Joss and The Countess (The Seducers Book 2) Read online

  But there’d been no Gordon in the Countess of Selwood’s study to slap Joss’s slack-jawed face back to awareness, so he’d gaped at her like a yokel.

  Joss knew he wasn’t alone in his stunned reaction to her. But to still be in awe of her months later and—he had to be honest—to be obsessed with her? No, his fellow servants appeared smarter than that.

  Only a romantic fool like Joss was stupid enough to wander down that fork in the road. Yes, romantic foolery—yet another crime he could lay at his mother’s door.

  But he didn’t want to think of his mother.

  Instead, he took the opportunity to drink her in.

  Never had he seen a woman so physically perfect—and Joss knew plenty of beautiful women.

  She was tall enough to come up to his shoulder and had a waist so tiny a man’s hands twitched to span it. Her hips and breasts would make an hourglass envious. Skin like cream, red, full lips that promised dark, sinful things, and hair an impossibly pale, silky blond, like the rich silk of some of the gowns she wore—garments that shrieked wealth, status, and unattainability.

  But it was her eyes—fringed in sooty, rather than blond lashes—that were the real shock. They were a pale sapphire blue unlike anything he’d ever seen: crystalline, perfect, and as remote as the moon.

  Not that Joss often looked directly into them. No, it wasn’t the place of a groom-cum-footman-cum-whatever-the-hell-he-was to meet the eyes of his mistress.

  But in his dreams and fantasies those eyes had looked at him times beyond counting as he slid into her body.

  They’d been hooded and heavy as he’d taken her from behind, taunting him over her shoulder. And they’d gazed down at him in queenly hauteur as she straddled him—posting him the way she rode her fine hacks.

  Yes, he’d done things to her in his imagination that would get him jailed, hanged, or transported if anyone could see the contents of his head.

  A man couldn’t look at a woman like her without primal, lustful thoughts; even a man like Joss: a mere servant who was expected to never even look, not to mention think about touching.

  Just catching a glimpse of her on the way from the house to her carriage was like the taste of something expensive and elusive—a brief holiday from the mundane, drab realities of life.

  But it was a holiday that never lasted more than a few minutes. Right on its heels was the gut-churning despair of knowing a man like him could never possess her. Except in his dreams.

  Each and every male in her London establishment had fantasies of their glorious employer just like Joss did. Well, perhaps not the very same.

  The general consensus among the male servants was that Lady Selwood was as cold, untouchable, and icy as the name the nobs gave her: The Ice Countess.

  But Joss knew better.

  Only Joss among her servants knew what she was really doing when she was supposed to be attending routs or balls or whatever rubbish rich folk spent their time doing.

  There was no denying her façade was cool, but beneath it was something else entirely.

  And Joss’s body responded instinctively to what lay buried under all that ice.

  He knew, without her telling him, what she craved and he knew he could give her exactly what she needed.

  Was that an arrogant assumption? Probably, but it was still true. And Joss had bloody well earned the right make such a claim.

  Unfortunately, if his body’s response to her was bad, his mind entertained even more dangerous impulses: he’d begun to obsess about what lay behind her beautiful face.

  Why would he care about what sort of person she was?

  Because he was an idiot.

  The closest he’d ever come to knowing her would be looking.

  In his months with her he’d seen her with two different men. Oh, not seen her, of course, but waited for her to sate her desires and for those lily-white-handed nobs to sate theirs using her body.

  The knowledge that she spent her evenings with men who looked like they knew as much about pleasuring a woman as they did about digging a ditch or butchering a hog rankled. But what rankled even more was the knowledge there wasn’t a damned thing he could do to stop her.

  Joss knew he wasn’t the smartest of men, but even a fool would realize the work he’d done for Melissa had given him thoughts and ideas that weren’t suited to a man of his station.

  It was natural, he supposed, to begin to think of aristocrats as people—at least the women—when you’d seen them naked, been inside them, and learned they were just a collection of wants and needs like anyone else.

  He knew that money couldn’t buy happiness—but it could buy pleasure.

  And it had certainly bought Joss often enough in the past.

  He shoved away the depressing thought.

  As was usual when he was in her company, he’d worked himself up. His cock was as hard as cast iron and his stomach churned with all the desire he was forced to swallow while he waited and imagined.

  The gnawing want and envy was wearing on him.

  He would be glad to leave her tonight, although such partings usually left him feeling restless and not a little despairing.

  Tonight he would go to his snug room in the mews and he’d beat the living fuck out of his bag, until his knuckles bled, until he was too bloody fagged to do anything but pass out. Sometimes that afforded him a certain . . . release.

  “What were you reading earlier, Gormley?”

  Joss startled; she’d rarely spoken to him directly in the months he’d worked for her—and never anything personal. And now she’d fixed her disconcerting silver-blue gaze on him and expected an answer.

  “What book do you have in your pocket?” she repeated.

  Joss fished the book from his coat and handed it to her. He watched her face as she flipped it open, staring at it for so long he thought she might have fallen asleep.

  “Shakespeare?” She said the word with an inflection of amazement, as if she’d just discovered one of her carriage horses could read. When she looked up at him her eyebrows were arched.

