Now his lips pursed. “I don’t recallseducingyou, my dear. Yes, I kissed you, but you haven’t exactly pushed me away, have you?”
She shifted and turned her back on him. Looking at him was so dangerous. He drew her in when she did. He made her…want.
“I-I should have. Pushed you away, I mean.”
“Why are you so afraid of what is between us?” he asked softly. “It goes beyond the normal simpering that young ladies are taught when it comes to what men desire.”
She worried her lip, still not looking at him. “I-I’m not afraid,” she said. Lied. She lied.
“Your voice trembles,” he said. He was moving on her, but she was still too nervous to look at him. “And it belies any denial you make. You’re afraid.”
She turned and found him right behind her, so close that she nearly careened into his broad chest. She lost her breath as she looked up at him, lost any ability to argue.
“But you also like it when I kiss you,” he continued, his voice hypnotic. He was reaching for her again, smoothing a hand across her cheek, down to cup her neck. “You want to deny it, but you can’t. Can you?”
She struggled, trying to find the denial but unable to. Because he was right. Finally she sighed. “I can’t.”
He leaned in and kissed her once again. Immediately she lifted into him, her arms coming around his neck, his hands pulling her tighter, closer. Their mouths crashed together in reckless, abandoned desire, and her body began to pulse with feeling she’d never felt, sensations that were both fascinating and terrifying.
She broke the kiss with a harsh cry, but couldn’t bring herself to leave his arms. She stared up into his face, so close, so handsome, so focused on her.
“I-I don’t know what this is,” she gasped out. “I don’t know what to do, Rowan.”
He tilted his head, his expression gentling. “It’s desire, Sophie. Need. Pleasure. Those things aren’t wrong, no matter what someone has told you in the past.”
“It feels…dizzy.”
For a moment, he seemed to be pondering what to do next. Then his face grew even more wolfish. “Does it tingle? Here?” He brushed his hand gently across her breasts, jolting her with the intimacy of his touch. Her nipples sang when he stroked across them in such a shocking way.
“Yes,” she gasped, both a prayer and an answer to his question.
“And between your legs?” he pressed, though he didn’t move to touch her there, but just continued to brush his fingers across her nipple slowly, gently.
She blushed but couldn’t deny him. “Y-yes,” she admitted. “It feels hot there. Tingly. W-wet.”
He muttered something, a curse perhaps, and then he slowly began to back her up through the greenhouse. Farther and farther into the dark, away from the door.
“I can help,” he whispered as he eased her back onto a bench that was hidden in the corner of the room. “I can make all that pressure ease.”
“You would ruin me,” she gasped, though in this moment she didn’t think that sounded like the worst thing in the world. She had married friends who actually seemed to like what their husbands did in the dark of their bedrooms.
He shook his head. “There are ways to give you ease without ruining you.”
She pursed her lips. She hadn’t heard of that before. Of course, she hadn’t exactly asked questions. Desire was so frightening to her. Still was, in truth, as she sat with this man standing above her, offering her…
Well, offering her something.
“I don’t know,” she whispered.
He slowly dropped to his knees, and they were face to face again. “I want to make you come, Sophie.”
“Come?”
“It will be so pleasurable,” he promised. “Please, will you let me?”
She swallowed. He was asking her a question. One she could say yes to. And though her aunt had likely never thought of this situation when she made her bargain with Sophie weeks ago, now she had to decide. Did she say yes? Or did she say no?
“Yes,” she whispered, almost without realizing it.
