“You seem determined that someone will marry you. Don’t tell me you have not thought of it.”
“Well, I have not.” She made an exasperated gesture. “Of course I would not entertain men. I shall be too busy in my aunt’s studio and looking after my friends to bother with . . .lovers.”
He sighed wearily. “Lovers require very little bother, I’m afraid. It is one of the many convenient ways they differ from husbands.”
“If you believe I wish to move to London to carry on with . . . with ‘special friends,’ then you do not know me at all.”
“This is true, Willow,” he said softly. “I don’t know you. We’ve only just met, haven’t we?”
“Yes, we’ve only just met, and yet somehow you’ve managed to extract highly personal details about my life and my health—but to what end, if your appraisal of me isadulteress?”
“I’m merely suggesting that the existence you envision as wife-who-is-no-wife is neither practical nor realistic.”
“How lucky for you that we have no future together!” She marched around the chaise to meet him where he stood. “Even so, I feel compelled to make myself very clear. The reality of my . . . of my barrenness has always precluded me from the social company of men. It has shaped my vision of the future—alsowithout any man. In fact, I have long said I would never marry, and it was only my frustration with leaving Surrey and the dire straits of my friends that prompted me to construct a union that would win me a few basic rights.
“That said,” she went on, “ I am a perfectly happy and fulfilled woman, even while I am unattached and unescorted. And certainly without”—she rolled her eyes—“lovers. And besides, if it was my goal to take up with a, er, ‘special friend’ when I leave Surrey—which it is not—what man would that be, hmmm?” She laughed a bitter little trill. “Men do not view me in this way.”
Cassin drew breath to retort but stopped.
Men do notwhat?
He scowled. “Men do not view you inwhatway?”
“Surely you do not require me to explain all the ways that men do not view me. I am not the seductress you make me out to be; let us leave it at that. I’ve proven my point, I think. It is ungentlemanly to compel to me say more.”
“Ungentlemanly?” His brain snagged on this word and seized it. “I’ll show you ungentlemanly,” he said as he reached for her.
She made the slightest little gasping sound before he descended on her mouth and kissed her.
CHAPTERTEN
Willow had never before been kissed. She had also never been alone in an empty room with a man or shared a reclining piece of furniture with anyone. Despite all this,she’d known. The moment before he’d kissed her, she had known he would do it.
How? Instinct? Suppressed yearning? She had seen the wild, unfocused look in his eyes, and his gaze darted repeatedly to her mouth.
And then she was hauled up against him, and he paused a fraction of a second, their breath mingling, eyes locking, and he brushed his mouth across her lips once, twice, and then he’d sealed them together.
As realizations went, knowing he would kiss her was not actionable as much as it was a great saver of time. It cut out debilitating shock and useless disbelief. The kiss was real. His arm was locked around her, he put a rough hand on her cheek. She watched his face until it was too close to see, and her hands went to his chest, receiving him, feeling the warm solidness beneath the wool of his coat. She heard herself make the smallest noise of anticipation, and he moaned.
The only real surprise had been how much she had wanted it. Well, she wanted—if not preciselyitthen something that eventually led to it. And after it began, “it” was definitely what she wanted.
When his mouth closed over hers, and she shut her eyes, the swirl of sensations affirmed everything she had suspected for two days. Yes, his body was muscled and rock hard; yes, he smelled masculine and woodsy and likehim; and yes, she felt the kiss everywhere—her lips, the tips of her fingers, her knees.
And finally—yes, it felt like nothing she’d ever experienced. Kissing was soft and hard at the same time, wet but not too wet, a maelstrom of sensation but also a little like floating in the pond on a calm day.
“My God, Willow, forgive me,” he said, breathing hard against her skin. “There is no excuse for it. I never behave like this, honestly.”
He had rather pounced, she thought. But she’d been ready, so ready. Too ready? She couldn’t say. Later, she would recreate every breathtaking moment in her mind and make some ruling, perhaps, about right or wrong. Then again, maybe she would not. Maybe she would simply enjoy the memory.
“Pull the advertisements from London,” he breathed, pressing kisses along her jaw, her cheek, her eye.
“What?” she gasped, reaching for the return of his lips.
“The advertisement. Your appeal to strange men. The promise of money. Youmuststop.” He seized her mouth.
This again? She kissed him back, trying to savor and think at the same time.
“It’s foolhardy and reckless, and you put yourself in danger,” he said on a breath between kisses.
