Lucy lay in the dark, biting her lip. “How can you be comfortable? You’re stuffed into a chair two sizes too small for you.”
Ciaran grunted, but didn’t reply.
Lucy plucked at the coverlet. “May I bring you a blanket? I have more than I need here.”
Ciaran groaned. “Go to sleep, Lucy.”
Yes, that would probably be best, wouldn’t it? Lucy obediently squeezed her eyes closed, but now the thought had occurred to her, she found she couldn’t stop thinking about Ciaran’s breeches. Why would he choose to sleep in them? Did he imagine she’d leap from the bed and ravish him if he dared remove them?
Lucy’s eyes flew open.
I could leap from the bed and ravish him.
She sucked in a breath, half-scandalized, half-intrigued.
No, no. It was absurd. Where would she start? She hadn’t any idea how to ravish a gentleman, and Ciaran wasn’t acting at all like a man whowantedto be ravished.
Except…
Lucy pressed her fingers against her lips. Except there’d been that kiss, this evening in the carriage. A kiss that had left her breathless, aching. Ciaran had been the one to put an end to it, but he hadn’t wanted to stop kissing her any more than she’d wanted to stop kissing him. Lucy didn’t have any previous experience kissing gentlemen in dark carriages, but he’d seemed very much like a man struggling to subdue his passion.
He’d been just as desperate as she’d been, his panting breaths drifting over her skin. The memory of it made her shiver even as her body heated and warmth pooled between her legs. She pressed her thighs together and tried not to squirm, but all at once the bedchamber was too hot, the sheets too rough against her tingling skin.
Lucy smothered a whimper, and kicked one of the coverlets aside.
Ciaran stirred in the chair, but he remained silent.
That kiss had changed everything. The thing was, she was inlovewith Ciaran, so of course, she wanted him. Wherever a lady’s heart led, her body followed. But if it hadn’t been for that kiss, it never would have occurred to her Ciaran might wanther. He didn’t love her in a romantic sense, but a man experienced desire differently than a woman did. His friendship for her, his deep affection—perhaps they were enough to spark his passion.
Lucy turned over onto her side and rested her cheek against a cool spot on her pillow. She was under no illusions about all she’d chosen to give up when she’d made the decision not to marry. Physical love, desire, passion—she yearned for them as much as any other woman did.
Many women who didn’t marry took lovers. She could do the same if she chose, but somehow, in the deepest part of her, Lucy knew she never would. For her, physical love would only ever be an expression of emotional love. She couldn’t give her body without her heart, and she’d given her heart to Ciaran. Her love for him had been as inevitable as the waves rolling onto the beach in Brighton.
Inevitable, and final.
Now by a strange twist of fate, she was alone in a bedchamber with the man she adored, the man she wanted above all others, and there was nothing but her own fear stopping her from rising from this bed and taking him into her arms.
Lucy had never been one to succumb to fear.
She loved him, and she ached to give herself to him. Who would it hurt if she went to him now, took him by the hand, and brought him back to the bed? It would devastate her to lose him after sharing a night with him, but the only heart she’d be breaking was her own.
Lucy pushed the blankets aside and slid quietly from the bed. The floorboards were cold beneath her feet as she crossed the bedchamber. The room was so dark if it hadn’t been for the fire Ciaran might not have noticed her coming toward him, but the glow of the flames caught at the hem of her fluttering white shift.
A sound fell from Ciaran’s lips, a sound unlike any Lucy had ever heard him make before. A strangled breath, a gasp, and a groan all at once, ragged and desperate.
“Lucy.” He rose, holding out his hands as if to stop her.
But Lucy wouldn’t be stopped. One step, another, until she stood before him, her heart racing in her chest. Slowly, she reached for him, and twined her arms around his neck.
And waited while he decided whether to touch her, or push her away.
Chapter Twenty-one
As if in a dream, Ciaran raised his hand and brushed his fingertips over her cheek. It was a ghost of a touch, so soft he might have believed he’d imagined it but for the flush that rose to Lucy’s skin in its wake.
Her skin slid like silk under his fingertips. Her dark gaze roamed his face, her rosy flush deepening as it settled on his mouth.
She’s thinking of our kiss.
