He hadn’t expected that response from her. Nor the stricken expression on her lovely face.
He longed to kiss her, but he denied himself. The moment was too serious for that.
“Are you saying you regret what happened between us last night, Miranda?” he asked, needing to know.
Because if she did, he would be done. Despite how much it would bloody well kill him to walk away from her, he would. She had been through enough.
“No,” she whispered, closing her eyes again as she struggled with herself. “I don’t regret it at all, and that is the problem.”
Her answer was all he needed. Fierce, potent need shot through him as one.
Rhys leaned into her, pressing his lips to her ear. “If I lifted your gown and touched you right now, would you be wet for me?”
A breathless sound escaped her, and she clung to him, as if without his support she would fall to the Axminster at his feet. “Rhys, please.”
“Please what, kitten?” He licked the whorl of her ear, desperate for a taste of her, then nuzzled the floral-scented hair at her temple. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to tell me yourself. Please kiss me? Please lift my skirts and see if my cunny is slick and wet? Please take me to bed? Please give me your?—”
She moaned, cutting off the rest of his words, and startled him by cupping his face in her hands and bringing his mouth to hers for a kiss that was nothing short of ferocious. He kissed her back, giving her his tongue as he moved them toward the bed awaiting them. The bed she should never have slipped out of in the dark night, leaving him alone.
The bed where she belonged.
Because at his side, with him, beneath him, atop him, that was where Miranda Lenox was meant to be.
He broke the kiss. “Stay with me.”
She closed her eyes, her expression tortured.
“Miranda,” he pressed, brushing his lips over hers with tender strokes. “Say you’ll let me make love to you tonight.”
And a thousand more, he thought, but these were words he knew he must keep to himself. Hell, they were words that frightened even him with their intensity and the way he felt them to his marrow.
“Yes,” she whispered at last.
Elation soared through him, desire not far behind. His cock was so hard, he was already leaking, and they had done nothing but kiss. They were both dressed, he in his evening wear from the dinner he had fled after dessert and she in the dove-gray gown she wore like armor.
And it was armor, he realized now. It was her defense against the rumors, the scandal, the rest of the world that wouldjudge her so blasted unfairly. Only he could remove it with her permission.
“Thank you,” he breathed and took her mouth, the kiss deep, ravenous, showing her what he felt without needing words.
As their lips clung, he guided them the rest of the way to the bed, until her skirts connected with the mattress, staying further motion. With great reluctance, he tore his lips away again.
“Sit on the bed, darling.”
“In my gown? I’m sure it smells of the day’s work in the kitchens.”
Her protest made his heart lurch. He hated that she toiled away. Despised that she had hurt herself today and, worse, that she had done so many times before. But he had witnessed the pride she had for her culinary confections—and rightly so. Hearing her confessions about how her own mother had regarded her passion for cookery, coupled with Ammondale’s treatment, made him more aware than ever that he must not try to dissuade her from her course.
Her work was important to her, and therefore it was to him as well.
He kissed her again swiftly before withdrawing. “It smells like chocolate and a spring meadow and the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
She struggled to contain her answering smile and failed. “You always know what to say, don’t you?”
“Not always, or you would have agreed to the rest of my proposal and not to only this portion,” he pointed out. “Now sit, please.”
She eyed him warily, as if she was wondering what he could be plotting, but did as he asked, settling her modest bustle on the edge of the bed so that she was perched, long legs just barely grazing the floor.
God, he loved those long, well-curved limbs. He couldn’t wait to have them wrapped around him again. But first, he wanted those godawful boots of hers gone.
