Page 32 of His Sinful Touch

“I don’t know. But I think the artwork on the walls, like the furniture, probably belonged to the original owner and is left here for the tenants.”

“Do you think I knew whoever owned this house? That woman in the painting?”

“I hate to jump to conclusions, but it certainly is possible. Even likely. I don’t remember if Uncle Bellard mentioned it, but Wells is one of those towns that one could go to from Bath.”

She nodded, her face lighting with eagerness. “Come, let’s look upstairs.”

The staircase was a graceful spiral curving up from the foyer. Whoever had owned this house, Alex thought, he liked it. Clean, simple lines and elegant touches. It was the sort of house a man might want to buy...if he was considering buying a house. What might he discover if he were to pose as a possible buyer?

Sabrina went lightly up the steps, Alex following her. The first room was entirely empty, the second held several pieces of furniture, all covered except for the bed. Alex found his eyes straying to the bed. He glanced at Sabrina and found her gazing at him; she turned quickly away. The very air was suddenly fraught with tension.

All he could think of was that moment outside, when he had taken her in his arms and kissed her. The memory of it was enough to send a shiver through him. But he could not repeat it...no matter how much he might want to. He turned abruptly and left the room.

All the rest of the rooms were bedchambers. Alex went through them quickly, the tension in him rising with every room. The chamber at the rear of the house was the largest. It would be the quietest, too, far removed from the street’s traffic, so it was likely the master’s bedroom.

If nothing else, he would have realized that from the size and grandeur of the bed centered on the opposite wall. Rounded posts, carved with spirals, speared upward, capped at the top with a tester covered in dark green velvet. Curtains of the same color hung at each of the posts, so that the occupants of the bed could close them and create a cozy, warm, intimate refuge. The thought of it turned his mouth dry.

He turned and saw Sabrina standing in the doorway, gazing at him. His heart clenched in his chest. She had pushed back her hood after they had come inside, and the dark blue material made a soft backdrop for her wealth of black curls. Alex remembered how those curls had felt in his fingers, and he ached to touch them again. To caress her face. To rediscover the gentle curves of her body. Kissing her earlier had been a grave mistake; it only made him want her more.

“Sabrina...” Alex had no idea what he was going to say.

“Outside, earlier,” she said, coming forward a step. “When you—”

“I shouldn’t have,” he said quickly. “It was wrong of me. I took advantage of the, um, moment.”

A faint smile curved her lips. “It was a moment worth taking advantage of, I think.”

He wondered if she realized how seductive she looked, how much she affected him. He rather thought she did. The thought that she meant to tease him only spurred his hunger more. “Sabrina, you mustn’t... It would be wicked of me to...”

His voice trailed off. The gentlemanly thing for him to do was to walk away. The right thing. He reached out a hand to touch her hair, taking a curl between his fingers. Unable to help himself, he sank his fingers into her hair, tilting her face up. He looked at her for a moment, feeling as if he were teetering on the brink. Sabrina ended his indecision by going up on her tiptoes and kissing him.

Alex was lost after that. He had no idea how long they spent locked together, only that he was drowning in the heat, reveling in the taste of her mouth, the softness of her skin. Boldly his hands roamed her body, pressing her into him, curving around her breasts, sinking his fingertips into the fleshy curve of her buttocks, separated from him by so few clothes.

He kissed her lips, her face, her throat, then shakily unbuttoned the top few buttons of her dress to make his way down to the soft curve of her breast. Slipping his hand inside her chemise, he lifted her breast, cupped it as his mouth closed over her nipple. He felt the trembling in her flesh, but more than that, he felt, deep inside him, her thrumming excitement.

Her fingers slid into his hair, pressing against his skull, and she let out a soft seeking noise, her hips moving against him. Alex felt Sabrina’s desire surge within her, her heat flooding into him. Her passion heightened his own, so that the two of them burned with an ever-brighter flame, until he thought the fire must consume him.

“Sabrina, Sabrina,” he murmured, his lips coming back to hers. He ached to be with her, in her, to lose himself in her. And he knew, with a fierce certainty, that if he let himself go further, he would not be able to stop.

With a low noise of frustration, he broke away. Gripping one of the towering bedposts so hard that his knuckles were white, he waited for the tumult inside him to subside.

“We cannot,” he said in a hoarse voice. “You know we cannot.”

“Alex...”

“No. Sabrina, do not tempt me, please. I am discovering how weak I am. And it would be wrong of me, of us. I will not put you in this position. We don’t know your circumstances. You could be married. Once you recover your memory, you might regret this, regret me, forever.” He drew a shaky breath, surprised at how sharply it pierced him to think of her regretting being with him.

“I know.” Her voice was subdued. “I don’t...want that, either.” She cleared her throat, and he heard the rustle of her skirts as she moved away. “We should finish here and go home—I mean, go to your home.”

He glanced over at her. She was walking around the room, looking at the pictures, hoping for another clue to her identity. He went to the opposite wall, struggling to tamp down his emotions. He’d never felt this way in his life—so driven by need, so frustrated and, yes, even fearful of what he might find.

Sabrina continued to talk as she searched, her voice nervous and light, filling the uneasy silence. He heard her without really listening, too wrapped up in his own roiling thoughts, until suddenly her words stopped.

“Alex?” she said then, her tone odd. “Come look at this.”

He crossed the room in a few quick strides, alarmed. She was staring fixedly at a picture on the wall, a photograph this time. Alex stopped behind her, looking over her shoulder at the group portrait. A man—a little portly, hair graying—stood behind a seated woman. It was the same woman who was in the portrait downstairs, though clearly several years older. Next to her stood a girl, perhaps eleven or twelve years old. Her face was heart-shaped, her eyes large and light-colored, and her hair, held back by a ribbon, was a mass of tumbling black curls.

“Good Lord,” Alex breathed. “That’s you.”