She threw her head back and laughed. “No, that’s okay. I’m good, Mr. Everley. I’ll stick with you.” Score one for the American beauty intent upon making me fall in love with her whether I wanted to or not. You know you want to.

She patted the chaise with her hand. “You still haven’t said why you asked me to come in here if it wasn’t to ravish me.”

Such a smart, smart mouth you have, kitten. “I thought we could talk about a schedule for being here together.” I sat down next to her on the chaise but kept my handsy, depraved hands to myself. I sensed now was a good time for giving Gabrielle a bit of space, even if she wasn’t showing it. I’d dropped a whole lot on her shoulders, and she had to be feeling overwhelmed with me right now. It’d be one thing if she were only here to catalogue the collection and nothing else. But I didn’t just want her here for the art anymore.

What fucking art? I want her here for me.

I wanted to bring her with me on a kinky fucking adventure of defilement we could play out in private right here without the world having to know. The art was certainly not the driving force for me wanting to keep her at this point, but I was smart enough to know the art was my bargaining chip for keeping her. I’m not that stupid. I also understood what I wanted would complicate things greatly. Kinky fucking came with a pile of complications, unfortunat—

“That’s a good idea, actually,” she said softly, her attention focused completely on me.

“Sometimes depraved lords just want to talk, Miss Hargreave.”

“You’re right, of course, Mr. Everley, apologies for my presumption.”

The acquiescence of her words woke my cock right the fuck on up. She was playing with me, of course, but didn’t that just feel wonderfully fine? I adjusted my position on the chaise to ease the discomfort of a stiffening prick and explained my situation. “I’m not at Donadea as much as I’d like to be right now. I’ve come here mostly when Parliament was in recess, until this year with the new cabinet appointment. I’ve been the whole summer staying at my London townhouse, Brentwood, during the Olympics, so now that’s over I’ve been trying to make up for it by spending as much time at Donadea whenever I possibly can.” I walked my fingers over to her hand where she’d elegantly placed it palm down on the chaise. “But now that you, Miss Hargreave, are going to be here working on the collection, I’ll want to be here as well,”—I stroked over her hand with my index finger—“with you.”

She lifted her eyes from where she’d been watching what I was doing with my fingers, up to meet mine. We stared at each other for a beat. Or maybe it was an hour. Didn’t matter, time was irrelevant. We were both thinking about the same filthy things we could be doing to each other. Right? I couldn’t think of anything else around her. My dick did not possess an off-switch where my kitten was concerned. And not right now either, when her nipples had gotten as hard as my cock was and were calling to me through her pretty green blouse. Who the hell switched on the heat? The room felt blasting hot.