Free Menage After Midnight by Madelynne Ellis Page B

abhorrent.
    “This one is yours, I think.” Paris stopped her directly before her bedchamber door. “Are you all right, Mrs Lovich? You seem troubled.”
    Sophia summoned a smile. “I’m fine, quite fine. I thank you.” She reached out and released the latch, paused on the threshold to look back at him over her shoulder. Those dark eyes of his fascinated, captivated her so that she remained frozen.
    “You do understand what happens if you invite me in?”
    “Yes.” She did. But do you?
    She ought really to enlighten him.
    * * *
     
    The room she and Alexander had been given was a dear little one, with a low ceiling that rose only a foot above the bed canopy but was, nevertheless, skilfully blessed by the plasterer’s art. The mantle over the fireplace stood at her eye-level, and all the furnishings were of apple-green Kidderminster stuff. A low fire burned in the grate, which Sophia attended immediately, pushing the poker deep into the coals.
    Paris followed her in, though he presently hung back. Oh, she found it interesting, that there seemed to be no rush about him. His female counterparts were always so pushy and lewd. All for instant gratification, but Paris—well, he hadn’t done anything yet that would distinguish him as anything other than a proper gentleman, although, perhaps if he had been a little more cocky that would have made things easier.
    He stepped closer after a moment or two of her fire attending antics. “If you’re not comfortable with this, there need be no rush.” His voice had a husky burr to it, which tickled her senses.
    No need to rush. She wanted to smother him in kisses just for suggesting that notion. She’d known more than a few men before Alexander had seen fit to make her his, and none of them ever spoke of delaying, but then none of them had ever really been interested in her pleasure.
    Sophia relinquished the poker and pulled her shoulders back. “No, no, it’s not that. I simply wanted to ensure our comfort.” And to assuage her guilty mind.
    Paris nodded his approval. He glided across the floor to her in four neat strides. “If you ever find you’re not comfortable with something, you must tell me. Passions ought to be slowly coaxed. Like the embers you’ve just stirred, it takes time to arouse a woman’s pleasure.”
    “Yes,” she squeaked. Hell ‘twas unfair to let him go on imagining her something she wasn’t.
    He took the liberty then of touching his fingertips to her cheek.
    Sophia turned into his caress, so that her lips brushed against the warmth at the centre of his palm. She glanced up at him, knowing from just that one touch that they’d chosen wisely. “I’m not the wronged wife you seemed to think.”
    “Are you not?” He ran his fingertips slowly down her neck until they rested just over her breast. The touch barely there, and yet it fanned the flames he’d already stirred in her quenyte, causing anticipatory tingles to race all over her body. Beneath the satin of her gown, Sophia’s nipples grew taught. Instead of pinching though, as Alexander would have done, Paris let her hang in a state of heightened expectancy.
    Lord dammit, kiss me. Let this properly begin.
    “Then why risk such a tryst, if you don’t lack passion in that regard?”
    “Perhaps I merely relish the thought of another man.”
    He raised an eyebrow at that and tilted his head ever so slightly.
    “Any man, or should I consider myself honoured?”
    “I’m…” She hesitated, still frightfully aware of his hand hovering just shy of the skin of her breast. “You’re very appealing, Mr Ashcroft, a fact of which I’m sure you’re aware, but I’m assured you’re also discreet.”
    “It pays to be so. And it’s Paris, Mrs Lovich.”
    “Paris,” she rolled the name upon her tongue. Yes, she would enjoy addressing him as such.
    A smile ran into the grey of his rain-washed eyes. “Then instruct me. Tell me why it is you’ve brought me here. What can I do to