And that was horrific, because if she dared let herself touch him, she wasn’t certain she’d be able to stop herself.
It all went back to that kiss.
The way he’d sucked in a sharp breath as if she’d caught him by surprise.
And then the way his hands captured her waist as she began to draw back, as if to say, don’t you dare pull away now….
She’d been kissed before.
Despite his frequent commentary on her frilly spinster caps and man-repelling gowns, she’d had beaus. She’d been given flowers. Had the back of her hand drawn to a gentleman’s mouth. Even several, well, rather chaste kisses, now she had the hindsight to know better.
But nothing like this.
Sterling didn’t kiss. He consumed. The second he’d sensed her interest, he’d captured her mouth with his, and then his tongue had been lashing against her own, and a growl had echoed up his throat as he muscled her back against the wall.
She was fairly certain that if the butler hadn’t knocked on the library door at that precise moment, she’d have ended up on the desk—her own desk—with her hideous skirts all akimbo and Sterling’s hands beneath them.
Edwina became aware that she was frozen in time and space, and that both of them were barely breathing.
She looked up, and Sterling was watching her.
Aware of her seeming dilemma.
“That,” he said thickly. “Are we not going to discuss that?”
Edwina released a shaky breath. What did he want her to say? That she’d kissed him? That he’d most definitely kissed her back?
That it was the single most thrilling moment of her life?
That she’d spent years daydreaming of his hands on her skin, and every time she’d caught herself doing it, she’d forced herself to rein those fantasies back in and bury them deep.
He was her employer—or he had been.
She’d been his secretary.
He was the youngest son of a duke. Handsome. Educated. Brilliant. A veritable Adonis. When he walked into a room, a crowd formed around him always. Women gushing. Men shaking his hand and grinning.
And she was just Edwina.
Pale, unextraordinary, shy.
An orphan who had fought her way through this life, clawing for her magic, forcing those in the order to look her in the eye….
And even if the kiss they’d shared meant anything, he’d soon move on. She’d been the one who opened all his correspondence, after all. Though she’d stopped doing that to the ones liberally laced with perfume.
There were some things she didn’t need to know.
“Being prepared is not a sin,” her mouth said instead, and then she ducked beneath his outstretched arm, finding space and room to bloody breathe, even as her heart slammed behind her ribs.
A growl echoed behind her.
Words that sounded like “stubborn as a mule” were muttered under his breath.
She took a seat across from him, and tugged her journal out of her reticule. She needed to control this situation somehow. “So what do you know of the case?”
Sterling stared at her for a long moment, before he gracefully took his seat opposite her.
“Very little,” he drawled, lacing his hands over his middle as he reclined back in the carriage seat. The train chose that moment to lurch forward. “Adrian Bishop talked me into a few rounds of billiards last night and by the time I arrived home this morning, the order’s representative was waiting for me. I barely had half an hour to shave and dress before I made my way to the station.”
