“Right here, Countess,” Oliver replied, placing the silver watch, with the Blackhurst crest, in her palm.
“Oh,” she said, looking at the watch. She put her other palm up against her forehead as if dizzy.
“I’ll get you some nice warm milk, you poor dear,” Mrs. Rollands said, patting Lisbeth’s hand before she and her husband left the room.
“Do you faint like that often, Countess? Perhaps your corset is too tight. I could—”
“No, I do not and no, you definitely cannot,” she said vehemently. “And don’t you ever interfere with my schedule or my watch again.” She crossed her arms over her chest.
“I think you depend on your schedule far too much,” he countered, crossing his arms over his chest in imitation.
“I don’t care what you think, Bellamy.”
“Oliver, my name is Oliver.”
“Well, how very nice for you,” she shot back.
Her eyes were flashing like crystalline daggers and by rights he should have stab marks all over his chest or at least in the vicinity of his heart. He supposed, in hindsight, he should have let her have her silly schedule and have done with it, but she’d been driving him crazy with it for weeks.
“I’m sorry, I had no idea you would get so upset.” He could see his apology wasn’t gaining him much ground. Not the forgiving kind, apparently. What a surprise! Not the rational kind either but that was an altogether different thing again. “You looked tired. I thought I was doing the gentlemanly thing.”
“Then don’t,” she said, shuffling a little farther up on the sofa.
The urge to smile was tugging at his lips again because she was so incredibly easy to tease. “I wouldn’t go putting ideas in my head, Countess,” he warned, shuffling up the sofa too.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” she said looking more uncomfortable by the moment, crammed as she was up against the edge of the sofa.
Shrugging his shoulders and sighing as if it was a nasty job she had just ordered him to do, he moved closer still. “Well, if you feel so strongly on the matter,” he whispered, just before he lowered his head and put his lips to hers.
Lisbeth’s eyes closed involuntarily as she let the pressure, the heat of his lips, consume her. There was a strange light that lit behind her eyelids, and she felt like sighing. She wished she didn’t like his kisses so much. She wished he wouldn’t keep doing this to her—it was hard enough to keep him under control, keep him at arm’s length, keep him from getting too close to her and her teetering heart. Oh, but the kiss was so soft, so sweet. Why was it he could make her forget everything but his lips on hers, the taste of him in her mouth where his tongue explored with searching, searing strokes? She sighed, despite herself, and put her arms around his neck, pulling him closer to her. And, oh, how she wanted to forget, just for a little while.
This was so unfair. They had been tangling words and wills for so long it seemed, and now he knew she was nothing but a swooning female. Now, in his arms for the second time tonight and with him kissing her so pleasantly, she hardly knew what to do.
All she really knew was when he kissed her she felt free, free of everything she’d been before. Free of the Black Raven and its clutching claws. He made her…feel. Like a woman who was desirable and deserving of passion. She had been deliberatelycruel to him and yet he would not let her deter him. Instead, he just kept chipping away at her. If he knew how close she was to shattering into a million deadly shards he would possibly reconsider his determined efforts and move far away—Scotland perhaps, or the North Pole.
“Stop thinking,” he rumbled near her ear as he kissed her neck.
“Oh.” All thought deserted her. How obedient her mind had become to his demands. If only it would listen to hers the same way.
His mouth was caressing her jaw and neck. His kisses burning their way towards her collar bone.
It was so nice to be held… but no, she must concentrate and make him understand he could not do this to her. He could not sweep her away completely. Her heart couldn’t take it.
But he was so very good at distracting her, the cad. So she did the only thing which was sure to make him see it was foolish to keep trying to seduce her.
When her hand connected with his cheek he was quick to take it prisoner. He smiled. “If you are going to slap a man for doing what he has just been dared to do, then you should really put a little more power into it—make the effort worthwhile.”
She raised her other hand but saw the look of challenge in his eyes and let it fall to her side.
“Giving up so easily, Countess? Tsk, tsk, I would have expected more of a fight than that.”
Fighting against his superior strength? She already knew how fruitless an effort it would be. Her past was full of unsuccessful attempts to fight off a stronger opponent. But Nathaniel was dead now and could no longer physically hurt her. Still, wrestling with Bellamy in the carriage had also proved he was far stronger than she.
“Go home, Bellamy.”
He smiled again and leaned closer. “I know you are all bluff, Countess,” he whispered, and then kissed her on the nose.
Stunned, Lisbeth gaped at him. Then he chuckled, damn the man.
