In the Money With You (The Ladies Alpine Society #2)

Chapter Four - 2

He was a weak man. Before Prudence, Leo had believed himself to have nerves of iron. He was merciless in his decisions, never looked back, never regretted an action taken. And while he’d struggled with the idea of not seeing Prudence at all tonight, he’d determined on the walk over that he’d not go to bed with her. It was better for both of them to stop before certain lines were crossed.

Her involvement with his mother made it impossible for them to have a physical relationship. His mother was caustic, hard to get along with, and yet, here was Prudence, slicing through his mother’s thick exterior like a hot knife through butter. The American widow would get too close, too fast, and his mother would tell her everything.

And that would place them in jeopardy. He didn’t care about it for himself, not at all. But he would not risk his mother’s life—her fortune—on what was nothing more than a natural expression of bodily needs.

But Prudence was painfully, ethereally beautiful, like the women of a Millais painting, and as soon as she’d opened the door, he could tell she’d dressed for him. She was expecting a seduction. Except, as he uncorked the wine bottle, and she challenged him at every turn, he wasn’t sure who was seducing whom.

Talking was certain to be an antidote for him, it always had in the past. But tonight it served only to draw him in more. When she told him the specifics of her life—one of servitude, not unlike his own mother, really—his rage had gotten the better of him. Leo had meant it when he said that he’d hate her husband, this Gregory, who hadn’t deserved the pedestal she placed him on. Who’d left her desiring. Who’d left her feeling wanting. That somehow, she wasn’t beautiful or fascinating, that she wasn’t the exact fucking object of every fantasy he’d ever entertained. Perhaps he hadn’t known the face to put on those imaginary women, but once he’d met Prudence, the fantasy had come to life. And he wasn’t prepared for that. Didn’t know how to fight it.

He wound a finger around the honey-colored tendril she’d curled for him. He kissed her neck below her ear. Her breathing was his measure of her excitement. She hadn’t the words to tell him how she felt, and he wouldn’t pressure her to be more explicit—not yet. And he could hold both ideas in one moment—that this was a terrible idea and he placed his entire world at risk and the only thing he wanted in this life was to hear what Prudence desired from his mouth, his hands, his cock.

She pulled his hand that had cradled her cheek to her mouth, kissing his palm. The wetness of her mouth, the promise of her tongue, made the building tension in his groin grow taut. He hadn’t come prepared for lovemaking, but here he was, and while conflicted, it was a curse he blessed.

He turned and took her mouth. In return, she guided his hands down to the front of the silk bodice. He thought she meant to turn his attention to her breasts, only to discover she was showing him the hook and eye front closure of her extraordinary gown. And then he cursed his stupidity that she was wearing lingerie for him. This was no day dress nor elaborate evening gown. He groaned.

How dare she make this easy for him? To guide him into wine-soaked pleasure? He deftly unhooked the widely spaced closures, peeling the silk layer from her shoulders. She wasn’t wearing a corset at all. She was nude, wearing only her silk stockings with ornate forest-green clocking design snaking up the side of her lovely calves. She looked like a frontispiece for an erotic novel.

“Prudence,” he said through gritted teeth, taking her in. “I do not deserve such preparations.” And he meant it. She was so beautiful, curved and muscled in all the right places. Slender but not brittle, tall but perfectly proportioned. He could not have imagined a woman better.

“I do what I want.” Prudence looked at him with a ferocity that surprised him and aroused him all at once. “And what I want is you. Tonight.”

He leaned her back over the arm of the sofa, her back arching, her breasts on display. “At your service,” he said, taking one breast into his palm and the other his mouth. She let out a moan of pleasure, and he growled. He hadn’t meant to, it was a primal sound, a sound that he didn’t know he could make. Time shifted in ways he couldn’t perceive. His focus narrowed to this woman, this sofa, and all the combinations those things could do.

Her silk robe laid out beneath her, he lifted his head so that he could remove the pins from her hair. He wanted to see it. When she realized that’s what he wanted, she took over, removing pins as his hand slid lower, between her legs. She gasped, which brought him an unexpected satisfaction. She was slick with want already.

Honeyed hair tumbled down over her shoulders, longer than he’d realized, wavy with touches of auburn, until it settled over her breasts. He was stunned. Then she looked at him with her gray eyes, gripped his shoulder hard, and came, grinding into his hand.

“Fuck,” he whispered in awe, and somewhere in his chest, something ripped open.

“Your turn,” she said, her cheeks glowing, her eyes bright. “Shirt off. Now.”