  Her surprise was like salt on a raw wound and Joss felt his mouth twist into a smile that held no humor. “I like to look at the pictures, my lady.”

  She glanced down at the book in her hands, quickly flicking through the pages and, of course, found no pictures.

  Even in the dim light Joss could see the slight flush that spread over her magnificent cheekbones. He sighed. Here it came, the sacking he’d expected since the first week he’d begun to work for her, when he’d realized he wanted her and that his blazing yearning was making him even surlier than usual.

  But she surprised him.

  “I didn’t mean to imply I doubted your ability to read Shakespeare.” She closed the book and handed it back to him. “I’ve never read Shakespeare, myself. Is Antony and Cleopatra your favorite?”

  “It’s one of them.”

  “Why do you like it?”

  Mercifully, the carriage came to a shuddering halt and Joss was spared from having to answer.

  He flipped down the steps and stood to the side of the door, his breath like steam from a kettle in the frigid night air.

  She gave him her hand, always gloved, always two barriers between his skin and hers, and he released her almost before he’d touched her, mounting the eight steps to the house and unlocking the door for her with the key she’d given him.

  No servants waited up for her.

  “Goodnight, Gormley.” She spoke the words without pausing or looking at him, picking up the candlestick that waited for her on the console table and heading for the marble stairs that led to her chambers.

  “Goodnight, my lady.” He murmured the words quietly, too soft for her to hear over the muted clicking of her heeled slippers on the hard stone steps. Only when she’d disappeared did he close and lock the door.

  He walked down the narrow alley that led to the mews which serviced this block of houses.

  The servant quarters above La
dy Selwood’s carriage house were more private than those in the house. Joss had occupied the same type of quarters at Viscount Easton’s and made sure it was part of his employment contract to have a bedchamber and the small room next to it for his personal use.

  Joss took the stairs to his room two at a time, stopping abruptly when he found the door to his quarters ajar. When he pushed it open, he saw the unmistakably naked body of a woman lying across his double bed.

  Chapter Two

  Joss’s double bed was his most expensive possession—and the only item of furniture in the small quarters that he owned.

  A man his size couldn’t sleep on a regular bed—at least not the size to be found in a servant’s quarters.

  He stopped in the middle of the room and removed his hat, tossing it onto the nearby table with a dull thunk.

  The body on the bed jerked upright, allowing him to see the face, not that he’d been in any doubt.

  “I thought you’d never get back. I was just about to leave.” Annie Philips was a parlor maid, and, as such, she was a good-looking girl. She came from the country, so she wasn’t like the pale, slight girls one often found in London. Instead, she was what his father would call a proper armful, or a strapping wench.

  Joss let his eyes drift over her body, taking his time unbuttoning the expensive coat Lady Selwood had provided for him, the cut of the garment distinguishing him from her other servants.

  The countess dressed Joss in gentleman’s clothing rather than the usual garments that branded a man a servant: velvet breeches and clownishly laced coats. Indeed, Joss’s coat was no different than that of any toff, a rich black wool that was unadorned by foppery.

  His cock, which had just begun to deflate with some distance from his mistress, was once again alert, aware, and interested. How could it not be with such a vista before him?

  Annie had curly brown hair, long, long, legs, and breasts that would fill both his hands twice: and Joss had very big hands.

  She’d stripped down to her stockings, which must have been her best pair, her garters covered in needlework flowers, like a garden bordering her dark brown bush.

  Joss hung up his coat, never taking his eyes from her body, and then leisurely removed his cravat and waistcoat before dropping into the room’s only chair, his knees spread to offer some relief for his cramped organ.

  “How’d you get in?”

  She had to sit upright to see him over the end of the bed. She brought her knees up to her chest, shielding her breasts from his gaze but inadvertently exposing another, even more private, part of her body in the process. Joss’s eyes dropped to the small pink peak that thrust from the tangle of brown curls. It took a hellish amount of effort to force his eyes back up.

  She bit her lower lip between even, white teeth, lowering her lids to display a thick sweep of dark lashes. Her coquettish look made him wonder just how inadvertent her pose really was.

  “I borrowed Mr. Feehan’s keys. But I put them back,” she rushed to add.

  Joss was impressed. After all, who didn’t like being wanted enough by a pretty girl that she would steal and risk immediate discharge just to be with you?

  “Help me off with my boots,” he said, not bothering to make it a polite request. If she wanted him, she’d better know right now exactly what it was she was wanting.

  When it came to fucking—at least if Joss wasn’t being paid for it—he liked things his way.

  If she found that unacceptable, it was best they both knew it before things went any further.

  She scrambled from the bed without hesitation and he raised one foot, amused and aroused when she turned her generous bottom toward him. Joss enjoyed the show, throbbing so hard by the time she’d straddled him twice he was in actual pain.

  When she’d finished the second boot, he jerked his chin toward the cupboard in the corner of the room. “Put them inside and then come back here.”

  Joss brooded on what he was about to do while she followed his orders; her eagerness to please arousing him far more than was normal or healthy. But he’d long given up wondering why he enjoyed submission in his lovers.

