Not Proper Enough (A Reforming the Scoundrels Romance)

by Carolyn Jewel

  She watched him in the glass. He was a man of great physical presence. “It’s nothing. It’s just I never thought I’d be in such a predicament as this.”

  “Why won’t you look at me?”

  Eugenia turned around. “There.” She lifted her chin so she could look him in the face. “Better?”

  “Yes.” But now it was his turn to look away. He touched the carved rose. “How many petals?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know.”

  “Yes you do. You were counting.” He lifted his head again and held her gaze. She’d rather have died than looked away from him when he so plainly meant to challenge her.

  “Thirteen.” She turned sideways to him and swept a finger over the wood. One of the servants must have built up the fire, for the room felt unnaturally warm to her.

  Fenris cocked his head. “Thirteen, you say? That seems an unlucky number. Are you sure you counted right?”

  “Of course I did.” She seized on the change of subject. Anything but the possibility that he’d gotten her with child. That she’d been so stupid, so ignorant as to allow that to happen between them. Mountjoy would guess. He would, and she didn’t want him to think so ill of her.

  “I wonder why the man who carved this wasn’t more careful.”

  Thirteen petals. She counted again to be sure. “There’s no pride in workmanship these days.”

  Fenris laughed and, blast him, she smiled back. He didn’t seem upset, and that was something. He wasn’t blaming her for this. He never would, either. No matter what happened.

  In the space between breaths, her body provided a forceful reminder of how attractive a man he was. “I’ll write Mountjoy and tell him the piece must be replaced.”

  “Why? You might call in a carpenter and have the carving altered. Remove a petal from here. Or here.” He pointed in turn.

  She leaned a hip against the sofa and crossed her arms underneath her bosom. The moment seemed so normal. Why, she couldn’t be pregnant. Not after so few encounters. Such things happened, yes, but not to her. Not to men like Fenris.

  His attention dipped, oh so briefly, and it was as if he’d physically touched her, leaving behind nothing but heat. “That won’t alter the fact that the piece was carved with a thirteen-petaled rose.”

  “I suppose you’re right.” He was standing near enough now that his shoulder brushed hers. Purely accidental, but with the contact, her awareness of him as a thoroughly male man blossomed. “Shall we burn it at the stake?”

  She laughed, and his eyes, his beautiful, soulful eyes, darkened. Desire slithered through her. She refused to acknowledge the reaction, but that didn’t change the fact of her experience. “I wonder how bad the case is?” She touched the carved wood. What if they had been unlucky? Knowing Fenris would marry her mattered more than she could say. “How many thirteen-petaled roses are carved onto this sofa?”

  “Thirteen?”

  “Heaven help us if that’s so.” She summoned a smile, but it felt as pale as the violets he’d given her.

  “Should we count them?”

  Eugenia shook her head. “Too dangerous. Thirteen. Unlucky number.”

  He nodded gravely and stroked his chin. “Might we omit the number? Skip from twelve to fourteen, for example. Or invent a number. Huberteen, perhaps?”

  “Huberteen.” She smiled in spite of everything. “Would that mean huber takes the place of three?” She counted roses carved into the left side of the sofa. “…two, huber, four, five…”

  He put his hand over hers and pressed gently down. Her pulse jumped. She didn’t dare move for fear she would betray herself to him. “Don’t tempt fate, Ginny. Not again with all those unlucky flowers.”

  The moment her reply formed in her brain, the ill-advised words left her mouth. She wanted them back, but she’d let them free and they hung in the air, accusing her of unintended meaning. “I never took you for a superstitious man.”

  He touched his medallion, rubbing a finger over the metal surface. “That proves how little you know me.” He took the disc between thumb and forefinger. “I believe utterly in the power of this, for example. If I believe in that, why shouldn’t I believe in the possibility of ill luck if we discover there are thirteen thirteen-petaled roses carved into this sofa?”

