he assumed I was your mistress.” She approached the other side of his desk and placed her hands flat on the top. “Do you know why? Because I am your mistress. And now that fact will be all over Mayfair by dinnertime.”
“First, you’re not my mistress,” he said. “Second, don’t worry about gossip. I highly doubt that Sir Winston Harvey will be eager to repeat the tale.”
“No, he won’t dare say a thing about you crushing his hat. He’ll save all his venom for describing me. Lord, you are so naïve.”
“Me. You’re calling me naïve?”
“Yes, you. Chase, you are a wealthy, well-placed man. The heir to a duke. Society will forgive you anything. Women in my position are not so fortunate. We work for our living at the pleasure of the upper classes. The tiniest hint of scandal, and we are ruined. Unemployable, forever. That’s the way English society works.”
“Then English society needs to do better.”
“Well, unless you intend to change it by the end of the summer, I’d thank you not to throw me under the wheels of a high-sprung phaeton.” She crossed her arms and paced back and forth. “What if word spreads that your governess is really your mistress—”
“You’re not my mistress.”
“—and then Rosamund and Daisy aren’t accepted to school? I’m counting on that extra two hundred pounds you promised me. I have to make a life for myself beyond this summer.”
As if he would let her wander off penniless to starve. “You needn’t worry about your wages. You know I’ll take care of you.”
“Really? How? You’ll set me up in a little house in the country somewhere, with an income and a companion, perhaps. Like a mistress.”
“For the last time.” He came around the desk and seized her by the arms. “You are not my mistress.”
“Then what am I?” Her voice quavered. “What am I to you?”
“You’re . . .”
Everything.
A bitter smile curved her lips. “Don’t strain yourself reaching for that answer.”
“Bloody hell, Alex. I don’t know what to call it.” He pulled her close, crushing her body to his. “I just know I’ll be damned if I’ll let you go.”
When Chase’s mouth crushed to hers, Alex crushed right back. Equal and opposite reactions.
The result was glorious.
In their time together, they had shared a great many kisses. Passionate kisses, tender kisses, stolen kisses, secret kisses . . . but if she’d known how thrilling an angry kiss could be, Alex would have started rows with him nightly.
They grappled and clutched, each punishing the other for unspoken sins. She’d missed his heat, his scent, his hunger for her. The way his hardness filled her hand, and the salt of his skin on her tongue.
It had been so long. Too long. His fault.
He gripped her bottom and lifted her, shoving her onto the desk. Papers and quills fell to the floor.
At some point they ceased fighting each other and began fighting the space between them. They became allies in the war on clothing. Buttons were battled; laces, conquered. Petticoats marched north. His shirt was the final white flag of surrender, fluttering to the ground.
When skin finally met skin, the heat was so searing, they gasped in unison.
His greedy mouth and hands pushed her further onto the desk. He wanted her beneath him. Not this time. She shifted their positions, pushing and pulling and guiding, until he lay on his back atop the desk and she straddled his waist.
There. Much better.
She gazed down at his strong, defined torso, running her hands over muscle and sinew, then tracing all the same paths with her fingernails, lightly scraping over his skin. His hips bucked, and his arousal pushed against her belly. Aggressive. Impatient.
Not yet. Not just yet.
She bent to kiss him, running tongue and teeth down his neck, over his nipples, relishing every hiss of breath and strangled groan she could draw from his body. His hands went to her hair, yanking pins from her upsweep and gathering fistfuls of the unbound locks. The sharp tug on her scalp sent a thrill racing down to her toes.
He’d taken back some control, and he used it, dragging her up for a clash of tongues and teeth. And then pushing her back down his body, down and down, until there was no mistaking his intent.
Fine. She would let him have his way. But she was going to take her time.
She teased open the buttons of his trouser falls.
One . . .
By one . . .
By one.
Then she slipped her fingers inside, curling them about his cock.
One . . .
By one . . .
By one.
Until she drew him out, thick and ruddy and straining. And dropped light kisses down the underside of his shaft.
One . . .
By one . . .
By one.
He growled like a beast. A beast who was hers for the taming. He tightened his grip on her hair. “Alex, you’ll kill me.”
Well, they couldn’t have that.
Alex had never felt more powerful. To most of the world, she was small and slight and insignificant. Even invisible. But right here, right now, she had this man quivering at her slightest touch. Begging for her mouth.
She ran her tongue all the way from his root to the tip, and then took him into her mouth.
With a deep, yearning sigh, he released his grip on her hair. He arched his hips, pushing deeper. Take more of me, his body urged. And yet more.
She wanted more of him, too.
With a few last teasing licks, she raised her head. Hiking her skirts to her waist, she straddled his erection, trapping the rigid length between his belly and her cleft. She placed her hands flat on his chest and drew tall, rocking against him.
Yes. Yes. Yes.
His hands went to her hips, and he guided her into a faster rhythm. His hardness rubbed against her just where she needed it, pushing wave after wave of pleasure through her veins.
She locked eyes with him, riding his body with emboldened desire. Faster now. Her lips fell apart, and her breath rose and fell in her chest. The haze of pleasure descended on her, growing thicker and thicker until
