Get it together.
She nodded at herself, and drew up tall.
She hadn’t expected to have to host half a dozen people in her parlour before bed, but she’d found one of her least revealing nightgowns, a white one that hung almost to her knees, and draped a matching cotton robe over her arms and chest for good measure. Then she turned to the door, trying not to think about what would or would not happen once that room full of people emptied out.
But when she opened the door, there was no wave of music or chatter to greet her. No Ceri dozing by the fireplace, or Ger holding forth to an indulgent audience, gesturing with wild abandon.
There was only Kai.
Right where she’d left him, facing away from her on the couch with one hand nursing a tumbler of dark rum on the armrest, an elbow propped up on the seatback behind him. He looked so at ease, so far removed from his usual perfect posture and tense frame. If it weren’t for the clinking of the ice in his glass, she wouldn’t even have noticed the way he was rocking his wrist distractedly from side to side.
She pulled the bedroom door behind her, letting it click shut, and he glanced over his shoulder at the sound.
Neither of them spoke.
Kai’s eyes drifted slowly from Adeline’s face to the hem of her robe. The fireplace crackled beyond him, lighting the contours of his face on one side; one hazel-gold eye reflecting the flames as he lingered on her bare legs for just a moment longer. Then he turned away and picked up his glass, throwing back the last of the rum as Adeline rounded the couch.
The butterflies in her stomach had taken flight, and the heat in her cheeks had grown scalding, but she managed a smile as she cast a look around the empty room.
“Was it something I said?”
He breathed out quietly, almost a laugh. “Imogen rounded them up. Ceri was starting to snore, so she had Os and Al take her home.”
She took the empty glass from him and set it down on the end table.
“And Ger and Jack –” Kai’s breath hitched a little as she stepped in front of him and her leg brushed his knee. He cleared his throat, and pushed on. “Ger was hungry, so Jack agreed to sneak him into the kitchens.”
A genuine laugh escaped her at that, and Goddess it felt good; a relief to have some of that tension rushing from her chest.
“I’m sure that took several seconds of convincing.”
She stood in front of him now, almost knee to knee. As he watched the sway of white cotton around her thighs, Adeline swore she saw Kai’s tongue pass over his lower lip.
“You stayed,” she said.
When he looked up, his eyes were darker than she’d ever seen them, greens and golds lost against the endless depth of blown black pupils. He seemed to consider her very seriously for a moment, a problem to be solved – then reached up and wound his hand into the ends of her belt, tugging hard.
When Adeline fell astride him, the air dissolved from her lungs, a shimmering wave of heat curling through her in its place. She might have gasped, if she’d been able to breathe at all.
“I stayed,” Kai said, his breath warming her lips as she leaned into him, “because I thought I might like to kiss you in private for once.”
One hand was woven firmly into the curls at the nape of her neck, the other still tucked into the belt of her robe.
Adeline swallowed a breath, with difficulty. “You stayed because you want to kiss me?”
He released her belt then, smoothed his hand over her hip and grazed her thigh, toyed with the bunched up hem of her robe. Her mind was a haze, wreathed in warm fog.
“At length. Did you have something else in mind?”
He tugged gently on her hair, guiding her head back so her throat was arched beneath his mouth. Every brush of his lips sent another flutter soaring through her, and she was so painfully, acutely aware of those fingers playing against her thigh.
Higher,she willed him, not yet ready to plead with him out loud. Not ready to believe he wanted what she wanted.
He pulled back, and in that split second she could have cried – but then he was undoing the tie of her robe, peeling it slowly back from her shoulders. She shook it off with a little less care, letting the whole thing fall and pool at his feet. Adeline shivered, and it wasn’t just the cool air on her arms, but the hungry way that Kai’s eyes trailed across her thinly clothed chest, growing more pained as her breath swelled and stuttered in her lungs, her breasts peaking under his gaze. His hands twitched at her hips, like he ached to reach up and touch them.
But he looked away, looked up at her. He cupped her face in his hand, stroking a thumb along her jaw, her lips. He took a single curl and ran it all the way through his fingertips, watching intently as it sprang and swayed against her cheek.
“So beautiful, Adeline.”
