Chapter Fourteen
Eden excused himself from the kitchen to change his clothes, feeling so dazed it was like he’d been underwater, starved of breath.
So that was how a kiss was supposed to be.
Now he understood how lovers did it.
How he could do it.
How he might want to.
In the moment—relaxed by the cooking and the sparring with Tha?s—he’d somehow been able to overcome his apprehension and follow her lead. He’d been able to forget himself.
Perhaps Tha?s’s dirty jokes were part of her master plan for educating him.
Or perhaps she was just incurably crude.
Either way, her vulgarity was growing on him.
Shewas growing on him. He’d liked her, of course, when he’d paid so handsomely for her services. But he had not realized quite how quick and clever she was. Likely, he’d been prejudiced. He had never thought of prostitutes as creatures of great intellect, when he’d thought of them at all.
But then, he had not known many prostitutes, and there was no reason to assume they were less endowed with natural gifts than the next person. He felt rather shameful for assuming Tha?s’s chief characteristics were her skill at sex and her alluring body.
Not that he had lost interest in that body.
When she’d brought him close to her—God, the feeling of it. Her breasts were so pillowy and soft and bloody big, and she smelled so good and touched him so gently. He was still hard. So hard he’d love to satisfy himself. But this house was small, and he could hear her changing in the room across the hall. (She did nothing quietly or without cursing, including getting dressed.) He feared that she would hear him—sense him—touching himself, and the thought was mortifying.
Or... something. Tempting, almost, in a strange way, as much as it would be humiliating. The idea made him even more aroused, which made the problem worse. He would simply have to wait in his room until the trouble subsided.
Which, thankfully, it finally had ten minutes later, when Tha?s knocked on his door.
“Eden, come out,” she demanded. “I’m bored.”
He opened the door. She was standing in the hall in one of her new gowns, lit up by the sunlight through the landing window. Her dress was a shade of green that made her hair look even redder.
She was so beautiful he did not know how she did anything but admire her own reflection.
“Bored?” he asked. “How could that be possible? It’s been a quarter hour since you were complaining about making a cake.”
“A quarter hour since I was kissing you, I think you mean.”
“I’m afraid I can’t entertain you. I have work to do. I’m behind.”
More to the point, he needed a respite from his attraction to her. If he spent more time with her just now, God knew what he might do.
She pouted. “You should hire me a friend to keep me company.”
“I’m your friend, and I’ve been keeping you company. But every adult human must occasionally occupy themself. And besides, don’t you have your own work to do? Did you not say you would be ordering furnishings for the Institute?”
She’d mentioned it in passing over supper, though not with great enthusiasm.
She groaned. “All that reading hurts my eyes.”
He softened. He supposed if he had trouble reading, he would find it far more difficult to entertain himself. It was his primary occupation.
Nevertheless, he had business he had to address. His secretary had been waiting on his response to a pile of inquiries for days. He needed to write a letter to his sister. He had a stack of reports on women to get through—
Ah. That was the solution.
“Here’s what I propose. We can review a few of my potential brides before supper. But after we eat, I must work.”
She smiled happily. “Yes. Let’s find you a wife.”
They did not find him a wife.
He read her the profiles of eight young ladies, and each was summarily rejected. Too young, too bright, too ignorant, too thin, too bookish, too musical. Her reasoning was arguably fatuous, but he shared her lack of enthusiasm for the descriptions of the ladies he’d been provided. They all sounded dull.
But that was unfair. Anyone would sound uninteresting when reduced to a few paragraphs of their physical traits and accomplishments, would they not? He could only imagine how unlikable he’d sound if described in such a way.
Lord Alastair Eden is a polite and serious aristocrat with a family seat in Cumbria and seventy thousand guineas a year. He read geography at Oxford and is fluent in Greek, Latin, and French, as well as an accomplished horseman with a stable twenty-thoroughbreds strong. Considered radical in his political views, he has written several treatises on the reform of government and economics. He has also authored papers on agriculture and ovine husbandry...
And that wouldn’t even disclose the fact that he had a tragic family history and did not know how to bed a woman.
He made a simple supper of sausages and small potatoes, which Tha?s called Cock and Balls, arranging her portion into an approximation of the male anatomy.
“Oh, just eat it,” he groaned.
“Well, I’d better, as it’s the only prick my mouth is getting near.”
He did not react, though it was a struggle as he could scarcely swallow at the thought of her mouth on his prick.
“Where’s my cake?” she asked as soon as they were finished.
“Come with me to the kitchen. I’ll show you how to serve it.”
The cake was cooling on a rack. He found a serving plate for it and showed her how to use a knife to loosen the edges.
“Now turn it over gently to release it,” he instructed.
She did so very, very carefully; her eyes closed like she was horrified she’d ruin it.