He licked his lips in the face of this goddess. There was no arguing with her, reclined on her sofa, draped with hair and silk. His fingers somehow found the buttons on his cuffs. He threw off his coat and unbuttoned his waistcoat, shrugging it off, careful to place it on the floor as it contained his pocket watch. Next he pulled off the braces, then ripped away his collar and worked his shirt as quickly as possible. Finally, he sat before her bare chested, awaiting her judgement.

Her eyes flicked all over him, as If evaluating him, finding every freckle, discoloration, birthmark, and scar. With a single light finger, she touched the scars she found. The round cigar burn, about the size of a shilling, just under his collarbone. But her touch was like an anointment with oil. A sacred exploration.

The jagged scar from a rock that he’d failed to land on top of that should have been stitched, but he didn’t want to worry his mother, so he said nothing instead. The strange indentation on his side from another fall, this one out of a tree, that never healed, but rather knotted up, leaving a misshapen lump under his skin.

But Prudence asked no questions. She finished her assessment. “Take off your trousers.”

He stood while she reclined back, her head propped on her hand, as if he were about to give a lecture and not undress. She was unnerving, this woman. But Leo had prided himself on his self-possession. Ah yes, the very pride that had failed him earlier in the evening was now making him take off his trousers. Irony, that.

She bit her lip as he cast away his shoes, socks, and then his trousers. Finally, there was nothing between them but air. And that air was thick and humid and charged. But he dared not make a move, despite what his waving cockstand might demand.

“Is this agreeable?” he asked, his own challenge to her.

A teasing smile flitted past her swollen red lips. “Most agreeable.”

“Do you have another command for me?”

Her eyes went dark with desire as it sparked something in her imagination. The depth of her intelligence was not yet clear to him, and his cold heart sped as he anticipated her imagination.

“I want you to do what you did yesterday, with your mouth. But I want to be able to touch you while you do it.”

He raised his eyebrows, pleased. To be asked for encore performance was always a good sign. But he wasn’t going to let her get away with the request so easily. “I did a great many things with my mouth yesterday. To which are you referring?”

“Your mouth, between my legs. Where you lapped at my pearl.” Her cheeks didn’t flush, which surprised him. She was deadly serious, and if he did anything well, her second orgasm would not take long.

“As you command.” He knelt, pushing her legs apart.

“No,” she said, not forcefully, but he froze in place. “I said so that I may touch you as well.”

He relaxed. “Then we should adjourn to the bed.” Standing, he held his hand out to help her off the sofa. She passed by him, her soft skin brushing his arm, her silky hair teasing him. Watching her naked body move fascinated him. He’d never seen a naked woman so well-muscled, so sleekly formed. It made her arse a damned work of art.

Prudence reclined on the bed, while Leo positioned himself perpendicular. He was still able to accommodate his tongue on her pearl, as she called it, and her hand worked his blazing hard cock. It was a potent mix for him, making it difficult to concentrate on his ministrations. When she shuddered beneath him, clamping her thighs around his head, he nearly came in her hand.

But as he prepared to slip from her and take himself in hand, she all but took a handful of his arse cheek. Her eyes were furiously dark, intense in a way he had never seen in another person, her pupils blown wide with pleasure. “I want you inside me, Leo. Now.”

Dumbly, he could do nothing but nod, nothing but maneuver himself between her legs, the anticipation of her wet heat pulling him in. In his fog, he heard her say, “Wait.”

He blinked, breathing hard through his mouth to make himself stay his body.

“The French letter,” she said, and her hand pointed.

It took him some moments to realize what the words meant, why her hand was outstretched. Ah, yes. Prevention. Yes. He stumbled over to the drawer she indicated and pulled out the small square envelope. He opened it, clumsily pulling on the thin membrane over his cock. He looked up at Prudence, reclined on the bed, watching him, her lips cherry red, her face flush with pleasure and desire.

He didn’t wait for instruction. This time, he could figure out himself how to resume his position between her legs. His cock nudged at the slick entrance. “Yes?” he asked, so desperate he thought he might gnaw his own lip off with the amount of control he exerted.

“Yes,” she said, the word almost a sigh of relief.

And he pushed in, and she cried out. It wasn’t in pain, thank God, but in pleasure. He tried to be slow, to make their joining one of seduction and not rutting. But she pulled her legs up, and reached down to grasp his arse, pulling him in deeper. He groaned at her need. Faster he pumped, thrusting deep every time, watching her face, her chin tipped back, her dark lashes fluttering on her cheek.

“Leo,” she groaned. “Faster.”

He grunted his assent, his own pleasure very nearly mastering his body, but he obeyed. Faster he went, blind with need and tension and maddening friction. But there it was, his own orgasm, no longer willing to wait. No longer capable of waiting. “I’m going to—” He gritted his teeth, hoping to give her time.

