Page 84 of Outrageous

Eva heard his grin. “Your body must ache,” she said.

“I ache in more ways than one—and in some places more than others.”

Eva laughed softly. “You think you are being sly and clever and charming, don’t you?”

“Am I charming you?” he asked, nuzzling her temple and making all the hairs on her body jump to attention.

“Not yet.”

It was his turn to laugh. “So, tell me of this much-vaunted experience you crowed about.”

Eva groaned. “Can’t we speak of something else?”

“Indulge me.”

She heaved an exaggerated, put-upon sigh. “Well, you know that at least one of the claims I made was untrue.”

“Yes,” he mused, the hand that was resting on her hip absently stroking, his thumb repeatedly brushing the thin skin that stretched over her jutting hip bone. “But it cannot all be boasting as you seem remarkably unshocked by certain events.”

“Oh, that.”

“Yes, that.” His thumb moved from her hip bone to her sensitive belly, which quivered beneath his touch.

“Er, well.” Eva had to force herself to recall what they’d been discussing. Ah, yes, her lack of shock. “What do you know of my stepmamma?”

“Ah, the mysterious and beautiful Lady Exley. The rumors abound, but I know some of them must be true as there is six feet of evidence in the form of her oldest son.”

“She was with the sultan for seventeen years—longer than she’d lived in England. Her approach to, well, just about everything is tempered by that time. It is her contention that women should know what to expect in the marriage bed.” She chewed her lip and then added, “She also believes they should demand pleasure from their husbands as well as give it.”

The silence around them seemed to echo with her disclosure, and his hand had gone still. Eva was beginning to wonder if she’d shocked or disgusted him when he said, “Ah, so she is wise as well as beautiful.” He kissed her on the forehead. “I shall have to find some way to thank her.”

Eva wasn’t entirely surprised by his response, but she did find it unexpected. “You don’t find me overbold and unladylike?”

He chuckled. “I do. But it appears that I like it.”

Her body warmed under his words.

“Your w-wife was not like me?”

He grew still and she wished she could pull the thoughtless words back.

She heard him swallow in the darkness, and then he said, “No. L-Lucia had been raised in a convent.”

Eva bit her lips between her teeth to stop pursuing a subject that was likely to bring both of them pain. But it was like poking at a heeling scab; it hurt, but was difficult to resist.

“Was she Italian?”

“Portuguese.”

“How did you come to meet her?”

Again the pause was so long, she’d given up on hearing his answer when he said, “She was the daughter of a Portuguese officer. I saw her first at a dinner her father gave to honor us for liberating the area from French soldiers.” His voice had taken on a pensive, dreamy quality. “She was the only woman at dinner, which made it difficult not to notice her. But there was more than that—”

He broke off and Eva stewed as long as she could bear it. “Was she very lovely?”

“Hmm? Oh—” He sounded as if she’d dragged him back from some more pleasant time, and Eva could only wonder at her stupidity. Why was she making him speak of a woman he’d obviously cared for? She’d gone beyond picking the scab; she’d ripped it off and was now rubbing salt in the wound.

“Beautiful? No, she would likely be considered average—perhaps handsome—but there was a serenity, a gentleness, in her eyes that was like a balm in the midst of such unrelenting violence.”