“I don’t want to let you go,” she said, hiccupping against his chest.
Arthur would have done anything to stay, anything except endanger her. “I don’t want to leave, but staying is not an option. We have two days. Let’s have these last two days together, pack a whole lifetime into those two days.”
“Until Wednesday, right? You can’t leave on Wednesday, anyway. I’ve cleared my calendar for the rest of the week to argue your case. It’ll take at least that long, maybe into next week.”
“No,” he sighed. “I am instructing you to settle the case. Give it all to Christopher, every last bit of it. The plane, the cars, the London apartment, the bank accounts—” He looked over the meadow, grass blowing in the wind, to the Tudor manor house and formal gardens where his ancestors had lived since the time of Queen Elizabeth I, “—and Spencer House. Give him all of it.”
“Arthur, you can’t!”
“I have to leave. It’s of no use to me, now. I would have had to turn it over to him in any case. I can’t take Spencer House with me into hiding. He’ll need to hide for a few months, too, but I think Elizabeth can make things safe for him to come back.”
“This breaks my heart,” Gen said. “Does he know everything about it like you do? The Tudor room, and that there used to be libraries? About the art collection?”
No, nothing. Arthur had listened to his grandfather ramble about honor and ancestors and history on many summer evenings and Christmas nights. Christopher had never cared about the history of Spencer House, just its market value. “He’ll learn, or his daughters will.”
Arthur wondered if Christopher was prevailing upon his wife to have another child. The estate wasn’t entailed, but the earldom could only be passed to a male heir. If not, the title would go to a distant cousin.
Assuming that Christopher and his family survived that long, which was unlikely if they didn’t go into hiding for at least a while.
Which meant that Christopher would not be able to enjoy Spencer House and his other ill-gotten gains, either. The thought almost made Arthur laugh, except that Christopher had a wife and two young daughters. If Elizabeth couldn’t convince Christopher to go into hiding, that distant cousin would inherit both the title and the estate, and sooner rather than later.
“You can’t give it to him,” Gen told him. “You have to fight.”
“I can’t stay, and I can’t take you with me. I’d give it all up to be able to stay with you.”
“That-there’s some pretty words, mister, but you love Spencer House.”
“We have two nights left here, so let’s enjoy it,” Arthur said. “Life lived for the moment, and all that pablum. I’ll tell you more about the estate, and there’s one other thing I want to do.” He’d promised Gen an engagement ring from the estate jewelry, and by God, she was going to have it. He might not be able to make good on the promise implicit in the offering, but she was going to own a proper British ring. “Come with me. Be my love, tonight.”
The Earl of Sandwich
GEN held Arthur’s strong hand as they walked across the fields back to Spencer House. The sun’s heat flowed through the air, drying the grass to sweet-smelling hay. Behind them, the deer were bawling and barking, and wind rushed in the trees.
Arthur wouldn’t have another summer at Spencer House after so many, and Gen wanted to crumple and weep for him again.
But she sure as hell didn’t. Arthur had been comforting her when he was the one who was about to lose everything. That was backward. She had to suck it up for his sake.
For two more days.
Until he was gone forever.
Gen still suspected that his resettlement and witness protection program by MI6 was a metaphor for suicide, and by God, she was going to keep him here on God’s green Earth if she had to tie him down to do it.
Or, alternatively, let him tie her down until he found something to live for.
Whatever worked.
Women often have a lot of reasons for agreeing to have sex, and Gen could list several of her reasons. More lurked in the back of her head.
Yes, she wanted to shore up Arthur’s emotional resources, maybe even give him something to stay for, even if that something was a submissive little sex toy.
And there were the esthetics. Arthur put a lot of time in at the gym and into running, and it all paid off with hard ripples and ridges in all the right places, plus those gorgeous tattoos. Gen could have just stood there and admired his naked body for hours, if he had let her.
Also, when a guy puts effort into making sure you have an Earth-shattering orgasm, it’s motivating.
When they walked into Spencer House, a housekeeper bustled up to them, asking if Arthur was staying for dinner and what he wished to have.
Arthur told the woman that just anything would do, and the woman seemed more flustered by this than by any impossible request he could have made.
Gen dawdled behind Arthur, dropping farther and farther behind, until she turned back and ran after the housekeeper. She whispered to the woman, “If you know of anything that he has a sentimental attachment to, serve that, if you can. You know, ‘comfort food?’ Maybe cookies or something for dessert?”
The housekeeper jetted off to make it happen.
After Ifan retrieved Ruckus from them and took him off for the evening, Arthur took Gen on a tour of the upper levels of the estate, telling her about the art hanging in three and four rows on the high walls. Thirty feet of stacked art like an enormous museum towered and stared down at her.
Arthur knew every painting: whom the portrait depicted, who had painted it, and the circumstances of how the Finch-Hatten family had acquired it.
He mentioned at one point, “I should write these down so that Christopher will know what they are.”
“Maybe you could mail it to him,” Gen said.
He shrugged. “Maybe I could do that.”
His unconvinced tone didn’t fool Gen.
