Page 25 of A Very Bellamy Christmas

“Steady on,” the apparition murmured, his voice like something from a dream. If his hands had not been holding her, her knees would have buckled.

No, it could not be!

She jerked one arm free from his grasp and rubbed her eyes. Hard.

But when she took her hand away, the god-like face still loomed over her. It was a face she’d imagined in her dreams more times than she could count.

It was older now—there were lines fanning out from the corner of his eyes and the perfect bone structure seemed more chiseled, as if he had lost weight—but it was undeniably the man of her fantasies: Lord Andrew Derrick, Marquess of Shelton.

“You!”

The blazing blue eyes blinked and his golden-brown brows descended, his perfect features shifting into a mask of perplexity. “Er, I’m sorry, do we know each other?”

Although she should have expected them, his words were like a slap, and she reeled back a step, her head buzzing and her gaze blurry.

He reached out again to steady her.

“Don’t touch me!” she snarled, swatting away his hands.

Shelton jerked back. “I beg your pardon,” he said stiffly. “I thought you were going to faint.”

He was right, she had been feeling faint. Only her fury had revived her.

Stacia held his gaze, glaring with all her might, as if she could force recognition into his beautiful eyes.

But he just regarded her with a look of confusion that was quickly turning to an expression of impatience—as if he had somewhere more important, and interesting, to go.

How…lowering.

“You are not hurt?” he asked brusquely, glancing down the hallway, his attention already somewhere else.

Some things never changed.

“Of course I am not hurt,” she retorted, ashamed when the misery that was crippling her leaked into her voice.

Not that Shelton noticed. He gave her a smile that was perfunctory at best and dismissive at worst. It was a smile she was more than familiar with, the sort she had received often. Only a few times had a man looked past her short stature and unfashionable coiffure to the person within.

And Shelton was not one of those men.

Without a second glance, he strode off down the corridor.

Naturally, Stacia turned to watch him, loathing herself as she did so. The familiar hunger—which she had foolishly believed she’d rooted out of her system—gnawed away at her as savagely as ever.

She shook her head in wonder. He was just so unspeakably gorgeous, even walking away. He moved with the athletic grace of a man entirely at home in his body. And why shouldn’t he be? Who wouldn’t like to occupy that body?”

Stacia blushed at the thought, even though nobody else was there and they would not have heard if they had been.

They might not have heard your thoughts, but they would have seen the naked lust on your face clearly enough.

Stacia wanted to argue against the truth of the accusation. After all, what in the world did she know about lust? She who had never even kissed a man. And yet as hazy as her desire for him might be, there was no denying the visceral sensation in her belly—and lower—as she all but consumed him with her eyes.

You know exactly what those excruciating, unladylike urges you feel in the middle of the night are. And we both know what you’ve done to find relief from—

“Shut. Up,” she said. And then glanced around to make sure nobody had overheard her.

Stacia might not know what it was she wanted from Shelton, but there was no doubt that she wanted him.

Disgusted with herself, she forcibly pushed and shoved Shelton’s image out of her mind and collected her rattled wits. Why was she still slack-jawed, standing in the middle of the corridor while her employer was probably fuming about her lengthy absence?