  He knew it was unwise to fuck where one ate, but he’d been dodging Annie’s attentions for months.

  It had been a long time since he’d had a woman. Working for Lady Selwood and knowing what it was she did when he accompanied her on these nights had left him raw and wanting. He’d been behaving like a monk, as if he were saving himself. For her?

  Joss snorted at the stupid thought.

  As for Annie? Well, he was tired of rejecting what the girl offered him day after relentless day: mindless pleasure and release.

  She came to stand before him and he gave her another chance.

  “Have you considered what you’re doing, Annie?”

  She raised her chin. “I’m not a maiden.”

  He supposed that was an answer, of sorts.

  “And I’m not looking for a wife.”

  She flinched at his words and her cheeks darkened; Joss thought she might leave.

  “And I’m not lookin’ for a husband, Mr. High-and-Mighty. Just because Herself dresses you like a nob and you’ve always got your nose in a book doesn’t make you better. Just because you think you’re such a fine catch doesn’t mean the rest of us do.”

  Joss was amused by her fire. But just because her words were brave didn’t make them more convincing. Still, he’d fought her for weeks, how much was a man supposed to take?

  He spread his thighs wider and she swallowed, the musculature of her throat fascinating to watch in the dim light of the tallow candle.

  Hers was not the kind of body Joss was accustomed to seeing naked. Instead of soft and of middle years, Annie’s body was young and firm thanks to hard work.

  “Kneel,” he said, pointing to the floor between his wide-spread feet.

  A dark flush spread over her neck and chest, her muscles tensing and flexing as she slowly knelt between his legs.

  As ever, his cock hardened and lengthened in response to such immediate obedience. “Undress me.”

  Her hands shook as they reached for the fastenings of his trousers.

  Joss’s coats, trousers, and shirts had been made especially for him, the only such garments he’d ever owned. He knew why he wore them because Lady Selwood had told him.

  “Your position in my household is singular and you will be seen with me in a variety of social situations, so you shall dress accordingly. I shan’t need you all the time, but when I do, you will be attired like a gentleman. When I have no need of you, you may present yourself to my stable master, Mr. Carling. He has been informed of your skills and has also been informed he will have to accommodate your unique position. In other words, my needs will supersede his.”

  Carling, a big, bluff, good-natured bloke, had smirked at Joss the first time he’d reported to the stables.

  “Aye, I know who you are. Lady Selwood’s groom-cum-secretary-cum-whatever.” But he’d laughed when he’d spoken. “Lady Selwood is an American,” he’d said, as if that explained her strange behavior. “And they do things different over there.”

  The other servants had not been nearly as sanguine, but they’d eventually adjusted to seeing Joss dressed like a gentleman—not that they’d grown to like it.

  Annie reached the last button and Joss lifted his hips. She pulled the fabric down, handling the garment with reverence and folding the trousers without being instructed before setting them aside and turning back.

  His white linen drawers were monstrously tented, a wet spot making the thin fabric transparent.

  “That’s for you,” he lied, but only partly.

  While it was true he’d been hard for hours, on and off, imagining what his mistress was doing with her effete, aristocratic fop, his body had become eager for the woman kneeling before him since the moment he’d seen her naked on his bed.

  He was a man, after all.

  She pulled the tape and freed him.

  J
oss grunted and gave himself up to her care, letting his head fall back, and closing his eyes. Her hand was work-roughened, but the friction was not unpleasant. And the way she gripped and stroked him told Joss she’d done this more than a few times in the past.

  Good; he had no interest in innocents.

  Her hot mouth lowered over him and her tongue swirled his head while she sucked him hard enough to be painful, but a good pain.

  Pictures formed behind his closed lids: another woman kneeling between his thighs; another woman worshipping him with her mouth; another woman ready to be filled by him.

  Joss ached at the thought of spending into the mouth of his fantasy woman and he reached out to fist her glossy, smooth hair.

  But it was thick, tight curls his hand encountered.

  Frustration and lust mingled inside him as the carefully constructed image in his mind’s eye wavered and began to dissipate. No, not yet. Don’t go yet.

  But it was too late, his brain chose reality rather than fantasy: it was the girl he felt, not the woman.

  He opened his eyes and loosened his grip on her hair, freeing her. But she didn’t pull away. Instead, she took him deeper with no pressure from his hands, no thrusting from his hips.

  Her willingness to please him shot Joss full of guilt and the last vestiges of his fantasy lover disappeared like a thin taper of smoke from a cigar. The girl’s curly brown head—bobbing up and down so eagerly—might not be the one he imagined every night and a good part of each day, but she was here, she was real, and she wanted him.

  Joss relaxed and enjoyed her enthusiastic, if clumsy, efforts for a few moments before sliding his fingers beneath her jaws and gently lifting her head. When she looked up, it was with glassy and questioning eyes.

  “D-didn’t you like it?”

  His thumb went of its own volition to her slick, swollen lips. Her mouth opened to take him, but he merely stroked the soft, wet skin. “I liked it.”

  Her lips curved and her cheeks tinged with pink at his meager praise. He stood and lifted her to her feet before pulling his shirt over his head and tossing it onto the chair.