Gen shrugged. The dress was probably a knock-off.
When she’d protested that she should at least pay Wulfram back, the icy blond man had shrugged and said, “Tax deduction. Arthur needs you at your best.”
She couldn’t argue with that.
Arthur had whispered to her later, “It’s all right to accept it. Wulfram is exceedingly wealthy, and I can always reimburse him if you’d like.”
Gen could not imagine what “exceedingly wealthy” meant to a guy who kept a Rolls Royce as a backup car and had not bothered to keep track of a mere six hundred million dollars in a bank account.
She didn’t allow herself to consider the other part, that if she lost Arthur’s case spectacularly, he wouldn’t be able to reimburse anyone for even a damn cup of coffee.
And if Arthur stepped into a white van after the case, he wouldn’t have to worry about money at all.
Nope, Gen wasn’t thinking about that. She had work to do.
This closing argument had to be perfect.
It just had to be.
She plopped her laptop on a table, flopped into one of the pillow-soft recliners, and flicked her laptop screen open.
Everyone else filed in and found seats while she stared at the words, trying to force them to be brilliant with the power of her mind.
It wasn’t working.
Everything she had written seemed superficial and ignorant of the law, common sense, and decency. The other lawyer’s argument was that Christopher Finch-Hatten was the better man—a doctor, a father, and a model citizen—while Arthur was a drunk, a spendthrift, and likely a traitor to the Empire, to boot.
Their argument was, essentially, But I want it! And he’s naughty!
Gen’s argument boiled down to, Yeah. So?
She had to do better than that. Merely citing that the legal will had already been settled couldn’t be enough to defend him.
Maybe the nobles who sat on the Committee would think about their own younger siblings and would not want to set precedent.
Except that most of the people in the House of Lords these days weren’t ancestral noblemen and noblewomen but honorary barons and baronesses who had been elevated for their contributions to society. They couldn’t pass their titles down to their children at all, so they wouldn’t care about precedent.
Gen jumped back into the document and scrutinized every damn word.
Arthur sat beside her at the table and opened a magazine.
It startled her for a minute because she was used to him fiddling with his phone at every opportunity, but he had destroyed his phone back in London.
The plane jiggled around her while she worked, taxiing on the runway.
Acceleration pressed her into her seat as the plane’s nose angled up, and the plane roared into the sky.
She fussed with her speech, taking out points and then putting them right back in, until Arthur took her hand. “We should eat and get a few hours of sleep before we land. We’re crossing so many time zones that the night will be short.”
Gen glanced out the window beside her at the quilt-blocked land flowing below the plane. The window wasn’t a typical airplane porthole but an elongated oval, more like a window on a motor home or a yacht. The plane was speeding toward purple darkness gathering along the eastern horizon.
“Yeah,” she said. “I can work on this later.”
She closed the laptop and realized that Casimir and Maxence were sitting across the table from her, reading on their phones. “Oh. Hi.”
Casimir looked up, surprise in his brilliant green eyes. “Are we allowed to talk now?”
She shrank a little. “Um, yeah?”
Maxence was grinning. He told her, “Arthur kept shushing us.”
Oh, Lord. “I didn’t mean that—”
Arthur was already laughing. “Maxence is trying to tease you. He’s not very good at it. Here come the staff with the menus. Excellent.”
Some people who worked for the private airline served the dinner on delicate china plates and poured the wine into crystal glasses that were almost sharp in Gen’s fingers. She was only moderately aware of what she was stuffing into her face because she was worried about working on those closing arguments. The food she chewed was tasty, and Arthur kept filling her wine glass.
The guys joked around during the meal, obviously putting on a show to distract her.
It was sweet of them.
She fretted about the closing arguments anyway.
These closing arguments had been looming over her life for months, and she’d been considering them, making notes, and rewriting paragraphs all that time.
It wasn’t nearly enough. She should have spent more time. Someone more experienced should be doing it.
By the time they finished eating, Gen was sleepy from the food and dizzy from the wine. The four of them had shared several bottles. Maxence had drunk more than his share.
Arthur stood and held his hand out to her. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?”
“To the back.”
She wasn’t ready for the mile-high club in an airplane bathroom. She was a curvy girl, and she bumped her hips on the counter and the wall when she tried to turn around in one of those. “Aren’t there just lavatories back there?”
He chuckled, and Casimir and Maxence cracked up.
Arthur said, “There’s a bedroom.”
Gen’s jaw dropped. “No way.”
Casimir said, “Way,” in a passable California surfer dude accent. He elbowed Maxence. “That’s how you say it.”
Gen ignored them. “On an airplane?” she exclaimed to Arthur.
“It’s rather smaller than a standard hotel room,” he said.
“Well, thank goodness.”
Arthur shot a mischievous look at Casimir and Maxence, then he said to her, “And a full bathroom.”
That was insane. She protested, “No way.”
Casimir jostled Maxence. “You try it.”
“Way,” Maxence said to her, but he couldn’t keep from laughing. He said to Casimir, “That’s just the oddest thing. Way.”
“Come on and see it.” Arthur walked toward the back of the plane.
