No Ordinary Gentleman

A one-night obsession fulfilled. The nights so much emptier since.

“Not if it’s the truth.”

“It’s very disrespectful.” But no more than he deserved. “Respecting your elders isn’t done enough these days.”

“Is that why you were doing in the bathroom? Respecting me?” Because she can respect me on her knees anytime.

“Not to mention, an awfully British insult.” she’d added in a terrible fake British drawl. I thought she’d ignore the rest when she’d cheekily added, “I just have an affinity for the elderly.”

I find myself indulging in a small smile at the recollection. I’d show her elderly, given half the chance. I’d get her to sing the national anthem—hers or mine—in that terrible fake accent just to see if she could reach the end as I tongue fucked her.

My smile slowly falls as I realise that will never happen.

I’m never going to have her again.

I clear my throat in the empty room, beginning to shuffle the papers in front of me. I’m a busy man; I shouldn’t be idling in the past. But it seems I have no choice as I hear her voice again.

“So awfully, awfully British.”

I close my eyes and I palm myself over my trousers, unable to resist the lure of her again.

“You make that sound like a bad thing.” I’d found myself drawing closer, my lips ghosting her silky shoulder, my fingers drawing lazy circles against her narrow back. “I can’t be all bad, can I?”

“Says the man with the killer smoulder.”

“I wouldn’t even know what that looks like,” I’d crooned, the words whispering over her skin.

“Don’t play the innocent,” she’d chided, even as her body reacted to my touch, relaxing against me, lengthening like a cat in a patch of sunshine.

“You sound very like a nanny I once had.”

“Had being the operative word?”

“A gentleman never kisses”—pressing my lips to the curve of her breast, I’d allowed my next words to vibrate against her ribs—“and tells.”

She gave in to a satisfied-sounding sigh, her next words more purr than anything else.

“From now on, I think Britishness will be synonymous for dirty to me.”

“I hope you mean that endearingly.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to hear the accent without blushing. Not after the shocking things you’ve said in this bed.”

My God, her blushes. Just thinking about those twists something inside me.

“Just the things I’ve said in the bed?” I’d teased.

“And maybe the shower.” She’d ducked her face into the pillow.

“Water absolves,” I’d purred, unable to keep from touching her, “It washes clean.”

“It didn’t do such a good job with you.” From the depths of her pillow, one dark eye had peeped open, a little mascara stained and full of mischief, the cheek not squashed into the pillow a delectable pink.

“This blush.” Reaching out, I’d traced the path of heat. “It gets me every time.”

“Gets you what?” Her taunt was telling. So very telling.

“It gets me hard.”

“Want to watch some Downton Abbey with me?”

“I’m not sure what that is.” I know what it is now, of course. And the ten minutes I’d watched wasn’t nearly as riveting as it was watching her skin be revealed inch by inch. I’d pulled the sheet down her body so slowly, revealing the flare of her hips and the depressions low on her spine, matching the dimple in her cheek.

“It’s like you’re from another world.”

I remember how I’d paused at that point. She’d no idea how accurate her statement was. Another world far removed from hers. Another world that isn’t always hospitable to those not from within.

“I’m an alien?” In hindsight, I realise this isn’t at all what she’d meant. And after watching an episode of Downton Abbey, I’m not sure alien isn’t more flattering. Did she mean another world or another time?

“I just mean you’re not like most Brits I’ve come across—”

“Do you make a habit of coming across British men often?” I’d pressed my mouth against her bicep, a pulse washing through me as I’d felt muscle there. I’d wanted to push her back, spread her out, discover what other layers I might’ve missed.

“Do you turn everything into innuendo?”

“Only when I’m enjoying myself. But you’re talking about the stereotypes, the tea-drinking, crumpet-eating, polite and mannerly bunch. That’s just for the tourists.”

“To get the tourists into bed?”

“Only heathens eat crumpets in bed, Holland. Just think of the crumbs.”

She’d giggled then, at least until I’d trailed my fingertip down her spine and over the swell of her buttocks. She had such a magnificent arse, as I recall. What I wouldn’t give to have it in my hands again.

“But as a race, we aren’t truly polite. We’re nearer to the rude as fuck edge of the scale.”

“Which sounds all the more so in that accent.”

“I don’t have an accent.”

“Of course not. But you’re just trying to distract me from our game.”

“I still think there are much better ways to get to know a person than guessing things about them.” Much more intimate ways.