“Ye’re a bonny sight every day,” he offered softly, brushing her fingers aside to loosen the tie a notch himself.
So that she wouldn’t touch him? So he wouldn’t be tempted? Again?
There was something empowering about the idea. That she was the temptress when everything about him teased and enticed her.
“Connor…”
“Ah, the tea.”
The relief in his voice was palpable as Edith returned with the tray. With a sigh, Piper took a seat on the settee and waited while the maid arranged the tray on the table in front of her. “Thank you, Edith. That will be all.”
The maid dropped a curtsy.
“We can see to ourselves from here.” Piper gathered her courage and added, “You may retire to the manor before it gets dark.”
Both Edith and Connor stared at her as if she’d grown two heads, but Piper studiously ignored them, pouring out two cups. “Sugar, Mr. MacKintosh?”
“Perhaps I should wait to serve your supper?” Edith suggested.
Piper smiled at her blithely. “Oh, no, I’m certain we can manage it if we get hungry. Thank you, Edith. Good night.”
The maid shifted from foot to foot, as did Connor, before she executed another curtsy and left the room. A few moments later, the creak of the door opening and the snick of it closing reached her ears. Then there was silence.
Smiling up at Connor, Piper patted the space next to her. “Won’t you join me?”
His mouth opened and closed a few times before he perched at the far end of the divan. He made no move. Neither did she. She watched his face as his eyes roamed around the room, focusing on everything but at her.
Funny that he should be the one who was nervous. She was nothing of the sort any longer, unswerving in her decision to seduce him with a confidence she hadn’t known in some time. It was the right thing. The perfect thing.
He would kiss her as he had in the drawing room. Position himself as he had with her in the tack room, and they could pick up where they left off.
The lid of the teapot rattled with the tremor of her hand, so she set it aside and clasped her hands together. An odd tingling tickled the end of her nose, and she rubbed it away only to discover it extended to her lips, then her cheeks. When she swallowed, there was a new tightness at the back of her throat.
That ache was back. In her chest. Low in her belly, radiating between her thighs. She clasped them together, though that merely served to amplify the sensation. The need. The desire.
Yes, there was much she wanted to talk to him about. Before that, however, there was something she wanted even more.
“Aren’t you going to kiss me?”
That turned his head. She stared at her clenched hands, bearing the weight of his intense scrutiny.
“I thought ye invited me for tea.”
If tea were a gentle euphemism for something far less bland, then yes. It was precisely what she’d invited him here for. She’d known it all along, even if he hadn’t guessed.
“Tea, yes.” She paused, then added softly, “Among other things. Mostly other things.”
“Like kissing?” His words sounded rather strangled at the end and Piper saw that same swirling heat in his eyes that she’d witnessed before. It set her pulse racing.
She managed no more than a whisper. “Among other things.”
The ardent pounding of her heart filled the silence while Connor stared at her with a mixture of shock and frustration.
She reached out and took his hand, scooting closer to him at the same time. “I haven’t yearned for much these past years,” she murmured. “I’ve been content with my lot such as it is. Then you came along and all I can think of is you. You wash all the rest away. All I know is that I want more of that.”
A deep, agonized groan emanated from somewhere within him.
“Piper…”
