“I must. One of us should give a damn about your reputation.”
Fanny cupped his cheek. “You did me a great service retrieving my property from Wilks.”
He pulled away immediately. “You’ll not thank me like this.”
Her gaze followed him. “Don’t you find me attractive?”
He scowled at her. “You know I do.”
Her attention dropped to his lips. “Please won’t you kiss me, Jeremy? Please.”
It was the second please that frayed his restraint. “Lady Rivers should never beg for attention.”
“Then give me the kiss I’ve been waiting for.”
Jeremy fought with his desires. He had wanted Lady Rivers since the moment they’d met. But that was in London, where casual flirtations were part and parcel with his profession. This was quite something else happening between them. They were playing with fire. She wanted to explore all the possibilities of their agreement. If he failed to please her, would she deny him her aid for everything else in the future? He wished with all his heart that he had never signed that damned agreement. “I should have no right to touch a woman like you.”
She put her hands on her hips. “I’m only a woman.”
“Lady Rivers, that does not even begin to describe you. This conversation is over.” He turned his back on her, intending to go find a maid to help her change.
“Should I let Lord Wilks into my bed if he wants that, as well as paying his blackmail?”
Jeremy spun around to face her. “I have no right to deny you any pleasure.”
“And yet when I tell you what I want, you refuse to even consider the notion.”
“For God’s sake. Do you not understand?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Then explain it. Use small words that my feeble female brain can accept.”
He advanced on her, one finger raised. “Don’t you ever talk about yourself like that again.”
She shrugged, and the black rag she wore slipped to reveal dark undergarments. “Every other man since Rivers died has. They see the money and have to have me. They don’t even try to know me first.”
Jeremy took a pace toward her. “Fools.”
“If you leave me, that’s my only other choice. Fortune hunters and fools.”
Jeremy growled. “That isn’t a choice.”
“But this is,” she promised. “You are the man I crave above all others. You are the man I want to share my bed with.”
Jeremy broke then, capturing Fanny by the head and jerked her into his arms. “Who needs a damn bed.”
He crushed his lips to hers and stole the kiss he’d been dreaming of.
Fanny was soft and giving and so, so sweet. Her arms stole around him, and Jeremy shivered at the contact. They were both still damp from the rain and there was probably a puddle forming beneath them that would be hard to explain later. Still he kissed her and wanted her and knew he wouldn’t stop.
When she started pulling at his cravat, Jeremy wasted no time in stripping Fanny of her wet gown. Then he wrapped her in a blanket he stole from the bed and went on kissing her. When he started to struggle out of his own damp clothes, Fanny helped speed the process of his undressing.
“Oh, dear God,” Fanny whispered when she stepped back as his breaches dropped to his knees after being undone. “What delights have I missed by putting proper clothes on you. Jeremy, you take my breath away.”
Jeremy had to smile at that. Unlike the titled lords staying as the Duke of Stapleton’s guests for the wedding, those who circled Fanny like vultures after her fortune, there was no comparison when it came to physicality. He was hard-muscled and sleek, a product of barely making ends meet all his life.
Fanny ran her hands all over his chest, teasing him without meaning to as the blanket fell from her shoulders and left her almost naked again. She flicked her fingers over his nipples, and then her lips were upon his skin. She licked him the way he’d wanted to lick her.
Reverently. Slowly. Seductively.