  “My point precisely.” A wave of disbelief crashed over her, panicking her. She was late, just not very. It wasn’t unusual for her, and she hadn’t any symptoms at all. Pregnant women fainted, didn’t they? They were ill in the morning. “It’s too dangerous to proceed.”

  Fenris gave her another long look. “Think of all the ill luck that must have befallen the previous Dukes of Mountjoy.”

  “What ill luck?” One of his fingers moved over the hand he’d trapped on the top of the sofa, caressing her first finger. “After all, the title did not die out. And Mountjoy found Lily.” While she was trying to put her world right again, he set his hands on either side of her face. “I’d say that’s good luck, wouldn’t you?”

  “Ginny,” he whispered.

  From the moment he said her name like that, with such longing, she was lost.

  “Lily married the man she ought to have.”

  She fisted her hands at her sides. “You deserve the same. Marriage to a woman who loves you.”

  “My dear.” He smiled, laughter threatening there. “I deserve you. What’s more, I believe you deserve me.”

  Then he kissed her.

  At first he was gentle. Tender, even. Hardly the sort of kiss that might happen between lovers, which they were not. Her body betrayed her. She opened her mouth under his, and his kiss turned carnal. Sinful. Soul-stealing because, Lord, he kissed as if he thought she were the most desirable woman alive, and how could any woman resist that?

  She swayed toward him as desire engulfed her. They ended up with him sitting on the sofa and with her straddling his thighs. The back of his head rested on the sofa, and his hands were underneath her skirts, lifting them, and then, heavens, his fingers were so clever. She braced her hands on either side of his head, and they kissed some more and then she drew away, and she said, “We can’t. Fenris, we can’t.”

  “I want inside you.” He briefly closed his eyes. “I’ll withdraw.” He slid one hand to her bottom, and from the movement of his other hand she guessed, correctly, it turned out, that he was freeing himself from his breeches, because a moment later, he drew her forward and his cock was at her entrance. “Yes?”

  His eyes were so beautiful, glazed with lust. For her. She put her forearms on his shoulders and sank down. She fell into his lovely eyes, and he pushed up, filling her, making himself fit. She drew breath. Nothing, nothing was as sweet as his cock inside her.

  “Jesus.” He threw his head back. “What you do to me.”

  Her world became nothing but the physical sensation of his sex filling her. At one point, he put his hands on her hips and took control of the tempo. A slower motion that brought her deliciously, perilously close to orgasm. He was so good at this, and if she’d possessed the power of speech just now, she might have told him so. But all she could do was clutch the top of the sofa and match each thrust and withdrawal.

  There came a point when she rocked forward, and his mouth opened on a groan that pulled at every sensitive point in her body. His next thrust was deeper and slow and exquisite, and her desire gave way to raw need. She reveled in what was now a brutal shove inside her.

  He slid to the edge of the sofa, and she made some incoherent sound of protest until she realized he was getting them both onto the floor. The moment her back landed on the Kidderminster carpet, his weight was planted on his hands, above her shoulders, and he flexed his pelvis forward and her body poised on the edge of orgasm.

  She couldn’t think of anything but him and the fit of his body to hers. She held him tight, bent her knees, and his next thrust went deeper yet. She was afraid she would never reach the peak. Fenris slowed, and she held him tight, and he said, “Ginny.”

 
She opened her eyes and saw him over her and my God, he was inside her and her body was rushing madly toward heaven. Fenris was inside her. “Please. Fox. Please.”

  “Ginny. I—”

  “I don’t care,” she said, because at that moment she didn’t. When he withdrew completely she sobbed once, pure frustration.

  “I can’t come in you again, for God’s sake.”

  “I hate you.” He was right. She knew it, but it didn’t change her physical frustration.

  “Tut-tut. I shan’t leave you unsatisfied.”

  He slid down and put his mouth on her, and within seconds she was right there again, her body hovering at complete destruction, and he was going to take her away from everything but her body, her reaction, and oh, God, he did. He did, and she stayed there at the very peak for longer than she would have believed possible.

