“What?”
“The shoe.”
The man was a veritable devil, to be able to make her laugh when all she wanted to do was crawl into him. “Not especially. But you do.”
“What?”
Her tongue came out to lick sensually at his lower lip. “Taste good.”
Georgina’s breath choked off, he squeezed her so tightly. “Remarks like that will get you an apology and anything else you want.”
“And if all I want is you?”
“My darling girl, that goes without question,” he assured her as he swept her into his arms to carry her to his bed.
Georgina held on tight, despite feeling weightless in his strong arms. She simply wanted the closer contact and was reluctant to let go even long enough to allow him to remove their clothes. Had she really thought she could ignore the things this man had made her feel before, the same things she was feeling now? She’d tried to these last days, she really had. His anger had made it easier to do so. But he wasn’t angry anymore, and she was tired of trying to resist something as powerful as this. God, the feelings…
She gasped at the heat that seared her skin as his mouth settled over one of her breasts. And she was squirming before he finished with the other. She wanted him right now, but he was taking his time with her, turning her over, driving her crazy in his devotion to every inch of her, in particular the firm globes of her derriere, which he kneaded, kissed, and nipped until she thought she was going up in flames. When he finally rolled her back over, it was the finger that moved into her that was her undoing. She cried out, and his mouth came back to hers to accept this accolade to his skill. And when he entered her moments later, and treated her to a further demonstration of his experience, each thrust different, somehow more pleasurable than the one before, each with the power to draw forth another gasp if he weren’t still kissing her. Connoisseur of women? Thank God.
A short while later, Georgina found herself stretched out on one side of the bed, with James on the other side, and a sturdy chessboard between them. Whatever had possessed her to answer yes when he asked if she played the game? But now that it was started, the challenge had her wide awake, and the promise that she could spend the morning in bed kept the play at an unhurried pace. Also, the prospect of beating James Malory had been too tempting to resist and still was, particularly since she suspected he was trying to destroy her concentration by keeping a conversation going while they played. He’d find that wouldn’t work, since she’d been taught the game with her whole family present, and her family was never quiet when they were in the same room together.
“Very good, George,” James said as she captured a pawn, opening a path to his bishop and leaving him nothing of hers to take, and his own bishop to protect.
“Well, you didn’t think this would be easy, did you?”
“I’d hoped not. So good of you not to disappoint me.” He moved his queen over a space to protect his bishop, a wasted move, and they both knew it. “Now, who did you say MacDonell is to you?”
She almost laughed at the way he’d slipped that in, probably hoping she’d answer without thinking about it. She had to give him points for cleverness, but it wasn’t necessary. There was no longer a need to pretend Mac was her brother.
“I didn’t say. Are you asking?”
“Well, we have established he’s not your brother.”
“Oh? When did we establish that?”
“Damnation, George, he’s not, is he?”
She made him wait while she made her next move, which put his queen in jeopardy. “No, he’s not. Mac is just a very good friend of the family, sort of like a beloved uncle, actually. He’s always been around, and he sort of thinks of me as the daughter he never had. Your move, James.”
“Quite so.”
Instead of blocking her last move to protect his queen, he captured one of her pawns with his knight, a move that put her own queen in danger. And since neither of them was ready to lose a queen yet, Georgina retreated for the moment, giving James the advantage of attack. He wasn’t expecting that, and so had to take a moment to study the board.
She decided two could use his strategy of distraction. “Why the interest in Mac all of a sudden? Have you spoken with him?”
“’Course I have, love. He is my bo’s’n, after all.”
Georgina went very still. It might not matter that he knew Mac wasn’t her brother, but she still didn’t want him recognizing Mac and remembering their first meeting in a tavern. That would lead to a whole set of questions that she didn’t care to answer—in particular, what she was doing there. And besides, James might get angry at what he could very well see as a double deceit, not just her disguise, but the fact that she’d met him before.
“And?” she asked carefully.
“And what, George?”
“Devil take it, James, did you rec—Ah, that is, did you say anything to him about us?”
“Us?”
“You knowexactlywhat I mean, James Malory, and if you don’t answer me this minute, I’ll—I’ll bash you with this chessboard!”
