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“Not at all, Harriet,” he answered, unable to control his gaze when it lowered to her full lips. Her tongue moistened them, causing his heart to speed up and pump even more blood to the wrong place.
Sam well knew that he would be no woman’s choice—not the first choice, at least. He was too awkward, too red-haired, with too big spectacles, and bookish to distraction. He did not come out as exactly charming or manly. Paying for their favour might be his last resort.
“We should continue then,” she replied but did not bend those blue temptations to their work. Instead, her gaze roamed from the sleek hair falling on his brow, the green eyes fixed on her, to zero in on his lips, which were as red as his— Well…the tip of him, the very leaky tip of him.
The things his friends said a woman’s lips could do!
Fuck!
He needed to leave the room. At this second! Or he risked shaming himself. Worse still, his distended member demanded its due fare. One unavailable to him. So he must go and get the relief at his disposal.
“Excuse me,” he said and stood up fast and clumsy. In shirtsleeves, without a coat to cover his projecting midriff, he turned in a quick motion. Out of the study, he nearly ran to the bedchamber Professor Hayley allowed him to use in his absence. For convenience’s sake, the Professor said, as he would be working late to finish the paper. And also to protect Harriet as she would be mostly alone in the house.
At that instant, he was not so sure she was that protected.
With that thought, he burst into his chamber and shut it with an urgent click.
Harriet followed Samuel’s retreat with interest. She knew exactly what was happening to him, what usually happened to men lusting after a woman.
At thirty-one, widowhood did not intimidate her. Long ago, such status meant she obtained release from a bad marriage. If her late husband understood that drinking and brawling in London’s underworld consisted of the best amusement life could offer—and then die from one of those soused fisticuffs—it was nothing to do with her. Except she had been left poor, indebted, and desperately in need of employment.
The polished education her father, an attorney for the crown, bestowed on her came in as her salvation. One year into her position, the Professor had brought the Scot. Mr McDougal had been barely more than a lad at the time.
She thought the awe with which he boyishly regarded her endearing, certain he would grow out of it. The freshman possessed his own lodgings near the campus, afforded by his powerful Highlander of a father. Academic assignments brought him often into the house to work with the Professor.
He grew into a man before her very eyes. Lean and tall, six feet four probably, the round spectacles did not hide the clear green eyes or the freckles on his translucent skin. As he came into adulthood, though, his hair darkened into a reddish brown and his cherry lips firmed into a sensuous shape. It made him compelling in a distinct way. The fact he treated her with nothing but the utmost respect, despite his obvious desire, counted points in his favour.
Suddenly, her mind had started weaving the most absurd reveries involving her employer’s protégé. Together with shameful body reactions she never ever dreamed of transpiring in her arid and infrequent marriage bed. She noted this awareness of him several months ago, the discomfort of it wreaking havoc with her lucidity and composure. She must be an inglorious wanton to harbour such unacceptable tendencies towards a man who not only was much younger, but also a part of the Scottish lofty aristocracy.
As Samuel took his leave, she did not miss the immense bulge in the front of his breeches. Her fingers itched to undo each button on either side of his hipbones, letting the flap fall to wrap her hand around him. Test the hardness, the heat—tunnel her fingers along its whole extension. The ache and moistness the image produced got her breathless. And eager for any resolution.
Would the hair cradling him between his thighs be lighter or darker than the strands on his head?
The afterthought brought a scalding flush to the surface.
What the deuce!
Not ten minutes had passed when she heard a click on the study door. Her gaze raised to him. His flushed skin and heated eyes, unmistakable even with his spectacles, caused a warm ripple to course through her. To her mind, there was no doubt of why he had excused himself. Images of him finding relief on his own flooded her head. That ripple turned into an incendiary rush to the core of her the likes of which she had no memory. Her cheeks heated with embarrassment
One would think five years of an empty marriage to be enough to douse such eagerness. And they were, considering her deceased, incompetent husband. But this was Samuel, once a boy, now reaching his prime, lusting after her with guileless green eyes and all the force of his ready body.
His attention collided with hers, installing a veritable magnetic field filling the space in between them. If anyone lit a match, they might go up in flames. Her fingers clutched the desk’s edge, else the force of that field drive her to him mindlessly.
Surreptitiously, her lungs drew in air in a feeble attempt to cool her insides and clear her foggy thoughts. Her throat cleared enough for her to utter level words. “You’d better hurry, or we won’t finish this.”
That seemed to bring him to his senses. He blinked, returning his eyes to its usual scholarly expression at the same time his lean frame acquired a more relaxed stance. The engrossed botanist slotted back in place. He resumed the seat across from her, and they succeeded in working the rest of the morning without further incidents.
“I need to know the size,” she asked. Bent over open books and scattered sheets on the solid surface, they did not see the passing of time, soon to be luncheon.
His reddish-brown head snapped up, wide orbs meeting hers. “The size?” A furtive glance darted down his abdomen and back to hers.
A new wave of crimson took over her skin when she realised what crossed his mind. Not even a Titan would have prevented her from looking down his chest, wishing the wood became transparent for her scrutiny to lower further to where his legs lay. Or more precisely, the top of his thighs. Oh, she would love to know the size of him at every stage of the way.
Way to what, you brainless wanton? She berated herself.
“We must list the peak growth of each species of Bromeliaceae encountered so far.” Perhaps she had worded the question incorrectly. Or perhaps she committed a slip. A patently revealing slip.
The paper he would present to other botanists would be about Bromeliaceae, widely known as bromeliad, one of his pet projects as he had been studying the species since before he came to Oxford.
