Her breath hitched as she watched his hand release hers, and then their gazes met, and he swore there was the stirring of passion in the depths of her eyes, just begging for release from the prison bars which held her apart from everything she desired.
“I’m sorry. I was attempting to keep you from seeing how my body was reacting to your touch,” he confessed.
Her gaze traveled down his face, to his neck and chest, and it was as if her fingers were tracing a line from the tip of his nose to the trail of hair that started at his navel and ended at the base of his cock. He watched the delicate flare of her nostrils as she realized how much he was protecting from her view. He wanted to let her see everything, expose his desire for her in all its glory.
He did not.
“I will grab an extra linen for your modesty,” she said and turned toward the wardrobe.
“An extra linen will hardly help. It will only cling to my cock and rub it to utter distraction.”
“Don’t be silly.”
“I’m not. If you won’t heed my warning, then I must ask you to forgive my baser response to your touch. It has been a long time since I…”
When he paused trying to think of a polite way to make her understand, she answered for him. “Since you slaked your lust.”
He winced. “I wouldn’t put it that way.”
“Then how would you put it?”
“Since I lay with a woman that I desired and admired.”
She giggled as if she didn’t believe him. “Are you telling me that you admired every woman that you’ve taken to your bed?”
“No, I have not. But many of the women I have shared my bed with have fallen into those categories and I find I no longer want anything else.”
“France changed your view of who should share your bed?”
“No. My mind changed long before I went to France.” He changed the subject before she delved into territory too dangerous to enter. “You started to say something about Sir Williamson when you came in.”
“What? Oh, yes, of course.” She cleared her throat and handed him a hand towel which he obediently used to cover his cock.
Once covered, he gazed down to see the cloth molded to his staff, clinging to him from the tip nestled against his stomach, to the backside of his bullocks. If she chose to look, he’d be damned if he’d stop her. He dropped his hands to his sides and closed his eyes, enjoying the way her delicate hands faltered in their task of massaging his scalp.
“I received word from Sir Williamson that he would come by this evening.”
“Finally.”
“May I ask why he is coming?”
“No. Are you trying to torture me?”
“Am I hurting your head?”
“You have no idea how badly.”
Her hands pulled away.
“I’m teasing.” Except he wasn’t.
“Does he want to talk about my father’s death?”
He kept his mouth closed, refusing to let her waylay the pleasant fantasy he was living at the present.
“My sisters and I have long questioned the manner in which he died.”
He sighed with the pleasure of her fingers in his hair, massaging his scalp so thoroughly. “Why is that?”
