Текст книги "Beckman: Lord of Sins"

Автор книги: Grace Burrowes

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Nine

“Beckman? Maudie neglected to…”

Sara’s voice trailed off when she didn’t see him in his sitting room, so she opened the door to his bedroom. Her eyebrows rose as she fell silent, taking in the tableau before her.

He was absolutely, utterly, without-a-stitch naked, and absolutely, utterly, without-a-doubt breathtaking.

“My goodness.” Sara stood there, feeling drunk, unable to move, holding a pitcher of water between her hands. As casual as you please, Beck strolled over, took the water from her, drew her into the room by her wrist and pushed the door closed.

“A pleasure to see you.” He leaned down and nuzzled her neck, barely touching her but bringing his heat and the clean scent of him near enough for Sara to sense both. And in just a few words and a few steps, he’d shifted his species, going from a hardworking man partway through his bedtime routine to a prowling beast bent on seduction.

“Beckman?”

“That would be me.” In no hurry whatsoever, he picked up a blue velvet dressing gown and loosely belted it around his waist. She watched him, even when he was decently covered.

Beck smiled, and not the smile of a hardworking man preparing to retire. “You look at me like that, and I am reminded that for a week I have been a perfect gentleman—a long, difficult, profoundly frustrating week.”

Sara knew he expected a reply, but she was entranced by the naked skin of his throat and chest. Her hand came up as if to brush along his sternum then fell self-consciously back to her side. The week had been very long indeed, and he was not the only one who’d been burdened by good behavior.

“Touch me, Sara.” Beck kept his hands at his sides. “It has to have been a long week for you too.”

“This isn’t wise.” But even as she spoke, she did stroke a single finger down his sternum. He closed his eyes, fisted his hands, and she did it again with two fingers, pushing the material of his dressing gown a little aside as she did. In the light of the candles gracing his room, the trail of hair down his midline gleamed like gilded fire.

Beckman opened eyes bluer than his velvet dressing gown. “Indulge yourself. Investigate me, Sara. Investigate me beyond a walk to the pond or a tour around the rose bushes. See if what I offer is worth your consideration, lest you make a decision on supposition rather than fact.”

“You want me to inspect you, like a horse?”

“I want you to take your time,” Beck said. “To assure yourself you know all you need to decide your course. Consider this a trial ride, and see how I suit you.”

He was smiling at her, a maddeningly coy and relaxed smile.

“I’m not ready for that,” Sara said, resenting his poise. He’d barely even touched her—barely—and her insides were already turning liquid, her thoughts slowing, her awareness filling up with sensations instead: his bergamot scent, the way his skin gleamed by firelight, the feel of smooth male muscle beneath her fingertips, the warmth he gave off, and the soft light of desire in his eyes, even as he waited for her to choose.

“I’ll inspect,” Sara heard herself decide, “but no more.” Had they not taken that walk to the pond, had Beckman not listened to her silly tale of woe, she would not have made that choice—maybe.

“Inspect to your heart’s content. I take it Allie is off to bed?”

“She’d already tucked herself in,” Sara said, “and Polly was right behind her. We’ve all had a busy week.”

Beck shrugged out of his dressing gown.

“What are you doing?” Sara tried to keep her voice level and did not move one inch from her post by the closed bedroom door.

“Getting ready for bed myself.” He yawned and scratched his chest, giving her a shadowed look at the front of him before propping one foot on the raised hearth. “I assume you’ll want me on the bed, but regardless, I’m fastidious by nature.”

She knew that and liked it about him. He bent to use his washrag on one sizable foot, and the play of firelight along the curve of his spine and buttocks nearly had Sara’s knees buckling.

He straightened. “Perhaps you’d like to do the honors?” He wrung out his rag and held it out to her.

“Me?” She took a step closer.

“Or I can finish myself.” He dipped the cloth and started on his other foot, bending forward again. “I truly enjoy washing my feet, which probably has some biblical connotation, but it keeps the sheets clean, and it’s really nobody’s business but my own. Shall I wash your feet, Sarabande?”

“What else do you like to wash?” She’d moved to the end of the bed, a few steps closer.

He shrugged. “I just like to be clean. I was teased for that by my brothers, but they’re as fussy as I am.”

“I don’t think of you as fussy,” Sara said, watching the muscles of his forearms and biceps flex as he wrung out the washcloth again.

“I certainly hope you don’t see me as fussy.” He swiped the rag along the back of his neck, though from the scent of him, Sara suspected he’d completed his ablutions before she’d arrived. “Shall you finish this job for me?”

