Chapter Fifteen
Fifteen
Rose’s belly did a little flip at the agitation in his cultured baritone voice.
If he’d been jealous of the talk with Aaron, that explained a lot.
And she hadn’t even tried to make him jealous, exactly.
She’d just encouraged the talk about Aaron to let Henry know that if he didn’t want her, well, someone else did.
But the way he was looking at her left no doubt in her mind that he absolutely, thoroughly wanted her.
Henry closed the space between them, cupped her cheek, and slanted his lips over hers. She took hold of his forearms, deepening the kiss.
Her backside was still leaning up against the kitchen counter.
His hips pressed into hers, and through their clothes, the hard ridge of his arousal ground against her most sensitive place.
As a reflex, she arched her back, the tight, tingling tips of her breasts pushing against his chest as she invaded his mouth.
He buried his hands in her hair, messing it up.
And she felt very ready to be messed up even more.
He pulled back abruptly, bracing one hand on the wall above her.
Ugh, what now?
“We must not do this,” he said hoarsely. “I will be tempted to go further.” He took a few steps away from her and put his hands on the back of his head.
“But I want to,” she protested, closing the space between them. “Like, way further. All the way, actually.”
He pinned her with an agonized gaze. “It would not be right. I am going back to my time, or so I hope.”
Her spirits sank again. “I know. But…there’s no reason why we can’t do whatever we want to do in the meantime.”
The frown line appeared between his brows. He retreated to the living room, sat down on the sofa, and looked up at her as though making an appeal.
“I understand that such brief assignations are no longer a matter of scandal, but when you did your spell, I believe you were hoping for a husband.”
Rose came over and sank into the chair opposite him. “Um, not necessarily.”
Lie. He was right. She’d just come from a wedding.
Although she hadn’t exactly admitted it to herself, she’d totally been hoping for a husband.
And she hated not being honest about it now.
One of the things she loved about being with him, after all, was that they seemed to be able to be honest with each other.
But she couldn’t tell a man she’d known for less than a week that she was kind of hoping he’d fall in love with her.
She said, “I wouldn’t mind, um, a brief assignation…We call them flings.”
“Flings,” he repeated. “Because you are flinging caution to the wind?”
“Um, maybe.”
She wasn’t going to beg this guy to have a fling with her, though. Maybe he was the best kisser she’d ever met, but still…she wasn’t going to beg. Much. Or more than whatever was a normal-person amount.
Rose picked up her half-full glass of wine. She lifted it to her lips as Henry said, “Even if we were to have amorous congress, you would not be likely to enjoy it.”
Rose sputtered and clapped her hand over her mouth to keep from spitting out her wine. She snatched a tissue from the box on the end table and blotted her mouth with it.
“Why would you say that?” she demanded. She would love it. She was sure of it.
Henry clasped his hands between his knees and looked down at them. In his dress shirt, with the sleeves rolled up, he looked ridiculously sexy.
“I have only bedded my wife. Through many months of experiment and observation—which is not to say that I was not utterly engrossed by every encounter—I learned how to kiss her, taste her, caress her, mount her, and serve her in the ways that brought her the greatest pleasure.”
Rose pressed her fingertips to her lips. Hearing about this man’s sex life with his now-dead wife was turning her on. And that was wrong. But she could just imagine Henry being utterly engrossed by an encounter. Not to mention him doing the caressing, and the mounting, and the serving.
He said crossly, “But I have no doubt that every woman is different.”
Rose suspected he wasn’t really upset about the fact that different women liked different things. Of course they did; they were human beings. He was irritated by the idea that she might not like it enough, and the fact that Henry really wanted to please her was incredibly sweet.
“I don’t think we’re all completely different, though,” she said, scooching forward a little on her chair. “And we could learn about each other. I don’t know everything you like, either.”
He looked away and scoffed. “For me it would obviously be one of the greatest pleasures of my life.”
Her heart skittered—even though he wasn’t smiling, or even looking at her. “What makes you say that?”
“Because you are beautiful, and kind, and vivacious, and you excite my senses in a way that I never dreamed would be possible again.”
