“Oh,” she breathed. “Goodness gracious.” Her stomach filled with a dozen fans flapping urgently in an effort to cool her.
Alex smiled, biting his lower lip in an expression of endearing wickedness. Reaching for the chemise straps, he began to slide them off. Charlotte grasped his wrists, and although she had nowhere near enough strength to actually stop him, nevertheless he stopped.
“I am not convinced that is wise,” she said.
He smiled. “What, are you hiding a rifle and three attack dogs under there?”
“Of course not. You may check if you want.”
His eyebrow raised at the invitation. Using one finger to gently draw back the chemise’s neckline, he peered beneath.
Charlotte held her breath.
He did not touch her, but his gaze seemed to stroke every nerve ending. After a long, wordless moment, he looked into her eyes again. He had seen her—and now apparently wanted to seeher. Charlotte lowered her own gaze, for he could have her body, but no one was trusted with her heart.
And her body, hearing that thought, tossed aside the fans and installed a steam turbine instead. Certain parts ached for the pirate to not just look, but to touch with his strong, calloused fingers. But her mind, already aghast at the turn of events, and composing a lecture it suspected the body would completely ignore, was determined. She might well bestrong, fierce, gorgeous, brave,but addingnakedto that list surely crossed the line of Proper Femininity. Charlotte had spenther entire life trying to balance on that line, pulled one way by the dictates of society, and the other by her own sensitivities and intelligence. She could usually approximate nice behavior by watching people and reading books. But the etiquette of trysting in a country inn with a pirate was not something easily guessed at.
If only Jane Austen, Elizabeth Gaskell, or even Charles Dickens, had written on the subject of copulation so she knew what to do, and in what correct sequence. Were there particular words one ought to say? An action one always must take?
No doubt Captain O’Riley had an encyclopedic knowledge of the subject, but Charlotte could hardly quiz him without revealing her own ignorance. And never must she do that. A witch was nothing if not superior in all understanding.
“So,” Alex said musingly. “I can look but I can’t take the thing off?”
“You can do anything you want,” she said, and he made a noise in the back of his throat. “But according to how I was raised, a woman does not disrobe under any circumstance.”
“What, not even in the bath?”
“Absolutely not!” She was shocked at the very thought.
“God, and I thought my upbringing was awful.” He looked at her for a long, steady while, assessing her courage for what lay ahead. She waited, heart pounding, for him to call a halt to the whole endeavor. But at last he shrugged.
“Your choice, darling. It stays on.”
Relief washed through her. “You, however, may disrobe as you wish,” she added. “Or retain whatever items of clothing you choose. I suppose you’ll take off the trousers so as to freely access your—um—gentleman’s small tumescent limb.”
His eyes flashed. “I beg your pardon?”
“Is that not used in this activity?”
“Yes,” he said in a rather strained voice.(Oh dear, Charlotte thought—perhaps he’d got pneumonia in the rain after all.)“Let me give you two pieces of advice, Miss Pettifer. First, never use the word ‘small’ in relation to a man’s—er, that.”
She sighed testily. “I meant small compared to an arm or a leg.”
“Never. Ever.”
Apparently, this was a firm rule. “Very well,” she relented.
“And second—just lie down on the goddamn bed, will you?”
She glanced over her shoulder at the furniture in question. “Do you think it’s clean?”
His expression tightened, and she got the sense he was only just holding on. “Unless you want me to take you against the wall, you’ll just have to risk it.”
Charlotte gasped—but after a moment’s hesitation, decided on no, and pulled back the eiderdown.
Alex watched as Charlotte lay on the bed. There followed an endless minute in which her chemise twisted around her hips and she had to raise them to rearrange it, and then do the same with her hair, and then shuffle over to avoid what must have been a loose spring in the mattress. Alex waited with an exasperation that bordered on intense, pulsing arousal. The woman was going to annoy him into an orgasm before he even placed a hand on her.
Finally she lay still, almost rigid, her gaze fixed on the ceiling. He hesitated, not wanting to go ahead if she was as anxious as she seemed—
