Unraveling the Earl (4 page)

When he’d gotten his breath somewhat under control and his
hands relaxed their hold to drift over her listing coiffure, Georgie dropped
back on her haunches and peeked up at him.

The Earl of Hastings had the look of a well-pleased
gentleman, all soft eyes and pouting lips, a deep flush on his cheeks.

“That was amazing.” His voice was little more than a rough
croak which tickled Georgie no end.

She laughed, slowly shaking her head. She’d quite wiped the
cocky arrogance from his handsome face. And put him in his place.

“Truly, I’ve never…that is…I’ll be damned,” he continued,
smiling almost shyly.

She’d pleased him.

Oddly, the thought pleased her. Immensely.

Foolish to care whether or not she’d brought him pleasure.
More foolish still to find that her body hummed with arousal. Her breasts were
heavy, her nipples tight buds against the confines of her lightweight summer
stays. A pulse beat between her legs and moisture gathered in anticipation.

Most foolish of all, she wanted nothing more than to get to
her feet and remove every last stitch of her clothing, to lead him to the bed
and have her wicked way with the divinely beautiful and charmingly foolish
earl.

Ah well, since when had she ever gotten what she truly
desired?

Henry took a long pull of the cheroot clamped between his
fingers before tossing it out the open window and turning away to pace across
the room.

Georgiana Buchanan had given him a taste of heaven with her
avaricious mouth and nimble fingers only to disappear into the bathing room
attached to his chamber.

Without allowing him to reciprocate, which most assuredly
did not sit well with him.

He’d never in his life left a woman wanting and he’d be
damned if she would be the first.

He had every intention of divesting her of her simple yellow
dress and whatever frilly underthings she wore beneath it. He would toss her on
the bed to worship her small breasts and diddle her quim a bit before pulling
her astride him and gifting her with the ride of her life.

If she would only return from the bathing room so that he
might begin.

“Georgiana?” He knocked softly on the door.

The door swung open and a blazing whirlwind flew past him
only to halt in the center of the room, spinning about to face him with hands
on her hips.

“I thought you would be asleep,” she declared.

Henry gaped at the lady, unable to form a single coherent
thought beyond, “You’re hair is alive.”

Her hair was outrageous, live flames of bright red and
brighter orange, tight corkscrews and looser spirals, each possessed of a mind
of its own, shooting this way and that, sweeping across her brow, curling
around her shoulders, falling past her breasts nearly to her waist.

“Excuse me?”

Henry felt heat crest his cheeks. What was it about this
woman? This skinny woman with her extraordinary eyes and interesting face had
him stammering and blushing like a boy.

“Did you just say that my hair is alive?”

He heard the laughter in her soft voice, watched as her lips
lifted, so slowly he could count the beats of his heart in the time it took for
the smile to bloom on her face.

“Alive and quite lovely.”

“Do you think so?”

“Turn around,” he ordered.

She twirled, curls lifting and soaring, picking up the light
from the candles in the wall sconces. Around and around she spun, her arms held
aloft at her sides, graceful as a ballerina.

As she came to a stop, still smiling, Henry tugged his dressing
robe tightly closed lest she look down and see his cock standing at attention.

“I do like my hair, my lord.”

“Henry.”

“Lady Joy once told me that a woman not blessed with
traditional beauty must take vain pleasure in those features that make her unique
if she is to be content in her own skin,” she said with a grin.

“Lady Joy?”

“My grandmother.”

“So named because she is decidedly not?”

Georgiana laughed softly, her eyes shining. “To be sure she
was a crabby old woman, the Dragon of Loch Canon.”

Henry stepped forward to place his hand on her chin and tilt
her head back. “You’ve the prettiest eyes I’ve ever seen.”

“They are my father’s eyes. And his father before him and so
on. The men in my family all have them. I am the only woman in generations to
inherit the Buchanan eyes.”

“All the men have your eyes?” Henry asked on a chuckle.
“Even Killjoy the libertine who must carouse with exiled Englishmen?”

“They are quite handsome on a man.”

“They are beautiful on a woman,” he countered, snaking one
arm around her and pulling her against his chest and nearly off her feet.

“You aren’t tired, are you?” she asked with a pretty pout.

“Not in the least.”

“Would you like me to put my mouth on you again?”

“Most definitely.” He dipped down to brush his lips over
hers. “Another time. Right now I’ve a mind to make love to you.”

