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“I am not cold.” The words were a bare whisper on her lips. It was the opposite. She was burning up with a hunger she did not understand. He pushed away from her, and Charity scrambled to her feet. His back was to her, his shoulders rigid with tension. Suddenly she could not bear it if he felt regret at bringing her to the roof and kissing her. If he offered another apology, she might very well plant him a facer.
“Charity—” he began.
“Do not say it,” she said hoarsely.
He faced her, and she noted how the water dripped from his midnight black hair down his forehead. “You have no notion of what I plan to say.”
“I do not want you to be sorry for kissing me!”
A harsh flash of desire swept across his face before his expression shuttered. He took one step, and he was there, flushed against her body. She stood there, her heart stuttering, feeling the heat of him surrounding her in its entirety, chasing away the chill of the night and the rain.
Ethan tugged her against him until she perched atop her toes and caught his mouth with hers. Charity felt stunned. Desire licked low in her belly and clawed up inside with a fierceness that had her shaking in the cage of his arms. This kiss was different…it was raw and possessive, a statement of how much he wanted her. With a soft whimper of need, she kissed him back with aching eagerness. As his mouth owned hers, stoking sensations atop sensations, she knew that at this moment, she was altered.
“How did you know I have thirteen freckles,” she murmured against his mouth, wanting him to admit that she must have arrested his attention whole heartedly.
“Fourteen now.” He brushed his lips right against the bottom part of her lip. “It is forming right here.” He kissed it again and Heat seemed to flow through her and pooled in that secret place between her thigh. The ache was deep and strange but also incredible.
“You’ll catch your death if we remain outside any longer.”
She allowed him to help her down the ladder in silence. By the time she entered the manor, Charity was shivering. Without bidding him good night, she ran lightly up the stairs and into her bedchamber.
Several minutes later, her hair dried, Charity was safely snuggled under the thick coverlet in her bed. She lay wide awake and stared at the ceiling. She gingerly pressed her fingers against her thoroughly kissed mouth, which still held the taste of him…the feel…
As she snuggled down the sleep, Charity recalled the stunned look in his eyes when they had parted. She had unsettled him, and it felt absurdly wonderful.
Am I about to embark upon an affair?
Fright stole her breath for precious seconds at the provokingly carnal thought, then she sat up in bed. Why not? She was a woman of five and twenty who would soon be living on her own. Marriage did not seem to be in the cards for her, and if she were honest, Charity had stopped longing for romantic courtship and happy ever after about three years ago.
An affair with the earl. She dropped onto the bed, staring at the dark ceiling. “Oh, Charity, you are not thinking straight,” she whispered in the stillness of the chamber. “Do not let passion muddle your good senses.”
Then she thought about the freedom and passion Theo had said she found in her husband’s arms long before she knew he would marry her. “It had felt right,” Theo had said, “it had felt necessary.” And those same longings claimed Charity now even though at the time she had not understood this passion and want her friend spoke of. Would Ethan relive their kiss as well? Would it also torment him so that he lost sleep?
God, she hoped so.
