“That wasn’t what you said last night.”
Phoebe swung around. “How dare you?”
A pleased grin spread across Selwood’s handsome face. “Why not me? I met all of your criteria. Clean, experienced, available, and discreet. No one could possibly suspect I was in your bed last night. And I would do it again to ‘ear you scream in pleasure, mon amour.”
Phoebe’s heart beat frantically as Selwood added the French accent to his last words. “Warminster will kill you when he finds out. You know what he is. Were you tired of his friendship?”
Selwood’s arrogant smile chilled her. “No, not tired of it. But things change. He set me to watch you last evening and his desire happened to coincide with mine. Can you imagine he placed me in the bedchamber beside yours with orders to beat any man to a pulp if they so much as looked at you twice? It wasn’t hard to convince me, but I put on a good show of resistance just the same.”
She stared up into his dark eyes and her body quivered.
“I would make love to you in the light, ma belle. Bring you such pleasure that you would scream my name for all to hear. I could rest your back against that broad oak tree, fall to my knees at your feet and delve beneath your skirts. Would you like to watch me lick your nub until the pleasure overtakes you?”
Phoebe shook her head to banish the erotic image. This surely must be a dream.
“Or would you like me to lure you to the center of the maze, push you to your knees and take you from behind again? When we were joined, I could feel every intimate shudder of your body, every gasp from your lips, and hear every plea for me to fuck you harder.”
Selwood’s fingers s
lid along her arm, drawing heat from every pore of her skin. To her horror, she could feel moisture flooding from between her legs. Phoebe pressed her thighs together as Lord Selwood moved closer.
“Look at me.”
Hesitantly, Phoebe glanced up. Lord Selwood’s dark gaze burned into her composure. Her breasts grew heavy, nipples hardening to painful peaks under her thin day gown. Selwood’s gaze swept across her chest—lingering on her breasts in a most unsettling way. His smile grew. “No corset.”
Phoebe dragged in a breath as his hands moved. He didn’t touch. He was only teasing her with the idea of it. Yet her body believed what it wanted to. She burned for more pleasure.
“In case you miss me, ma belle, I’m not adverse to a daytime rendezvous. I am under Warminster’s orders to stay for the entire house party so I’ll be in my bedchamber, and at your disposal, for the whole afternoon.”
Phoebe’s mind whirled. Selwood was staying in the house, in the bedchamber next to hers for the whole week of this godforsaken house party. She’d have to lock the doors to keep him out.
“Now, as much as I’d like to continue our stirring discussion, you must excuse me. The conversation between your son and my sister looks to be reaching a critical point. Warminster might do better with his head on his shoulders. Lizzy appears incensed. Au revoir.”
While Phoebe blinked away the effects of Selwood’s verbal seduction, he strode off, collected his furious sister, and disappeared around the ornamental pond.
Good God. Phoebe was doomed.
With just a few short words, Selwood had reduced her to a mass of quivering need. She couldn’t get the images he’d planted in her mind to go away. The idea of the young, muscled man pleasuring her in the garden brought greater yearning coursing through her. She wanted him. She wanted to come again against that talented mouth, on the thick cock she’d surrendered to last night. Damn it, she wanted everything.
Warminster stalked past her on his way to the house. “Bloody confounding creature,” he muttered. “I doubt I shall ever understand those Olivers.”
Silently, Phoebe agreed with him.
CHAPTER FOUR
Jonathan stretched on the wide bed with a deep, satisfied groan. That sleep was just what he’d needed to face the house-party activities of the evening, and an evening spent in the delectable countess’ company. He tucked his hands behind his head and grinned. Phoebe was every bit as passionate as he’d suspected. Even more so. He craved her soft body again already.
His cock swelled at the memory of last night’s adventure. He rolled from the bed and headed for the washbasin. The jug of cool water should dampen his desire for now. He scrubbed and washed with brutal efficiency, dousing any lingering lust.
Voices outside caught his attention. He snatched up a towel and moved to stand by the window, hiding his naked state behind the heavy velvet drapes. From his vantage point two floors up, Jonathan could see his sister and Lord Warminster deep within the maze. Lizzy appeared angry again, if her clenched fists were any indication.
Warminster took a pace towards Lizzy and then he disappeared from view. Jonathan stretched up on his toes to see what’d happened. Warminster staggered up from the ground as Lizzy sweep round the corner of the maze.
He shouldn’t laugh at Warminster, but for a spy, he was damned unprepared for an attack. Lizzy must have used her favorite trick and swept his feet out from under him. Poor bastard. He’d be livid if she’s sullied his pristine attire.
Since his sister didn’t require his assistance yet, Jonathan turned back to the room. To his delight Lady Warminster stood at the connecting doorway, one hand on the knob, mouth hanging open.
She stared, gulped, but didn’t say a word.