She looked him over, then glanced at her surroundings inside the carriage. One tawny brow arched. “Will you fit?” A blush erupted on her milky cheeks and she dropped her gaze, her lashes fluttering. Heat poured through his belly as he thought of settling his hips between her thighs, watching as she stretched—
What in the hell had gotten into him? It had been far too long since he’d bedded a woman, and he would need to remedy thatafterthe carriage and Miss Kimball departed. He pretended he’d missed her inadvertent slip, nodding gruffly.
He extended his hand to help her down, and the moment her palm fell into his, he knew he’d done himself in. Her skin slid over his like silk, or cashmere, or some other material he had never touched but had heard was luxurious. This woman probably had a maid dedicated to keeping her fingernails clean.
Will couldn’t remember a time when his skin wasn’t cracked or calloused, when a burn or cut wasn’t healing. But torn cuticles and soiled palms meant work, and work meant food on the table for his mum, with a few shillings leftover to stash in the box tucked in his bag, money to fund his dream. A dream that would be one step closer to becoming a reality when he reached Saltford.
Oh lord, he hadn’t released her hand. Now she stood in front of him, the side of her mouth curled up and her dimple flashing. The surrounding air seemed to crackle with electricity, energy aching to be unleashed.
He was a dead man.
Will dropped her hand, wiped his palms on his thighs before bending low to climb into the conveyance. Fine, her question about his fit was fair, as he had to twist his shoulders until he was nearly sideways just to get through the threshold. His head scraped the ceiling, and he grunted as he folded himself over, sticking his rear end in the air partway out the carriage door.
He hoped she enjoyed the show.
“Have you found it?” She did a poor job hiding the humor in her tone, and he supposed he couldn’t fault her for it.
His knee slipped off the cushion, and he landed hard on the floor. When he flinched to avoid having his forehead ricochet offthe exposed wood, he spotted it. He turned and lifted the volume bound in supple red leather. “Is this it?”
The book slid in his fingers as he turned and flipped open to the bookmarked page. And oh.Oh.An illustration covered the pages, a plump woman with her mouth wrapped around a man’s cock, her eyes closed in ecstasy as another man fucked her cunt from behind.
His gaze shot up to meet hers. Her lips parted as she sucked in a breath, and he prayed she had something to say that would save this moment from becoming an utter disaster.
“It’s not mine.”
Chapter 3
“It’s not mine.”
Will’s brows shot up, and Adelaide winced as her cheeks burned.
“Fine,” she exhaled. “It is mine. I mean, the drawing isn’t mine.I’m not nearly a talented enough artist to include that level of detail.”
His attention darted back to the illustration again, squinting as if appraising the artist’s depiction.
“Not that I’ve tried to draw such things, at least not recently.” Good lord, why was she still talking? “And those magazines are informative. I don’t look at the pictures, really, but at the articles.”
He was watching her now, the side of his mouth pulling up as though she were amusing. A silly girl caught with a naughty picture.
Ire simmered in her gut. She was tired of making excuses, exhausted by making herself small. She would never see this man after they arrived in Saltford; what was the harm in being honest?
“Fine.” She squared her shoulders. “I look at the pictures. Ilikethem.”
The humor drained from his face, replaced by a quizzical tilt of the head.
“But I prefer the stories, the ones where people lust after each other and even fall in love. And I’m not ashamed of it. You probably think the worst of me for it, but—“
“I don’t think the worst of you.”
Her heart stopped. “You don’t?”
He flipped a page and his brows raised further. “I don’t.”
Adelaide was, for the first time in memory, utterly flummoxed. She’d become accustomed to being judged, often harshly—for her outspokenness, her bold wardrobe and bolder conversation topics. This man’s reaction to her was an anomaly, and she rather liked it.
“Good,” she managed. “Men aren’t chastised for having these materials, so women shouldn’t be, either.”
Will closed the book and met her gaze, a lock of raven hair falling over his brow. Gracious, but his hands were merely the beginning of this man’s appeal. His aquiline nose belonged in one of her books on Roman emperors, his cheekbones and jawline those of a Greek god, but the curl of his lips was welcoming, surrounded by a trimmed beard she was desperate to touch, to see if it was as soft as it looked. His eyes, the green so warm, sosafe, made her want to wrap herself up in them and nap in the sunshine. “Why do you think that?”
