“I will leave you, then,” he said, his voice strangled.“And I will forget.”
“Thank you,” she said, flushing even deeper.
Her beautiful complexion was nearly crimson.Scarlet.Scarlett.Christ.How had this happened.
“Avert your eyes.I must dress.”
She turned toward the wall and, like the bastard he was, he admired the sweet curves just visible underneath her chemise.The ones that had minutes before been pressed up against him—
He bit back a moan.No.He deserved to be flayed for these thoughts.It proved that he was no better than his father.
He drew back the coverlet and quickly dressed in the clothes he had left out the night before, when he had come into his room in the dark.He had lit no candle, used to moving in this darkness.He had wondered why her scent was all around him.Well, now he knew the reason.
When he was dressed, he said to her, “You may turn around.”
But she didn’t.“Just go.Please.”
For some reason, he wanted her to watch him take his leave.He felt—and he knew it wasn’t fair—that they had shared something together that was unmistakably intimate.He wanted her to feel that way too.But she didn’t, and he needed to accept that.
“Very well.Goodnight, Miss Perkins.”
And he left.
Chapter Ten
Scarlett had experiencednasty shocks before in her life.
She had been shocked by her father’s ruin and then again by his death.
She had been shocked when her fiancé, Thomas, abandoned her after these events.
And this circumstance was certainly shocking.
In fact, she wasn’t sure she hadeverbeen so shocked.
She was so shocked, in fact, that she sat down on the bed without being conscious of it.
She had just had more intimate congress with a man than she ever had had before—andin her sleep.
Scarlett sat there, merely stunned, for she knew not how long.But despite the depth of her shock, it was not, she had to conclude, necessarily an unpleasant one.She could remember what she felt in the space between waking and sleeping, when she had been in his embrace.
She flushed hot again and then again.
He was so handsome.Afterward, he had sat there in the bed, completely unclothed.She had been unable to see his cock because it was covered by the bedsheet, but she had feasted on the rest of him.His broad, muscled chest and shoulders, his freckle-dappled skin.He was tanner, a bit more golden, than one would expect.He was so beautiful that she had found it difficult to carry on the conversation, to express the outrage she knew she must.She could hardly believe that she had actually been folded into his arms, and that his—his mostintimatepart had been wedged between her thighs, and that he had actually—
She had been very aroused upon waking with him.
There was no denying it to herself.
She had been on the precipice of her own climax, as she had been somewhere between her usual dreams and reality.She usually woke so inflamed that she had to hasten herself to orgasm, but in this case, she had been nearly there.
She could feel him against her still.His body hard and large, his member thrusting between her thighs—she could not believe she had experienced such a thing.It was beyond scandalous.Beyond anything that a lady should have knowledge of.
He had told her thathehad improper dreams, which was very strange.But she had never told another living soul about her own illicit dreams, so it was impossible he should know such a thing about her.Before that revelation, she had wondered if he had intended to defile her and get away with it.If he saw her as so inconsequential that he could take what he wanted and trust her to say nothing.
But his behavior soon ruled out such a possibility.His admission of his dreams had first softened her suspicions, but his proposal of marriage had killed them.He certainly couldn’twantto marry her.He certainly didn’t find her physically enticing—except, perhaps, in his sleep, when any woman might do—and she had no fortune to make marrying her advantageous.
No.It must be as he said.As he insisted.A horrible mistake.