“You look clean to me.” He looked naked to her, naked, desirable, and completely at ease with it. She’d never seen Reynard entirely naked, never wanted to, but she knew the view wouldn’t have been half so impressive as this.

“I’ve missed a spot.” Beck smiled at her. “An important spot.” He tossed the rag at her and held her gaze as she caught the cloth. “Go ahead, Sara. Indulge your curiosity.”

“I am indulging it.” She licked her lips but couldn’t help darting one glance to his genitals. Turned as he was, his groin was still shadowed, but she thought she could see a hint of tumescence to his… To him.

Had sheinspired that?

“You are tolerating your curiosity. Lying again. Indulge it.”

She read a challenge in his expression, but something much more seductive than a simple taunt: behind his cool humor, his overweening male confidence, his patience even, there was tenderness, a willingness to abide by her wishes out of genuine regard for her.

A form of kindness.

She’d told him too much at the pond. Were she not aware that Beckman could on any day be summoned to leave the property and not come back, she might have found the strength to walk away from that tenderness.

“Touch me, Sara. I’ll not beg, and you’ll not regret it. Let me give you what you want.”

“Turn around.” She closed the distance between them and grasped Beck by one arm, turning him to face the hearth. He watched while she moved the basin and took a seat on the bricks beside it. “You’ll tell me if I misstep.”

He nodded, his expression becoming unreadable as Sara positioned herself, realizing only as she did that her face—her mouth—was nearly level with his groin.

She laved his thighs in slow, rhythmic strokes, but sweet, holy, perishing saints… “Turn.”

She spent a long minute admiring his buttocks, then used the washcloth to make measured trips over his flanks then the backs of his thighs. “Turn again.”

She heard him take an audible breath before he complied, keeping his hands at his sides but planting his feet half a step wider. His cock was showing unmistakable signs of interest in the proceedings, and he didn’t try to hide that from her.

Sara frowned at his genitals, but wrung out the flannel and this time used it on the insides of his thighs.

Rinsing the cloth again, Sara slid it in a careful, general pass over his groin.

“Not like that.” Beck closed his hand over hers and brought the washcloth directly over his cock. “Like this.” He swabbed himself with her grip, up and down several times, the angle of his erection increasing as he did. He bent and picked up her other hand. “And then you tend it like this.”

Holding his cock up against his belly, he showed her how to use the washcloth on his testes, then let his cock go so it bobbed against the back of her hand. She snatched her hand away, glaring up at him accusingly.

“And now I’m clean enough,” he said. She took a breath, set the washcloth and basin aside. When she would have risen—would have lost her nerve—he reached out and cradled a hand along her jaw then stroked it down over her head from her crown to her nape. “When we’re in that bed, you’ll touch me, Sara. However you please.”

She wanted to. Sara was ruthlessly honest with herself, and she admitted she wanted to. That wasn’t surprising, because he was right: she was curious. She could resist temptation if she had to, but there was something unusual about this encounter with Beckman Haddonfield.

Men had often attempted to seduce her—practiced, polished, worldly men, some of whom had been musically literate. Reynard would have crowed with glee had she taken lovers, because lovers would mean gifts, even extravagant gifts, and gifts would mean more good food, decent wine, and late nights at cards for him.

Those men had looked at her with desire, and a few of them had even been handsome, intelligent, attractive men.

But the lust in their eyes hadn’t been bounded by the respectshe saw on Beck’s face. He would not pressure her, and if and when she capitulated to her desires, he would want it to be an independent decision on her part, not a lapse she could blame on him or attribute to a weak moment.

He wanted her to choose him, but for her sake as much as his own.

Beck hunkered on the rug, letting her hide her face against his shoulder. “Come to bed with me, Sara. You can indulge all of your creative impulses and allow me to explore a few of mine, too.”

She nodded against his naked, muscular shoulder, no longer recognizing herself. God help her, but she wanted to put her mouth on his shoulder, taste him there, open her teeth on him while her hands ran riot over the rest of him.

“Come.” Beck straightened and raised her to her feet. While she stood, docile and self-conscious, he undid her dress, took off her stockings, stays and slippers, and then untied the bows of her chemise. He paused and met her eyes to ask the question.

She considered, finding she wanted to be as naked as he was, and that too was something that hadn’t ever happened with Reynard.

Which, she realized, made her fiercely glad. Reynard had been flawed, troubled, and morally diseased, but it had been easy, particularly as a young woman and a new wife, to think the flaw had lain with her.