“Oh.” The way she drew out the word had his cock twitching
in anticipation.

Again he swept his lips over hers, taking time to learn
their shape, the upper that felt lusher than it looked, the lower almost too
plump for his lust to withstand.

She tasted of his tooth powder, bringing to mind the sight
of her taking his cock deep into her mouth and swallowing the semen that had
exploded from his tight balls.

Delicate, long-fingered hands pushed at his chest and he
lifted his head.

“Perhaps we might have a bite to eat, my lord.”

“I’ve already ordered a tray sent up,” he assured her. “The
servants will leave it outside the door.”

“I see.” She worried her bottom lip with her teeth and Henry
groaned, his cock pulsing with the memory of that carnal mouth taking him deep.

“We’ve likely an hour before nourishment arrives,” he
promised, certain he could bring her to climax twice, perhaps thrice before
they sat down to dine.

“Have you any whiskey?”

“Whiskey?”

She nodded, her hair shimmering around her head like a halo.

Releasing her with a laugh, Henry retreated to his sitting
room to grab the decanter and two crystal tumblers. When he returned he found
Georgiana standing at the window staring out and the darkening sky.

“It’s quite late,” she murmured.

“It’s barely gone seven.”

“My servants are likely missing their dinner.” She turned to
face him, her eyes wandering over him from his toes to his mussed hair.

“Critchley has taken them in hand. They are dining belowstairs
with my people.”

“Well, are you going to pour me three fingers or stand there
looking obnoxiously handsome with the decanter in your hands?” she asked.

“Obnoxiously handsome?” Henry placed his find on a heavy
table between two oversized velvet chairs of striped green and gold and poured
them each a measure.

“It is quite vexing,” she replied, whisking the fuller
tumbler from his hand before flitting across the room to trail her free hand
over the tall, intricately carved bedpost at the foot of his bed. “Your beauty,
I mean. Makes it difficult for a lady to refuse you.”

“You aren’t thinking to refuse me, are you?” he asked in
surprise.

“You sound as if it were an impossibility, as likely as pigs
flying or fairies alighting from your woods,” she replied, sipping her drink as
she slowly made her way to stand before him once more. “Has no woman ever
refused your advances?”

“Of course I’ve been refused,” he answered with a frown.

“When?” She drained half of the glass.

“When?”

“When was the last time a woman refused to take a tumble
with you, my lord?” She was teasing him, taunting him with her laughing eyes
and sly smile over the rim of the glass.

“Doris Makepeace refused to so much as kiss me.”

“Doris Makepeace is now Lady Statham and has been for nearly
a decade,” she said, placing her hand on his chest. “Surely you’ve been left
wanting at one time or another in the last ten years.”

“Of course,” he agreed, racking his brain to remember the
name of the pretty girl who’d soundly slapped him for attempting to take
liberties in a dark garden. “Miranda Hopkins, no Hopson.”

“How old were you?” She pushed at his chest and Henry took
the hint, dropping into the chair behind him.

“I was just down from university,” he admitted.

“So what, eight years ago?” She drained her glass and placed
it on the table.

“About that.”

“Sure and you were little more than a boy,” she drawled,
tapping one finger on the bottom of his glass until he dutifully took a sip of
the potent brew. “Have you been rejected, even one time, since Lady Churchill
took you to her bed and shouted your talents from the rooftops?”

“You know about Lady Churchill?”

“All of London knows the lady took you to her bed and kept
you there for nigh on a month, my lord,” she replied before turning to sashay
across the room.

She stopped in the center of the carpet and slowly turned to
face him. “Am I to understand that there has been no one, not a single lady or
tavern wench, who has rebuffed your advances?”

“I do not generally…” he began before losing his train of
thought altogether when her pale fingers plucked at the lace fichu tucked into
her bodice.

“You do not generally what, my lord?” Her voice was low and
sinfully sensuous.

“Why are we discussing this?”

“Shall I stop?”

“Stop questioning me? Yes.”

“Stop stripping myself bare before you.”

Henry’s mouth fell open before he snapped it shut again.

One pale hand dropped to her breast and she cupped the small
curve, her thumb dragging over her nipple, and Henry realized he could see her
nipples, both of them, like little hard candies beneath her gown.

“Tit…” she whispered, twirling her thumb over the bud. “For
tat, my lord.”

Hell, if she wanted to hear of each and every one of his
amorous adventures, he would tell her. He was painfully hard beneath his robe,
his breath tight in his chest.

