She thought of how the drops would follow the hard angles and planes of his abdomen… his hips…
Ellie’s throat went dry.
“I was looking for the library,” she blurted out.
Adam braced an arm against the pillar, leaning over her.“Were you, now?”
“But it appears this wing is being renovated.”
The door to the room beside them was propped open.A canvas drop cloth covered the floor, held down at the corner by a bucket of paint.
“Haven’t seen any renovators,” Adam commented.
A drop of water curved down his neck, sliding onto his bare, tanned collarbone.
“Guessing they have the day off,” he added.
He was less than a step away.As though of its own accord, Ellie’s hand rose to his chest.She pressed her palm against the place where the squared muscles of his pectorals gave way to the taut washboard of his abdomen.
He was still damp.
“You know, I don’t believe anyone is expecting us until dinner.”She shared the information casually, as she might note the possible provenance of a Grecian vase.
Her hand moved lower.It glided over the firm ridges of muscle until it reached the waistband of Adam’s trousers.
She closed her fingers around the brass buckle of his battered leather belt.The flesh of his stomach pressed against the back of her knuckles with the pull of his breath.
“When’s dinner?”Adam asked in a voice like gravel.
“Seven,” she replied weakly.“And… what time is it now?”
“Five.”
Ellie swallowed thickly against a dry throat.“Perhaps we should find a way to… pass the time.”
Adam’s eyes shaded to a darker cobalt.“How about I take you into that room right there, lay you out on the floor, and put my mouth on you?”
Ellie wondered how exactly her knees were still working.
“That sound all right?”Adam finished evenly.
Her mind, usually so full of words, offered her only one in response.
“Please.”
Adam swung her up into his arms and carried her inside.
?
An hour later, Ellie lay across the rumpled canvas, lightly sweating as she stared up at the aged plaster of the ceiling and listened to the rain pound down outside the window.
Her bones felt like butter.Every nerve sang with satisfaction.
She was very glad that the maharaja had given his renovators a holiday.Otherwise, they would most certainly have heard her shouting, even over the rumble of the afternoon storm.
Adam sprawled beside her in a delicious expanse of tanned skin and muscle.
“That was…” Ellie began.