Well, it hadn’t. The look in Beck’s eyes, the reverent feel of his hands as he drew her chemise off her shoulders, they told her, if nothing else ever had, she was desirable, wonderfully, wildly, irrefutably desirable.

“Come to bed with me.” He held out his hand and let her see in his eyes his pleasure in her nakedness. When she put her hand in his, he drew her to him and enfolded her against him. “Just one more thing…” She stood patiently while he drew the pins from her hair, until her braid was swinging down her back, brushing against her naked backside.

“That is an odd sensation.” Wicked, peculiar, and ticklish.

“I want it all the way undone.” He drew her braid over her shoulder and brushed the tip of it over her breast.

“You want meall the way undone.” Sara retrieved her braid from his hand. “This will have to do for now. Oh, dear…”

Beck had pulled her close again, and his erection arrowed up along her belly between them.

“I want you,” he murmured as his slid his hands down to cup her derriere. “This should not be surprising. You are lovely, sexually appealing, intelligent, and thank all the gods, naked in my arms.”

“You mentioned something about the bed, Beckman.” She tried for a convincing version of prim, but when she saw him stifle a smile, she knew he heard the hesitance in her voice.

“The bed with both of us in it.” Beck dropped his arms, seized her hand, and towed her the last few steps toward the bed. “Naked.”

“One can hardly forget that part.” Sara eyed the bed with sudden misgiving.

“In you go.” Beck patted her behind gently. “I’ll lock the sitting room door.”

Happy to get under the covers, despite the obvious appreciation in Beck’s eyes, Sara obligingly lifted the bedclothes and scooted across the mattress. Beck closed the bedroom door behind him and climbed in beside her with a complete lack of ceremony.

“Now what?” Sara had the covers up to her chin, and she was on Her Side of the Bed, staring at the ceiling. Beck came bouncing and rocking across the mattress, causing Sara to scoot farther toward the edge of the bed.

“Stop that.” He wrapped long arms around her waist and hauled her back to the middle. “I won’t bite, Sara, unless you want me to. And then I’ll kiss it better.”

“It’s just…” She paused while Beck rolled her to her side and wrapped his body around hers. “I’m not used to situations like this.”

“So it’s been a while.” Beck’s arm threaded under her neck, and he gathered her close. “You’ll recall the particulars, with a little reminding. Scoot a bit, if you please?”

He need not have bothered asking. With his size and complete lack of self-consciousness, Beck had arranged her in his arms and himself around her.

Mostly.

“You’re blushing.” His tone indicated he was pleased with himself.

“You are… your partsare intimately situated.”

“So enjoy them,” Beck suggested, rolling his hips to rub his cock against her sex. The angle was wrong for penetration—Sara could figure that much out—but intriguing for other purposes.

Sara wasn’t blushing, she was mortifiedas the great, thick length of him was snuggled right up against the parts of her body Sara rarely touched except to wash. Having the bulk of him between her legs brought an odd comfort, but it was disquieting, too. Impossible to ignore, like a beautiful picture hanging crookedly directly across the room from where one sat.

And yet, she did not want to leave that bed. She wanted to learn him, to become as familiar with his body as he was. She ran her hand over his flank, liking the curve of it, the way muscle and bone became a lean, elegant leg.

Sara’s fingers found a scar crossing the crest of Beck’s left hip.

“Riding accident as a child. There’s another one on my wrist, and a scar here”—he brought her hand to his collarbone—“where I broke a bone in another fall.”

“Little boys are so reckless. Men are no better.” Sara rubbed her thumb over the scar on his hip.

Beck slipped his hand around hers. “This man would very much like you to wax a bit reckless too.” He slid their combined hands down and positioned her fingers over his cock. “A lot reckless wouldn’t go amiss either.”

* * *

Tremaine surveyed the tally before him, knowing that even the sizable total on the last page was not an accurate figure when it came to the booty Reynard had sent back to England “for safekeeping.”

“There’s a bloody fortune here.”

The cat in his arms, Harriette, named for the famed courtesan whose behavior she emulated whenever allowed to roam free, purred audibly.

“I’ve cast my first lure but gotten no response.” He paused before a small painting for which anybody with a discerning eye would have paid a fortune. “A marmalade cat was a much better choice than you would have been.”

The cat in the figure made perfect graceful counterpoint to the nearly naked woman with whom it slept. “Black is trite, overdone, and probably not very interesting to paint.”

