She shook her head, still smiling. "You are impossible."
"Yet here you are, still perched on my lap."
"You make it hard to stay away. How can I ever walk away after experiencing all the wicked pleasure you are able to wring out of my body?" The teasing smile remained on her lips as she leaned down and kissed him.
Simon kissed her back, deepening the kiss until their lingering conversation was forgotten and their desire returned with renewed intensity.
Her arms tightened around his neck. His hand moved from her waist to her back, drawing her closer until there was scarcely any space between them. The familiar warmth of their bodies replaced every other thought.
He rose with her in his arms and carried her toward the bed.
---
Later, Simon lay beside her, one hand resting absently against her hip as they basked in the afterglow of their lovemaking.
He hadn’t spoken in some time. The room had fallen into a soft stillness, broken only by the distant sounds drifting through the windows.
He was lost in thought again, something he had been doing more often lately.
Agatha noticed, perceptive as she was.
She turned toward him and lifted one hand to his face. Her fingertips traced the line of his jaw, followed it toward his chin, then travelled lightly down the side of his neck.
"What is on your mind?" she whispered gently.
Simon did not answer. He didn’t want to. He had never been the sort to open up to his lover, preferring to lock everything away until it eventually exploded and charred his insides.
When people came too close, he found some way to push them away. He could charm them, entertain them, seduce them, laugh with them, drink with them, but vulnerability was another matter entirely. That was a door he rarely allowed anyone to approach, let alone open.
But even though she seemed curious about the answer, she still didn’t push him for a response, nor did she display any of her usual impatience.
He could have lied. He almost did.
Instead, something in her guileless eyes made him lower his defenses.
"It is hardly worth speaking aloud," he began. "You know my cousin’s wedding is coming up soon."
"Of course. That is all anyone wants to talk about these days." Her fingers moved lightly along his jaw again. "The duke and his future duchess. But why do you look so forlorn about it?"
Simon swallowed the lump forming in his throat. He looked away, unable to meet her gaze just yet.
The answer felt ridiculous when he tried to form it.
He had never spoken about this with anyone. His friends knew he was in financial difficulty. Some had lent him money in the past. Others had offered lackluster advice, which Simon promptly ignored.
He never told them what truly frightened him, the concern that had weighed on his mind more heavily in recent years.
"I always knew that if something went terribly wrong, I would still have an important place in my family," he said quietly. "I was the heir presumptive, after all. When Draven marries, that changes."
His voice sounded strange to his own ears.
"His bride is in her late twenties. There is no reason to believe she will not have children. It would be foolish to expect otherwise. In a few years, there may be a child. Perhaps more than one." He paused, his gaze fixed somewhere beyond the ceiling. "And when that happens, I cease to be the heir presumptive. I will lose my only safety net. I cease to matter, giving my cousin even more power over me. I don’t know what will happen to me after that."
The admission left a hollow sensation in his chest. The title of heir presumptive was one of the only things of value he still possessed, and even that would soon be ripped away from him, along with his claim to the eight-thousand-pound annuity.
Draven would finally be free to discard him like a used rag.
"I know how it sounds. I would not begrudge my cousin the chance of finding happiness. But if I lose that, what do I have?"
He felt exposed in a way that physical nakedness had never managed to make him feel. He had allowed Agatha to see something no one else had seen, something he usually kept buried beneath charm, indulgence, arrogance, and carefully maintained indifference.
He almost wished he could take it back.
Agatha looked at him differently. Gone was the simmering lust that always shone in her eyes whenever she gazed upon him. Something much gentler had taken its place, softening her expression in a way Simon wasn’t accustomed to seeing.
"I don’t think you’ve ever spoken so plainly with me before," she said.
Simon finally met her eyes once more.
"I hardly confide in anyone. It isn’t a mark against you."
"I wish you would confide in me more often."
When he didn’t respond, Agatha moved closer, studying his face as though waiting for him to say something more.
"I know the nature of our arrangement," she continued quietly. "I know what we are to one another. But I want you to know something. I care about you. Very much. Somewhere along the way, you became more than the object of my desires. More than just a lover. You became my friend, Simon."
The words seemed impossible to reconcile with the woman who had spent so much of their time together objectifying him and looking at him with unmistakable hunger.
Simon was much the same with her. More often than not, it was her body that held his attention. He rarely cared about the words that came out of her mouth or gave much thought to the life she lived whenever they were apart, so long as she was in his bed when he wanted her.
He never considered that she might see anything beyond those things.
𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎
He didn’t know what to say. So he said nothing.
Instead, he slipped his arms around her and drew her naked body against his, holding her close.