Improper Pleasures (The Pleasure Series #1) (11 page)

“I like the sounds of that.” He reached for a tendril of
her hair. “Could I see your hair down?”

“Are you examining me as you would livestock?”

“Do you mind? This is all rather sudden for me.”

She met his gaze and thought to refuse but could see he
was testing her, expecting her to balk and flee in a huff. She had begun this
course and she would not hold herself back now. Slowly, she tugged on the combs
and unwound her waist length hair. As James grabbed a lock of hair he brushed
the skin on her collar bone with his knuckles. Astra tried not to tremble at
the contact.

“It’s the color of sand, your hair. And your eyes a stormy
ocean. I like that,” he said matter-of-factly. He draped the chunk over the
curve of her breast, drawing the length between his fingers as he brushed her
swollen nipple through her clothes with the back of his hand. If his skin were
touching hers, she was certain she would combust.

“I like the way your pale hair looks against your skin.”
He brushed her hair away while tracing the outline of her bodice with a single
finger, lingering over the exposed flesh pushed up by her corset.

Astra had never been voluptuous, but James made her feel
lush and desirable. When she opened her eyes, his gaze was on her face. His
eyelids grew heavy and he let his stare tumble unapologetically to her breasts.
He slipped his finger inside the neckline. Astra took a deep, involuntary
breath. At his urging, her nipples slipped from her bodice. James lowered his
head, licking each nipple lightly, before taking one into his mouth.

Astra gripped his shoulders to keep her balance. Lost in
the sensation, she did not even realize James had begun to lift her skirt until
his hands skimmed the back of her knees. Reflexively, she stiffened and he
lifted his head from a very persuasive ravaging of her other nipple.

“Please, don’t stop.” She sensed that he would put an end
to this whole crazy matter if she showed the slightest reservation.

“You don’t have to do this, you know. I’ll agree to the
terms you asked for without you having to serve yourself up as a sacrificial
lamb. I have no intention of becoming engaged.”

The very notion of turning back now sank Astra’s spirits.
His hands remained behind her knees. She arched her back and spread her legs in
unmistakable invitation. “Then I would never again know your touch. Never know
the feel of your skin against mine.”

He lowered his head and grazed kisses along her neck. His
breath fanned hot and heavy against her wet skin.

“I’ve imagined you slipping into my bedroom in the dark.” She
was surely drunk from too much sherry to be telling him such things, as true as
they were. “I imagine you crawling into my bed, your hands brushing my skin,
raising my nightgown.”

James slipped his rough, warm palms to the back of her thighs,
easing her legs a little further apart. His face poised above hers. His
breathing had quickened, his gaze heavy.

“I never resist in my dreams. Never think of it. You
easily lift my gown over my head. You’re naked. You must have had a robe you
discarded before you slipped under the sheets.”

James slid his hands up her thighs, stopping just above
her garters, his hot palms resting on her bare skin.

He touched his forehead to hers. “No more, Astra.”

He seemed to be struggling with something and she prayed
it wasn’t his senses.

“I want you so desperately. My imagination tortures me
until I have to reach beneath my gown, touch the ache left there by wanting
you. Touch me, James. Please,” she whispered into his ear.

He rubbed his thumbs over the rosettes sewn onto her garter.
He lifted his head to look into her face again. Astra was not sure if she
leaned up and kissed him or he lowered his head to her. Their lips met with
mutual hunger, their tongues entwining in their desperation to get closer.
Astra shifted on the desk, urging James to move his touch up her thighs. His
hands slid slightly over her skin, gripping her tightly but making no move to
touch her aching center.

God, if he did not slip his fingers inside her, she feared
she might do it herself. She gathered her skirts with one hand and deepened the
kiss, feral in her hunger. He matched her intensity, yet he only tightened his
grip on her thighs, not moving them higher.

He broke the deep kiss in favor of soft, closed mouth
kisses on her lips that drifted to her neck. He eased his hands from beneath
her skirt, draping it to her ankles in the process.

