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‘Look, Honor—’
‘No, you look—’
‘Can I look, too?’
The low, silken drawl came from the vicinity of the adjoining door behind her. Honor turned slowly and Helen said apologetically, ‘I did try to tell you, sweetie, but you were stuck at full throttle. He’s been there pretty well all along...’
Honor didn’t hear her, or see her shrug of tipsy resignation at Adam before she slipped out the door.
‘That was quite some speech...’
Adam’s hands were in the trouser pockets of the dark blue suit he had worn out of the house that morning. Lounging against the door-jamb, he was making no attempt to hide his blatantly sexual study of her lush, provocatively framed figure. ‘Did you mean it?’
Honor tossed her head, which unbeknown to her had an interesting flow-on effect down the rest of her body. ‘What do you think?’
His eyes were pure gold and dead sober. ‘I think you’re a sinfully attractive woman.’
She was disappointed in him. She glared proudly. ‘You don’t have to lie to me—’
‘You attract me, therefore you must be attractive,’ he pointed out with seductive logic, taking his hands out of his pockets as he shouldered off the edge of the door and sauntered towards her. ‘And in that sexy bit of nothing you’re definitely an invitation to sin. Are you extending that invitation to me tonight, darling? I do hope so, because I have every intention of accepting...’
She stared at him, half hypnotised by the frank appreciation of his words and the glitter of sensuous determination in his eyes. He looked down, smoothing his hands over the warm upper swells of her breasts where they were lifted and separated by the soft boning of the basque-style bodice. Then his fingers traced down the narrow strip of skin revealed by the lacing to her indented navel, where he inserted his thumb and withdrew it, and repeated the action, stretching the tiny, shallow cavity with a series of wickedly suggestive thrusts that flooded her womb with warmth.
Much as she would have liked to melt, she couldn’t, she wouldn’t. ‘About Helen...’ she forced herself to say.
‘Apart from drinking a glass or two more than she should have, your sister behaved impeccably—and so did I. She is an interesting woman, but not my type. You are. So I asked her all about you and she told me. At length. She told me all about you from the day you disrupted her tranquil, self-centred, childish existence by arriving home a squalling, chubby-cheeked cherub in her mother’s arms to your present, quiet, sedate self. But you don’t look anything like a cherub tonight and you certainly look anything but sedate...’
His voice drifted down an octave as he watched his finger trace the tiny bow that fastened the lacing between her breasts. ‘Why wouldn’t you look at me when you introduced Helen this morning?’ He lifted one end of the bow on the pad of his finger.
She didn’t realise he had been aware of her rigid defensiveness. ‘Because I knew what I would see...’
‘Did you? Or were just so afraid of what you might see, you preferred not to look at all...?’
Honor was finding it hard to breathe. If he played with that end of the bow for much longer it would...
It unravelled with a little rush.
‘Oh,’ he said softly, with mock-dismay. ‘Look what’s happened. What shall I do now?’
‘What do you want to do?’ asked Honor shakily, feeling that the world had shifted on its axis for the second time today.
‘I want to lay you down and make sweet, slow love to you for what’s left of the night...’
‘Oh.’ His passionate simplicity stole even more breath from her throat. She cleared it awkwardly, and said nothing, wondering belatedly whether the exotic boldness of her lingerie had badly misled him as to her experience.
He took her hand and backed away, leading her gently into his room, but instead of drawing her into his arms immediately he asked curiously, ‘Why wait until tonight to deliver that lecture to Helen? Why didn’t you say something this morning?’
‘I—is that what I was supposed to do?’ Honor asked, a little trill of pleasure skipping along her nerves as Adam slowly loosened his tie and took it off. Then he removed his jacket and his pale blue shirt, never taking his eyes off her flushed face. ‘Did you want me to act like a jealous bitch?’
‘Why not—you were, weren’t you?’
As she shifted her head nervously, her eyes caught the light, their colour intensifying. His hands paused on his belt-buckle.
‘Very green-eyed,’ he confirmed in a low husk of amusement. ‘You disguised it very well at the time; I thought you didn’t care or you would have called my bluff and invited yourself along, so that I’d have a chance to show you that she leaves me cold. I would have loved some indication that you were prepared to fight for me. There’s nothing wrong with being jealous of a lover. After all, I’m jealous...’
Honor’s lips parted in surprise. ‘Of what?’
‘Of this...’ He ran his hand caressingly up the front of the teddy to where her breasts crowded the silk. ‘Of everything you wear next to your skin. That’s where I want to be. And I’m jealous of Helen and all the other people who know more about you than I do—especially the men...’ He boldly stripped his belt from his waist and lowered his zip before pulling her close and shuddering. ‘Touch me, Honor. Put your hands on my chest...’
