Wickedly Yours [REWRITING-ON HOLD]

|24.2| The Seduction: Part II

A/N: This chapter has slightly mature content. 

Blake Cavendish was utterly lost in a haze of desire as he watched Sophia's rather luscious bottom scurry away from him and up the stairs. As she clambered up that wooden planks, she lifted her skirts, revealing her trim ankles. They were just ankles after all, but Blake's mind was suddenly filled with all sorts of unbidden thoughts of what he could do to her with his fingers and his tongue. He could trace her ankle and then her calves and move up to her thighs and then further up to her...

Blake was snapped out of his fantasy by her snapping, impatient fingers.

"What are you staring at?" Sophia exclaimed from the top of the staircase glaring at Blake who was a few steps below. Noticing that his flashing green eyes were bound to the skin around her exposed ankle, she immediately dropped her skirts that she had grasped in her hand and harrumphed.

"Nothing now, unfortunately," Blake said confidently, giving her a small smile that turned her cheeks red.

He knew he should stop. Jesting and flirting with her always landed into trouble but he couldn't help it. Besides, he found her blush oddly endearing and her frustration now oddly amusing.

Sophia rolled her eyes and harrumphed again, flashing him a look of vague distrust. "I don't know what kind of game you're playing, Lord Alton, but I don't like it one bit."

He didn't know either. What on earth was he doing? The right thing would be to send Lady Sophia home. She always scrambled his brains so, but with the glass of wine he had consumed earlier, his wits were all the more lost. He shouldn't do anything he would regret but it seemed as if his mind and body had other ideas. .

"Where is this chest of yours? We must not dally much longer. I have to return home soon."

He caught up to her and for a moment, they just stood side by side on the last step, mere breaths away and just looked at each other. Up closer and in the limited light of the candles that decked the halls, her blue eyes seemed to be a dark violet-like the color of the sky before a storm.

When she cleared her throat impatiently again, he smiled and gestured with his head to follow him. Sophia trailed after him, suspicion and distrust still abundant in her eyes. He would have expected nothing less.

They both stepped into the well-furnished bedroom. The bed was right in the center, dark navy sheets going well with the deep brown wood. A bedside drawer of the same wood rested near it. A shelf of books ran along one wall, and the other had a large cabinet. Near the window on the opposite end of the room, a large comfortable chaise rested and next to it a large trunk.

Noticing Sophia awkwardly standing by his bedside, Blake gestured her over to the rather large trunk. As if revealing a big act, he threw open the lid of the chest with a flourish, revealing a row of beautiful necklaces and rings, of different sizes shapes and a variety of precious gems. Buried under these jewels were dresses and silks, in every shade possible. Sophia gave out an audible gasp.

"These... these are beautiful. Did you say you got them from India?" she asked, her voice breathy and high with exhilaration. Her eyes were filled with wonder and marvel and her eyes glinted as brightly as the gems below her.

Blake suddenly wished at that moment he could paint, so he could capture that look forever on paper.

"Yes. I had it ordered as soon as it was a surety that I would marry your sister. It's both my gift to her marriage and some more to settle your father's debts. I want you to pick out a ring your sister would like, and a necklace as well. As her premarital gift. And though we are to be married, I do not know much of her tastes in jewels." It was true but technicalities, he didn't need Sophia's opinion. He was glad he had chosen to get it as he got to see this beautiful wonderous expression play across her features.