They both went upstairs to shower and change. She changed into the black dress with the short, flirty skirt that Arthur liked. Evidently, she had left it at Spencer House last time, and it had been cleaned and was hanging in the closet.
When they got down to the formal dining room, plates heaped with bread, sliced roast beef and chicken, cheeses, and toppings had been stacked on the sideboard, a buffet of cold sandwiches, which Gen would have never anticipated.
Arthur’s silver-blue eyes lit up, and he grabbed a plate and started slathering mustard on a slice of bread.
Gen did likewise. “This seems to be a popular idea.”
Arthur licked mustard off his thumb and forked slices of meat onto his bread. “My grandparents used to have a sandwich buffet ready for us when we arrived for Christmas and when I came home from Le Rosey. We often arrived late,” he explained. “Sandwiches meant that I was home and could rest.” He grinned. “I used to call my grandfather the Earl of Severn, and he called me the Earl of Sandwich.”
“That’s cute.”
He was still smiling and lost in thought. “My grandmother used to make me clean my plate when we ate. She had survived the War, you know, and wasting food was anathema. She could not abide it. Someone had to eat all the leftovers before we could leave the table. She used to pass around half-full plates until someone obliged because, you know, the War.”
With that, Arthur stopped and stared at his plate. “I guess this will be the last time.”
Oh, no. Gen had miscalculated badly. She should have asked the housekeeper to serve something Arthur hated, something that would have been easy for him to leave.
He shook his head and grabbed a handful of pickles, dumping them on his plate, and laid a slice of cheddar cheese over the roast beef on his sandwich. “One last time, right? One last meal of sandwiches in Spencer House.”
“Right.” She rubbed his back. “One last time. It’s not vegetarian, though. We could ask for some hummus.”
“It’s fine,” he said. “We always had ro
ast beef and chicken when I was a child. It’s traditional. I like meat, and one meal won’t matter in the greater scheme of things.”
He ran his hand down her back, so that they were almost hugging, except that his hand trailed down her spine to the curve of her ass, and his fingers gripped her through the dress.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“That’s my butt,” Gen said, glancing around to make sure that none of the staff was hanging around. They were alone at that moment, but Gen wasn’t sure that would have stopped him.
“Not what I meant.” His hand flipped under her dress, and he ran his fingers under the elastic leg band of the black lace panties she was wearing. “You’re mine for two more days. I told you I don’t like panties.”
“Oops.”
His fingers tangled in the black lace, the elastic creasing the delicate skin of her thighs and waist. “Take them off.”
“Here?”
Arthur set his plate on the sideboard. He yanked them down to her ankles, crouching at her feet. “Step out.”
Gen did. Stepping out of her panties was a step in the right direction for Arthur.
He stuffed the panties in his pocket, and he ran his hand up her bare leg to grab her naked ass again. He leaned in and whispered, “In a traditional submissive training situation, I would use this as an opportunity to punish you.”
Gen’s breath caught in her throat. “What would you do?”
His eyes lit up, and he smiled. “Would you like to find out?”
“Safe words?”
“Yes.”
She bit her lip. “All right.”
“Good.” His smile turned devilish. “I’ll let you wonder what your punishment will be all through dinner.”
And she would let him think about punishing her rather than about losing everything that was important to him, all through dinner.
They sat at the formal dining table, laid with priceless china and crystal, and ate sandwiches with their hands.
Arthur called a butler guy over. “Could you find a nice bottle of wine for tonight? Something we’ve been saving.” He glanced at Gen. “A white wine. A chardonnay, maybe, or a pinot gris.”
Something suitable for a last meal, or one of his last meals, anyway.
Gen almost choked on her sandwich, but she washed the sob down with the water already on the table.
“You all right?” he asked.
“Totally fine.” Gen stuffed the chicken sandwich in her mouth before her stupid brain could add anything else.
Arthur kept going back to the sandwich buffet. He ate six sandwiches and half of the pickle and vegetable trays.
When the serving people brought in the homemade cookies and hot chocolate, Arthur examined the cookies, muttering, “Biscuits,” under his breath and toying with them for minutes before he ate the entire plate except for the three that Gen ate, as if calories and sugar grams didn’t matter at all to him anymore.
Or maybe the comfort food was working.
“I wouldn’t have thought of you as a hot chocolate-kind of guy,” she said. “More like black coffee and whiskey.”
He was inhaling the aroma of the chocolate from the cup. “Le Rosey, the boarding school I attended most of my childhood, was in Switzerland. They served hot chocolate twice a day, at breakfast and at tea time. All anciens roséens, alumni of the school, either love or detest hot chocolate. There is no middle ground.”
When only two cookies remained, Arthur tried to give them to Gen, but she said that he should enjoy them.
They passed them back and forth, both of them trying to be polite, until Arthur broke both of them in half and distributed the halves to their plates.
Broken cookies, fewer calories, right?
After dinner, Arthur led her from the dining room back to the art gallery. He said, “Your punishment—”
“Yes?” she asked, still nervous about this whole concept of punishment.
“—will be—” he intoned, his voice deep in his throat.
“Oh my God, what?”