“Have another sip of whiskey,” she encouraged, bringing her
nimble fingers to the fichu once more. “You do not generally what, my lord?”

“Henry,” he corrected before bringing the tumbler up and
draining the contents.

Liquid fire seared his throat, burning a path down his chest
to settle in his belly, there to mix with the lust that had his abdomen taut
and his balls aching.

Georgiana whipped the scrap of lace from between her breasts
and unwound it from her neck. She held her hand out before her and met his
eyes. “You do not generally what, my lord?”

“I do not generally make advances.”

She blinked in confusion as the lace drifted to the floor.
“You do not make advances? You have not seduced the scores of women who sing
your praises?”

Rubbing one hand around his heated neck, he watched her
warily, curious to learn what she would make of the admission.

She seemed to give herself a little shake, her eyes focusing
on him with an intensity that both aroused and befuddled him.

He dropped his gaze to the buttons of her gown. “Tit for
tat.”

With a flick of her fingers she freed the top button before
moving to the next. “If you do not seduce the ladies into your bed, how do they
get there?”

Enthralled by the sight of her fingers slowly baring a
narrow line of pale flesh, Henry made no reply.

“Do they approach you, then?”

“Most often,” he admitted as she came to the last button and
her dress gaped open to reveal a hint of her corset.

“Most often?” With one slow, languid roll of her shoulders
the dress drifted down, the small capped sleeves sliding over her arms. The
gown gathered at her waist until, with a twist of her hips, she sent it
slithering down her legs to pool at her feet.

“Nearly always.” Henry barely got the words out past the
tightness in his throat.

Georgiana stood before him dressed in a thin pink corset
trimmed with yellow ribbons and bows and a short matching chemise of cotton so
fine as to be nearly transparent, showing quite clearly that she’d left off her
drawers.

A shadow of dark red hair capped the apex of glorious legs
adorned in white silk stockings tied high on her thighs with more yellow
ribbon. On her feet she wore high-heeled slippers of pink satin.

Damn, but she was long and lean, her neck a graceful column,
her collarbones twin ridges beneath shallow pools. Her corset hugged her
breasts with barely a shadow of cleavage between them. Gently rounded hips
swayed as she shifted her weight from one leg to the other, and he knew if he
touched her, if he grasped her hips and pulled her to him, he would feel the
bones jutting beneath her skin.

She was too thin with no bosom whatsoever. Her hair was too
orange and entirely too unruly. Her face was barely pretty, and then only for
her extraordinary eyes and dainty little chin.

Henry had never wanted a woman more.

“Do you never refuse them?” Her voice was soft and underlain
with some emotion he could not name, amusement perhaps.

Henry came to his feet, his heart drumming in his chest.
“Shall I unlace you?”

“To be sure I’ve been lacing and unlacing my corset since
before I ever needed one,” she replied and there was no mistaking the amusement
now. “Be seated my lord. I am as yet unfinished.”

Dropping back into his chair, Henry watched as she slowly
turned around, presenting him with her back. She pulled all that wild hair
forward before winding her arms around her waist, her hands coming to the small
of her back. With deft movements, she tugged the bow loose. Her fingers sped
over the laces until she’d loosened them all and her corset fell to land atop
her dress.

With a soft sigh, she arched her back, her fingers gently
massaging her spine.

Shaking her head, she sent her hair flying to drift down her
back. Mesmerized by the sight of her pink bottom through the thin cotton of her
chemise, it took Henry a moment to realize the garment was slowly sliding down
her back. In seconds it lay on the floor with her other clothes.

Nimbly stepping out of the puddle of clothing, Georgiana
turned around.

Lovely.

Her breasts were small but exquisitely formed, perfectly
round and topped by the pinkest, prettiest nipples he’d ever seen. Like two
juicy berries, they called to him to suckle, to graze his teeth over their
succulence, to draw them deep into his mouth.

“You never refuse them, do you?”

Her voice in the quiet room was like the rumble of far-off
thunder, near enough to inspire anticipation, distant enough to belie the
coming storm.

Henry thought to rise from his chair but could not make
himself move just yet. His eyes drank in her perfection, those damnably lovely
breasts, the tiny waist, the flame red curls that graced her mound, and the
miles of legs still encased in white silk.

“All the ladies want you and you cannot refuse them.”

“Enough,” he growled, undone by the gentle taunt, by the
dark laughter underlying the words, by the cadence of her husky voice.