What are you thinking? said the little voice. You know what he’ll do if you touch him.
Yes. Yes, I know exactly.
He was on her the moment her fingertips touched his shoulder. No man had ever kissed her before but he didn’t appear to notice her momentary flinch as his tongue touched hers. The moment passed and she kissed him with equal fervor, matching his thrusts with her own. His hands tugged at her skirt, pulling it up and up.
He pushed her legs apart and the hard weight of that part of him, the part the brothel girls had called a cock, pressed through his trousers. He groaned in what sounded like relief as he pushed against her. She knew what he wanted, but the risks were far too high, the consequences too serious. Fortunately, that didn’t mean she had to deny them every pleasure.
“Show me,” she whispered into his ear. “Show me what you did to yourself while you looked at my picture.”
He eased slightly away, his breaths ragged. “What? I don’t—”
“Do it before it’s too late.” They’d be at her lodgings in a few short minutes. “Do it now. For me.”
With a shiver, she watched lust overcome propriety, his aristocratic reserve, and his sense of self-preservation. Violating all three, he unbuttoned the fall of his trousers with shaking hands and looked into her eyes. What he hoped to find in them she couldn’t imagine. Her feelings were such a strange brew of fury and longing, and for once she didn’t care if he knew.
“Show me,” she said again. A dare. A challenge. “Show me now.”
In this man, anger and desire looked the same. As he grasped his cock, she thought of that moment when he overturned his chair at her séance. The look on his face now was the same, his brow low, his jaw set, as he stroked himself hard and fast.
“Help me,” he said.
“No. I want to see exactly what you did. You have to do it yourself.”
He stopped and his hands slid up to the buttons of her coat. “Then obey the rules you set. Your clothes were undone in the picture. I want to see you.”
He had her coat open before he’d finished speaking, but she wasn’t ready to relinquish control of their encounter. She pushed his hands away and reached for her shirtwaist. Several buttons went flying as she tore the front open. Seizing the front of her combination, she met his gaze. “You can’t touch me, understand?”
At his brief nod, she yanked the fabric down until her breasts were bared to him like in the cabinet card.
“Evangeline…”
“No,” she reminded him. “Now, show me.”
He did, his grip firm as he pumped his fist up and down. She’d seen partially exposed men before, but she’d never cared to look until now. Until him. And he was beautiful. She watched the almost violent motion of his hand, her breath quickening. A pulse beat between her legs. Her breasts ached. She wanted more. Her entire body throbbed with the need to be filled.
His gaze traveled over her exposed nipples, then up to her face. Their eyes met and he must have seen something of what she felt in her expression because he moaned. He began to move his hips in counterpoint to the frenzied stroking of his hand until his gaze lost its focus.
“Is that what you like?” she whispered.
“I…” He looked like a man in agony or about to die of pleasure. “Yes.”
“Harder. I want to see you do it harder.”
He did, and she knew he was about to lose himself.
“Now, Your Grace. Come now.”
The noise he made, this powerful man, a small gasping sound as he spilled hot and wet over her breasts, made her lip curl in satisfaction. He slumped against her, helpless in that final moment. Helpless and so very beautiful.
The carriage halted outside her lodgings before they’d even had time to straighten their clothes. Harcastle’s hand shook again as he reached for the door, but Evie had never felt more powerful than she did at that moment.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said, jumping down before he had a chance to move. “I’m holding a séance at Lord Stein’s tomorrow night. Ten o’clock.”
She walked to her front door without looking back.
Chapter Six
By six o’clock that evening, Alex was still in shock.
Show me. The utter unexpectedness of those softly spoken words. The challenge in Evangeline’s eyes. Her solemn expression as he’d given her what she’d demanded. The light kindling in her eyes as she’d watched.
Two versions of her, prim facade and lewd fantasy, blurred together and became something that unmanned him utterly. From the neck up, not a hair out of place, but lower, those pert breasts exposed as she writhed beneath him.
But you can’t touch me.
The patter of rain against the windowpanes of the study startled him from a reverie he hadn’t known he’d entered. Countless times throughout the afternoon, he’d given a similar jolt and realized he’d been in a daze, whatever activity he’d been engaged in forgotten, obliterated by thoughts of her.
He adjusted his reading glasses and returned his attention to the papers spread across his father’s desk: several inventories of old furniture and God knew what else scattered across the many Harcastle estates. His task was to place a mark by things he wanted to sell. Dull work but necessary. Judging by the number of pages in each list, it was high time they had a purge. Afterward, he’d consider selling one of the minor properties to free up more capital.
The old duke’s painted eyes bore into his back from the Winterhalter portrait.
Don’t blame me, Your Grace. You’re the one who mismanaged everything.
The sooner they found a buyer for that monstrosity the better. If it took much longer, he might donate the blasted thing to the National Gallery. He’d already placed a cross next to several other family portraits. Strange that he wouldn’t miss seeing their faces every day when he already missed the photograph Evangeline had confiscated.
Why? Why did this raging lust continue to plague him? This afternoon’s activities ought to have assuaged his hunger, if only for the day. If anything, their peculiar encounter had only served to whet his appetite.
A knock on the door brought him back to the here and now. “For Heaven’s sake,” he muttered, realizing he’d drifted off yet again. Where was his self-discipline? The small losses of control reminded him of when he’d still been drinking. He glanced at the portrait. He wasn’t sure but he suspected it was the only Winterhalter to depict a sneering subject. Perhaps that might add to its value.
“Come in,” he called.
FitzHerbert, the butler, entered and placed a thick envelope on the desk. Nightingale’s spirit photograph, no doubt.