removed the front clasps of her corset, then her narrow petticoat, until she was in her chemise. “I will become a fervent advocate of the cause if it allows for such brisk undressing. Turn around, love.” The word pierced her. She had to take a breath before facing him. And she was not prepared for what she saw.
“Arlo,” she breathed out her eyes landed him. He loomed large in front of her, all brawn and barely contained power. He was barefoot, his shirt unbuttoned, cuff links removed, revealing smooth skin like sculpted marble. She didn’t know where to touch first. “You are a beautiful man.”
His lips quirked up. “You think me beautiful, Marena?”
She nodded, hands busy removing his shirt. “I do.” She pressed her lips against the skin that was in front of her. The silky hair on his chest tickled her palm as she lapped at him.
“I’ve been dreaming about your mouth, and would like a lot more of that very soon, but I need to see you.” With that, he stepped back again so there were a few feet between them. “Bare yourself for me, Marena.”
Her skin felt fevered as she undid the buttons on the front of her chemise. This was madness, and yet she could not stop herself from looking at him as the garment slid down her body to the floor.