An Inconvenient Arrangement

Chapter 23: Rafe

Raphael had developed a most inconvenient fixation on spectacles. One pair of them, in particular. Alright, admittedly the fixation may have nothing to do with the spectacles themselves but rather everything to do with the woman wearing them, though Raphael thought it was rather ridiculous that something so benign had the same effect on him as lingerie. Just yesterday, he'd joined Sylvie, Jane, and his father for a while in the afternoon. He and Sylvie had struck a small bet on a chess match, and had begun playing when Sylvie had removed her spectacles and placed them on the top of her head, a few wisps of her hair escaping her coiffure and lust had bolted through him so hard it had felt like he had been struck by lightning. All he had wanted to do at the moment was set her on the rug before the fire and have his wicked way with her. To make her do dirty, filthy, delicious things.

As far as erections went, it was certainly one of the most confusing ones Rafe had ever had. There was nothing inherently erotic about some metal and glass, was there? One might as well start flying at full mast at the sight of a chandelier. No, he was certain it was a problem with his mind, his pent-up lust for Sylvie manifesting in troublesome ways. What was next? He'd develop a fixation with her buttons? At least buttons were a touch more sexual than spectacles, given that they were at least involved in undressing, which was typically a prelude to....

Good God.

He sounded slightly insane.

Having these unkempt thoughts about a woman under his protection. A woman he ought to think of as merely a friend instead of contemplating what she would look like when he sank himself into her tight, wet quim all the way to the hilt. How she would gasp when he would take her straining nipple into his mouth.

As if on cue, his cock began to strain and harden in the bathwater, asking for relief. This had, unfortunately, become a regular part of his daily routine- tossing one off to the thought of Sylvie as if he were fourteen again. He hadn't the need to masturbate in years, given that he had no trouble in finding himself a partner should the need ever arise. He just could not bring himself to do it, because it felt....wrong. And because he did not want anyone else. Bloody pathetic, and troublesome. His feelings for Sylvie were teetering on the brink of a schoolboy's infatuation, which was a bloody disaster in and of itself. How humiliating was that? He, the libertine of London, mooning after his childhood friend. He had seen her without her two front teeth, for God's sake!

Pathetic.

He could seduce her, if he really wanted to, he knew that much. She wanted him, if what had happened at the inn was not evidence enough, there was the fact that attraction was almost tangible whenever the two of them were alone together. She observed him, her eyes often strayed to his mouth, sometimes she leaned in closer than necessary to talk to him and she sought excuses to touch him. Fool that he was, he did all those things right back. He liked the fact that she wanted him, he liked it when she blushed for him when he should be doing neither of these things. He could not offer Sylvia Heartwood the things she deserved, marriage, love, children. And he was not going to string her along, he could not bear to hurt her or disappoint her.

A knock on his door alerted Rafe to the fact that the man he was waiting for had arrived, so he rose out of the water and rinsed his body before drying off and changing. He entered his office to find one of his most skilled informants with a grave expression marring his countenance. There were a number of skilled subordinates he had watching The Viper, just waiting for any sign that he was up to something that could point Raphael in the right direction.

He had hoped he would be able to glean something new by asking Jane subtle questions on their little shopping excursion, but all that Jane really remembered was that Thomas had told her that he was going to show her a new hiding place because there was a bad man who was coming and that she was not to make a sound until he came and got her. He had taken her notebook and written something but she did not know what, though he assumed it was the note he had found in the chamber stating that Jane would know where to look.