The beast leapt from his embrace, her back claws pushing away from Tremaine’s ribs with enough emphasis to make Tremaine grateful for both waistcoat and shirt. “Be that way. See who lets you cuddle up on his bed when I’m off to deal with Reynard’s womenfolk. Some of us appreciate the treasures that come our way.”

The cat, tail held high, strutted from the room, paying him no mind whatsoever.

* * *

Sara Hunt was driving Beck past the controlled, careful wooing he wanted to give her. His plan was not motivated by generosity but by the conviction that a more precipitous approach would fail.

And Sara would allow no second chances.

“Other men aren’t built like you, are they?” She’d shifted to her back and sent her hands running riot over his person and his… parts. She began to shape and stroke one part of him in particular, while Beck struggled to keep his breathing even.

“We all have pretty much the same accoutrements,” Beck managed, though it was an odd question for a widow. But then, some husbands were painfully modest– hecertainly had been.

“Like a pony has the same parts as a horse,” Sara said. “When you’re like this”—she closed her fingers around his shaft—“it means you’re impassioned.”

Was that a question or an observation? When he was with her, it was an understatement in any case.

Beck let his hand wander over her shoulders and down to the slope of her breast. “Or it can mean I’ve awoken with a need to use the chamber pot.”

“Really?” She seemed intrigued. “How odd. What are you doing, Beckman?”

“Appreciating your parts, as you are appreciating mine,” he temporized, but he hadn’t even really touched her breast yet; he was merely scouting the territory. “I’ll stop if you prefer.”

“That’s…” Sara closed her eyes as his fingers grazed the soft flesh right under her nipple. “Not necessary.”

“Tell me.” He repeated the caress. “What exactly do you like, Sarabande? And how do you like it?”

She’d closed her eyes, and her hand had gone still on his cock. “I don’t understand the question.”

“Come here.” Before her eyes were open, Beck was lifting her above him and positioning her astride his lap. “Better. No, don’t start lecturing.”

“But I’m…” She crossed her hands over her breasts and turned her head so as not to meet his eyes.

“You’re modest.” Beck covered her hands with his. “With me, you should be proud, Sara. You’re beautiful, in the way only a woman can be, and I want to look at you and touch you until you feel as beautiful as you are.”

“Must you be so kind?”

“I’m being honest.” Perhaps Sara thought him both, for she allowed him to peel her hands away from her breasts and place them on his chest. Still, he sensed an awkwardness from her, as if perching upon a man’s aroused sex had not been in her marital vocabulary of intimacies.

Beck reached up to cup her nape and drew her down within kissing range. This hid her magnificent breasts from his view, of course, but it also let him get his mouth on her somewhere, thus avoiding the utter collapse of his sanity.

And this was better, Beck decided as he touched his lips to hers. Kissing let him spare them both the burden of speech and much of the burden of thought as well.

She sipped at his mouth then slipped her tongue along his lower lip, while Beck teased and coaxed and encouraged. When she grew a little bolder, he growled his approval and framed her face in his hands, the better to hold her still for his reciprocal invasion. Her fingers tangled in his hair, and the way they gripped at him suggested she was passing the point of mere comfort with their kissing.

Unable to resist the temptation any longer, Beck slid a cautious hand to Sara’s waist. By degrees, as their kiss grew more heated, he stroked his hand up, over the nip of her waist, to her lowest rib and up farther. His tongue found its way into a slow, penetrating rhythm just as his palm settled over the fullness of her breast.

She arched into his hand, and Beck felt a spike of simple joy in her response. Without breaking the kiss, he offered her a cautious pressure with his fingers, and her hips stirred restlessly.

Thanks be to heaven…He raised his hips, the better to accommodate her, and immediately, Sara’s body thanked him by settling more firmly on his cock.

“What are you…?” She tried to lever up, but Beck caught her by the back of the neck.

“Kiss me, love.” He urged her back down. “We’re just getting started.” She hesitated, her mouth a half inch from his, but then he gave her breast another gentle squeeze, and she closed her eyes and found his mouth with her own.

And that was just fine. Beck adored his prize with his fingers then went so far as to brush his thumb over Sara’s nipple in slow, languorous teases that drove her to moans and whimpers.

“Move on me,” Beck whispered, curling up to get his mouth on her nipple. She cut off in mid-whimper, her hands cradled the back of his head, and she moaned outright when he suckled her.

In his heated, lusting bones, Beck knew he was with a woman who could come and come hard, just from attention to her breasts.

