“Make her scream with pleasure,” he added, because he wasn’t above a good bit of revenge for these feelings of uncertainty. “Or write her name on her skin with his tongue.”
He didn’t mention exactly where he was going to perform such an act.
He’d been born a gentleman, after all.
Edwina actually flared red.
His voice softened. “And see just how far that blush spreads. I want to kiss it from your skin.”
“My god?—”
“Sterling,” he countered. “Though I do believe I can help you see god, if you give me a chance.”
Edwina buried her face in her hands. “You are beyond the pale. Beyond. We’re at the breakfast table.”
“A private breakfast table. And if you gave me a chance, you might actually be breakfast.” He took up his cup and sipped his tea, enjoying the stealthy glare she shot him. “What’s wrong, Edie? I want to make my intentions very clear so that you don’t deliberately misconstrue them. I am asking you to be my lover. Not a mistress. My lover. And see where this… attraction takes us.”
She pushed to her feet, then hovered there, because her skirt was caught between chairs.
“You know,” he mused. “I think once I get you out of that dress, I’m going to burn it.”
“If you touch my dress, I’ll set fire to your trousers,” she said, with an evil look in her eyes.
He remembered what she’d done to the library. For someone who considered her telekinetic power to be of limited skill, she certainly had a way about a fire. Sterling winced. “I presume the threat is while I’m still wearing them?”
Edwina offered him a vicious little smile as she tugged her skirts free.
“Well, that is one way to get me out of my clothes,” he noted. “Though all you truly have to do is ask.”
Beet red. It was delightful how easily she could be teased.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked. “You’ve never….”
“What? Teased you? I daresay I have.”
“No. You’ve never teased me about this.” For a moment she seemed to share his uncertainty. “I know seducing women is something you do with half a thought but I’m not?—”
“Now, you just stop right there.” He set his tea down, a hint of anger flaring. “I do not seduce women with half a thought. I haven’t bloody been with a woman in years.”
She tipped her chin up sharply as if preparing for battle. “One doesn’t simply send a gentleman their undergarments in the post without cause.”
He scrubbed at his mouth. How the hell was he going to convince her of the truth? “Apparently, some do. And it’s not me they’re interested in. I’m merely a means to get closer to the Clarenvale duchy. I swear, Edwina, I am almost a candidate for the Benedictine monastery.”
“I just find that difficult to believe. Before I joined your employ, you were well known for your affairs. And now you expect me to believe you’ve simply decided the pleasures of the flesh no longer suit you.”
“I didn’t say that.”
She frowned. “Then why… why would you?—?”
“Because of you.”
The words simply came out of him.
It took her aback. “What?”
All these years it had come easy to him. A smile. A simple flirtation. And then he’d be stealing a kiss in a dark corner.
Why did he have to fall in love with the one woman who was determined to thwart him?
