Stroke of Genius (17 page)

Instead of being fearful, she was
moved. She met his fierce kiss with one of her own.

One hand cradled her head and the other roamed over her bare breasts, squeezing and caressing. He rolled her nipple between his thumb and forefinger and she writhed under him. When he gave it a firm tug and a little twist, she tore loose from his kiss, panting and gasping.

He gave no quarter. Crispin trailed his mouth along her jaw, her neck. He paused to suck for a moment at her clavicle, then kissed his way down to her breasts.

This time he nipped and played with them. Teasing her nipples with the nearness of his mouth, while denying them relief.

Grace threaded her fingers through his hair.

“Please,” she whimpered and his lips finally covered her taut peak.

He sucked. He scraped his teeth over the sensitive flesh. Jolts shot from her nipples to her womb and a nameless longing made her back arch, thrusting her breasts up to him. Her brows drew together.

Want. Need. Must have.

What?

With only a dash of shame, she realized she wanted him to touch her.
Down there.

Surely that wasn’t normal. Was it? A virgin shouldn’t want a man to venture below her waist.

Not if she wanted to remain a virgin. Which she surely did. Didn’t she?

The throb between her legs made it hard to think.

* * *

Not the actions of a genius
, Crispin told himself, but his cock was in no mood to listen. He was playing with fire. Teasing a virgin, a marriage trap with feet.

Oh, but what a delectable little virgin. Her breasts were so responsive, all rosy and quivering. They were even lovelier than he’d imagined them and he thought he’d endowed them with every possible grace in his mind. Firm, round, skin like satin, and topped with a love button so tight and sweet. Like a ripe berry between his lips. His imagination had failed him for the first time in his life.

Reality was so much better.

And she made the most cock-alluring sounds. Desperate, needy sounds. She wanted him.

Far be it from him not to come to a lady’s aid.

He swelled so, his trousers were fit to burst. His cock was primed and ready. And in the heat of lust, his thigh didn’t pain him a bit.

She did it again, that distressed little sigh. She covered her mouth with one hand to stifle another.

He wondered if she was as ready as she sounded. Without conscious thought, his hand pulled up her hem and began to caress her knee through her thin pantalets. Then he reached the spot on her upper thigh where the pantalets stopped. Crispin sent silent thanks to the French once again for designing the open-crotched garment that left a woman’s secrets so easily accessible. The skin of her inner thigh was as soft and tender as her breasts.

He kissed her into delicious incoherence again as his hand moved north.

Only another inch or two.

He’d be fingering her damp curls before she knew it.

He caught sight of Hector and the green serge in the corner of his eye. Sanity finally raised up a huge roadblock in his head. He stopped.

Grace Makepeace is a virgin. A virgin! And you, my lad, are well on your way to being leg-shackled for life if you continue down this path.

Crispin jerked back both his hands, released her mouth and scrambled to his feet.

“Why are you stopping?” she asked sitting upright. “Am I not as pleasing to you as that courtesan?”

Not pleasing?
Her nipples were swollen and reddened from his rough ministrations. He had to look away from those luscious breasts spilling out of the front of her gown.

And he was not going to discuss the relative merits of her body. Not and remain sane.

“You’ve misconstrued my relationship with Olympia Dove. She’s my mentor, my supporter, nothing more.”

“Oh,” she said softly. “I’m glad, Crispin. Then what’s amiss?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all,” he said, grinding his teeth and turning his back to her completely. He didn’t dare look at her or his will to stop would evaporate. “Has it escaped your notice that you’re about to surrender your purity to me?”

“Nonsense,” she said. Her tone was breathy and quavering. He heard fabric rustling behind him and hoped to heaven she was tucking her charms back behind their fabric prison. “I have it on good authority that a man may touch a woman’s breasts without any damage to her virginity. I’m still fully clothed, from the waist down at least.”

He laughed without mirth. “My dear Grace, it’s entirely possible for me to violate you without removing a stitch of your clothing.”

“Really? How?”

His groin ached to show her. “Is your education that incomplete?”

He heard her slippers hit the floor and figured it was safe to turn around.

“In the subject of the carnal arts, yes,” she admitted. “My education is a bit thin, but that’s a failing easily remedied. I know swiving is an activity one does with gusto on the floor and that’s about it. But I’m a good pupil and dedicated to increasing my knowledge in all areas.”

“That’s what Eve said, you know.”

“Her sin was seeking the knowledge of good and evil, not knowledge in general.”

“Some things you’re better off not knowing, at least until you have a husband to instruct you.” Crispin couldn’t believe the words coming out of his own mouth. He sounded downright Toryish. “I hope you don’t intend to flaunt yourself before members of the
ton
like this.”

“Of course not,” she said. Her skin was still flushed and her lips red and juicy. “I’d earn a reputation for being shockingly fast. But since I have no intention of marrying you, I thought you’d be the perfect man to instruct me in what I ought
not
do.”

There was a twisted sort of logic in her argument and Crispin’s cock cheered the line of thinking. His head still tried to sort through it. 

“So you came here this day with every intention of dallying with me?”

She chuckled. “Dallying. What a lovely expression. Yes, I suppose I did. Would you like to dally some more?”

“No!”

His cock called him twelve times a liar. If he took her maidenhead, he’d be honor-bound to wed her. And even if he didn’t feel compelled to do right by her, he was sure Homer Makepeace would see to it Crisping walked the aisle with Grace whether he wanted to or no.

Unless Mr. Makepeace learned of Crispin’s true background. No gentleman would saddle his daughter with a nameless bastard. 

“I want to complete your casting,” he said gruffly and stomped back to his workbench, his thigh throbbing more than ever. 

