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Precisely.
“Someone better be Goddamned dead,” he growled as he used his forearms to push himself to his feet. Dusting off his hands, he didn’t bother to button his shirt or put on shoes before he stormed, barefoot, to the front door and yanked it open, admitting a frigid gust of wind and…the object of his lecherous desires.
“Is this part of the dream?” he asked aloud, reaching behind him to dig his nails into the nape of his neck.
“May I c-c-come in?” Teeth chattering, lips blue, Annabel Rosewood huddled on his doorstep like some kind of beautiful, homeless waif. She wore an oversized cloak that dwarfed her diminutive frame,
Not a dream, then.
Or maybe it was.
Ezra stared at her in shocked silence for the span of a heartbeat, then immediately opened the door wider and ushered her inside. “Yes, come in. Come in.” Her cloak fell open when she turned in a half circle, showing a plum dress with low décolletage that provided the perfect frame for her gorgeous breasts. “Come all you’d like, really.”
“My f-f-face is u-u-up here,” she stuttered.
“So it is,” he said agreeably, but his roguish grin faded when he touched her hand…and found her skin to be as cold as ice. “You’re frozen. There’s a fire in the parlor, I just need to add a few logs. This way–”
“It’s fine. I’m f-f-fine.” She grappled with the edges of her cloak and yanked the garment closed, hunching her neck like a turtle hiding in its shell until only her eyes, a brilliant, vivid blue against pale ivory skin, were visible. “I am sorry to bother you at such an inconvenient time, and I won’t be here long. I j-j-just wanted to s-s-say–”
To be honest, Ezra didn’t know what came over him.
Maybe he’d hit his head when he took a tumble off the chaise lounge.
Maybe he was still drunk from the brandy he’d imbibed earlier in the evening.
Or maybe…maybe for the first time in his self-centered life, he cared for someone more than he cared for himself.
Whatever the reason, Ezra scooped Annabel off her feet and carried her–quite handedly, he was proud to say, despite her sputtering and overall flailing–into the parlor.
“Put medown,” she screeched, kicking her legs.
Wincing slightly (who would have guessed such a stunning creature was capable of sounding like a drowning crow), he ignored her protests and carried her straight to the hearth where the remnants of a fire still smoldered. Realizing he had nothing for her to sit on (furniture was arriving after the holidays), he set her down, ordered her to remain put, and pulled the cushions off the chaise lounge.
“Now sit,” he said, placing the largest cushion on the floor directly in front of the fire and a pillow beside it, “while I toss on some more kindling.”
She wanted to argue with him. He saw the flash of defiance in her gaze, and felt his abdomen tighten in response. But the heat from the flames was too tempting to resist, and on a resigned sigh, she collapsed onto the cushion, bringing her knees to her chest.
He felt her watching him as he went to the wood box and selected a few pieces of large, dry oak left over from the previous residents. Orange sparks showered the air when he tossed the logs on, and instinctively he moved in front of her, shielding her delicate skin with his body.
“The fire doesn’t work when you stand in front of it,” she said after a moment, and when he turned around and saw that she’d removed her scarf and untied her cloak, he had to adamantly disagree.
The fire was working just fine.
In fact, it wastoohot...for surely that was the reason he was burning, heat licking across his skin as if he were standing under the sign on a blistering day in the middle of August instead of in a drafty house while the temperature steadily dropped outside.
Winter?
What winter?
Give him a cool glass of lemonade, because it was damned near scorching.
“I–I’ve neglected to ask what you’re doing here,” he croaked as he stepped to the side, granting her unfettered access to the hearth and granting himself an excellent angle with which to admire her bosom. Not that hewouldsneak a peek at those mounds of creamy white flesh. That’d be terribly ungentlemanly of him.
How convenient, then, that he wasn’t a gentleman.
“I apologize again, Lord Whitmore.” The heat from the fire had put the color back in her cheeks, turning them rosy as strawberries as she peered at him across her shoulder. “I understand this is somewhat unorthodox, but–are you looking at my breasts again?”
“No, why would you say that?” he asked, snapping his gaze up a half second too late.
