“I think that you only like me when I am hunting you,” he murmured, barely louder than a whisper. “I think you like the chase.”
Amelia longed to close her eyes, but at the same time, she was quite sure that if she closed her eyes, this would all disappear.
Whether that was a good or a bad thing remained to be seen.
“AndIthink that you are trying to seduce me.”
He really did smile there, a proper curl of his lips. “Clever girl.”
“You are wasting your time,” she added breathlessly. “I have agreed to stay here for a few months, yes, but at the end of it, I have my own life to go back to. My own routine, my sisters to care for. If I did choose to get a husband later, for practical matters, you understand…”
“Naturally.”
“Then anything that happened between us would ruin my chances.”
“No doubt,” he murmured. Slowly and deliberately, he pressed the pad of his thumb to the corner of her mouth, as if testing something. “I think we are having a misunderstanding, Amelia.”
“Do enlighten me.”
“You’ll return to your ordinary, dull little life—which you claim you don’t have, by the way, I remember our conversation—when the time is up. But until then, you’re mine. Mine to keep. Mine to touch. Mine tohunt.”
Then—Amelia should have seen it coming—he kissed her.
CHAPTER 17
Stephen kissed her as if he wanted to eat her, his lips moving against hers with urgency. He traced her lower lip with the tip of his tongue, and her jaw slackened before she realized it. He delved inside, and heat feathered its way down her spine, prickling her skin.
Hands slid around her waist, long-fingered and warm. He pulled her against him, and she went willingly, clutching his shoulders to keep her balance. His skin was damp from the bath, still sticky-warm, and the remaining steam enveloped them both.
Thedesirereturned, a hard knot at the base of her spine that ached and throbbed and sent heat through her gut, plunging down between her legs. She ached down there, a more determined version of the twinges of desire she’d felt before.
She wasn’t even aware that he had backed her out of the washroom until the soft edge of the bed bumped against the back of her legs. With a squeak, Amelia tumbled backward, landing on her back.
He remained standing over her, looking.Watching. Always watching, wasn’t he?
Really, Amelia should not have felt vulnerable. She was, after all, fully clothed. And while he stood and she lay, he had only that towel around his hips, held in place by a rapidly loosening knot. And judging by his cool, almost thoughtful expression, he could not possibly be wrangling with the desperate, almost panicked waves of desire that flooded her body, simmering just under her skin.
In an attempt to regain a little dignity, Amelia scrambled up onto her elbows. Her feet did not quite touch the floor.
“Leaving so soon?” Stephen asked, his voice a rasping growl. “We have barely begun.”
There was no moisture in her mouth. Amelia licked her lips, and he traced the movement again with his eyes.
“You may leave,” he continued, when she didn’t speak. “If you wish. I shan’t chase you this time.”
She believed him. She could scramble off the bed and make a beeline for the door, and he wouldn’t take a single step in her direction. She could let herself out, scurry downstairs, and make whatever excuse she thought Letitia would believe. That would be the end of it.
But Amelia didn’t scramble away. She simply lay there, her shoulders aching from the position she had them in, her elbows digging into the too-soft mattress. She stared at him, and he stared right back.
The silence could only have lasted a handful of seconds. Not long, not really, but in the moment, it seemed to last forever.
Then Stephen leaned down, his clenched fists pressing into the mattress on either side of her hips, and oh so gently pressed his lips against hers. The hunger and desperation were gone—although perhaps she’d only been tasting her own—and she almost missed them for a moment.
“The joy of the hunt,” he breathed, his lips moving away from hers but only by a hair’s breadth, enough to let them both breathe. “Is in the catch, is it not?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Amelia answered, the first coherent words she’d managed in what felt like an eternity. “I don’t hunt.”
He gave a low chuckle. It came from the center of his chest, loud and deep enough for Amelia to feel it juddering through herbody.
