Chapter Twenty #2
His hands stilled, briefly. “You may.”
She swallowed, when his fingers, tracing her muscles with small, feather-light touches, found a particularly sensitive hollow forcing her to fight a losing battle over her back’s tendency to arch.
“Why were you annoyed with me last night?” she finally managed.
To her disappointment, his hands froze again. “Annoyed? With you? I was not.” He shifted, sliding down lower on the bench so that he practically lay on his back with her atop him.
“I know I am too free with my opinions. I know it can be off-putting. I have, of course, heard the complaint, previously.”
“Oh?” He sounded almost bored. Thankfully he resumed his slow, languorous strokes. “From whom, pray tell?”
She drew a shaky breath and tried to concentrate when all she wanted to do was moan.
“My mother-in-law, mostly. She often counseled me to keep my peace. She said that was why…” She broke off, horrified by what she’d nearly confessed thanks to her pleasure-muddled thinking.
But she owed him more of an explanation than that. “She said it was not wifely.”
In fact, she’d said Gwen’s tendencies to take charge unmanned Reggie. She’d insisted if Gwen put forth more femininity, not only in her manner, but in her dress, Reggie, and their marriage, would benefit.
Gwen had tried. She had failed in every respect.
“I’m not sure why it was any of her business,” he murmured.
She decided it best to move on to her next point before his magic hands distracted her completely. “You also inferred that I seemed less than open to any advice for one so free with her own.”
“Forget it. I spoke out of turn.”
“No. You were correct.”
“Gwen.”
“It was not an intentional slight, however.”
“Gwen, you do not owe me an explanation.”
Burgeoning sunlight burned through the seams of the closed drapes and along their edges, illuminating the brocade in Gideon’s waistcoat. She traced the pattern with one fingertip. “I do. Or, perhaps it’s only that I’d like to explain.”
“Go on, then.” His voice sounded strained. She wondered if he was uncomfortable but too polite to say. She peeked up at him through her lashes. She could swear his color had heightened, likely thanks to their combined heat.
His hands ceased moving over her, allowing her thinking to sharpen. “Go on,” he repeated.
“I’ve never had anything of my own, something that belonged to me and me alone.
One could argue everything about me exists as an extension or facet of another.
My mother’s daughter. My husband’s wife.
My father’s assistant.” She paused, trying to put her thoughts into words.
For some reason, she wanted Gideon to understand.
“I want my publishing house so badly, you see, something my own that no one can take from me, and I suppose I feared if I let you dissect the contract—”
“I hardly meant to do that,” he muttered. “If you recall, I merely suggested my solicitor look it over, for your benefit.”
“Yes, well, the point is, if I permitted your help, and if you then determined the contract contained fatal flaws, I feared my dreams might go up in smoke.”
“I understand,” he said after a moment.
“I thought you might,” she said softly.
“Did you?”
She nodded against his chest.
“By the by, far from being put off by your unsolicited advice, I found it most helpful. So much so, I took it.”
She lifted her head, delighted. “Did you?”
He gazed at her with slumberous, unblinking eyes.
Cool air whispered over her back as he withdrew one of his hands from beneath the blanket to smooth a lock of her hair behind one ear with a lingering touch.
“Yes. Before we departed, I arranged to have word sent to the runner I hired, instructing him to make it clear to one and all I wish to locate Dirk’s family in order that I might help them, and not so that I might rake them over burning coals. ”
She smiled, unable to speak, as a hot rush of unfamiliar feelings flooded her chest and traveled like tentacles of fire throughout her body. Her gaze dropped to his full lips. Full, but not too full.
“Gwen, would you like…Forget it,” he said, his voice a low growl. He clamped his mouth shut and jerked his gaze from hers, then turned so he faced the opposite bench.
It suddenly seemed of vital importance he complete his thought. On impulse, she cupped his cheek to gently guide his face back toward hers.
“Go on,” she urged.
His nostrils flared as he inhaled, long and deep. He shook his head in vehement denial.
And she knew what he’d started to ask. She swallowed. “You want to know if I…” she prodded.
He arched a brow. His large hand at the small of her back applied the merest pressure, bringing their bodies closer, her torso higher.
She shifted, helping the process, shivering as she felt his other hand slide under her loose bun to wrap around the nape of her neck.
His eyes turned molten as if her body’s reaction fueled one of his own.
Why wouldn’t he ask as he had before? She wanted him to, desperately, and was fairly sure he could read that truth in her eyes.
Though his vivid gaze smoldered with pent-up desire, he would not ask, she realized with stunning certainty. If she wanted his kiss, she would have to say the words.
She wanted his kiss like she’d never wanted anything in her life.
“Gideon, would it be all right if I…if we…Will you please kiss me?”