Astra heart constricted. What had she done wrong? No. She
absolutely would not believe Lark’s father had been right, but his words
haunted her anyway. Like Lark’s father, James found her cold and undesirable.

“James, my experience with men is limited, but if you
teach me, I’m sure I can please you.” She hated the pleading tone in her voice.

“That is not in dispute.” He gripped her waist and easily
lifted her off the desk, gently placing her on her feet. His face was flushed
and his breath came fast. He seemed as unsteady as she by their sudden
separation. Her body still trembled from her unfulfilled lust.

“Then what did I do wrong?” She mumbled into his shirt
front. How could she fail at this? Perhaps she should have asked her mother how
to seduce a man after all.

His heartbeat thudded in her ears, and his breathing
remained ragged. “You did nothing wrong, Astra. Nothing. And the extent of my
desire rather than lack is more of the problem. I think we both need to
consider this overnight. What you propose could complicate both our lives
greatly.”

She pulled away to stare into his face. “On the contrary,
it will simplify things greatly. How long do you think it would take us to give
in to our mutual attraction? At least we will have an arrangement, know what
both expects of the other.”

“Astra, it sounds too good to be true and those things
usually are. I would never forgive myself if I hurt you.” He gave her shoulders
a quick squeeze and set her farther away from him, his gaze averted. She took
the moment to right her bodice realizing her breasts were exposed, swollen and
wet from his attention.

Astra laughed, a little too giddy perhaps. “I have already
been hurt, James. What you will give me is the pleasure that I missed.”

“You’re very persuasive.” He turned away and retreated
behind his desk. The one he claimed to imagine her on, but instead he had his
ledgers. They seemed to be piled high, some looking dusty and old. He quickly
shut the one open in front of him at her perusal. “Let’s sleep on this.
Separately,” he added with a grin. “Things might look very differently to you
tomorrow.”

Astra composed herself to the best of her abilities. Her
seduction was not even interesting enough to compete with bookkeeping. She
grabbed the combs off his desk, but knew rearranging her hair would be
pointless. Hopefully she could sneak to her room undetected. Eastlan’s servants
were loyal, but they were human and gossip was the local sport in a small
village. And the last thing she wanted was for the world to know she’d been
rejected again. She stiffly marched toward the door.

“Goodnight, my lord. There will be no need to speak of
this again.”

“The hell we won’t.” James strode up behind her. He
gripped the door handle before she could reach for it. “Just because I’m being
cautious, doesn’t mean we have terminated any of our agreements.” He crowded
her against the closed door. The heat from his body penetrated the fabric of
her dress. He braced his hand on the door just above her head, angling his hips
and pushing against her until she could feel the hard ridge of his erection
through her full skirts. His arm slipped around her waist and drew her against
him, tight and hard. Just as abruptly he moved her to the side and released
her.

He opened the door, sweeping her into the hall. His hand
still at her waist, he glanced down the long corridors, looking for something.
Astra dare not think it was other entertainment for the evening. She felt wretched
enough as it was.

“Sweet dreams, Lady Keane.” He released her and stepped
back into the study. “Until tomorrow.”

James leaned against the cool outer stone wall of a
building. When his tender flank met hard rock, he winced. The bloody tailor
must have poked him with his lethal needle half a dozen times in their fitting
this morning. But the man had lost a son in America during the war. To him,
James knew, he represented the enemy.

The men inside The Blue Anchor hadn’t seemed any more
receptive to the new lord than the tailor. James had insisted that he accompany
Wesley to hire the sheep shearers they would need for the May shearing.
Apparently, it was a specialized skill and Wesley hired the group to service
all of Eastlan’s tenant farmers. This year they had accepted another offer to
shear for an estate in Somerset. Wesley had persuaded James to step outside the
pub so he could talk to the men with whom he claimed to have developed a
relationship over the years. Catching their guarded glances, James had agreed.

