Read Wicked Nights With a Lover for Free Online Page B

opportunities.”
    He nodded, apparently satisfied with her vague reply. “I see. Well, I am quite taken with you. That has not changed.” His gaze skimmed her. “Should we have a contract drawn up? I’ve a nice house in Daventry Square. Modest but quite above the cut.”
    She shook her head. “No. That won’t do.”
    He blinked. “No?”
    “I have requirements, my lord, and should you agree, I’ll take you at your word. No contract necessary.” She would rather not leave a written record of her moral descent. If she lived out the year— when —she would not continue on as a rich man’s mistress. Marguerite would prefer the world know nothing of her adventure. The life of a paramour had been her mother’s life-long vocation. Not hers. No, the handsome lord would do for her purposes for a while. For now.
    “What is it you want, Miss Laurent?”
    This time when he asked, his gaze was sober, focused and intent as any man entering a business deal. Again, she felt that stab of disappointment. Where was the passion she sought?
    “I wish to spend the winter in Spain. Three months, to be exact. I don’t require a house, nothing permanent in nature. Three months. You. Me.” She looked him starkly in the face. “I want adventure. I want passion. And after that …” her voice faded.
    Courtland’s face chose that moment to flash in her mind. Blast the man. Who was he to invade her thoughts? She supposed it was his virility, his very maleness. When she thought of passion, his unwelcome image rose in her head.
    Lord Sommers’s eyes warmed as he looked at her. “How can I refuse such a request?”
    She released a shaky breath, not realizing until then how nervous she had been. “You agree with my requests then, my lord?”
    He cocked his head, studying her. “I’m long overdue a holiday, and with Christmas upon us, well, I dread this time of year … all the blasted relations swarming the place. I would much rather escape to sunny Spain. With you, my dear. The notion strikes me as providential, in fact.”
    She winced at the description, deciding it either oddly apt or blasphemous.
    Lord Sommers moved then, lowering himself down beside her, rearranging his bright blue jacket around him with a fastidiousness to rival any lady. She tried not to flinch when he lifted her hand from her lap and held it in his cold fingers. “How soon shall we do this?”
    “I’m ready now. We can leave at once.” Then she remembered she still needed to visit her sisters. She didn’t care that she had vowed to do everything in opposition of Madame Foster’s predictions. She could not not meet them. They were her sisters, the family she had always longed for. One brief meeting would not hurt.
    He answered her before she could retract her statement. “I cannot leave until the following week, I’m afraid. I’ll need some days to set my affairs in order and make arrangements for us.” He grinned then, all at once boyish. “Sunny Spain! What a brilliant idea.” His attention fixed on her, his gaze lowering to her lips. “And I cannot think of a better companion. We shall have a grand time of it. You’ll have your passion. That and more, I daresay.”
    She smiled. More was what she was counting on. More was precisely what a dying woman craved, needed.
    As he leaned down and pressed his mouth to hers, she tried to convince herself that she felt alive, electrified at the touch of his lips—a bit like how she’d felt when that scoundrel from the rookery put his hands to her. A lie, unfortunately.
    She felt nothing.
    Still, she returned his kiss, determined to feel something. A fraction of the fire that sparked between her and Courtland.
    Nothing.
    When he ended the kiss and pulled away, she sighed. He apparently mistook the sound for rapture of his mediocre kissing.
    “There will be more of that later, love,” he promised.
    She nodded and forced a smile. “I’m counting on it.” Counting that next time it would be