10. Chapter 10 #3
“You’re freezing,” he half accused. “You should go back inside before you catch your death.”
“I could,” she drew out. “But shouldn’t I make a wish or something? On the star?”
He huffed out a laugh. “If you like.”
She closed her eyes, then, and unable to resist, he stared at her face in helpless fascination. She was so damned riveting. All her expressions. Her fire. Her unexpected sweetness. Her secrets.
At the moment, she looked quite serious, formulating her wish. He wondered what it was she hoped for.
She opened her eyes and caught him watching her. “Do not even think of asking.”
He snorted.
“What were you doing out here, in the cold?” she demanded a moment later. “Babette mentioned something to do with you ‘playing with your apparatus’.”
He coughed into his fist, staunching a laugh.
“Perhaps you should heed your own advice, and cease loitering in the cold.”
“No doubt,” he murmured, aware what he should do was step aside and clear a path for her to go inside, as the biggest obstacle to her going was his body, blocking her egress.
Instead, he stayed where he was. “I have an interest in astronomy. I came out here at dusk, hoping to glimpse a particular light display that manifests, on rare occasions, at this time of year.”
And, to put as much distance between Annabelle and himself as possible.
“Oh? And did you see these lights?”
He shook his head. “But the night is clear after days of dense cloud cover, and I thought to make use of my grandfather’s old scope.”
She turned her head and eyed the telescope as if seeing it for the first time. “Is that it? Your ‘apparatus’?”
His apparatus. Good God. “It is. More aptly, it’s a telescope.”
“Of course,” she murmured, flippantly. “Though I’ve never chanced to look through one.” She sent him a doubtful look, clearly not anticipating he would extend an offer for her to do so now.
He nearly didn’t. He had no business engaging with her, and knew he was playing with fire. Nevertheless. “Would you like to, now?”
A slow, almost shy smile curved her lips. But it was the way her eyes lit with wonder that hit him like a punch to the gut.
She shifted toward it. “Where…how should I…?”
Grasping her shoulders, he guided her into place behind the telescope, then moved in close to position the sight for her.
She pressed her eye to the eyepiece. “I don’t see anything.”
“Nothing at all? Perhaps it’s too magnified. Let me…” He ducked his head to her shoulder and drew the telescope to his own eye to fiddle with the magnification in search of a cluster of stars.
Impatience practically vibrated through her, like a child awaiting her turn at the candy shop counter.
Gawds, she smelled good. He angled his face toward her to draw in one more intoxicating sip. “What is that…fragrance?” he gritted out before he could stymie the inane impulse.
As if he’d startled her, she jerked her head unexpectedly toward him, knocking back the hood of her cloak, grazing her cheek against the tip of his nose, and then disaster occurred, and his lips brushed the corner of hers.
So soft.
She gasped, he groaned, stumbled back, all the while stammering out an awkward apology which summarily died on his lips when he came to a sudden, violent halt, thanks entirely to her hands fisting in the lapels of his coat.
For a timeless moment, she stared up at him as he braced for a thorough set-down. Watching in stupefaction as their breaths, small puffs of white in the frigid night air clashed and melded, it finally dawned on him that she appeared neither angry nor prepared to blast him.
Instead, she looked curious. Her eyes searched his, then dipped to his mouth.
His loins tightened with desperate longing.
He told himself to put a stop to this. To take control. And yet, he stood stock still as one of her fists unfurled, releasing his coat lapel to glide up his chest, higher and higher until her gloved fingers curved around his nape.
He knew what she wanted. Clinging to his sanity with his last vestige of strength, he somehow resisted. “Annabelle, you don’t know what you’re—”
“Please,” she whispered, inching closer and rising up onto her toes. Her body brushed against his, turning the blood in his veins to liquid fire.
“We shouldn’t. It isn’t right,” he choked, grasping her shoulders—to push her away, he told himself even as his hands flexed.
“No one will know,” she argued.
It would be so easy to take what she offered, so easy to give in to his body’s unrelenting clamors for a taste of her. But then what? “Why?” he ground out, trying to ignore his thickening erection.
The tip of her tongue darted out to dampen her lips. God, he wanted to feel those soft petals under his mouth.
“I’ve never been kissed. I’ve never even wanted anyone to try,” she said, the admission coming in a heated rush. “Until now. I…I feel as if I might die if you don’t kiss me.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying. This isn’t a game. Your reputation is at stake—as is mine.”
She gave an almost imperceptible whimper that threatened to buckle his knees.
“Oh, bother,” she muttered. And then she kissed him.