She started to retreat, backing away from the chair she’d been gripping like a lifeline. Only then did she remember the baby cap. She sucked in her breath. It lay in the middle of the chair with her glasses like a beacon. All he had to do was look down. If he hadn’t heard her heart pounding before, he surely heard it now. She prayed…
Too late. “What are you doing?”
He reached for it, but she snatched it and the glasses from him before he could pick it up. “Careful! You’ll break the glasses.” Praying her cheeks weren’t as hot as they felt, she added, “It’s a piece of embroidery I’m working on.” She tucked it in the basket she used before he could look at it closer.
His eyes narrowed at her odd behavior, and for a minute she feared he might reach in after it. “For whom?”
She said the first thing that popped into her head. “I sell them at the market in Newcastle.”
He arched a brow, and she felt her defenses prick. “It is a perfectly acceptable way of earning money. How else should I have provided for myself when my husband was executed and my dower lands confiscated?”
He gave her a long appraising look. “I wasn’t judging you. I’m merely surprised, that’s all.”
Having avoided disaster, she just wanted him to leave.
“Why are you here? Why are you doing this? Why does it matter to you what I do, when you have so many other women to choose from? Was your tumble in the stables this afternoon not enough for you?”
He showed no shame at what she’d seen. Nor did he deny it. Had she really hoped he would?
Instead, he merely arched a dark brow wickedly—good God, even his brow was sensual! Was there any part of him that was not? “Jealous, little one?”
“No!”
But her protest was too strong and too quick. He closed the gap between them in one stride. She tried to step back, but all she could feel was the hard press of stone. He’d backed her against the wall, and there was nowhere for her to go.
“You don’t care?” he challenged, his eyes locking on hers.
Everything inside her was racing. Her heart, her pulse, her blood. “I don’t.”
He leaned down, his face inches from hers. Their bodies weren’t touching, but she could feel the heat, feel the weight of him pressing down on her.
Mary couldn’t breathe, conscious of the soft swell of her stomach between them. Despite the fact that the bump was still barely noticeable—fortunately, the weight she’d gained had been distributed fairly evenly so far—she was so certain that he would somehow sense it. That he would know the moment he touched her. Every inch of his body was so engrained on her memory, she assumed he would notice the changes.
But he didn’t. His hand slid around her waist, and he pulled her up against him. Even though he had the use of only one arm, she would have been hard pressed to escape if she’d tried.
“Then prove it. Kiss me.” His lips hovered just above hers. “Kiss me, Mary,” he groaned, right before his mouth fell on hers.
Her heart slammed into her chest at the contact. She dissolved into the heat. Melting against the hard granite of his body and the warm, velvety softness of his lips.
She descended—nay, plummeted—into a vortex of pleasure. Hot, mindless pleasure that pulled her into a molten whirlpool of madness. The fierceness of the passion that exploded between them claimed them both. She kissed him back. Clutching. Her fingers digging into the hard muscles of his arms as she fought to get even closer.
She moaned as his tongue licked into her mouth, as he bent her to him and plundered the deepest reaches of her soul, leaving no part of her unclaimed. Untasted.
Her heart beat wildly in her chest. Blood pounded in her ears. She was hot and weak and needy, her body clenching and quivering in anticipation.
He groaned, a deep guttural sound that made her heart flip, and dug his fingers through her hair to grip the back of her head, shifting the angle to kiss her even deeper.
She could feel the hardness of his manhood pressing against her insistently. He started to circle his hips to hers, and she made a sound of pure pleasure at the sweet friction. Heat clenched between her legs. She could feel her body softening, weakening, opening for him.
The memories of passion were visceral and immediate. She wanted him inside her, right here, right now. She wanted him to lift her skirt, press her up against the wall, and surge deep inside. She wanted to feel him moving, thrusting, slamming harder and harder. She wanted to feel the sweet crest of passion, feel her body spasming around him. And she wanted to hear him cry out. To see him stiffen. To see his face tense with the force of his passion.
And he wanted it, too. His hand was on her hips, her bottom, sliding up over her stomach to cup her breasts, her—
Stomach. Her mind caught up a fraction of a second too late to stop him.
He stilled.
For one long heartbeat nothing happened. She waited. In a moment of desperate self-delusion, she wondered if perhaps he hadn’t noticed.
