Free Pleasuring the Lady (The Pleasure Wars) by Jess Michaels Page A

couldn’t put you out in any way.”
    Tennille seemed confused. “To share my seamstress’s name with you? It does nothing to put me out at all. A pretty silk, perhaps in gray, would look lovely on you.”
    Portia caught her breath. How many times had she pictured a happy wedding? This was not it.  
    “You are so very kind, but I can’t. I will…I will have to make due with something I have already.”
    Tennille stopped speaking and stared at her. In that horrible moment, Portia realized her future sister-in-law had realized the problem. Funds, or lack of them.
    “It is something you and my brother will decide, I’m sure,” she said after an awkward moment had passed.  
    “Yes,” Miles finally said, joining the conversation at last with a brief glance for her. “Portia and I do have a great deal to discuss. I will escort you back to your home after our luncheon, Portia, and we can talk about the details of our wedding.”
    Portia nodded, but inside she wondered when they would discuss the details of their marriage . What did Miles expect from her? How would he treat her? Would he ever touch her again now that he knew who she was?
    Or had his desire for her died the moment her mask was removed?
     
     
    Miles looked across the carriage to Portia as they took the trip across London back to her tiny hovel of a home. She didn’t seem to notice his regard as she stared out the carriage window with a faraway expression.
    He wanted her.
    It was a strange thing, to see the young woman he had known and spoken to and even pitied over the years and now feel a driving, powerful passion to possess her body. But he did. It kept him up at night. It made him ache with desire.
    And yet he had not acted on that impulse since they were caught together at the masquerade. There were so many questions, so many plans to make, that he had been able to avoid his need.
    Until now when he sat in a quiet vehicle with her with at least half an hour of privacy stretched out before them.
    “Look at me,” he whispered.
    She glanced over to him in surprise. “Miles?”
    The way she said his name undid him. He moved to her side of the carriage with aching slowness and took a deep breath of her scent. How he hadn’t made the connection between his mystery woman and Portia, he couldn’t be sure now. They both smelled of fresh lemon and lilac. He should have known.
    Perhaps he did know, on some level. Perhaps that was why he had been so driven to say hello to her at that ball the night following their first heated encounter at the masquerade. Perhaps his body had been leading him to Portia all along.
    He pressed his palm to the angle of her jawline and spread his fingers open. She gasped at the contact, but didn’t pull away. She merely stared up at him, dark eyes wide, body shaking.
    “Miles,” she said again, her voice broken and filled with need he couldn’t deny.
    He tilted her face and kissed her. Immediately, he was struck with a feeling of coming home that was quickly replaced by a raging desire that boiled his blood and inspired fantasies of hiking her skirts and rutting with her here and now.
    Somehow he controlled that and instead dove into the pleasures of her mouth. He stroked his tongue along hers, reveling in the tiny moan that escaped her lips into his mouth. He wrapped an arm around her back and drew her closer, closer.
    She shuddered and her hands lifted to clutch at his lapels. He was utterly undone and he knew he could no longer control himself. He dragged his mouth to her throat, sucking at the slender column even as he began to inch her skirts up around her thighs. She gasped, and for a moment she tensed, but as he cupped her knee and began to glide his hand upward, she fell back against the carriage seat with a sigh of surrender that rocked him to his very core.
    He would not take her. But he would have her in some way.
    He found the slit in her flimsy drawers and parted it to press him palm flat against her sex. She