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Her attention was back on his body, lingering at his hands at the waist of his trousers. She swallowed. “Trousers make it less urgent?”
He gave a little, humorless huff of laughter, the hard length of him protesting the garment in question. “They help.”
That little sound again—the one that suggested she was considering the information and had not yet made up her mind how to proceed.
Proceed, Adelaide, he willed.
Her gaze lingered over his torso. “You’ve a wicked bruise. More than one.”
He didn’t take his attention from her. “They’re fine.”
“They’re not,” she said. “You might have broken something.”
“I haven’t.” Even if he had, he wouldn’t have admitted it. Wouldn’t have risked her stopping before they began.
“How would you know?” she asked, and the question had a bit of wildness in it. She was frustrated. Unsettled. Uncertain. Out of control. She didn’t like that, which Henry understood.
“Adelaide,” he assured her. “I shall mend.”
She met his gaze. “You’re sure?”
“No dead duke on your hands today, love.”
She gave a little laugh at that, and he warmed at the sound, before going hot at her next words. “Then I think you should tell me about your game.”
Yes.“We discover what you like.”
Her eyes went wide as saucers. “What I like?”
The squeak in the words was more appealing than it should be. “Is it so foreign a concept?”
“No,” she replied, the word dragged out so he didn’t quite believe it. “But... no one has ever... that is... I’ve never really... I don’t...”
“Miss Frampton,” he teased. “Imagine my surprise that it is possible to render you speechless.”
Her brows shot together. “I am not speechless.”
Henry reached for her then, the mad, mad world beyond the room fading away as he slipped one hand around the back of her neck, his thumb settling to the line of her jaw and tilting her face up to his as he closed the distance between them. “Then I must do a better job of it.”
The chit opened her mouth to argue and he stole the words from her in a slow, sinful kiss that had them both breathing heavily when it ended. “The fact that no one has ever asked you what you like is an unforgivable wrong. I intend to see it righted.”
“I thought you didn’t like kissing me.”
He froze. He’d surely misheard. “What?” Her gaze flickered away, past his shoulder. He leaned into her view. “No. Don’t do that. What did you say?”
“You...” She hesitated, and he forced himself to be patient. “You said I wasn’t worth kissing.”
What in...“When did I say that?”
“Last night.”
“I most certainly didnot.” He was affronted by the very idea.
“Well, you apologized for it.” He watched her as those beautiful brown eyes turned downward, between them. To his chest. Christ, the woman had lashes that would wreck a man.
Not that Henry had ever given much thought to eyelashes.
Back to the matter at hand, however. “I apologized because it wasn’t gentlemanly,” he said. “It wasn’t the time. You were being chased, and I took advantage of you.”
