Chapter 9 #2
With a hard swallow, she clutched her wrapper against her chest. “I-I believe it now. But surely you understand why I didn’t before.
How could you expect me to believe your assertions when you insist on hiding so much of your past?
Despite all those wildly contradictory rumors, no one ever professed to have fought with you.
There was no public mention of your military career. ”
“That’s how I prefer it. If I’d wanted my war history made public, I would have sent the details to the newspapers upon my return three years ago. I like my privacy. A pity you didn’t feel the need to consult me concerning my wishes in the matter.”
She bristled at his accusing tone. “It’s your own fault I spoke of it. You know quite well that your story about Miss Greenaway begged to be questioned. Besides, I would never have written more about you if you hadn’t assaulted me—”
“Assaulted?” He shoved away from the wall. “You call a mere kiss an assault?”
“It was not a mere kiss to me,” she burst out before she could stop herself. She continued in a more muted tone. “If it had been, I wouldn’t have reacted as I did.”
That seemed to take him by surprise. His fathomless gaze dropped to her lips and lingered, reminding her of the last time he’d touched them with his. Her mouth tingled, as if it too remembered every moment of that night.
“It was not a mere kiss to me either.” His voice resonated in the dimly lit chamber. “Not in any way.”
An unwarranted thrill shot through her at his words. He didn’t mean them. She knew exactly how sincere he could seem and how easily his sincerity could turn into betrayal. Yet she wanted to believe them.
The air felt thick and close, the space too small to contain them both, though he stood several feet away.
They were alone, more completely alone than they’d been before.
No one knew he was here—not the lady’s maid she’d dismissed earlier or Sara or any of the Worthings’ other visitors and servants.
And she wore only a lace dressing gown, her chemise, and her drawers. She tried to wrap the gown more tightly about her thinly clad body, but short of pinning it up, keeping it closed was impossible.
Worse yet, her actions seemed to draw his attention to it.
Midnight eyes trailed over her, hungry, eager, stripping away her defenses with the deftness of a printer’s knife.
He’d worn that look before, when he’d been inches away with his hands locked on her waist and his lips lowering to her mouth ...
With an unspoken curse, she tore her gaze from his.
He cleared his throat. “Nonetheless,” he continued gruffly as if angry at her for mentioning their kiss, “what I did was insufficient provocation for your tarnishing my reputation not once, but twice.”
“You tarnished my reputation first, that night on the balcony.”
“Not true. Or have you forgotten your first column?”
She groaned. Amazingly, she had. “Our opinions differ as to whether that tarnished your reputation.”
“It drove my fiancée to elope with another man. I’d say that if it didn’t tarnish my reputation, it at least dulled its shine.”
“You got your revenge for it, didn’t you? Subjecting me to your kisses and—”
“Subjecting you—” He approached her, his brow lowering. “Are you trying to claim you didn’t enjoy them?”
“Of course I enjoyed them!” she blurted out. At his pleased look, she added archly, “How could I not? You’re a rake—making women enjoy your kisses is your avocation. But that doesn’t change the fact that they were forced upon me.”
“I am not a rake.” He dragged his fingers through his hair in exasperation.
“If you’d actually researched your spurious columns, you’d know that.
As for forcing you, believe me, if you’d slapped me after the first kiss, I wouldn’t have stayed for a second.
” His gaze narrowed. “But you grabbed my coat to draw me back. You welcomed those kisses, no matter what you claimed later. You lied about our entire encounter to Sara. At least have the good grace to admit it.”
“I did not lie to her,” she protested.
“You told her I’d taken advantage of you.”
“No! She merely ... assumed that you’d done so because ... because—”
“Because you said I went ‘too far.’” Slowly he neared her, eyes glittering like onyx set in silver. “What exactly is ‘too far,’ Felicity?”
She shrank against the dressing table. “I’m sure you know that better than I, given your reputation.”
“My reputation.” He snorted. “I hardly know what it is these days, it’s been so mangled by you and all the gossips. But that doesn’t answer my question. If you didn’t lie, then what did you mean when you told Sara I’d gone ‘too far’?”
He now stood scant inches from her, and though she wanted to flee, she refused to let him see how he intimidated her. Besides, the dressing table at her back prevented it.
