What a strange question. “It’s how you are.”
A rueful smile curved his lips. “I’m twenty-nine years old, Juliet, and in those twenty-nine years, not more than four or five people in my life have ever seen me as you drew me.”
He seemed to be holding his breath, waiting for her answer, but to her, it was all quite simple. “Then only those few have ever really seen you.”
“But you did. Youdo.”
“Yes.” He’d only ever been one man to her—the man in her sketch.
His large, warm palm settled on her cheek. “Do you… do you want me at all, Juliet?”
“Yes.” She didn’t hesitate, or make any pretense at ladylike bashfulness. There’d never been a time since their first meeting that she hadn’t wanted him.
She’d come to Steeple Crossfor him.
He slid his hand down her neck, and she shivered at the warm drag of his palm over her heated skin. Her lips parted, and he needed no further invitation than that. His eyes darkened, and with a low groan he urged her closer, into his arms, and his mouth came down on hers.
This kiss wasn’t at all like the kiss they’d shared in his study. That kiss had been possessive, hungry, and a little angry, an explosion of passion too long denied. This kiss was slow and sweet, his lips coaxing hers apart with gentle nips and teasing strokes of his tongue.
This kiss was a wooing, a courtship.
How many different kisses hovered on his lips, waiting to be discovered?
A lifetime’s worth.
Everything else spun away on a pulse of wild desire the instant his lips met hers, until there was nothing buthim, his arms around her, his hard chest under her palms, and his kiss, deep and wet.
“Sweet,” he whispered, his hot breath caressing her ear, the tip of his tongue dancing along the seam of her lips. It tickled, but not in any way she’d ever felt before.
This tickledeverywhere. Her lips, the tight tips of her breasts, deep inside her belly, and in the warm, secret place between her legs.
“You’re trembling for me, Juliet.” He settled his hands at her waist, squeezing gently before sliding them up her rib cage and cupping her breasts in his palms.
Close. So close to where she wanted them…
“I think of you night and day. Your taste.” He sucked her lower lip into his mouth, tasting it with his tongue. “The curve of your back.” His fingers tripped down her spine. “Your breasts.” He dragged a thumb over one of her nipples, his breath leaving his lungs in a rush when her head fell back at the caress.
“Oh!” She gasped as a ribbon of heat wound through her.
“Your sweet, needy little sighs and whimpers.” He kissed her, learning all her secrets with his lips, lingering in the places where his kisses made her tremble. His chest rose and fell under her palms as he lavished attention on her neck, the hollow of her throat, the sensitive skin behind her ear.
And his hands, so wicked, his palms cupping her hips, the swell of her lower belly, skimming over the curves of her buttocks, before at last—at last—he brought them back to her aching nipples, stroking and circling until she was panting against his neck, then crying out when he pinched one of the taut peaks gently between his fingers.
“Do you like that, love?” He pinched her other nipple, a low, tortured groan dropping from his lips when she jerked in his arms.
Once he discovered what gave her the most pleasure he held her tightly to him, stilling her for his caresses, his teeth scoring her throat as he teased her nipples, alternately pinching and soothing until she was shaking, desire twisting in her belly.
“Miles.” She clung to him, her knees weak, her pulse thrumming in her ears, burning for him. “Please.”
But there was no need to beg, because he was already giving her everything she ached for. She wrapped her arms around his neck, her shawl falling to the floor at their feet.
“Juliet.” Her name on his lips was a whispered breath. “Do you want me, Juliet?” he asked again, just as he had when he’d entered her bedchamber, when the simple warmth of his palm against her neck stole her breath.
She knew what he was asking, understood what would happen between them if she told him shedidwant him, more than she’d ever wanted anything, yet she didn’t hesitate—not in her answer, or in her heart.
The word was already there on her lips, just waiting to be spoken aloud. “Yes.”
A brush of soft, fine linen skimmed over her ankles, her shins, her thighs, cool air kissing her heated skin as he dragged her nightdress up, up, over the quivering skin of her belly, her stomach, breasts and shoulders until it lay in a white pool beside her shawl.