She let go of his arse and grabbed him at his ear, met his eye, and demanded, “Come.”

He obeyed. And she came with him, shuddering together, his hips unable to stop immediately, his bollocks pushing him to continue just a little more. He shuddered one last time and did his best not to collapse on her.

They both sweated, and where they were joined it was slick and sticky. He knew he should pull out. He should absolutely not give her his weight. This was business. But oh God, what blissful business. He wanted to kiss her nose, her eyelids, the space beneath her ear, as a lover would. Could.

But she held onto him, her arms curled around his back, her legs cradling him. As if she were giving tacit permission for him to cross those lines. To kiss her nose. To fall into her as he desperately wanted to. He lowered to his elbows.

“Prudence,” he whispered.

She opened her eyes to meet his gaze. Tears slipped from her eyes.

Horrified, he scrambled up to sitting. “Oh no, I didn’t—”

She smiled at him, open and warm. “It’s not tears of pain or regret, Leo. It’s tears of... pent-up frustration. It’s at last getting what I wanted.”

“Oh,” he said, still very uneasy that she may have not wanted him to do what she had very clearly instructed him to do. “Are you sure?”

Another smile. “Leo. My only other lover was my husband who clearly felt shame every time he bedded me—which only happened for the sole purpose of begetting an heir. And that didn’t happen. I always dreamed of being vocal, of getting exactly what I wanted, rather than lying there like a...” she searched for the word, “a wayward nun.”

He laughed, and that shake finally pulled his now-shrunken cock from her entrance. Fortunately, he was quick enough to catch the French letter before it slipped off and spilled. “I’d like to think I take instruction well.”

She smiled and bit her lip. “So far.”

“Towels?” Leo asked.

Prudence pointed to a closed door. “In the bathing room. There’s even plumbing, if you can believe it.”

“With warm water?” Leo asked. The new invention was the talk of every circle. Hauling hot water was a burden, and running cold water was nice, but to have indoor plumbing with heat was revolutionary.

Prudence nodded. “I’ll soap your back if you soap mine.”

*

Dawn fast approached as Leo finally slipped into his shoes. “I’m famished,” he said as he kissed her again.

She rather enjoyed his kisses. In fact, the whole night had been more than she could have ever dreamed. “Me too, but I can’t very well order for two up here.”

Leo grinned. “Can you imagine the look on their faces?”

“No!” she said, relishing the thought of scandalizing the hotel staff. Scandalizing anyone would be a first for her. But she couldn’t. She wouldn’t jeopardize her friends and the opportunity to climb the Matterhorn. “But I can stop by this afternoon to talk party business.”

He groaned, and it wasn’t the sexy one he’d emitted several times during the course of the last eight hours. “It’s ridiculous.”

“It’s necessary, so you might as well get on board. The theme is ‘ice.’”

“You might as well have a theme called ‘weather’ for all the good it will do you.” Leo shrugged into his overcoat and put on his hat. He really was going to leave her.

Of course, he should leave. It was nearly morning, and he couldn’t very well be seen leaving her room. His best bet was a sleepy doorman downstairs.

“Then you ought to help me so that things don’t get out of hand. And I’m taking you to Bond Street.”

He reared back. “Why?”

“Because the best way to make a party look fancier than it actually is while still on a budget is cloth. And where is the cloth? Bond Street.”

“Cloth is not budget friendly.”

“It is compared to fresh flowers.” She stepped forward and rebuttoned his waistcoat, where he’d inadvertently mismatched the closure. “And if you won’t believe me, look into it yourself.”

He gave a heavy sigh. “You’re never going to let me live down calling on Lord Rascomb to see if you were telling the truth.”

Prudence smiled, somehow, the hurt of his initial insult no longer stinging. “Nope.” She went up to her tiptoes and kissed his nose. “Now shoo. Go on, git.”

He turned and went to the door, but before he opened it, he turned back. “Prudence, I know I can’t send you flowers tomorrow, or rather, later today, without spurring gossip. So I’d like to say now that I rather enjoyed myself last night.”

“I should think so,” she said. “I rather did myself as well.”

“And I hope we might do it again.”

Her body went suddenly languid and hot, as it had all those hours on the couch, in her bed, and in the bathing room. “I do too.”

Leo smiled at her—a real, genuine expression of happiness. And then he left.

Prudence listened to his footsteps disappear down the hall before she ran giggling through her rooms to her bed. She flung herself on the mussed comforter and laughed. She had done it! She had a lover! And it was so good. Far better than anticipated. And she liked him too. She actually liked Leo Moon, which was somewhat surprising after their first encounters.

And despite the coolness of the room, and the peek of sunlight encroaching through the windows, Prudence fell into a deep, satisfied sleep.