Her breath felt a little shaky. “But Henry, it’s the same way with me. I mean, I know we were just fighting, but…usually, being with you is wonderful.”
She was already leaning forward and sitting on the edge of her seat.
She slipped out of it and crawled over the short space to him, then sat back on her heels right next to the sofa, resting her folded arms on the cushion next to him.
He stared down at her, his eyes even darker than usual, his lips parted.
She said, “Anyway, there’s only one way to tell if we would enjoy it.”
“Are you suggesting…an experiment?”
She nodded.
Then in one swoop, he was kneeling on the floor facing her, setting his hands on either side of her throat.
Appropriate, she thought dizzily. This man does have me in a choke hold.
But his hands were gentle as he drew her close and captured her mouth in his own.
He stroked beneath the hinges of her jaw with the pads of his thumbs as his mouth urged hers open.
So good. Didn’t he feel how right this was, too?
This was no experiment. This was a demonstration of some inevitable law of the universe: magnetic pull, combustion.
Every part of her, body and soul, wanted to yield itself to his fierce kiss, and to anything else he wanted.
As one of his hands reached down to cup her breast, she blindly reached out and felt for the buttons of his shirt, undoing one of them.
He pulled away and released her. She opened her eyes.
He was unfastening the rest of the buttons while staring at her, his breaths short and harsh.
In only a few moments, he had it off and pulled off the ribbed undershirt.
His pale torso, with minimal dark body hair, was muscled, with a firm belly.
Rose had to sit back on her heels. Why did he look like that?
He was a pampered, practically royal guy.
She’d thought his main exercise was flipping book pages.
He yanked the hem of her dress to her waist. She unzipped the back zipper, and she heard a seam rip as he pulled it off over her head. She’d never had anyone literally tear her clothes off before.
She was wearing a pink bra with lace trim and matching bikini underwear. Nothing too racy, but Henry’s wondering gaze took her in like he’d just discovered a new…well, heavenly body. It was impossible to feel shy when he was looking at her like that.
He gave a dazed shake of his head. “Forgive me,” he said in a low voice.
“This floor is too hard for someone so soft and lovely.” That was such a sweet way to talk about her softness.
She didn’t know about that, but she had been thinking something along the lines that it was too unswept for a duke.
He took her hand as he got to his feet and helped her up.
“Should we go to the bedroom?” she whispered.
“Yes, if you will have me.”
She nodded, feeling the irrepressible smile on her face, and led him down the hall. Halfway there, he took her hand, pulled her to his side, and kissed her again.
He’s not serious about you, she told herself firmly, even as her knees trembled. It wasn’t the first time she’d told herself not to get too emotionally involved. But the way Henry was looking at her and speaking to her, and the way he kissed her so deeply, seemed really serious.
“It’s, um, this way,” she said with a soft laugh, when she could get a breath.
Once they were in the bedroom, Henry stopped her again by taking hold of her shoulders from behind.
She felt his hands at the back hooks of her bra—he must’ve seen where it fastened.
Maybe she should’ve let him do it, but she was too impatient.
She unfastened the bra and took it off, turning to face him as she let it fall to the floor.
He gently cupped her breasts with his hands, replacing the support that had just given way with an intimate caress.
She looked down as the pads of his thumbs traced the area just around the tight, aching tips, now a deeper shade of rose, without actually touching them.
Her breasts rose and fell with a shaky breath as she put a hand on his strong shoulder for support.
He bent his head and pressed his open mouth reverently to the top of one of her breasts, and the slight scratchiness of his days’ growth of beard abraded her tender flesh as he dragged his mouth to the other.
“Henry,” she pleaded softly, touching his hair, and he dipped lower and flicked his tongue across one of her hard nipples.
She drew in a sharp breath. He sucked it into his mouth, sending currents to her just-kissed lips and down between her legs.
His teeth delicately scraped the oversensitive flesh.
Any rougher would’ve been too much, but this…
this was perfect. An involuntary shiver of pleasure went through her as he released the tingling tip, but stroked it with his thumb and, ever so lightly, stroked the underside of her breast with his fingertips.
Yes. It seemed like that part of her body always wound up being neglected, but she always wanted to be touched there, just like that…