His hand slid to her waist. “Do not hide from me now.”
“I am not hiding.”
“You are.”
She looked up, heart hammering. “And if I want more than forgetting?”
His face tightened.
Then he leaned closer, his mouth near enough that the next breath she took belonged partly to him. “Then take what I can give tonight.”
It was not enough, but it was everything she wanted in that moment.
“Yes,” she whispered.
His hand stilled at her waist. “Say it plainly.”
Her throat worked. “I want you.”
His eyes darkened.
“Again,” he said.
She trembled. “I want more of you.”
The last word had hardly left her before his mouth found hers.
This kiss sank into her, deep and devastating. His hand curved around the back of her neck, thumb beneath her jaw. Emmeline’s hands rose to his shoulders, to the open throat of hisshirt, to the warm skin beneath, and the feel of him there, bare beneath her palms, made a sound break from her.
Rowan answered by lowering her carefully onto the bed.
He came over her, his body weighing above hers while his mouth moved from hers to her jaw, her throat, the place where her pulse beat wildly beneath thin skin.
“You are beautiful,” he murmured. “So soft. So warm. Do you know what it does to me?”
Her fingers tightened in his hair. “Show me.”
His mouth returned to hers, and she felt his hand move down her body, over her waist, her hip, her thigh. The nightgown bunched beneath his palm, and then his fingers were on bare skin. She gasped into his mouth.
“Still?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He touched her slowly, opening her with patience that made her shiver, his fingers finding the slick ache he had left in her body from the night before. His breath broke against her mouth.
“God,” he rasped. “You are ready for me.”
The words sent heat through her so fiercely she arched toward him. Emmeline’s breath caught, then spilled out in a shaken sound as her hips lifted toward his hand before she could stop them.
Rowan’s eyes darkened at the movement, and the last fragile edge of his restraint seemed to tear. A rough sound left him as he bent over her, one hand pushing the nightgown higher up her thighs while the other flattened possessively against her waist.
His hot mouth came down over her breast through the thin cotton. The damp heat of his breath seeped through the fabric until she cried out and arched beneath him. He dragged the cloth aside, baring her to the candlelight, and then his mouth was on her skin.
He kissed the curve of her breast, the flushed peak, the soft hollow beneath, each touch slower and deeper than the last. His tongue moved over her until her fingers twisted in the sheets.
When she reached for the fall of his trousers, his hand closed over hers.
For one heartbeat, she thought he would stop.