  Somehow, when the pure selfish loss of herself began to recede, her befuddled mind managed to recall that he had not had any completion. Not fair. Not fair when he’d brought her such physical joy. She pushed his shoulders, and he obligingly slid away from her, on his back, one arm over his eyes, the other gripping his still erect cock.

  “Poor, poor man.” She sat at his side, gaze on his pelvis. He lifted his arm and watched her until she pushed away his hand and curled her fingers around him. “I suppose your lovers tell you all the time how beautiful your cock is.”

  “No.”

  “Liar.”

  “I pay them to say such things—Ginny.” He sucked in a breath.

  “You don’t pay me, so I assure you they mean it.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I seem to recall, my dear, that you are good with your hands.”

  “Am I?”

  “Refresh both our recollections if you’re not certain. Put some detail in the vagueness of your recall.”

  She bent over him and took his prick in her mouth. That was wonderful, hearing him groan, the feel of his hands cradling her head and then the arch of his hips and his push forward, the pulse of his cock when he came. Salty tang. The tremble of his hands on her head.

  When he was done, when she’d taken her time looking at him and remembering that he was as beautiful here as everywhere else, she sat back, her fingers still lightly around his member, softening now that he’d released. “I want to do that again.”

  Fenris opened his eyes, and there was a wicked gleam there amid the languor of his repletion. “You have only to tell me,” he said. “And I will oblige you at any moment of the day or night.”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Three days later. The home of Admiral and Mrs. Padget.

  AT THE PARLOR DOOR, FOX KEPT WALKING AND, ALAS, spouting nonsense at Eugenia. He’d not heard from her since that afternoon at Spring Street, and he was in a dark mood. Now he was here, as was Eugenia, and his mood was not appreciatively different despite his having her in front of him. He stopped himself from saying something monumentally unwise and instead settled on the inane. “Admiral Paget has a collection of carvings you might like to see. They’re quite beautiful. Come with me, Ginny.”

  He was overcome with the sinking conviction that his success with other women was all illusion, a conclusion he’d drawn about himself that sprang from his position and status and not any innate charm. Eugenia had been heinously accurate when she’d suggested to him that his vaunted powers of seduction had never been tested.

  She studied the hallway decor, and his doubts deepened. He stopped walking, and that made her give him an inquiring look. The usual pull of his attraction to her kept him witless. From somewhere in the depths of his brain, he found words.

  “You will also have the opportunity to tell me what mischief Lane has caused you now.”

  She shot him a wide-eyed glance over her shoulder. That was panic there.

  “I saw you speaking to him just now. You did not look happy. Nor did he. I’ll shoot him dead this time if he’s insulted you again.” Completely the wrong thing to say, since if Lane had done so, she’d hardly tell him now that he’d threatened murder.

  At least now she was looking at him. “It was nothing.”

  “Don’t lie.”

  She faced him, and a hundred different reactions passed over her face, but the final one was exasperation. “All right then. I’ll tell you.”

  “Do.”

  “He asked me to marry him.”

  “What?”

  “Thank you.” Her reply was overtly accusing. He deserved it.

  “Was he serious?”

  “Yes.” She plucked at her skirt. “He was very sweet about it. He said he’d already been all the way to Bitterward and back to talk to Mountjoy.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake.” The parlor door was open, and he had the presence of mind to head them in that direction. Inside, Eugenia slowed and then took her arm away from him. The room was empty. He closed the door.

  “No doubt I’ll have a letter from Mountjoy soon,” she said.

  “You didn’t tell that fool yes, did you?”

  She went to a display cabinet near a heavy mahogany desk. He followed, and at the last moment she turned. Her skirts whipped around her legs. “How could I? Under the circumstances?”

  “If circumstances were different, would you have accepted him?”

  She crossed her arms underneath her bosom. “I don’t know. I’d want to know him better.”

  “That lobster-headed dunce?”

  She examined the desk, to hide a smile, he hoped. “Well. I don’t think he’s quite as dull a boy as I’ve assumed.”

  “Indeed.”

  “He began by asking me if I was in love with you.”

