Page 29 of The Duke's Bartered Mistress

“Because I will need my energy for later?”

Her cheeky side was back. Georgia sent him another wink and picked up her knife and fork once more. As she began to cut into her food, Demon stared at her.

She was joking—teasing him?—about their arrangement. Was she saying she wanted him to fook her again? She’d found fulfillment earlier; he’d made certain of it. Just the memory of the way her orgasm had squeezed him sent his cock from merely “hard” to “why not consider using me to pound railroad spikes?”

She’d found pleasure, but did she want to do it again?

“So, my lord, what other kind of books do you enjoy?”

As a conversation starter, it was stilted and inelegant, but Demon—who preferred silence—found it easier than speaking of the reason for Georgia’s presence here.

Again, to his surprise, the conversation became easy as they ate and discussed preferred books and genres. He learned Georgia’s tastes had narrowed in recent years to novels, although most plots intrigued her. They compared Defoe’s works, debated Dickens’ influences, and he had to defend Stevenson—a fellow Scot—against her claims of dullness.

“Ye’ve never read Treasure Island? If ye had, ye’d no’ call him boring,” Demon declared, using his bread to sop up the last of his sauce.

“I have read his travel writing, and found it—and therefore him—trying too hard to be witty, as well as thinking entirely too highly of himself.”

He grinned at her description, and had to grant her that point. “I’m determined to get ye to admit that Scotland has produced the best novelists.”

Georgia reached for her wineglass, her own lips curling. “I look forward to your attempts. In the meantime, tell me about Endymion.”

She wanted to know about his estate? Or…something else? Throughout the meal, he’d caught her glances at his scars, and knew she—and the rest of the world—was curious about them. He didn’t want to discuss his scars, nor his past.

Not with her.

“What?” he growled.

Georgia didn’t seem to notice his irritation. “Is Endymion a Gaelic word? I have not heard of it, but I assume that is where your name—Demon—derives.”

He relaxed slightly. “It’s no’ Gaelic, but Greek. My great-grandfather, the first Baron, was a scholar.”

“Really?” One elegant brow twitched, as if encouraging him to continue. “Is it a location in Greece? I have heard the land is just beautiful.”

He’d been to Greece, on a mission for Blackrose five years before. But he couldn’t very well tell her that. “It’s a legend. Or he is, at least. Ye’ve never heard the myth of Endymion?”

When she shook her head, he reached for his own wine and settled into his chair. That’s it, concentrate on the myth. No’ yer own sorry tale. “He was said to be the most handsome man in the world, a shepherd from the back of beyond, who’d spend his nights staring up at the moon. The goddess of the moon, Selene, fell in love with him, and begged his father, Zeus—”

“He was Zeus’s son?” She was leaning forward, her lips parted in excitement as she listened to the tale.

“In Greek mythology, everyone is Zeus’s offspring.” His eyes flicked to Darwin’s masterpiece. “Being a god is ‘sexual selection’ at its finest.”

She grinned at his attempt at a joke. The knowledge made his chest feel lighter, somehow.

“So Selene begged Zeus to keep him young and handsome forever. To do so, he put Endymion to sleep in a cave. Just…sleeping. Forever and ever.”

Her nose wrinkled. “That does not sound kind.”

“Perhaps.” Demon shrugged. “Selene visited the cave and obviously liked him just fine sleeping, because she bore fifty daughters.”

“She…” Georgia blinked. “While he was sleeping, she…?”

He couldn’t help but smirk at her innocent surprise, incongruous with the vixen who’d wrapped her legs around him.

“Aye, lass, fifty times at least.”

“Oh.”

When he chuckled, her gaze snapped back to his lips.

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