“Friendship,” he grumbled.
She blinked, unsure how to take this statement. “Yes?”
“It is a serious affection,” he explained. “The most sublime of all affections, because—”
“It is founded on principle, and cemented by time,” Amelia said, her voice overlapping his, completing the quote. Inside her stomach, the flutters grew stronger. “Mary Wollstonecraft. You’ve been reading my book.”
He shrugged, a silent, insouciant confession that did not quite match the shadows in his eyes as he watched her for a reaction. “Nothing better to do in this blasted house at night.”
Amelia swallowed dryly. Somehow it felt deeply intimate that he’d read the same pages she had, touched them, while lying in his bed…
“It was most thought-provoking,” he said, the way another man might have said,it made me dream of you in your underwear.He drank again, apparently not registering that his glass was in fact empty. His gaze remained locked on hers, and Amelia thought that if he did not at least blink soon, she might just faint.
“You’re trying to distract me from my strategy,” she concluded. Forcing herself to focus once more on the game, she bit her fingertip, thinking…
Clunk.Caleb’s glass hit the table so hard, the chess pieces trembled. “Let’s make a bet,” he said, reaching for the bottle.
“Don’t bother,” Amelia told him. “You won’t win it.”
“We’ll see, clever girl.”
“Woman,” she corrected him automatically.
“Hm,” Caleb murmured with a dark eloquence. He poured whiskey into his glass, then replaced the little Amelia had sipped from hers. “So, since you are indeed a woman—since we are both adults—let’s play like it. Here’s the bet: whoever wins at chess gets to kiss the loser anywhere on their body.”
Amelia felt her eyes grow wide. Caleb smiled, almost belligerent. Now the air was not so much “charged” as “on the verge of nuclear fission.” The Ghost of Kissing Past arose to dance a tango with the Ghost of Kissing Future.
“How many times?” she asked.
Caleb shrugged his mouth. “Three? Like in a fairy tale.”
“And when you say anywhere, you mean—”
“Anywhere.”
Amelia’s pulse began to run around madly, throwing off its clothes and hauling on lacy lingerie. Reaching out without looking, she picked up her glass and took a long, slow mouthful of whiskey before setting it down again.
“It’s your turn,” Caleb prompted her, gesturing with his own glass at the board, then drinking as if he anticipated atedious wait while she chose between one pawn and another next to it, never mind actually providing an answer to his suggestion.
Not taking her gaze from his, Amelia removed her king from the line of pieces and laid it down in surrender at the center of the board.
—
Caleb almost spatout his mouthful of alcohol. He had expected Amelia to have come to her good senses after their long-ago conversation about experimenting, and to lecture him on the limits of friendship (a good night kiss, albeit lingering) and the sanctity of chess (never to be discounted) and moreover that he should sit up straighter. He’d been half-drunk when he’d spoken—forget the whiskey; to have Amelia all to himself after an interminable week of not being able to smile at her, let alone touch her, was intoxicating. Now he had to hastily assemble a plan to match the wild proposal he’d made.
Swallowing back whiskey and fear, he said rather huskily, “Stand up.”
She did so at once, not evidencing even the slightest hesitation.Oh God. “Come here,” he instructed.
Walking as if she had a book balanced atop her head, Amelia rounded the table to stand before him. Caleb took her left hand in both of his, using all the care he would when handling a porcelain figurine that might explode with deadly magic at any moment. Then he turned it over and gently set a kiss on the pale, blue-threaded skin of her exposed wrist.
Amelia drew in a breath. He did not hear her release it. Looking up through a wayward lock of hair, he smiled.
“One.”
It was rather impressive, if he did say so himself, the way he mixed softness and seductive huskiness within that single syllable. All the elocution lessons of his youth were worth it, just for this moment. It must have impressed Amelia too, considering how her face flooded with pink and her breath, finally exhaling, shook just a little. Caleb let go of her hand so he could relax back into the chair, setting his forearms on the wide armrests.
“Sit on my lap.”