By why should she have to? He rubbed his cock teasingly against her sex. She was damp for him now and not the least shy about the contact.

He cruised to her other breast. “Please yourself, love. Move on me.”

She might have heard him, she might not have, but she did begin to slide her sex over his cock, forward and back, a deliberate, purposeful stroke to which Beck could time the way he drew on her breast. Her hand came up and closed over his, showing him she wanted more pressure—a lot more pressure—and held longer, more tightly.

“Better?”

But she was beyond forming any answers, other than with her body. Beck’s body had become a torrent of articulation too, screaming at him to bury his cock in her wet heat and have her over the edge in three hard strokes, but he held back.

Trial ride, he reminded himself. Trial ride; you promised her.

If she decided to change the angle and plunge down on him for her own pleasure, Beck would enthusiastically oblige, but the decision had to be hers.

“Beckman…” Sara ground against him and trapped his fingers around her nipple with her free hand. “I can’t stand…”

Somewhere in the mental brawl between carnal need and self-restraint, Beck comprehended that Sara did not know how to enjoy and prolong her own arousal. She was hurtingwith a lack of satisfaction, and he had to show her where relief lay. Anchoring one arm around her back, he slipped his hand between their bodies and got his thumb into the wet folds of her sex.

“It’s here,” he rasped against her breast. He pushed hard and rhythmically with his thumb until she recalled how to push in counterpoint to that most gratifying pressure. Seizing his self-control with both fists, Beck bit gently on her nipple and felt her body ripple with the pleasure of it.

And off she went, battering his self-discipline as she writhed and keened, letting him give her two long fingers pressed deep into her sex to send her back out of her mind just when he sensed her satisfaction might be cresting.

And God above, she was snug. Her sex clamped down on his fingers, hard, repeatedly, until Beck gave up and let his own orgasm go rocketing through him. He barely got a hand around himself to deflect the worst of the untidiness onto his own belly before he was groaning quietly with the sheer, wringing pleasure of his release.

He couldn’t recall when he’d come that hard, not even in the act, and he wasn’t sure he’d survive it if such pleasure befell him again.

“Beckman?”

Sara sounded as dazed as Beck felt, and he realized his fingers were still hilted inside her. He eased his hand from her and felt her shudder with an aftershock of pleasure.

“On your back, sweetheart.” He levered up and kissed her cheek. “Careful of the sheets.”

She pitched awkwardly to the mattress, leaving Beck to get up and fetch the basin and washcloth.

“I’m… buzzing inside,” Sara said, consternation in her tone as she waved a vague hand below her waist.

“Is buzzing a good thing?” Beck brought the basin to the night table, wrung out the cloth, and scrubbed it over his belly and groin.

“Different.” Sara lay on her back, knees drawn up, her modesty apparently not yet within reach.

“The water’s a little cool,” Beck warned her, wringing out the cloth again. She let her knees fall to the sides but turned her head as he swabbed gently at her sex. “Sensitive?”

She nodded, saying nothing until he’d folded the cloth against her and applied a comforting touch of pressure.

“And you, Beckman? You found… pleasure too?”

Beck smiled at her just for asking, and still pressing the cool cloth to her sex, leaned in and kissed her. “A wagonload of it. I hope I didn’t hurt you?”

“No. Overwhelmed and buzzing, but pain is not part of it.”

“You’d have to tell me if it were.” Beck believed her, but still… he hadn’t been anywhere near as gentle as he’d intended—and Sara hadn’t been restrained.

“Why are you smiling?”

“I’m happy,” Beck said, the truth of his answer surprising him. “Very happy. Now scoot over. Company is coming to call, Sarabande Hunt.” He tossed the washcloth into the basin and climbed in beside her where she lay on Her Side of the Bed.

“None of that tea-with-the-queen business, love.” He seized her under the arms and hoisted her back over him. “We’re friends now. Cuddle up. There’s my girl.” He patted her bottom, and then his touch shifted, stroking up her back. “What?”

“I feel like crying,” she blurted out, folding forward onto his chest.

“I’ll hold you while you cry,” Beck said, his brisk humor disappearing as tenderness swamped him. “Tell me honestly, Sara, was I too rough?”

“No.” She burrowed into his chest, and Beck had the odd thought that they were—finally—getting to the real lovemaking. “I’m just… sentimental.”

“It’s spring,” Beck finished the thought for her, “and it has been a long time for you, and your daughter is facing her birthday, and you have no one with whom to share these things the way you ought.” He gathered her closer and felt a sigh go out of her. “How was your trial ride, Sarabande?” Beck kept his caresses on her back slow and soothing, but—though he would leave any day and likely never see Three Springs again—her answer mattered to him. “Will I do?”

