“You might do better at this investigation thing than I gave you credit for. You seem to be able to enter the mind of the person you are looking into.”
She shrugged. “Oh, only sometimes. Perhaps because I’ve had negative interactions with Lady Winford, that makes it easier. Should we look at the dressing room?”
He nodded and stepped toward the adjoining door. She was at his elbow as he did, the warm vanilla scent of her teasing his nostrils and heating his blood. He needed to get himself back under control, but it was becoming increasingly difficult the longer he stood at this woman’s side. It was torture.
They entered the dressing room and repeated their search as they had in the main chamber. Only this time, Selina stayed with him, watching what he watched, noting what he noted. She was a quick study and occasionally made observations that even he had missed about the room or its contents.
“I think that’s all we—Ineed,” he said as he turned to go back into the main chamber. He stepped left as he said it, but she moved right and collided with his chest.
He reached out to steady her, his fingers closing around her bare arms for the second time that night. And he was just as moved this time by her soft skin and the feel of her so close.
He cleared his throat as he released her and stepped around her and into the other room. “As you can see, it isn’t that exciting,” he said, wishing his voice wasn’t so rough with desire he shouldn’t feel.
“I wouldn’t agree with that,” she said, following him into the chamber and shutting the door. “It was quite…titillating.”
He frowned as he faced her. There was that flirtatious, playful expression again. The one that challenged him and taunted him and tormented him and made him want to pull her against his chest. The one that made her so irresistible.
“I should apologize for what happened in the orangery this afternoon.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “Why?”
He pursed his lips. “Is that a real question, Selina?”
The teasing faded from her face and she folded her arms, a sudden flare of armor to protect herself. “Well, we both know each other’s background, don’t we? Do you not think me good enough to kiss now?”
“You know that isn’t it. And it isn’t for a lack of wanting, which I have a sense you know equally well.” He let out a sigh and ran his fingers through his hair. “You are a lady, whatever your past may have been, and—”
She waved her hand and cut him off with a snort of derision. “Please, don’t start reading to me from the book of good behavior for ladies,” she snapped, her voice elevating. “I amnotsome innocent made of glass who doesn’t know what she wants.”
The passion of those words, the intensity of their tone, the meaning of them hit him in the chest like a shot. He rocked back a fraction. “And what do you want, Selina?”
He heard himself say those words, laced with innuendo, going against every promise he’d been trying to make to himself about propriety and decency and boundaries in the home of this duke who allowed him to investigate within his party. He wanted to take them back. He also wanted to know the answer.
She smiled. “I liked kissing you,” she said, her tone soft and breathless in the dimness of the room. She set her candle down on the table by the door. “And you liked kissing me. I felt it. Are you going to lie and tell me you didn’t?”
He shifted as she eased up in front of him, her breasts just barely brushing his chest, her fingers tracing the top of his hand. “I don’t lie,” he whispered.
She smiled again, this time softer, and lifted up on her tiptoes. Closer and closer, almost to heaven. He should have pulled away, but he didn’t. He should have refused, but he couldn’t. Only just before she could brush her lips to his, there was the sound of a door closing in the dressing room behind them. Likely the servants coming in through their entrance to finish readying the room.
He expected Selina to gasp and blush and duck away, but instead she caught his hand with a soft giggle and pulled him toward the door. Like this was a game. Like it was fun. He followed, letting her drag him into the hallway.
The bright light of the lamps there hit him, and it was like reality smashing him in the face with a frying pan. He wanted to kiss this woman. He wanted to do far more than just kiss her. But that didn’t mean he should. That didn’t mean hecould.
She pivoted back and grinned at him. “Just barely escaped. But that’s what makes it exciting, isn’t it?”
He caught his breath and clenched his fists at his sides so he wouldn’t touch her. Then he said, “Selina, I did enjoy kissing you. And I won’t lie, everything in me wants to it again and again and again.”
“Good,” she whispered.
“But,” he said, catching her hands as she tried to lift them to his lapels. “ButI’m not here for pleasure. And if I go too far, there won’t be any going back. So we can’t do it again.”
Her gaze flitted to his mouth and held there for a moment. Then she sighed as she looked back up at him. He readied himself for arguments or even tears. But she didn’t do either. She just extracted her hand from his and placed it on his chest.
“Not even once?” she whispered.
The control he’d worked so hard on practicing frayed to the point of breaking as he looked down into those stunning blue eyes. His body leaned in toward her without him wanting it to, his hands unclenched so he could reach one out and skim it along her side.
“Once,” he acquiesced. Then he dropped his mouth to hers.
