He had been watching her, hadn’t he? How many times had their gazes snared? On how many occasions had he cleverly toppled a vase or trod on a creaking floorboard at just the right moment to keep her from ruin? There had been Wilford, and how many others?
An emotion, thick and dark and indefinable—something resembling suspicion—unfurled within her. “Why were you watching me? I had always assumed it was because you were interested in me yourself. That wasn’t why, though, was it?”
It had never occurred to her until now that he’d been the cause of each interruption that had spared her ruining. Like a protector. Or something else. Something troubling. Something very troubling indeed.
He met her gaze now, unflinching. “I watched you because I wanted you for myself.” His thumb traced the corner of her mouth. “You were correct in your assumption. So you see, my dear? I am not angry with you for entrapping me as I am the one who entrapped you. It was my guilty conscience that sent me from you last evening, and my guilty conscience that kept me away.”
“Your guilty conscience,” she repeated, for it was difficult indeed to make sense of anything when his thumb worshipped the bow of her upper lip, lingering with a delicate caress that made her heart race into a steady gallop. He thought he had entrapped her?
“Yes.” His gaze was fastened upon her mouth now, hungry and bright. But a hint of frown lingered between his dark brows. “My guilty conscience. Just when I thought I hadn’t one.”
His admission struck her, and she couldn’t help but feel it was the most candid he’d been since she met him. It only lasted for a flash, and then the practiced seducer had returned. His thumb followed the seam of her lips, once, twice.
She kissed the fleshy pad, allowed her tongue to dart out against his skin for a taste. Salty and delicious and Sebastian. She wanted more. But she also wanted a conversation. Some idea of who they were and where they were headed.
“It would seem, then, that neither of us ought to bear the weight of a guilty conscience any longer,” she observed, allowing herself to touch him for the first time since their awkward interview had begun. Her hands slid inside his coat, across the silk of his waistcoat, the firm, muscled flesh rippling beneath his layers of civility. He felt, in a word, divine.
So good that she couldn’t keep herself from slipping the whole way around his taut abdomen until she reached his back. Here, he was rigid. Warmth blazed from him. She pressed her palms to the hollow just above his hips. Forced them higher, gliding along muscle and bone, the starch in his bearing, absorbing him, learning him, marking him as hers.
Such freedom, the ability to touch him as she wished. To admire the solid masculinity of him, so different from her soft curves. She was lush where he was spare, and he was strong and strapping where she was small. What a delectable dichotomy was man and woman.
It had never occurred to her before this moment how incredibly perfect it was, how she fit to him and he to her. But now, she felt it, and it was… incredible. His breathing went harsh, matching hers. His mouth was very near. She tried not to stare at those perfectly chiseled lips in longing. Tried not to want him.
But she failed miserably.
“Daisy.” One word—her name—torn from him. He sounded as if he were in pain.
Perhaps he was. His beautiful face was all rigid lines when she wrenched her eyes from his mouth. She didn’t know what to say in this moment of intense possibility, desire humming in the air like a current. Her mind raced, tangling itself in knots, and all she could think was it was wrong to feel such sweeping emotion for a man she scarcely knew.
She wanted to know him. All of him. Wanted to know what his laugh sounded like, how his skin would smell if she pressed her nose to the bristle-shaded angle of his jaw. “I don’t know anything about you.” She tried to understand the effect he had upon her. “It makes no sense that I should feel the way I do for you.”
He stroked her cheek with a tenderness that belied the scorching heat of his stare. “Nothing makes sense, buttercup. Not you, not me, not what we’re doing here or how we found ourselves where we are. Tell me, what do you feel? For me?”
For some reason, her overburdened mind thought first of physicality: his deceptive strength, corded muscle, not a hint of spare flesh over bone. He was larger than she’d even realized at such proximity. Capable of doing her harm if he wished. And yet, she didn’t fear him. He lowered his head, bringing their lips ever closer. Near enough that she could rock forward, take his mouth.
“Longing,” she whispered. “I long… and I ache. No one has ever made me feel as you do, Your Grace.”
“Sebastian.” With one hand, he cupped her face, positioning her as though she awaited his kiss. His other hand roamed. His fingers traveled down her throat, lingering for a beat at the hollow where her pulse pounded. “That is gratifying to hear, considering I’m your husband.”
The grimness in his tone wasn’t lost on her. Oh dear. She had made a muck of it, hadn’t she? But how was she to think properly when his hands were on her and he stood in such proximity, his touch so knowing and delicious, weakening any resolve she’d had remaining?
“You’re a stranger to me,” she reminded him. “My surprise stems from the fact that I’ve known you for so short a time, and already you’ve changed many things for me.”
“More than you know, buttercup.” His mouth tightened as his fingers trailed over her décolletage, across the twin swells of her breasts. She hoped he wouldn’t notice she was still wearing the same gown she’d worn yesterday. At some point, she would need to fetch her belongings if indeed her father would even allow it.
She swallowed, trying to tamp down the desire clamoring inside her as he skimmed the lace and bead-trimmed bodice before slipping beneath her corset. “Tell me about yourself, Sebastian.”
“There isn’t much to tell.” He found her nipple, rolled it between thumb and forefinger.
Daisy couldn’t quite suppress her gasp. The heaviness between her legs pulsed with each pluck of his clever fingers. “How old are you?”
“I have thirty years.” He leaned closer, pressing a kiss to the skin just beneath her ear. “How many have you, sweet?”
Good heavens, his tongue was upon her. Licking. Scalding. His teeth nipped gently. She couldn’t think. Here was the man she’d been drawn to, in her arms at last. The seducer. The wicked lover. What had he asked?
Years, she recalled belatedly. He had inquired after her age. “Twenty.” She steeled herself against his potent allure. “Have you any siblings? A mother?”
He paused, his lips against her throat. “None in this world.”