Trying to retain some semblance of a spinsterish air, she retorted, “You know what I meant. I meant you kissed me with ... with—” Oh, how did one describe the heart-stopping plunge into passion and sheer intensity of a man’s kiss without sounding like a milksop schoolgirl?
“With great enthusiasm,” she finished lamely.
A half-smile touched his lips. “I won’t deny that.
I’d say we both showed ‘great enthusiasm.’ Yet even the most enthusiastic of kisses wouldn’t have prompted Sara to evict me from her house.
” Without warning, he hooked his arm about her waist, tugging her so close she could see the dark smudge of whiskers along his upper lip.
“So tell me, my deceptive Felicity, what did I do to make her think so ill of me? I swear I don’t remember anything that would shame me. ”
“That’s because nothing shames you!” She dug the heels of her palms into his chest and shoved, which proved utterly pointless and merely made her dressing gown gape open.
“Let go, Ian, or I shall ... shall ...” Her heart sank as she remembered why she couldn’t scream.
“Shall be convinced you’re a blackguard and a scoundrel! ”
His quick burst of laughter echoed in the room. “You’re already convinced of that. Besides, I won’t leave until you demonstrate what ‘too far’ is. Just so I don’t make the same mistake in the future, you understand.”
“In the future?” she squeaked.
“Much as I hope our little skirmishes are over, I know you better than that. So I want to know what’s allowed and what’s not.” Snagging the edge of the dressing gown with two fingers, he peeled it open, his gaze dipping brazenly to examine her chemise.
Her blood quickened, leapt, rushed through her veins.
She should scream that this was definitely not allowed, yet all she could do was fight to drag breath into her lungs.
Then he bent his head to press a hard kiss where her collarbone lay exposed above her chemise.
It was so intimate a caress she strained away, but that threw her off balance so that she fell against the edge of the dressing table, her hands catching at it for support.
He took advantage of her imbalance to catch her wrapper in his fists and push it slowly, sensuously off her shoulders. As it pooled on the dressing table behind her, he wound a lock of her hair around his finger, then kissed it.
“Don’t,” she whispered hoarsely. A heady pleasure already raced through her traitorous body. She fought it fiercely. The last time she’d let him kiss her, he’d trampled on her feelings afterward. “You ... you ... mustn’t ...”
He dropped the lock of hair, stroking it where it fell across her shoulder.
Then he swept her shoulder free of it. “Is this what you meant by ‘too far’?” He edged the sleeve of her chemise over to bare her shoulder.
She caught her breath when he lowered his mouth to kiss the exposed skin.
His breath was a feathery caress, a teasing promise.
When a soft sigh spiraled out of her, he turned his lips to the base of her throat. “Or this?” He skimmed his mouth along the smooth hollow as if seeking the pulse that jumped in a frenzy beneath his touch, and when he found it, he kissed it, too, then followed it up the arch of her neck.
By the time he lifted his head, his eyes smoldered like barely banked embers in the flame that was his face.
“No, I’d forgotten. Those are kisses, and ‘too far’ is more than a kiss or two, isn’t it?
‘Too far’ must be enough to make my childhood friend doubt my good character. Now, what could that be?”
With his gaze still fixed on her face, he caught one sleeve of her chemise in his fist and inched it down past her shoulder.
Color flooded her cheeks as she grabbed his hand at the wrist to stop him, but then he brought his mouth down on hers and she forgot why he shouldn’t be here with her alone ...
why he shouldn’t touch her like this, kiss her like this ...
why she didn’t trust him ... everything.
His kiss was deep and immediately possessive, his tongue entering her mouth before she even realized she’d parted her lips. The table edge dug into her palm where she gripped it in an attempt not to “draw him back” as he’d accused her of before.
But that was only a small victory, for she couldn’t keep the rest of her body from responding, from straining against him, from welcoming his mouth as it urgently explored hers ...
or his hands as they worked the sleeves of her chemise over her shoulders ...
or his knee pressing in to part her thighs within the muslin prison of her scarce clothing.
She even helped him by angling her head back as his lips kissed a path down her throat.
When he loosened the ties of her chemise, however, she came briefly to her senses, catching the muslin’s edge before it could gape open and reveal her bare breasts. “Stop it! What do you think you’re doing?”
“Determining my limits,” he said in a husky voice. “How far is ‘too far’?”
“This most certainly is!”