Grace sighed and glided back over to pull on the opera gloves and assume the pose.

It occurred to him that Olympia might have been right after all. He needed to see Grace safely wed as quickly as possible. Then they could ‘dally’ to their hearts content with no threat to his independence.

“You know,” he said, testing the idea, “if you’re going to wed a titled gent, you’ll need a bit more subtlety.”

“What are you proposing?”

He winced at the word. It was exactly what he wasn’t prepared to do.

“I’m only suggesting that you need to be less forward, less blunt, more sophisticated in your flirting.”

“Is that what you’d call it? What we were doing was a type of flirting?”

Flirting with the deep end of the ocean.
Now if he could teach her merely to dabble her toes in the shallow surf.

“In a manner of speaking, but not the sort of flirting acceptable in Polite Society, you understand.”

“Perfectly. I’m not wholly ignorant of the world, you know.” She frowned. “Flirting is rather looked down upon in Boston, the Polite Society sort or otherwise.”

“I could teach you, I suppose,” he offered.

“Oh, would you?” she said with enthusiasm. “I’m particularly interested in knowing how you’d violate a woman without removing her clothing. It sounds quite aggressive. Violate. Even the word lacks a certain finesse. I take it the act is similarly crude.”

Had her mother told her nothing? He swallowed hard. “We’ll leave that lesson for last, shall we? I was thinking more about how to flirt with your fan and what to say when a gentleman asks you to dance, how not to give offense. That sort of thing.”

“I rather doubt you have much to contribute to the discussion if the topic is not giving offense.” She rolled her eyes. “You delight in offending others.”

He conceded her point. “But just because I choose to be unconventional doesn’t mean I don’t recognize correct behavior when I see it. I’m a keen observer of the
ton
, Grace. I can smooth your way in.”

“Very well. You may teach me about flirting,” she said as if she were granting him a favor. “
Both
kinds of flirting. Polite and impolite. What I ought to do and what I ought not.”

His mouth went dry and his cock resurrected itself at the thought of more impolite flirting with Grace. He heard himself agreeing with her before he could stop the words from coming out his mouth.

“But in the meantime, I have a commission to fulfill.”

He worked in silence, trying to sink into the peaceful realm of light and shadow, form and line. He’d complete this sculpture and collect his fee. He’d school her in polite deportment and steel himself to educate her in fleshly matters up to the brink of consummation.

He’d see her wed to a title. He’d exorcize the impishly seductive spirit that stole his sleep and now tormented his waking hours. Then he’d never have to see this infuriatingly unavailable cock-teasing New England miss ever again.

Unless it was as a member of his “Unhappy Wives of Inattentive Husbands Club.” 

And his life would be his own again.

Grace didn’t say another word either. But when Crispin looked up, he noticed a satisfied smile playing about her lips and a determined set to her chin.

And he was suddenly not so optimistic about his plans for the future.

Chapter 18

Pygmalion thought he’d regained control of the stone, that he could still shape it to suit him. He evidently forgot the old saying that goes:

“Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.”

“Oh, la! This gown, she is so old-fashioned,” Claudette complained. She and Wyckeham were playing an adult game of dress-up in the attiring room with some of the costumes Mr. Hawke’s patrons wore for their sculptures. Wyckeham had insisted she don one of the broad-hipped court dresses, complete with panniers and bumroll.

“You look grand, luv,” Wyckeham assured her with a quick kiss. He drew his fingertips over the tops of her breasts that were pressed up and together in rising moons over the low cut bodice. “I like to see a woman decked out in fancy court dress. You look every inch a lady.”

“Even if I cannot breathe?” He’d laced the corset so tight her ribs hurt.

“Give me half a moment and you’ll change your mind about this get up.” Wyckeham dropped to his knees and disappeared beneath her skirt. His voice was muffled by the layers of petticoats, but she heard him say, “How about I take your breath away like this?”

 His mouth was on her in a heartbeat, licking, sucking, kissing. Curiously, the inability to draw a deep breath intensified the sensations he pressed upon her. Her knees threatened to buckle, but he grasped her bare bottom beneath the bumroll and held her upright.

 She heard him chuckle.

“Spread your legs,” he ordered.

Claudette obeyed, fanning herself with a feather and ivory fancy that perfectly complimented the archaic gown.

“At least, I see now why my grandmother, she did not complain of these hoops,” she said, patting his head through the layers of cloth.

Then the door to the attiring room opened suddenly and Miss Makepeace strode in.

Claudette clamped her knees together and hoped to heaven Wyckeham’s feet weren’t peeping from beneath her hem. She and her mistress had indulged in some personal conversations about matters of the flesh, but Claudette suspected talking about them and being caught doing them were two different things.

“Claudette, why are you wearing that gown?”

Under the skirt, Wyckeham teased her curls with his talented fingers. She squirmed a bit.

“I had no way to know how long you would be with Monsieur Hawke, mam’selle. I thought only to amuse myself. I meant no harm, truly.”

Miss Makepeace sighed. “I thought Mr. Wyckeham was supposed to entertain you.”

The wicked man ran his tongue along a place he had no business bothering with her mistress in the room. Without conscious volition, she spread her feet to shoulder-width.

“Oh, you know how lazy these Englishmen are.” Claudette was thankful her mistress was the type who liked to pace. That way she might not notice the flush creeping up her lady’s maid’s neck. “Always too busy wagging their tongues to attend to business.”

The lazy Englishman under her skirt wagged his tongue in a most effective way. Then he pinched her bottom and she stifled a squeak.

Miss Makepeace stopped pacing and shot her a confiding grin. “But I thought you said he knew what to do with his tongue, Claudette.”