Not that he could blame the men, who still held traces of
the field on their clothes and weathered skin, for finding him suspect.
Squeezed into his dandy red riding suit, James would have sneered at himself
too. James understood it would take time for the locals to accept him, but he
didn’t have that luxury. The longer he stayed the more difficult his lust for
Astra would become. Before last night, he had compartmentalized his infatuation
as inappropriate and something that wasn’t going to happen anywhere but in his
overactive imagination. He had been accepting of that. But now… If he hadn’t
been studying the accounts for the years of her marriage and her daughter’s
birth, he might not have hesitated. Never mind that he’d been going over old
ledgers that had nothing to do with their current problems but held secrets to
Astra’s past.

A gaggle of women in coarse wool in varying shades of mud
hid their whispers behind their loaded baskets as they walked past. A peel of
high pitched laughter drifted behind them. Once he would have assumed his viral
charm had melted the matronly group into girlish giggles. He kicked at a loose
stone in the road and longed to return to Eastlan. He should have consulted
Astra before he’d left the house. But he’d purposely avoided her, sneaking past
the breakfast room where he heard her conversing with a laughing child, no
doubt her daughter. Though he’d thought of little else last night, James still
was not sure how he should react to her offer to be his mistress.

Of course, he knew what he wanted to do. He ached to
accept Astra’s offer.

Really, why shouldn’t he take her as his mistress?

Because she was a decent woman. A widow with a child. A
respectable woman whom he had no plans to marry. Though he thought his
inheritance his just due for the hell he’d spent as a prisoner of war, his
fight with the British didn’t extend to its people, most especially Astra.

Where was Wesley? James was finished with standing around,
the object of everyone’s curiosity, and took off up the street.

A group of children gathered across the alley and openly
stared. James turned to walk the other way, then quickly swiveled and yelled,
“Boo!” in his loudest booming voice. A chorus of high-pitched squeals rained
down on the sleepy village as the children scattered like leaves in a storm.

He reached his destination at the top of the cobblestone
hill and there met a red-faced and flustered Wesley.

“There you are,” Wesley said as he pulled a white lace
handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at his brow. “Well, I did it. I
convinced the men too shear our wool at the end of July, mid-August at the
latest.”

James stopped. “Even I know that’s too late. Not only will
the wool be molted, but the market will be glutted. No, we must harvest our
wool sooner than later. We will hire another group of shearers.”

“But they will want to be paid up front, won’t they?”
Wesley pressed two fingers to his lips, cutting off his outburst. “I am sorry.
I am a bit frazzled. They wanted more money than usual.”

James studied his distant cousin. Wesley’s incompetence
had seemed innocent enough up until now. For the first time, James suspected
that Wesley was purposely misleading him.

“I’ll find a way to pay the men. The wool harvest is
imperative.” James thought of borrowing money from his sister’s husband, but it
would have to be money that could not be lost. He would not gamble with his
sisters’ security. Of course, he could sell his ship but the idea of not having
his escape at the ready caused a cold sweat beneath his wool riding jacket.

“Waiting and paying less will serve us better. A good
shearer is worth his weight in gold. These men will give us a more productive
harvest than a less skilled crew. Besides, it has been lean years in St.
Keynes. These men have mouths to feed and I fear they have already been given a
hefty advance to shear someone’s sheep before ours. We will be fine shearing in
July.”

“How much do we charge in rent?” The village that
supported his estate seemed far less affluent than her betters. The
white-washed houses and thatched roofs had seen better days. Even the
cobblestone beneath his feet appeared to be crumbling.

“A pittance. It barely covers the upkeep of Eastlan.”

James shook his head. “Something has to change, Wesley.”
At this point, James was pretty sure it would be his steward.

“I am doing my best, James. Not to speak ill of the dead,
but Lowell did not have his mind on the estate. And with the search for your
father and then you, who had been trading abroad at his death, Eastlan was left
without a master for almost two years.” Wesley seemed to shrug off his
annoyance, leaving James to wonder if he had any idea he’d struck a nerve with
his offhand comment. “But not to worry. We shall turn Eastlan around even if we
must shear late in the season.”