She said to Casimir and Maxence, “We don’t need the bedroom. You guys can take it.” She had insinuated something that probably wasn’t the case. “Or one of you. We’re fine, really. I need to work most of the night.”
Casimir and Maxence laughed straight in her face.
Casimir said, while wiping his eyes, “God, I love Americans. Even more self-effacing than Englishmen at times. No, dear,” he said to her. “I don’t have my wife with me, and Maxence isn’t my type.”
Maxence had just drained yet another glass of wine. “I could totally be your type.”
“You need a woman, dear friend,” Casimir told him.
Maxence poured himself more wine. His hand wove just a little, but he didn’t spill even a drop. “I do not.”
“You haven’t taken your vows yet.”
“It doesn’t matter. I plan to. I should live as—”
Casimir said to Arthur, “I’ll listen to this drunk while you two get some sleep.”
It was a discreet and respectful statement, right up until he winked.
“Oh, goodness!” Gen said, clutching her computer to her chest. “We wouldn’t. Of course not. Not with you guys right out here. Absolutely not.”
Casimir laughed as Arthur led Gen toward the back of the airplane. “Come, pet.”
Behind her, over the roar of the jet engines on the wings outside, she heard Maxence say, “If Arthur doesn’t—”
Casimir said, “Shut up, Max. You’ve had too much to drink, and if you’d looked at Roxanne like you’ve been eye-fucking Gen, I would have punched you in the face by now. Don’t give Arthur more reason to deck you, all right? He’s shown admirable restraint.”
Arthur opened the door at the back of the airplane and led Gen inside.
Why would anyone put a four-p
oster bed in an airplane?
The white four-poster bed, which looked to be queen-sized, was flush with the back wall. Masses of orchids spilled out of vases on the dressers.
Gen strolled over and touched one of the satiny, waxy petals.
Yep, real orchids. Not silk.
She said, “This is extravagant, Arthur.”
“And it’s not even my fault. Come now. Stow your things. I’ve already had your garment bag hung in here. When we get to London, you’ll be properly rested from sleeping well tonight and ‘fresh as rattlesnakes.’”
She grudgingly agreed, “Yeah, there is that.”
He checked the small wardrobe. “Yes, your dress and my suit are ready for tomorrow. Excellent.”
Gen leaned into the door to the bathroom. The stainless steel fixtures gleamed in the glassed-in shower stall. “Sweet baby Jesus, there is a shower in here.”
“We can walk off the plane and into the Parliament Building tomorrow.”
She returned and sat on the bed. “That’s great. Um, I don’t suppose there’s a spare pair of PJ’s around here?”
Arthur raised one dark eyebrow.
“I got the dress-suit-thing from The Devilhouse for tomorrow, but I assumed we would be sleeping sitting up in airplane seats with other people around. I didn’t think to grab pajamas.”
Arthur bent and started ransacking the drawers. “We could sleep in the nude.”
Horror slapped Gen. “Oh, my God. What if the plane crashes?”
He stood and laughed. “If the plane crashes, I quite suspect that our attire will be the least of our concerns.”
“That would be just my luck, the plane crashes, and I’ll be running around a cornfield buck naked, trying to make a bra out of corn leaves.”
“That won’t happen,” Arthur said.
“Oh, you don’t know the stuff I’ve gotten into the middle of. I’ve been in three different banks during robberies. It could totally happen.”
“It’s April. Maize is only a foot high in the spring. The leaves would be too small to be effective as clothing.”
“How do you even know that?” Gen reached behind her back, grabbed a pillow, and hurled it at him.
He snatched it out of the air. “One of my tenant farmers near Spencer House tried to grow maize one year. Ifan and I kept watch over the experiment. It was a moderate success, but the soil near Spencer House is better for barley.”
He whipped the pillow back at her, laughing.
She blocked it with her arms.
While she was ducked behind her hands to keep from getting smacked in the face with a pillow, the bed shifted under her, and he grabbed her.
Arthur was all around her: his strong arms trapping her, his fingers digging into her ribs and tickling her, and the subtle scent of his cologne drifting from his skin.
She scrambled to get away, laughing and slapping at him, but he grappled with her until she was underneath him on the bed. He pinned her wrists above her head and looked down at her.
His hair was mussed from where he’d wrassled with her, and he was breathing hard through a huge smile. His silvery eyes sparkled with laughter.
She was laughing and panting, too.
It was inevitable that he kissed her, that his arms wrapped around her, and that her laughter turned into a catch in her throat.
Gen forgot that she was on a plane, that people were eating, reading, and playing chess just on the other side of that flimsy wall, and that they were soaring through the sky miles above the Earth.
She forgot about the closing arguments and the House of Lords.
Arthur’s breath was humid on her throat, warming her skin, and she stretched her neck. He turned his head and nipped her skin.
His hands were gentle, unbuttoning her blouse and tugging the fabric aside, but his mouth was relentless on her skin. He lipped her collarbone, trailing inside her shirt and to the swells of her breasts. His arm slipped under her waist, lifting her, as he sucked her to tight peaks.
