“I try.” Adam’s smile became genuine.
“Be good to my sister.” Jonah nodded vaguely in Esme’s direction. “We will talk more in the morn. A great weariness has come upon me.”
Adam waited until Jonah had disappeared into the solar before turning back to Esme. He wanted to take her in his arms and pick up where they had left off, but an awkwardness clung to him. Perchance she regretted her earlier actions.
One look at her radiant smile told him otherwise.
He stood in the vast hall and grinned back at her, feeling like a green youth.
Esme held out her hand and simply said his name.An invitation.He went to her willingly, eschewing the chair to kneel at her feet. The wooden floor was hard, but Adam scarcely noticed. He took her fingers and pressed them to his lips.
“I should walk away from you,” he breathed.
She shuffled in her chair until the softness of her breasts pressed against his chest. “Why would you do such a thing?”
“For all the reasons we talked through earlier.” He ran his hands through her waterfall of hair, loving the way it slipped through his fingers. He took a breath. “Because we have both drank our fill of wine, and I do not want you to have any regrets come the morn.”
Esme tightened her hold on his shoulders. “The only regret I will have is if you do not kiss me again.”
The last vestiges of his restraint fell away as his lips molded onto hers. Whereas before, his kiss had been gentle and tentative, now he was emboldened to claim her mouth as his own. Her lips were soft and yielding, her hands, entwined in his hair, pulled him even closer. Adam felt the urgent swell of his desire beginning to overtake all rational thought as he skimmed his palms over her bodice and along her spine.
She felt right in his arms. They slotted against one another as if long accustomed to the fit of their particular limbs and lips and fingers. How could that be? When she was light, and he was darkness?
But it was so.
Kissing her deeply, Adam had never felt so sure that he was entirely where he was meant to be. Her hands ran over his chest, and even though they were both fully clothed, he felt her touch like fire.
He groaned at the back of his throat. “We should take care.”
“Just this once, I am of a mind to not take care.”
Her playful whisper stoked his desire further. In one smooth movement, he could lift her from the chair and carry her to the rug. “But the servants.” He pulled away, his breathing ragged. “We might be discovered.”
I must not be caught deflowering Lady Esme de Neville.
The thought was instantly sobering. He rested his forehead against hers and tried to steady the pounding of his pulse.
Esme leaned back, her blue gaze scorching him. “There are other chambers.”
He groaned again. “You know not how you torture me.”
She swallowed and turned her head, so he regretted his harsh response. But at least his reason was returning. The lady didnotknow how she tortured him. She was an innocent.
Although she does not kiss like an innocent.
She kissed with all the passion and intent that she brought to everything else.
“I do not mean to torture you,” she said tightly.
“I know this.” He stood up, pulling her up alongside him and resting his hands lightly on her shoulders. She was slender against him. A delicate, beautiful flower that was not his to pluck. “You would not do anything that was ill-intended,” he said in a rush. “You are all things that are honest and true.”
Her response was to press her face against his chest. He caressed her hair, thinking it was better he could speak these words without the challenge of her all-seeing gaze. “I have never met anyone like you before,” he whispered. “You have opened my eyes once again to the beauty of the world.”
He felt her deep, shuddering breath. “There is much you have shown me, taught me.”
He skimmed his thumbs over the defined lines of her cheekbones. “How to swing a sword?” he offered, half teasing.
“So much more.” She tipped back her head, and her eyes shone up at him.
