“Pull me into a room for a kiss.”
Oh, it had been so much more than a simple kiss, and they both knew it.
“My apologies if I offended your sensibilities.” Neither his eyes nor his tone conveyed contrition.
“Offended my—”
The rest of her sentence was cut off by what started as a dry laugh. It instantly transformed into a gale of laughter rising from her belly. Long and loud, unguarded, she hadn’t laughed so in years, in all her life mayhap.
She’d finally begun to exhaust herself when he asked, “Have I got it wrong?”
“I think you know you do.”
“Pray tell, how did I offend you?”
All remaining traces of her laughter faded. Anticipation took wing and fluttered through her. Now she would voice her grievance, and everything would change. Her heart sped into a wobbly rhythm. There would be abeforeand anafter. She felt the certainty deep in her bones.
But, deep in her bones, she wanted theafter. What had brought her here was mere pretense.
“By stopping.”
The words hung in the air between them, palpable, laden with unmistakable meaning.
An alert stillness slid over him, and he swallowed. She followed the subtle undulation of his throat, the muscles that led to his chest. She detected discomfort in the movement.Good.She had no intention of making this easy for him.
“Has it not become obvious to you?” she asked.
“What is that?”
“The solution.”
“What are we solving?” He yet resisted what she took as inevitable.
“This pull between us,” she said. “There is only one way we’re going to get it out from between us.”
“It isn’t part of our agreement.” A war of emotions sounded in his protest.
“Agreements can be amended.”
“But—”
“I won’t tell, if you won’t.”
His head cocked. “It isn’t that anyone else would know.”
Her breath hung in her chest.
“It’s that I will have had you,” he said. “Iwould know—” He considered her, saw into her. “You.Every line, every curve. Every moan, every sigh.”
Within her, places stirred that she hadn’t known existed.
“And that nightdress…”
“What about it?” she asked. Somehow, she was capable of speech.
He gave a dry laugh. “It does naught to hide you from me. It only whets my appetite.”
His movement sudden and swift, he shoved to the edge of the bath, water sluicing around him, pouring over the sides, and reached out, his hand grabbing the hem of her nightdress. He angled his head back, and eyes hazed with desire met hers. He gave the hem a testing tug—testingher—and she followed, surrendering. He pulled again, and, again, she inched closer. It what was a little game they were playing. Tit for tat.
