“No,” she interrupted, and watched his shoulders slump. She caught his hand. “No, I simply thought you were someone else.Yes, I want to see you. I’m sorry. Just—just come in.”
She stepped back, keenly aware for the first time that she was clad only in a thin nightrail, her shoulders all but bare but for a pair of inch-wide straps. She blushed, though it was silly. The previous night she had only been clad in a blanket.
Still, she grabbed for her robe and tied it around her waist as Simon entered the room and shut the door behind him.
“Who did you think I was?” he asked.
She shrugged, forcing herself to face him and behave as though all this was perfectly normal. That he was supposed to be in her bedroom in the middle of the night, that he was supposed to be her fiancé. That nothing had changed since yesterday morning, even though everything in her world was different.
She had no other idea how to act but that.
“I have been plagued by interested parties all afternoon,” she admitted.
His jaw tightened. “Interested parties? What does that mean?”
“Friends who want to ask me about my new engagement. Congratulate me privately,” she said, then shook her head. “They want to spy and get a glimpse of me. You know how these scandals go.”
He scowled. “And James and Emma are not preventing this?”
“They aren’t my keepers,” she said. “Even if they were, what can they do? Stand guard at my door all day?”
“Yes, if they must,” he huffed out. “I’ll do it myself if they won’t.”
His protectiveness touched her heart in a way that felt very dangerous considering their current circumstance, but she smiled regardless. “Don’t you think that would only make talk worse? No, if I let them in and talk to them as if this new engagement is perfectly normal, then perhaps they’ll get bored of the topic sooner and we’ll regain some semblance of normalcy.”
Simon bent his head and silence filled the room. She stared at him, as he wasn’t looking at her. One thing she’d always loved about this man was the light that seemed to surround him. He always had a half-grin, a chuckle. He could lighten even the darkest of situations. He was the first person who made her laugh after her father died.
Tonight, though, that light was gone. The man before her was serious and grim. Pained. She understood why, but she hated that this is where they’d come to after so many years of easy friendship and connection.
She didn’t want to lose that. Slowly, she moved to him and extended her hand. They both watched as she took his, intertwining their fingers the way they’d previously only been allowed to do while dancing. His breath caught and he turned toward her slightly.
“Why did you come here tonight?” she whispered. “To my chamber, after everyone else has gone to bed?”
He swallowed, his throat working and he edged closer, cutting off the small distance that remained between them. Now they were almost touching, their bodies a hair’s breadth apart.
“You know what I wanted last night,” he whispered.
The hand he wasn’t holding began to shake and she clenched it into a fist. “I-I think so,” she answered. “The same thing I-I wanted.”
He squeezed his eyes shut, a low groan coming from deep within his chest. The heat in the room changed, rising as he released her hand and instead slid his fingers around her waist. He tugged her, drawing her fully against him.
“Last night…I couldn’t. Because you weren’t mine,” he continued.
She nodded, understanding that. Understanding how desperately he’d been trying to honor his friend, his claim. “But I’m yours now,” she murmured.
He glided his hands through her hair, cupping the back of her head and tilting her face toward his. “I want to make you mine,” he said. “Will you let me make you mine?”
She didn’t answer, but lifted up and pressed her lips to his. There was a shudder of relief that passed between them, an echo of what she’d felt when he kissed her last night. Only this time there was no guilt to go along with it. There was nothing but the passion that had been long denied, but always there, waiting to be unleashed. His mouth opened and he traced her lips with his tongue. She welcomed him in as she lifted her arms around his neck and pressed herself against him.
They stood that way, kissing, for what felt like an eternity. She memorized every hollow and curve of his mouth, she swam in his taste and the feel of him worshipping her lips. It was heaven.
Finally he pulled back, resting his forehead against hers as his ragged breath moved in and out. “I have wanted to do that for so damn long, Meg.”
She smiled as she smoothed her fingers against his shoulders, feeling the muscles there bunch, feeling his own hands tighten at her waist. “I’ve been waiting too.”
He reached down and slid his finger into the knot in her robe’s sash. Gently he unwrapped the scrap of silk and then met her stare as he glided his hands up her arms, catching the edge and drawing it down. The room was warm from the fire, but she shivered as he tossed her robe aside.
He stepped back and looked at her from head to toe, his pupils dilating and his fingers clenching. Then he reached up and unbuttoned his own shirt, stripping it open in a few swift actions and throwing it to the floor.
