She worried her lip, now fully pink again. “Perhaps that is not a bad thing.”
She said it so softly he wasn’t sure if the words were meant for him or if she was just speaking to herself. Regardless, it was time for him to send her off to her room. This conversation had taken a treacherous turn.
She started walking toward him again, and he took a step back for every step she took forward until she finally halted. They stood just beyond the sofas now, in the small walking space in the enormous drawing room. The room really was cluttered with much too many furnishings. Which worked out well, because he could focus on all of those instead of her breasts spilling out of her dress.
“Do you remember the country party held here last September?”
He sucked in a breath. A vision of Lady Felicity in nothing but a nightdress on a ladder in the library came rushing back, as clear as if they had been transported there just now. The way the light from the candelabras on the walls had shone through her dress, causing the fabric to turn sheer. She was slim, but she was curved in all the right places. All woman.
He swallowed—his tongue. His blood, already heated, rushed south.
“There was a night,” she was saying as she stared at her fingers tangling with her white skirts. Her hands trembled, her shoulders shaking beneath the towel still wrapped around her. “I was having trouble sleeping. I had somehow managed to walk in on Colborn once again tupping another woman.”
Lady Felicity laughed, and oddly enough, Ash thought she was truly amused.
“I have no idea how I manage to always catch him, Your Grace.” She looked at him, and itwasamusement dancing in her eyes. “This castle is enormous, like its own living, breathing natural order. And I stillmanaged to walk in on him with another woman. It is like the fates were screaming at me.”
She shook her head. “Anyhow, I was angry and frustrated and possibly feeling a bit poorly for myself. So, I went to the library in search of a book and a nip.” Amber eyes searched his. “And you saved me.”
“I mean, I did not save you exactly,” he said gruffly, rocking back and forth on his feet. “I had surprised you. I was the reason you needed saving in the first place. It was only gentlemanly of me to catch you before you fell.”
It was true. She hadn’t known he was in the library. And after his guilt had eaten at him for drinking in her naked limbs, too visible beneath her sheer night rail, he had made his presence known. Frightened her, and she had nearly toppled off the ladder before he had caught her, steadied her.
His hands flexed at his sides. He could still feel the dip of her waist against his palms, the curve of her arse.
“I can still feel your hands,” she whispered. “Large, strong, steadying. A shock went through me, straight to my lungs, and made it impossible to breathe. I would have fallen if it were not for your hands. But not because I lost my balance.” Her eyes sparked, an ember bursting into flame. “Because your touch affected me in a way no man’s had ever before.”
No. She shouldn’t be saying such things. He desperately wanted to shove his fingers in his ears like a child. Maybe even throw in a littlelalalala. Her words were slaying him. Goddess of war and death. Death by seduction.
She stepped toward him again, and this time he didn’t move. Couldn’t move.
“Even after I left the library that night, I could still feel the heat of your hands on me.”
Her hands were on the dip of her waist now, exactly where he had held her just over six months past.
His hands itched to feel her again, but he brought them behind his back and clasped his hands together. Denying himself the temptation.
“That night as I lay in bed…I wondered…what would your hands feel like elsewhere on my body.” Her hands coasted down, trailing in front of her, down the V of her hips. “Such thick, sure fingers.” Her fingers dug into the tops of her thighs. “I ran my hands over my body, between my thighs, pretending they were yours, Your Grace.”
Fuck. Fuck, fuck,fuck.
His pulse picked up a wild thrumming, drowning out all sound as it raged through his blood.
He tried to convince himself—based on her admittance of seeking revenge earlier—that she was merely fabricating this whole story as an attempt at seduction. But the harsh pink dusting her high cheekbones, the constant swallow of her throat, the way her fingers trembled, just barely, on her thighs—she was either the most talented liar in all of England or there was truth in her words. Vulnerability. And damn him if that didn’t make her words all the more excruciating.
He needed to get her out of this drawing room. Immediately. Because his cock was starting to get all sorts of fanciful ideas. Like bending her over the roll-arm of the sofa and fucking her until she was screaming his name.
No. That wouldn’t do at all. Time to send her to bed. He groaned. Bed. Shouldn’t think about her in bed. He hastily walked toward the door of the drawing room and waved his arm for her to follow.
“I believe it is time for you to retire to your chambers.” He cursed himself at how thick and husky his voice came out. It made his words sound suggestive, sound like he was affected by her.
And he wasn’t.
He was getting quite good at lying to himself.
He cleared the arousal from his voice and turned to face her. “I will have a carriage readied for your departure first thing in the morning.”
A brief flash of something—panic? Fear?—stole over her person, freezing her movements for the briefest of moments that he nearly missed it. But then it was gone, and her gaze was back to scorching, back to hungry, back to eating him alive.
