In Service to the Senses by Demelza Hart Page A

drew in rapid breaths. At last Edward slowly, languidly, pushed himself up, tossing the polishing cloth dismissively onto the table. He took steady steps across to the countess, stopping a foot in front of her, and stared down.
    “Bored, are we?” he drawled.
    “You didn’t come to me last night, Marham.”
    “I were busy, my lady. Yer husband wanted his shirts sortin’. Took me all night.”
    “I…”
    “What, my lady?” He didn’t move. He didn’t uncross his arms.
    “I was expecting you. It has been three days since…last time.”
    “I’m a busy man, my lady. We can’t be havin’ all fun and games now, can we?” He smirked.
    “You told me you’d be there last night.”
    Edward sniffed derisively. “Oh, it don’t work like that with me, my lady, y’know that.”
    She stepped into him, her sculpted face now open and needing, her words urgent. “Show me how it does work with you, Marham.”
    His mouth curled up again and he cocked a teasing eyebrow. “What? Right here and now?”
    “Yes. Now. Right now.” She could barely speak between breaths. Lady Atherton reached up a hand and placed it on the valet’s shirt, drawing it up over his torso with deliberate sensuality.
    Edward moved swiftly and strongly, gripping her wrist hard and pulling it off him. He leaned in again. “Oh no. You’ll have to ask more nicely than that.”
    She glanced down at where he held her. “You’re hurting me.”
    He only tightened his hold, causing her to suck in sharply. “You like me hurting you. That’s why you’re here. You need me for the pleasure and the pain. Don’t you… my lady?”
    She looked up, her eyes wide, fearful and desirous. Isabella nodded.
    “Now…ask me nicely.”
    She swallowed, held his gaze, and stuttered, “Please.”
    “Please who?”
    “Please…Edward.”
    Leaning across, he brought his mouth close to her ear. “Good girl.”
    And with that he picked her up so that her legs were clamped around his waist and he gripped her backside in assured hands. Edward took strong steps forward until she jolted against the table. She gaped to draw in a gasp, but her open mouth was silenced by his lips, brutal and searching. Isabella reached up to tangle her fingers in his hair and pulled him harder yet against her. He let his tongue invade her and circle with delicious intent. She opened for him, giving him her own tongue.
    He was already dragging up her skirts, searching underneath.
    “Fuck,” he moaned after tearing himself from her mouth. “Trouble with you, my lady…always so many bloody clothes…”
    “I wouldn’t want to make things too easy for you. After all, it’s so much more… Aah!”
    He had managed to find his way through the intricacies of her underskirts in surprisingly rapid time.
    “You were sayin’?”
    Edward slid his fingers, skilled with more than just silver polish, through her gorgeously wet quim.
    “As ever—ready and willing, eh, my lady?” His teeth were as tightly clenched as his back muscles, which she clung to as he worked his fingers deftly. Now there were two pushed hard up in her, and she clenched onto them with a groan. He was tapping away at that perfect little place, that place which he knew made the light behind her eyelids flash green and blue.
    “Spread wider.” Now, right now, he was the master. She moved her legs wide apart, and with a grunt and grimace of concentration, he inched another finger into her. “Fuck, you’re ready. Always wanting more, aren’t you, you greedy little vixen?”
    “God, Edward, please come into me. It’s been too long.”
    “Shut it, my lady. You know better than to dictate things now. Dear, oh dear. Can’t let that go unpunished, can I?”
    Her eyes widened and she threw her head back and wailed, half in despair, half in rapturous delight.
    “Get up,” he demanded, pulling his fingers out suddenly and tugging her off the table before spinning her around and pushing her roughly down onto it. He pressed