Did it even matter?
Was she willing to risk being wrong?
She needed time to think.
Fiona rolled away slowly, hoping to leave the bed without disturbing him.
“Where are you going?”he asked sleepily, rolling with her.Reaching for her.His arm slid around her waist, tugging her gently back into his warm embrace.“Come back here.”
She resisted as much as she could withoutseemingas if she was resisting.“You cannot sleep with me there.”
Harry chuckled.His blue eyes lit with an inner warmth.“Of course, I can.Come here.”
Lying back against the pillows, his dark hair ruffled and bare chest and abdomen flexing, enthralling, the marquis was hard to resist.Her ambivalent thoughts demanded she try.
She forced a smile.“Well,Iwon’t be able to once you start snoring.”
He chuckled again, low in his throat, the rough sound sending a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature down her spine.“But I don’t snore.”
Swallowing deeply, she fought the impulse to fall back into the safe haven of his arms.“Of course you do.All men do.”
“What do you know about all men?”
Fiona raised a brow at him.“I could not live in my house with all my brothers and their chums without learning a thing or two about your gender.Men snore.”
Harry laughed again.“What else did you learn?Or do you think you know all there is to know about men, then?”
“They spend a lot of time in bed.”
“With the women they love, no doubt.”
She swallowed again, this time forcing back the tightening of her throat.“Yes, it used to amuse me to no end how early they would go to bed and how late they would all rise, knowing what they were about.”
“How did you know what they were about?”
“What I hadn’t seen with my own eyes, I overheard talk of.Even if I hadn’t learned all that before I was eighteen, Moira has books.”
He raised a brow.“Books?”
She couldn’t stop the smile that lifted her lips.“She believes a lady should be well educated on what she is getting themselves into when she marries.”
With a laugh, he tugged at her once more, forcing—ha!—her down next to him until her back was pressed against his chest, knowing she was right where she wanted to be.His arm slipped around her waist as he curled snugly around her.His bare foot ran over hers.For some reason, that seemed more intimate to her than anything they had done.
“For whichever reason, be it books or a lifetime around men, I count myself blessed to share your bed.You were magnificent, Fiona,” he whispered, running his lips down the back of her neck.“Marvelous.”
She closed her eyes, surrendering to his warmth, but said nothing more but merely savoring the feel of his lips against her neck, his hand curling around her breast.
* * *
It would have beensuch a simple thing to lose himself in her once again, but something Fiona had said, how she said it, bothered him.
“You said ‘used to.’”
He lifted his head to look down at her, but she didn’t turn to him.Instead, she buried her head in the pillow, arching her neck as if the sight of her bare, inviting flesh would distract him.It might have just...if they hadn’t spoken.
“It doesn’t amuse you any longer?”
“No,” she said softly but didn’t add any more.
