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“Lass, you’re complicating matters.”
This time, Mr. Robertson moved deliberately, giving her every chance to evade his touch.
Yet she didn’t move away as he caressed her hand. She held her breath, closing her eyes like someone facing the glowing sun after an interminable winter.
Shivers exploded up her arm, jolting her. With a muffled cry, she pulled her hand back, breasts lifting with each small pant.
“Clara,” he spoke intimately, his low, deep timbre invading her world, “will you invite me to stay, or do you prefer that we go to my house? Have we privacy here?”
The shock of hearing him speak her Christian name without an honorific combined with her outrage at his questions. “You forget yourself, sir!”
“No, you forget you’re not with one of the milksops you’re accustomed to. I wouldn’t know how to pretend that I don’t want you as much as I do.”
Since the first time he had looked upon her in her brother’s library, Mr. Robertson took no gentlemanly measures to hide his awareness of her as a woman. She’d thought it part of his roughness, that he was so brazen and free of convention he simply showed his desire, even as he called on her to discuss blackmail.
Now, however, he seemed only to want…to advance on her.
“What do you want?” she asked simply.
“To do what I’ve wished since the moment I first saw you,” he whispered reverently.
He stepped toward her, and this time Clara didn’t want to stop him.
He carefully but firmly clasped his hands over her hips. The heels of his palms pressed against her hipbones; his fingers rounded and pressed into the soft flesh of her sides, toward her derrière.
As if from afar, she registered his grunt of satisfaction. How strange it was that it didn’t sound rude. She felt warm and glowing, as if she’d had a glass of port.
Without any hint of shame, his eyes dropped to her hips, watching his fingertips flex into her through the layers of her skirt, petticoat, chemise, and drawers. He looked as spellbound as she felt.
“What do I want?” he asked in a deep voice. “I wantyou.”
His fingers kneaded the flesh on her hips. Unthinkingly, she pushed back against him for the counterpressure, shuddering in pleasure.
He closed his eyes with what looked like relief.
When he searched her face again, he frowned. “Do you want me?”
Clara’s voice wasn’t working. His question was so direct, so crude!
But he had his answer—she couldn’t stop her hips from arching into his hands.
“Then why do you look so terrified?” Desire and confusion roughened his voice. His hands stilled while he awaited her response.
He’d laid his hands on her body!
A stranger.
And her body had answered with arousal. She backed away again, taking her too close to the fireplace.
Mr. Robertson hoisted her by the arms, moving her away from the danger. The display of physical power took her breath. She was not small or childlike as so many delicate ladies were.
Clara stepped back from him as soon as she could, realizing that she was falling under his spell.
She believed he wanted her—but that wasn’t all. He sought to use her against David!
His heat burned greater than the fire; he was the greater risk.
She girded her resolve, forcing herself to speak. “What is it you’re here to trade? Me, for your silence?”