  His brain emptied of rational thought. And, it would seem, circumspection. “You told him you were not.”

  She quirked her eyebrows at him.

  “You did, or he’d not have offered for you. Not even Lane would propose to a woman who’s just told him she loves someone else.”

  “He’s not stupid, but he isn’t very bright.”

  “Do you love me?”

  She gazed at him, mouth open and at such a loss for words that he took pity on her. In a way. He closed the distance between them and put his hands on either side of her face. He tipped her head back and lowered his mouth to hers.

  He kissed her. While he did so, he told himself there was no bigger fool than him right now. That he’d better make love to her now because he might never get the chance again. He did not want to one day be on his deathbed thinking of this moment and wishing he’d kissed her one last time before she ground his heart to dust. He did not want to spend the rest of his life wondering what would have happened or if he could have turned her opinion of him. If there came a time when he did give up his suit as hopeless, he wanted to be sure he’d done all that he could to make his case to her.

  She didn’t push him away, so he kept kissing her until he realized she wasn’t kissing him back. He drew back and focused on her mouth at first, so kissable. Eventually he looked at her face. Her eyes were open wide, and he could not for his life tell whether the anger he saw there would win out over the desire.

  “Honestly. You’re not to be borne.”

  “You can’t marry Lane.”

  “I know that.” She put her hand on the fall of his breeches, and to his delight, while she smiled so very smugly, she curled her fingers around his mostly erect cock, which, being a dutiful sort of male member, came to greater attention. He sucked in a breath, and her eyes went just that much wider.

  “Fox,” she said softly. “What am I to do with you?”

  His good sense vanished, but then he hadn’t started this encounter with much. He pushed his pelvis forward and covered one of her hands with one of his, and then he kissed her again while she pressed against him, pushing up and then down, and she was the one to work her hand to the side and unfasten one of his buttons. Another button and another, and, God yes, she slipped her hand underneath the flap and found her way pas
t his smallclothes.

  What was left of his mind melted away.

  He kissed her again and, still kissing her, spun them both toward the desk, and then he came close to saying a word that wasn’t proper at all, because the damned door had come open. He broke away from her and strode to the door. He closed and locked it this time, and she was still there, standing in front of the desk looking lost. Her gaze swept over him, over the disarrangement of his trousers, and that was quite enough for him and any hope of sanity.

  In three steps, he crossed to her, and he pushed aside the blotter and the sextant on the desk. She made no protest. Not a single word did she utter. No objection. He turned back to her, grabbed her around the waist, and lifted her onto the desktop. Lust burned through him. Selfish, selfish lust. Whatever was going through her head right now, he didn’t intend to waste his chances.

  Her eyes were wide open, her lips parted, and he fell into her eyes and drowned. She leaned forward and kissed him hard, and now both of them were lost to each other. He gathered handfuls of her frock and stepped between her spread legs. He slid his hands along the tops of her thighs and turned his fingers inward. Warmth, there, between her legs, the slickness of her arousal. He got a hand behind her and pulled her forward, to the very edge of the desk.

  With the froth of her skirts and petticoat around them both, he unfastened enough buttons of his breeches to free himself completely. With one long, fast stroke, he was inside her. He shouted, a raw sound, incoherent. The breath left his lungs. Every damn time it was like this with her.

  The sound that came from her as he seated himself was part moan, part groan, and she said, “God, yes. Fox.”

  Some part of his brain told him he ought to slow down, but she had one arm thrown around his shoulders and her other hand propped up on the desk, her thighs tight around his hips, and she pushed toward him with her hand on the desk and met his second thrust and the third, and all the ones after that, too.

  He had one hand on the desktop, too, the other around her bare thigh, and he tried to time his strokes but he couldn’t think of anything but the clench of her around him, all that softness and the slickness as he moved in her, and he was going to come very soon. He would have worried about that, about coming far too soon, but he did manage to angle himself just right and she came apart in his arms. The sight and feel of her climax set him off. Not that he would have lasted much longer in any event. He withdrew just in time.