“Perfect!” he said as it slid whole and golden onto the platter. “Well done.”
She opened her eyes and grinned delightedly. “Pretty lass, isn’t she?”
“Beautiful. Before we serve it, the final touches.”
He took a bowl of berries he’d collected that morning and scattered them over the cake. “Now we’ll drizzle it in honey,” he said.
He gave her the honeypot, and she did the honors, happy as a child.
“Let’s have a taste,” she said. Without bothering to slice it, she stuck a fork directly into the cake, broke off a hunk, speared a berry to go with it, and lifted it to his mouth.
He shook his head. “You first.” He took the fork from her hand and held it out to her.
She took a bite and rolled her eyes in ecstasy, moaning.
“What heaven,” she said, through a mouthful. “Here.”
She prepared another bite and fed it to him. It was moist and light, sticky with the honey, the sweetness offset by the tartness of the fruit.
She watched him as he ate it. “Gorgeous, isn’t it?” she asked.
“Utterly,” he said. But he did not mean the cake. He meant this woman, smiling at him with pride in her eyes.
They ate a slab of it together, sharing the fork. When he could eat no more, he waved the fork away. “All yours.”
“No, I’m stuffed.”
An errant crumb clung to her top lip. On an impulse, he reached up and wiped it away.
She looked down at his hand, and then his lips.
She was doing it, he realized. Giving him the invitation to kiss her, just like she’d shown him during their lesson.
He wanted to do it. To show he understood. To put his lips to the sweet remnants of the honey.
But he’d be helpless if he did so. He was still shaken from their kiss this afternoon. He didn’t know what would become of him if he allowed himself another one.
He stepped away and busied himself wiping crumbs off the table. He could sense she was disappointed in him and didn’t look at her.
“You’re a wonderful chef, Tha?s,” he said. “You can make all of our desserts.”
She didn’t smile. “Not a chance.”
“Well, time for me to work.”
He left the room before she could call him out for avoiding kissing her.
He sequestered himself in his study for the remainder of the evening, leaving Tha?s in the parlor to sift through the catalogs of furnishings and decorations she’d brought with her. He resolved to work late, get ahead of his responsibilities, and help her write down her decisions in the morning.
She had retired by the time he finished his work at half past eleven. Evidently, she found country life dull enough to sleep through half the day. He felt guilty she was bored. Her principal occupation, after all, was to entertain him erotically. He’d erected—he smiled to himself, knowing how she’d cackle at the turn of phrase—enough barriers to lust that, at this point, a month might not be long enough for her to give him the education he had hired her to provide.
He would have to let down his defenses. Be more like the man he’d been licking cake batter off Tha?s’s finger—letting his chest drift against her breasts—and less like the one who had dodged her lips when her eyes had beckoned him to kiss her.
A faint flicker of candlelight shone beneath Tha?s’s door, and he imagined how she would react if he stopped and knocked. Asked for a chance to make it up to her.
He knew she would eagerly oblige him. Be proud of him for asking.
But he was tired. He rarely stayed up this late, especially in the country, where he tended to rise at dawn. And he’d so enjoyed their time today that he wanted to savor the memory, just for tonight, so he could enjoy it in the morning.
And he woke up very ready to commence such an activity. His cock was so hard it ached. It only took a moment to bring himself off in such a state, but the act of doing so did not beget the usual satisfaction. It brought a sharp rush of pleasure, to be sure. But not enough to linger over.
He never did this, but he was tempted to have himself again.
He lay back in bed, eyes closed, imagining the feeling of Tha?s against him. The slight softening he’d experienced quickly reversed itself as he began to stroke. He took his time, ignoring the glare of the rising sun coming through the window and the roosters that had begun to crow outside.
He thought of her breasts—those luscious, luscious breasts—exposed to him a few mornings ago. The thatch of flaming red hair he’d glimpsed above her womanhood. Of her hips, flaring like the contours of a cello. His breath caught, and he strained to be quiet, despite the fact that Tha?s would sleep for six more hours if he let her and Hattie would not arrive until seven.
He leaned his head back against the wall and let out a silent moan. He was close, and the feeling was almost perfect, if he just gripped a little tighter now—
His door flew open.
“Eden!” Tha?s cried. “If your damned birds don’t stop that squawking, I’m going to go outside and wring their—”
She trailed off, realizing what he was doing. Horror rushed through him. But it didn’t stop the cresting tide of his desire in time.
He came.
Not just that, he came with a deep groan, spending in great ribbons all over his bare belly.
Tha?s clapped a hand over her mouth.
“Go away!” he shouted at her, still spasming.
“I—do you need any help?” she asked softly.
“Get out, Tha?s,” he yelled more forcefully. “Get out.”
Eyes wide, she backed away and shut the door.