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Her glare told him she wished him dead and gone. He did not understand, until he saw what she had done.
She had removed two hairpins and dropped them onto the carpet. Her careful coiffure was coming loose.
Guy’s fingers fumbled to grip the carved wood of the sideboard behind him.
Again, she tugged out a pin and dropped it on the floor. More hair tumbled free, and from her eyes came another killing look.
That glare! A lesser man would quail and quiver, and hide under the furniture like a dog in a thunderstorm. Guy was not a lesser man. Guy was a man who wanted to see Arabella Larke’s hair, and would weather any number of storms to do so.
“A few more,” he said, his voice rough and raw, “and it might be worth my while to get down on my knees to pick them up.”
Not a glare this time, but something…inviting? He yearned to touch her for his own pleasure, because he was selfish and greedy that way. But he also yearned to give her whatever she wanted, to show her that she could ask and someone would give.
He wanted her to know that she could askhim, andhewould give.
So he gripped the sideboard and waited. He could wait. At least three more heartbeats he could wait, but his heart was racing, so three heartbeats came too fast, and another pin dropped. Then another and another and the last.
Arabella kept her eyes on him as she ran her fingers over her scalp, lifting her hair, shaking it out, letting it tumble haphazardly over her shoulders and past her ribs. Her features looked softer when framed by all that hair, or maybe she just seemed softer, in the firelight, with that uncertainty in her expression and her lips parted. Her hair would be silken and fragrant, and he would bury his face in it and let it pour over his naked skin…
Their eyes held. His heart pounded. His hands released the wood. His legs carried him across the room. His knees buckled and landed on the rug. The hairpins hid amid the patterns and evaded his suddenly clumsy fingers. He did not mind. He made them both wait, while he gathered up those pins, one by one, and dropped them on the table with a little clatter, one by one. With each pin, he shot her a look; with each look, her eyes grew heavier.
When there were no more pins, he swiveled to where she perched over him, gripping the cushions at her sides. He planted his hands on her knees. Her gaze did not waver. She did not resist when he parted her legs as much as her skirts would allow, and rose as close and tall as he could with his knees still on the rug. Her face was above his, her palms on his shoulders, and he boldly buried his hands in her hair. The scent of orange blossom floated over him, and he raked his fingers through that heavy, silken mass, catching on tangles and sliding on again, bumping carelessly, exquisitely, over her shoulders and breasts.
Her lips were already parted when he touched them with his own.
The tenderness of the caress was startling: the first honest kiss they had shared.
Their mouths touched, parted, hovered a hair’s width apart. Her knuckles were sharp as she twisted her fingers in his dressing gown, and his own hands formed fists in her hair, but by tacit agreement they kept their fury at bay, as they breathed each other in. She pressed her open lips to his and touched his tongue with her own; a sound leaped in his throat. He tugged her bottom lip between his teeth; she answered in kind.
Pulling away, Guy pressed his impatient hands into the top of her thighs. Here, her leg muscles were firm and strong, but her inner thighs would be soft, and how beguiling it was, her mix of strong and soft.
How could she look both uncertain and fierce? How could he feel both tender and rough?
“What is it you want?” he murmured.
“I want… I mean, we can’t, we mustn’t… But I…” She made a sound of frustration at her own intractable mouth.
“We won’t do anything you don’t want to,” he said. “You can leave. Or tell me to leave. We could read a book, or play whist, or simply sit here until we burst into flames. We can do whatever you want, no more, no less. Tell me what you want.”
She said nothing. She pursed her lips. She blinked too fast.
“Arabella? Tell me.”
“I don’t know how to.”
A pained confession, frightened and lost. Oh, Arabella, so commanding and clever, who understood everything except her own self. She terrified men, she had said. The notion seemed to puzzle her, as if she genuinely did not realize that she glared and hissed, which was why men turned tail and ran. Sensible men, anyway.
That confession had cost her something; her demeanor turned cool. If she hid behind her pride, he would lose her as surely as if he walked out the door.
“I remember how you liked to be touched,” he murmured.
She closed her eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath. Guy clenched his fists so tightly his fingers ached.
“Yes.” She released the word on a sigh. “Yes.” Her eyes snapped open, stormy with longing and fear, passion and hope. “But the risks of… We can’t…”
“We won’t.”
He waited. She said nothing.
