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Chapter Fourteen

Adam’s hands were still braced on the edge of the mattress, his jaw wet, his breath coming in and not quite going out at the same speed. Against his shoulders, Juliet’s thighs had gone slack and, above him, her chest pulled in long, uneven draws.

But no matter how much he wanted to keep looking at her, he couldn’t ignore the…situation…in his breeches, an accounting he had not planned to give.

Heart still pounding in his throat, despite the drugging pleasure that continued to pump through his veins, he rose to his feet.

“A—Adam?” Her questioning voice stopped him cold, and he couldn’t bring himself to move another inch.

Her voice was melted sugar, and it was sinking through him into places it had no business being.

Damn. “Just…just a…” He tried to speak, but his throat was closing around the words, all his conscious effort arrowing towards the hardness in his breeches.

“Adam.” Now her voice sounded worried, and he turned the instant he heard that worried thread in her tone.

Juliet had pushed herself upright against the headboard, the coverlet pulled to her waist, her hair entirely loose around her shoulders. She looked right at him, her eyes moving briefly to the front of his breeches before coming back up to his face, her eyes widening.

The color that moved through her started at the base of her throat and spread downward, all the way to where the coverlet reached her, moving in a slow, even tide across her collarbone and her chest…and the sight of her all flushed for him made his breeches even tighter.

And then she lifted one outstretched hand, her gaze greedy and tongue peeking out between her lips.

That almost undid him.

He wrenched backward immediately. “I’ll get a cloth,” he said, turning around again and hurrying to the washstand.

There, he took his time wringing out a fresh one before he turned around again.

She was still watching him, her expression still sated, soft…inviting, with her lip caught between her teeth. “You don’t need to do that,” she said, and his pulse kicked in his throat.

“I know, but I want to,” Adam answered, climbing onto the bed, trying his best not to stare too long at those beautiful lips of hers or read too much into the way she watched him. “Will you let me, Juliet?”

Her beautiful eyes twinkled in the candlelight as she stared up at him. She nodded. “Yes.”

He drew the coverlet down and pressed the cloth gently between her thighs, and Juliet immediately slapped both hands over her mouth. But the sound that came through them—low and involuntary—went straight to his seething member, which now had very little patience.

He pressed the cloth again, being thorough and unhurried, as he wondered whether he could be the type of man who derived pleasure from such blatant torture.

“Adam,” she whined, her hips lifting off the mattress.

Adam instantly spread his free hand flat across her stomach and pushed her back into the sheets. “Behave,” he said, crunching the word between his teeth in a low, half-growl.

She lowered her hands from her mouth, her gaze accusatory and wanting all at once. “I—I want to touch you,” she said, her voice unsteady.

Adam didn’t know where the chuckle came from, but it vibrated in his throat at her words. “Little minx,” he said, his tone gravel, “do you want to see me come undone for you?”

She pouted. “It would only be fair, wouldn’t it?. Let me…”

But he shook his head, staunch in his decision.

“Adam…” Her tone was near a whine, and by Jove did it stir up things in his nether regions.

Damn, damn, damn.

He removed the cloth and drew the coverlet up with almost too much force, tucking it around her, as if he could hide away the exquisite temptation of her body behind flimsy cloth. As if her exquisite heat wasn’t something that was already imprinted into his very body, her scent was something he would never forget.

He knew, with full clarity, exactly what would happen the moment she put her hands on him. He had just watched her come apart beneath his mouth, and if she touched him now, he would not stop. He would take her, press her into the mattress, bury himself inside her, and spend himself there. Deep inside her. If he did so tonight, she might end up with child…and he didn’t want that just yet.

No, what he wanted was her.