He narrowed his beguiling gray eyes at her. “You are friends with a duchess, take excellent shorthand, are apparently capable of drawing your own bath, and you’re the finest secretary I’ve ever encountered.” He searched her face as bewilderment furrowed his brow. “Who the hell are you?”
Ellis pushed her chair back from the desk, forcing him to edge backward slightly. She stood and faced him, thinking it would be best if she retreated for a while, since the air in the room had seemed to electrify.
“I have told you repeatedly: I am no one.” She held his gaze for a long moment.
He shook his head slowly. “I don’t believe you. Is someone searching for you? Am I going to have trouble when someone finds you?”
“No one is going to find me.” Ellis couldn’t promise that. Since Pandora knew she worked for Keele, there was a distinct possibility that someone would find her. And if her identity were exposed, she’d be ruined, not that she had a reputation or standing that would suffer. However, she ought to think of Keele. It might not reflect well on him if he were found to have employed the former companion to Lady Minerva, daughter of the Duke of Henlow—and that mattered to Ellis, for she’d come to care for him.
How could she not? He’d demonstrated genuine concern by allowing her to keep her secrets, even though that clearly frustrated him. At every turn, he’d been kind, understanding, and incredibly generous, particularly with his trust. There was also the undeniable sensual pull they felt toward one another.
His eyes were dark, and Ellis couldn’t tell what he was feeling. The longer he went without saying anything, the thicker the air became and the more persistent Ellis’s desire.
This kept happening. The attraction simmering between them was growing hotter each time they had an interaction like this. They became acutely aware of each other as a man and a woman and clung to that moment, even knowing they should not.
“Here we are again,” she whispered.
“Yes, here we are, desiring each other.” When she opened her mouth to refute him, to lie, he leaned toward her, his gaze smoldering with intensity. “Tell me that isn’t true.”
Ellis tried to form the words, but they wouldn’t come. He wouldn’t have believed her anyway. “I can’t.”
“Tell me who you really are.” He spoke softly, but it wasn’t a question. It was a command.
“I can’t do that either.”
His nostrils flared the slightest bit, and she could see he was growing agitated but tamping that down. She’d observed his mastery of controlling his emotions whilst they worked together. He neither lashed out at bad news or with frustration nor rejoiced with excitement when he found success or learned of a positive outcome.
“You won’t.” He edged closer to her until there was barely any space between them at all. “That is very different from being unable to deny what is happening here between us.”
Ellis notched her chin up. It was the only defense she could find in their current position. She was pinned between her desk, his desk, the wall—and him. “Fine. I won’t tell you who I really am.”
“What if I demand to know?” he asked, his voice low and edged with steel. “Tell me, or I’ll turn you out.”
Her heart was pounding so loud, she could hear the rhythm in her ears. She wasn’t afraid. Her reaction was entirely due to the need sweltering between them. Because she was certain he felt it too, she arched her brow in challenge. “Then turn me out.”
He bent his head toward hers. “I’d much rather kiss you instead.” His wanting was plainly etched in the hard, impassioned lines of his face and the slight parting of his lips.
Ellis couldn’t remember a time she’d felt more remarkable, more…alive. Because she hadn’t. No one had regarded her as if she were the center of everything. She never wanted to lose this sensation, and she would do everything in her power to sear it into her memory. “Then kiss me.”
A dark, fiery lust lit his eyes. “Don’t tempt me if you don’t mean to.”
Ellis put her hands on his chest. “I will never say something to you I don’t mean.”
Keele’s mouth captured hers. Ellis slid her hands up his chest and around his neck, where she clutched his nape. She stood on her toes and kissed him with an urgent desire she’d never before experienced.
He grasped her waist and held her against him as he parted his lips against hers. She did the same and touched her tongue to his. With a tortured groan, he accepted her invitation to deepen the kiss. She dug her fingers into his flesh as he moved his hands down over her backside, cupping her and bringing her flush to his groin.
Kissing in men’s clothing allowed her to feel far more than the layers of a woman’s garments did. Ellis was keenly aware of his erection. A desperate ache bloomed in her sex.
She was also annoyingly conscious of her facial hair, and the impediment it caused to kissing. She did not like the feel of it between them and could only imagine what Keele thought of the nuisance.
He brought one hand around her waist and slid it up beneath her coat to cup her breast. Only they were flattened because she bound them beneath her corset before dressing as a man. Keele lifted his head briefly. “Well, that is disappointing.”
“Quite,” Ellis agreed.
Keele continued his ascent and cupped her neck, which forced her to move her arm down. She mimicked him and slipped her hand between his coat and waistcoat, pressing her palm against his ribs as he ravaged her mouth with an onslaught of deepening kisses.
She dug her fingertips into him again, eager for more. Soft whimpers escaped her between kisses. He slid his hand from her backside to the back of her thigh and applied pressure for her to lift her leg. As soon as she did, he clasped the space just above her knee and brought her leg around his hip.