“—to listen to me prattle on about Spencer House’s art collection for another hour.” He turned, his eyebrows lowered ominously. “Or more.”
Gen laughed and followed him. “Oh, no. Someone save me.”
“A quick stop in my room first.”
“Oh?”
His grin turned menacing. “Don’t be so quick to agree.”
Punishment
GEN followed Arthur up the wide, two-story staircase toward his room. She swung his hand the whole way, skipping behind him. Her shoes clicked on the marble steps.
Every time Arthur looked back, he was obviously trying to look glowery and dangerous and not to laugh at her.
He only succeeded in looking cute, so she laughed at him.
When they were in his bedroom, Arthur shut the door behind her and locked it.
“Oh, no,” she said, lounging on Arthur’s bed because she totally could.
The huge, king-sized monster hulked in the corner of the room. Carved enormous pillars were stained dark walnut, almost black, and held up the wooden canopy that soared nearly to the ceiling. It looked like something King Henry the Eighth might have slept in, and considering Arthur’s house and family, he might have.
A few months ago, she would have thought that it looked like a cage, a strongbox to imprison her, but now, it was architecture and history.
Damn. She could do anything.
Gen smiled at Arthur and asked, “What is the big, bad, dangerous man going to do to me?”
Gen said man instead of spy. She had totally wanted to say spy, but the ceiling or the windows might be listening.
Arthur removed a box from his dresser drawer and stripped crinkling plastic wrap off of it.
Another toy? Gen leaned to watch him.
The thing he took out looked like a skinny, chrome egg with a base to stand on. The egg part was squished, though, just kind of a bulge on the post. “What’s that?”
He smiled. “That’s your punishment.”
She squinted at it. “It’s kind of pretty.”
“You won’t be seeing much of it.”
“Oh?”
“Come here.”
Gen slid off the bed and vamped across the room, sliding her feet and wobbling her shoulders because she was trying to be sexy.
Arthur set the thing on the dresser and waited.
When she got close, Arthur grabbed her around the waist with one strong arm and spun her so that her back was to the dresser. He touched her sternum with two fingers and crowded her backward until she stumbled against the low chest. She sat on it heavily, thumping her butt. Her legs dangled off the side, and he parted her knees and stood between them.
When she was sitting down this way, Arthur was a lot taller than she was. Gen looked up when he lifted her chin with one finger. He bent, and she closed her eyes as his lips touched hers.
At first, he brushed her lips with his and was gentle, a transition from the long day to the night, where she belonged to him.
Gen moved, resting against him, leaning on his strength.
Arthur held her in his arms, and his arms tightened around her.
She wasn’t trapped. She was held.
His lips parted from hers. “Amber and red.”
“Amber and red,” she repeated, her lips almost touching his.
He said, “We should have done something about that,” and dove to kiss her harder.
His arms around her body loosened, but his hands gripped her shoulders. He grabbed her ass and scooted her forward, pulling her against him. One hand rose up her ribs to her breast, and he scooped her boob out of her dress and bra. He dragged her dress straps over her shoulders, almost tying her arms down, and released her other boob, too.
His thumb swiped across her nipple, then he rubbed it, and then he caught her peak between his strong fingers and held it until she was gasping and pushing against him while he pulled back and watched her with his burning sil
ver-blue eyes.
When he let go, the blood rushing into her thin skin was a blast of pleasure so intense that she almost felt it as pain.
He brought his lips down on hers again, his tongue stroking hers in her mouth. His hands roamed her body, caressing and grasping her, until she was sure that he was going to take her right there on the dresser. Her panties were already in his pocket. All he had to do was unzip his pants.
His caresses got rougher, pinching her nipples and grasping her ass. She moaned and whispered his name against his lips, and his body bowed as he growled and caught her throat with his teeth.
He backed up a step, his teeth still grabbing her shoulder.
Gen stumbled off the dresser and fell against his chest. His arms were already there, around her, and he spun her so that she faced the dresser and the wall.
The wall didn’t even upset her. She bet that Arthur could shove her up against the wall and take her there and all she would be able to think about would be his huge body deep inside hers.
His hand touched her back, and he pushed, bending her over the dresser. The wood was cold under her bare boobs.
Gen reached across the wood and held on.
Arthur bent over and whispered in her ear, “Are you ready for your punishment?” His voice was rough, almost angry.
She nodded.
He flipped her skirt up over her ass and grabbed her ass cheek with his strong fingers, clutching her soft skin.
“God, I love your ass,” he growled. “I love your curves and your softness. Since that first day, when you bent over that file cabinet in that tight skirt, I’ve wanted your ass. Tonight, that’s your punishment.”
Gen looked over her shoulder at him.
He reached over to a drawer beside her and pulled out what looked like a tube of toothpaste. With his thumb, he flipped the cap up and squeezed a bead of clear gel on the bulb of the thing.
Oh.
Gen laid her cheek against the wood of the dresser and closed her eyes.
He kicked her feet apart, his shoes clicking against the red soles of her Louboutin high heels.
Hard Liquor: Runaway Billionaires: Arthur Duet #2 Page 17
