Chapter Fourteen #2
A brilliant smile curved her lips. “Correct. I’ve always been a butter fiend.” A moment later, her smile faded and her cheeks went pink. She gazed down at herself as if finding flaws. “Is it my…er…that is…never mind.” A self-conscious laugh spilled from her lips.
He could read her so easily. She thought her beautiful, utterly feminine figure had led him to presuppose she enjoyed the rich taste of butter—as if her body could be any more alluring.
“Darling,” he murmured in all seriousness. “You’re perfect. No, you, are,” he insisted, when she shook her head in denial. “I don’t know why I said it other than I sort of knew. Of course, you would enjoy butter. It’s delicious, somewhat decadent, and you clearly have a taste for the finer things.”
Her face glowed. Her silvery eyes went soft with a powerful emotion that shot dangerous tentacles of warmth throughout his entire body. “In addition to butter,” he said, once more in a playful tone, “you have a preferred drink.” He considered. “Not lemonade. Ginger beer.”
Her lush lips parted. “Teddy, are you teasing me? Do you actually remember everything and are just having a bit of sport with me, now?”
He shook his head, laughing. “I’m right again?”
She nodded, eyes bright with happiness—for him.
“Hm. I think every time I get something right there should be some sort of reward.”
She laughed. “You would think that, you devil. Very well. What reward shall you claim? An extra glass of after-dinner port? Your favorite biscuits?”
That got his attention. “I have a favorite biscuit?”
She nodded, grinning ear to ear. “Butter biscuits.”
He laughed aloud. “You’re joking.”
“I’m not.”
Unable to resist a moment longer, he took one of her hands in his. “I’ll pass on the port. A kiss, I think, for every time I guess correctly.”
After a small hesitation, she replied. “Fair enough.” A new, husky quality laced her voice, and sent a shiver straight up his spine.
“I think I should get credit for my first two, don’t you?”
She went very still. “No,” she replied.
Her answer should have doused his ardor. No such luck. “Very well. Go on with your tale.”
“It was a beautiful day. Between that and the plentiful butter and you, being all that was charming and kind, I was having a hard time holding on to my previous pique.”
He held up his free hand—his other had not relinquished hers. “A moment. Why were you vexed to begin with?”
She opened her mouth to reply.
He shot one finger in the air. “I…forgot your birthday?” he asked with a hopeful note.
She shook her head.
He curved his mouth into a pout, which only caused the smile playing at hers to blossom.
“You’d helped yourself to one of my notebooks,” she said. “And read something I’d written about you.”
He hooted with laughter. He was having a jolly good time, he realized. Even minus the kissing. His wife, it seemed, was grand company. “Something that told me how much you fancied me?”
She sniffed.
“Have I just earned a kiss?”
She swallowed. Without another word, she leaned toward him, and pressed a tender kiss to one corner of his mouth.
More, his insides screamed. So much more.
She straightened and went on as if no break had ensued. “We went out on the skiff, the two of us, alone. There wasn’t room for the others. It wasn’t exactly improper, as we were in plain view of anyone present who might care to look our way.”
“How boring,” he drawled and enjoyed the resulting splash of color on her cheeks. “So much more fun to be naughty.”
“At least I thought we would remain in view,” she added softly.
“Now we’re getting somewhere.”
“You rowed us into a shallow, shady alcove, hidden by the tallest yew trees you’ve ever seen, and that’s when you told me why you’d read my private papers.”
He waited, watching her expressive face, the dart of her pink-tipped tongue as it moistened her enticing lips. He wished he had a guess that might earn him another forfeit, but right now, his brain seemed disinclined to function.
“You said you wanted to know how I felt about you before you revealed your own desires. It seems you’d nursed a tendre for me.”
“No surprised there,” he said, and allowed his gaze to roam over her.
“You asked me if I would be opposed to a courtship, and when I said no, I wouldn’t be, you—”
“Sealed our agreement with a kiss,” he stated. Because that’s precisely what he would’ve done.
Heat blazed in her eyes.
This time, when she leaned toward him, he was ready. She pressed another of those sweet, lingering kisses to the opposite corner of his mouth, and when she went to straighten, he reached both his hands to cup her cheeks.
“No, wait, please,” he heard himself plead.
Her tiny gasp sent a shock of desire straight to his groin.
“Oh, Teddy, yes,” she all but moaned, twining her arms around his neck. She feathered kisses over his face, her fingers weaving into his hair to knead like a lusty kitten.
Dear God. The sweetness of her. The unabashed outpouring of this woman’s heart stole his breath. Made his chest ache with exquisite longing.
His arms went around her, pulling her close, anchoring her to him as he fell onto his back, legs hanging over the sofa’s edge.
Then his mouth took hers, savoring, tasting, nuzzling, nibbling as everything in him went hot and tight with need.
She tasted divine. Like nectar from heaven, and he did not think he could ever get enough of her lips under his.
And the feel of her. Her softness against his hardness. She was every man’s dream. Lush and supple and so inviting. His hands roamed her backside, squeezing, caressing, molding her to him. It wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough.
With a groan he tore his mouth from hers and pressed his face into her neck. “Georgina, God help me, I want you. I always want you. I tried to stay away, for your sake, but—”
“For my sake?” she demanded, wriggling her way up to her elbows to peer down at him.
“Yes. You want an annulment. At first I thought it was because I’m no longer the man you thought you married—”
“No, Teddy, no,” she said with vehemence and cupped his face between her palms. Her eyes bored into his, fierce and determined. “Your condition is not your fault and anyone who would leave you over it doesn’t deserve you.”
“I said I thought that. I don’t any longer. Any fool can see you’re no shallow title seeker. So, I realize I must’ve done something. Something god-awful to cause you to turn from me.”
She choked on a laugh that was half sob. “No, Teddy. You mustn’t think that. It’s not true.”
“Then, why? I can see you want me, and Lord knows I burn for you like a man on fire. So why do you insist on keeping this terrible distance between us?”
She ducked her face into his shoulder.
“Please, Georgina. I have to know.”
“It’s because…you don’t remember.”
“I beg your pardon?”
She lifted her head and met his eyes. Misery burned in the silver depths of her eyes. “You don’t remember me and you don’t remember our ceremony, so it’s almost as if…as if we never married at all.”
“But we are.”
“But you don’t remember. And…I don’t know if your feelings are the same.”
He clenched his jaw to keep from cursing. “Are you saying you do, or do not, want an annulment?”
“I…don’t know.”