“You.” Sara’s breath puffed against his chest again. “You know very well you are not the one whose condition has to be assessed. You probably have a different dalliance for every season.”

Beck’s hands went still. “No, I do not. You would be mistaking me for my brother Nicholas, who has a different dalliance for every day of the week when he’s in a certain mood.”

“You’re not exaggerating, are you?” Sara raised her face to peer at him. “You’re not, I can see this. You must worry for him, this Nicholas.”

Worry was not the first sentiment that Beck would have named in conjunction with Nick, but it was… applicable. Maybe more applicable than exasperation, frustration, or even anger.

“I do worry.” Beck traced the dimples at the base of her spine. “Just when I think much of Nick’s reputation is merely gossip and rumor, another of his cast-off lovers will assure me the facts are understated, not overstated. I don’t know what drives him, but it isn’t a happy impulse.”

“You said you were happy a moment ago. Maybe your brother wants that happiness.”

“Maybe,” Beck allowed, but he wasn’t convinced he’d ever understand what drove his brother. “Are you happy?”

“Disconcerted,” Sara rejoined all too readily, “but not unhappy.”

“Talk to me,” Beck said, appreciating her honesty, even if her answer wasn’t what he wanted to hear. “Tell me about being disconcerted.”

Sara rubbed her cheek against his chest. “Has it escaped your notice that we are naked, tangled upon each other, and having a discussion?”

“And which of those disconcerts you?”

“The three of them.” She raised up enough to frown at his chest, then settled back down, a bit to the left. “The three of them together. How do I face you in the morning?”

She fell silent, and then the quiet took on a busier quality as Beck felt her tongue slide experimentally over his nipple.

“Behave yourself, Sarabande.”

She did it again then settled back. “Does that make you feel the way you make me feel?”

Beck smoothed his thumb over her jaw. “Now how would I be able to speak for how you feel? I can tell you I like it, it’s arousing, and I can feel it right down to my vitals.”

“Good. I’d say the same, were you to ask me—which you shall not—but you’ve avoided my question.”

She sounded shy and brisk, and Beck found both appealing. “About facing each other in the morning?”

“The very one.” She batted her eyelashes over his nipple this time, suggesting an inventiveness that boded ill for Beckman’s remaining wits.

“You are a delight.” He closed his arms around her in sheer affection. “An absolute, utter, unequivocal delight.” A dangerous delight. A shaft of misgiving went through him, because leaving this delight behind when it came time to return to Kent would be difficult.

“But a housekeeper too,” Sara reminded him, “and delighting is not on my list of duties, though when you hold me like this, you make me want to rethink my list.”

“Delight belongs on your list, Sara,” Beck said in all seriousness. “I am not your lover yet, but I would dearly like to be.”

“You can be my lover, but only if I can discern a means of becoming invisible thereafter, Beckman. I cannot hold in my mind at the same time the way we are together now, the way I behaved with you earlier, and the need to ask you to please pass the cream at the breakfast table tomorrow.”

For a widow who’d just found her pleasure, she was peculiarly reluctant to experience it again. “So skip breakfast. Have me instead.”

Sara tongued him again for his insolence. “I can’t help but feel everybody will know. They’ll be able to see by looking that I’ve cast my morals to the wind and embarked on a life of dissolution.”

“Oh, indeed.” Beck drew his hand down her braid, which had gotten satisfactorily messy. “You spend one hour a week in my bed, and now you’re a flaming strumpet. How much time does Allie spend drawing and painting?”

“Hours and hours.”

“And in the past week,” Beck went on, “how much time has Polly spent in North’s exclusive company?”

“Several hours at least. They walk out. She takes him his lunch. I think he reads to her some evenings.”

Good work, North, Beck wanted to retort, but he had a point to make.

“And how many hours in a week do you spend in housework?”

She was silent a moment. “Seventy, at least.”

“But you think this one hour with me will define you to the exclusion of those seventy? I’d say you’re entitled to one hour a week, Sara, at least one, to be pleasured, held, and talked to like an adult. Surely you don’t begrudge yourself that little respite?”

Surely he didn’t begrudge it to himself?

When she didn’t answer but went back to playing with his nipple, he knew she was considering his argument. He could tell this, he assured himself, by the thoughtful mannerin which she was driving him beyond reason with her mouth.