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“Spoken like an innocent who has never made love.”
She bristled. “I know that I might get with child. I’m not an idiot. I know, too, that women can take precautions against it. Pennyroyal and suchlike.”
“You mustn’t take that, it’s a poison,” he said patiently. “And whatever anyone says, those precautions don’t always work. I’d pull out before I spilled, which is as reliable a method as I know. But it’s not that you might poison yourself. Or even get into a delicate condition…” He tailed off and looked away.
“What?”
He heaved a sigh before he met her gaze again. “It’s that making love changes a relationship. More than a kiss, or even some pleasure taken and received. The act of joining is something different when both parties want it. It’s sometimes called amorous congress, and the meeting of two bodies can lead to the joining of souls, or minds, if you will. Not always. But… it can be.”
He’d obviously had that with some other person, a joining of souls, and the envy bit at her like a shard of ice. “It isn’t always?”
“It might be nothing. But in my experience, it’s something. For me, anyway. We won’t just be friends anymore, we’ll be lovers. It changes things.”
“You won’t do it.” Disappointment congealed in her limbs. That snapped the hope he’d be persuaded another night.
He bit his lip and regarded her. “I didn’t say that.”
“You will?”
“Not tonight. We can do something else tonight, that I hope you’ll like.” He turned away and went to the chaise in front of the fire, reclining and resting his head on his hand, still watching her intently.
That was intriguing. “Tell me.”
“I’ll show you if you come here and kiss me.”
CHAPTER10
“Is this a test?”she demanded.
His delighted laughter was low and deep and smooth. “Not in the slightest. Only that I want us both to know that you took this step. That I might have laid the trap, but you saw it and walked into it all the same.”
The feeling of his gaze on her was hot, despite the cold night. She stumbled into his trap, and he caught her in his arms and dragged her down on top of him.
His mouth found hers, and Gina wondered how she’d managed her whole life without being kissed by him. His kiss was like music variations, endlessly the same and yet different. Each stroke of his lips on hers, a slow wet slide then a deeper, more passionate press, made her want more. His hands gently explored her back and sides, up to her neck and more slowly down, down, to the dip at the base of her back… Then over her bottom, and to her thighs.
“Gina,” he whispered against her lips. “You are so beautiful.” Then he caught her up in a kiss again, as though he couldn’t bear to miss kissing her for more than a second.
And while she knew that her lady’s maid had touched her thigh when dressing her, and she’d been told she was pretty before, those were as different as chalk and cheese to Emmett right now.
She’d never believed anyone who praised her looks. She knew her face was too angular and her body too slim to be considered lovely. But the way Emmett said the words and touched her in deliberate strokes made her heart jump. Maybe, to him, she was beautiful.
It was only when she felt the cool of the nighttime air on her skin that she realized he was pulling up her nightgown. Knowing she ought to stop him and wanting to were very different impulses. His questing fingertips left a trail of warm shivers.
His kiss shifted to her cheek, her jawline, her neck. Places she hadn’t thought of as being for kissing, but when Emmett did it, her body responded without her volition, opening to ease into his touch. A slight tug and the bow of her nightgown released, and the neckline opened up as Emmett kissed across and down at a lazy pace, as though they had all night.
It vaguely occurred to her that she also wanted to see him, and touch him, but the spell he was weaving, the feel of being touched so reverently by him, was intoxicating. The stubble of his jaw scraped at the tender skin of her breast. His hand under her nightgown cupped her sex at the same moment his mouth found her nipple and she gasped and writhed.
“Gina?” He stilled. “Was that good shock or bad shock?”
A squirming, heated feeling had melted between her legs. Her breasts were almost tingling with the need for more.
“Good,” she said, in a voice not entirely steady or her own. “Good shock.”
The rumble of his chuckle was a physical sensation rather than a sound.
It had never occurred to her to touch her breasts, and that was a travesty. Her nipples beneath his hand and mouth shook pleasure all the way to her quim.
“Lie back,” he commanded in a low, rough voice as he knelt at her feet.
