“Maybe,” she said. “I can sketch a few in and think about whether to hire a painter.”
“You were taking painting classes, weren’t you? Are you skilled enough?”
She shook her head. “Not to put on the wall of Rare Confectionery, no.”
“Then perhaps someone from your class,” he suggested. “A student might work cheaply.”
Her expression clouded over, and he wondered what he’d said wrong. Quickly, he added, “In any case, blue peacocks sound most enchanting.”
“But are they timeless?” Charlotte asked him. “Imagine if the trend fades away, and we have to do the walls over again in a year or so.”
“There is that risk. Maybe you should go with dark paneling. Everyone likes that.”
By the face she made not everyone did, in fact, like that.
“We’ll see,” she said noncommittally, and he decided not to attempt any further advice on decorating the café.
In the ensuing silence, the realization they were alone again with no agreement between them made him prickly. He wanted to take her in his arms and kiss her.
“I’ll get the rest of the tins,” he offered and disappeared before she could say anything. When he returned, she was waiting at the top of the stairs, the keys in her hand, ready to lock up.
That was a relief. There would be no more temptation. Passing her, he dropped the bags off with the others, before vacating the suite of rooms. Standing beside her as she locked the door, he detected her soft floral, lemon-and-lime scent in the closed confines of the tight stairwell.
“All set?” he asked.
She turned to him. “Yes.”
An instant later, his mouth was upon hers and, after hearing the sound of the keys hit the landing beside him, her fingers were threaded in his hair. Pressing her against the door, her warm curves molded themselves against him, and he held her hips in place, his legs getting lost in her full skirts.
He opened his mouth, and she did the same, their tongues immediately dancing, sliding against one another. She tasted of treacle and butter from the toffee, a heady, delectable sweetness.
He could retrieve the keys and let them back in. The insane notion flit through his desire-soaked brain. He yearned to possess her, this special woman. He wanted all of her in a way he’d never felt before.How could that be?
But he wanted to make her his wife, and one didn’t take a wife against a door or on the floor of an empty room. That was the disrespectful way one treated a light-skirt.
Charles broke away, stepping back, dragging in a breath as he heard her do the same.
When he looked into her eyes, they were glinting from the light coming up the stairwell and they were not condemning him as he’d feared.
He vowed to do better. He would tame his animal passion because she deserved better than to be mauled every time he got her alone.
Swearing under his breath at his own lack of control, he bent down and picked up the keys.
Offering her his hand, which he was grateful she took when she had every right to shy away from him, he escorted her down the stairs. At the bottom, he halted. “Let me leave first, then wait a few moments before coming out and locking the door.”
She shook her head, about to protest.
“Please, do as I ask. I have behaved terribly,” he insisted. “Let me try to protect you in this small way.”
“All right. Leave and I’ll count to ten.”
“Charlotte,” he said with exasperation, even while acknowledging a secret thrill at using her name so freely, and feeling, in his heart and soul, that she was his.
“Twenty, then,” she agreed, “but that’s all, so you’d best dash like a fox at the hunt.”
Her teasing smile was so becoming, he groaned.
“Don’t forget,” she said. “We’re going riding on Sunday.”