Even though her blouse was unbuttoned and she was still otherwise dressed, his hands and his mouth and his weight on her body obsessed her. Gen’s fervor to have him inside her burned, but instead of a leaping wildfire that reached for him, her desire consumed her from the inside, turning her into a mindless, molten thing that yearned for his touch.
Arthur rose up for a moment, rooting in the nightstand drawer for a crinkling packet and dropped it on the sheets within his reach.
He pulled his shirt over his head and flung it on the floor. His pecs and crenellated abs shifted on his torso as he reached. Fine, soft manhair over his body glistened in the pale light, just so masculine.
Gen trailed her fingers over his chest as he swept down to slant his mouth across hers, his tongue tangling with hers between their open lips.
Maybe, after tomorrow, she might never touch him again.
Maybe, after the plane landed, after Arthur and Gen stood before the committee in the House of Lords, he wouldn’t be Lord Severn anymore, and he might walk into that horrid white van and die somewhere, alone.
But right now, right that minute, he was the Earl of Severn, and she was his Countess.
Even if Arthur didn’t come back to her, she could raise their child.
An image crossed her mind—an infant with pale silver eyes and wisps of dark hair on his tiny head—and she gasped with longing.
She knew that the child would grow up to be their own person, another light of humanity in the world, but the child would also be a piece of Arthur’s flesh, his soul, his legacy, still in the world and still with her.
Tears stung her eyes.
Gen whispered, “Arthur?”
“Mmmm?” he hummed against her skin, his hands closing on her waist.
“Don’t use a condom.”
His sigh was a rush of warm, wine-scented breath over her collarbone and chest. “I can’t do that.”
“We’re married,” she whispered near his ear, his weight pressing on her. “I’m Countess Severn, now. It’s my duty to provide the earldom with an heir.” Gen had read plenty of Regency and historical romance novels and everything by Jane Austen as a teenager in Texas. She knew how English nobility worked, at least in books. Reading is a great education. “I have the right to insist on it.”
Arthur pushed himself up on his arms.
She had expected anger from him, or maybe irritation that they were going to have this argument again instead of having sex on their last night together, but she would never have guessed his silvery-blue eyes would have the slightest trace of moisture on his lower lids. “Gen?”
She pressed on. “That’s the countess’s duty, right? To preserve the earldom, to oversee the household, and to produce an heir. You married me. You gave me your title, and it became my duty.”
“Your duty?” His voice caught in his throat.
She nodded. “It is, isn’t it?”
He squeezed his eyes shut. “There isn’t an earldom. I lost it.”
“Not yet.”
He opened his eyes. “I beg your pardon?”
She told him, “You’re the Earl of Severn, my lord, and I’m the countess. It’s your duty to me.”
Duty
ARTHUR’S arms trembled as he held himself above Gen.
Her warm, brown eyes were wide open, serious.
His heart raced in his chest, and breathing felt like he was shoving air into his lungs.
Very rarely, perhaps a few times in a lifetime, you have a moment when another human being sees into your soul, when you are flayed open and gutted before them, when even the most reserved English nobleman is vulnerable.
Duty.
“Do you mean this?” he asked her, mortified at the quaver in his voice.
“Yes,” Gen’s voice and gaze were steady, far more steady than he was.
“I may not live past tomorrow,” he said. “I might not be there to take care of you, of both of you. You might be alone.”
She touched his
cheek, and his heart fluttered. She said, “I committed to you. I gave you my life. If I have to, I’ll raise our child alone because I am committed to you.”
Her words were the knives that he used to cut out his own heart and hand it to her. His world spun as all his honor and obligations centered on the woman in his arms. “Gen, you are everything to me.”
The words on her lips, “I love you,” broke him apart.
He stripped her as naked as he felt and fit himself inside her, the raw, vulnerable parts of their bodies sheltering each other.
She was warm, warmer than he’d felt through a condom. The friction of their skin shot through him, trembling along the nerves running through his flesh.
And he gave her all of himself.
Thirty Thousand Feet Above the Atlantic Ocean
ARTHUR was different.
Gen held him in her arms, his body poised above hers, and he watched her, his gaze wary.
With her demand and his agreement, their lovemaking had slowed. Her body craved his, but his gaze was so intense that it seemed like he had to remember to breathe.
He pushed into her, moving gently, still more slowly than she could bear, but his hardness filled her almost to the point of pain, as deep as she could take, and more.
His hips nestled into hers.
As always, he settled his weight on her, not moving, embedded in her, allowing her body to adjust to his size and girth within her, and he kissed her, his lips moving on hers. His breath came in little pants against her mouth.
Gen wrapped her arms and legs around the hardness of his body, feeling him, feeling every moment.
When she could breathe again, when her body yielded to his, he moved in her, stroking inside her.
The way he moved when he made love to her had changed.
Before, his every movement had been laced with an element of domination. She was always aware that when he took her, he claimed her, he overpowered her, and he owned her. Gen was his fucktoy or his pet, his to do whatever he wanted to.
This time, though, he was different. His mouth on hers, his breath on her neck, and his body moving in hers were infused with abandon, even surrender.
Hard Liquor: Runaway Billionaires: Arthur Duet #2 Page 28
