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The words to ask him about his experiences were on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t bring herself to speak. It was as if she were under some spell. His spell.
Again he was beside her; she could feel the warmth and pressure of his hip pressed against hers. As he drew the cloth over her shin to her other knee, she caught his eye. Suddenly her heart was pounding, not from fear this time, but something else.
Blake leaned over her, his hand on her knee…perhaps even a little higher. “You’ve intrigued me, you know,” he said, his voice barely audible. “From the day you showed up in my parlor claiming you were Wessex’s daughter.”
“But I am Lord Edward Wessex’s—”
“Hush, Sapphire, I’m speaking. Surely you know it’s rude to interrupt when another is speaking. No doubt the nuns on that tropical island of yours reprimanded you on more than one occasion for that.”
She pushed her elbows into the soft tick, propping herself up. “How did you know—”
“You’re doing it again, Sapphire. I’m still speaking.”
She lay back again, pressing her lips together. He leaned so close to her that she could feel his breath on her cheek. “Fortune hunter or not—”
“I’m not—”
This time he laid his free hand on her mouth to silence her. “Do I have to gag you to be permitted to speak?”
She felt her eyes widen and suddenly she was a little fearful of him as she remembered his rage on the street. She shook her head.
“Good.” He slid his hand off her mouth and let it rest on the pillow just beside her cheek.
“What I wanted to say was that you’ve intrigued me and that…against my will, I find myself desiring you, as I stated before in the garden.” He smiled. “You’re really not my type, you know.”
“Mr. Thixton, I—”
This time he silenced her with his mouth. Sapphire had opened her own in protest and he had covered it with his, pushing her down into the bed.
“Sapphire,” he said as he raised his lips from hers to draw them across her cheek.
It came out more as a groan, sending a shiver of apprehension through her body.
He drew his mouth to her earlobe and whispered again. “Sapphire, a jewel of a name. So sweet…”
She heard herself moan as he raised his hand higher up her leg. He pushed back the tattered fabric of her gown to expose her bare breasts.
I mustn’t…I can’t let this happen, she thought somewhere in the back of her mind. And yet there was a part of her…that wanted him the way that she knew he wanted her.
Before she could say anything, his mouth found the hollow between her breasts and her breath caught in her throat.
Blake covered her breasts with his hot kisses, and every time she opened her mouth to protest, he kissed them again, stifling the words she tried to utter.
Blake slowly slid down over her, and by the time he traced the taut buds of her nipples, she felt drained, unable to stop him. Her pulse was racing, her breath coming in short bursts. She whimpered each time he covered her nipple with his mouth and tugged.
And all the while his hand rose farther beneath her silk skirts and petticoats. The cool linen cloth was gone—where she didn’t know. Now it was only his hand, hot, seeking…
She turned her head one way and then the other, her eyes shut. She wanted to tell him no, but as he moved his hand farther up the tender inside of her thigh, she couldn’t find the strength.
; She was so confused. She hated this man, and yet she wanted him…the way she now understood Angelique wanted men. A hot twist in her stomach seemed to be flaring outward, burning her, making her writhe beneath him.
Again, he was kissing her breasts, her neck, her mouth. He barely had to tug at the fabric of the tattered silk gown for it to fall away. His fingers found the laces of her stays, and then they were gone, too. She watched through half-closed eyes as he sat up and slipped her gown off, first pushing it down to her waist, then carefully pulling it over her feet. She shivered as she felt the fabric slip away, her last defense with it. He threw it carelessly to the floor; it didn’t matter, she thought dreamily. It was ruined anyway.
There was nothing between them now but her thin white chemise and eyelet drawers. When he found her mouth again, his hand caressing her breast, his thumb gliding over her sensitive nipple, she kissed him back. Against all reason, all logic, Sapphire kissed him back, aching to know what this was between a man and a woman.
Still completely dressed, Blake stretched out over her, pinning her to the bed, one leg thrown possessively over her. She felt his mouth on her neck, her breasts, her belly, and even through the fabric it burned a fiery path.
