Page 58 of Again, Scoundrel

“Has no one ever told you that it is impolite to stare?” came his low voice.

She startled at the sound of him and turned to find Alistair Crawford very much awake. His eyes were on her, lidded and heavy, but the corner of his mouth was quirked up in a smile, and he had that one revealing eyebrow quizzically raised.

Violet raised herself upright and stepped away from him, her cheeks blazing red. She gripped the blanket around her body hard.

“It’s too late for propriety now,” Alistair said, bringing his hands up lazily to rest behind his head.

His cock had grown long and hard and stiff under her gaze. It looked now as she had imagined it to look when she’d felt it before.

She tilted her chin up defiantly to cover her embarrassment and crossed her arms in front of her.

“I was just about to wake you,” she said. “You’d fallen asleep, and I’m sure the water grew cold.”

“It is a bit tepid. I should get out.”

He put his muscled arms on the sides of the copper tub and lifted himself to standing in one graceful movement until he was brazenly facing her. “Hand me a towel, would you?”

Violet lifted her chin even further. She would not be ashamed or intimidated or any other thing by the sight of his arousal in front of her. She took up a towel and stepped forward.

“Lord Alistair,” she said, primly, “I am a student of medicine. It’s no use trying to scare me. I should like to check on Jess now, if you can please tell me where to find her.”

He laughed, deep and low, before dropping into a whisper. “I’m not trying to scare you, Miss Goodwin. You wanted to look, so I’m giving you the opportunity. Come closer and look your fill.”

“And Jess?”

“Jess is sleeping, with laudanum as ordered. The maid has instructions to wake you immediately should there be any change in her at all.”

He stared at her for a long moment before he said, “there’s nowhere else you need to be except right here in this room, Violet. You choose whether you will remain here or not.”

Her feet went toward him, as they always did. Her mind unenthusiastically ordered them to stop but conceded quickly when they disobeyed. Alistair Crawford was just a man, after all, her mind reasoned. An unclothed, deeply aroused man, but just a man. She needn’t be afraid of him. She needn’t shy away from his body. Bodies were her specialty. They were what she understood.

She took another step and tried to ignore the giggly, nervous feeling that was rising into her chest from her belly, as if someone had let loose a barrowful of butterflies there. She was just inches from him now, one hand holding the blanket tightly around her while the other clutched his towel.

As she came nearer, she allowed herself to stare as she desperately wanted to. His cock quivered slightly under her gaze, causing a flush to rise up and color her cheeks.

“The towel,” he said, his voice going even lower still.

He reached out his hand for it, and when she extended her own, he brushed his fingers along the tender, soft skin of her inner wrist.

She had not realized how such an inconsequential place on her body as the inside of her wrist could contain the multitude of sensations she now experienced. She practically shivered from the pronounced tingling of her skin.

“Lord Alistair,” she whispered, raising her eyes to meet his. “Your towel.”

“Thank you, Miss Goodwin,” he answered, as if their formality could do anything to dampen how husky his voice had grown or how his eyelids had hooded with desire.

“I’ll say one more time that you are welcome to leave me here on my own. Or,” and here he rubbed his thumb across the inside of her wrist once more, lighting up her skin again and causing her entire body to burn, “you are welcome to stay.”

She took another step forward in answer, so close now that his member was almost touching her. She watched the head of it turn a deep shade of purple and a single bead of liquid spill from its tip.

“Why, I wonder, do you keep asking?” She reached for him gently, and he shuddered under her touch. “Does a part of you wish me to leave?”

“Christ, no.” He groaned as her fingertips trailed up the hard length of him from his groin to his tip. “Every part of me wants to be inside you.”

But he caught a hold of her wrist before she could touch him again. “Which means you must stop that, or we’ll be over before we begin.”

He stepped out of the tub and toward her, water streaming off his body. And then he ran a damp finger along her cheek and down the side of her neck.

“You do understand,” he said, “what this will mean?”