“Then I’d best move closer.” He stepped forward and lifted his hands to sift them through her hair. “Is this better?”
She swallowed audibly. “Um, actually, I’m feeling a bit…crowded. If there’s something you want—”
“There is.” His gaze dropped to her mouth. And he had to swallow a groan. By God, she just looked so…ripe. So delectable. So kissable. “I want to kiss you.”
A frown creased her brow. “You’re joking.”
“I’m not.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Again, I’m not.”
“This morning you couldn’t recall my name.”
“I recall your name now.” His gaze again dipped to her lips. “ Sarah Moorehouse.”
“Then you must be foxed.”
“I’m not. Are you?”
“Certainly not. I’m—”
“As curious as I am?” He cupped her face between his hands and brushed the pad of one thumb over her plump lower lip. A tiny, breathless sound caught in her throat, heating his desire to an even higher degree.
“Curiosity, as you may recall—”
“Killed the cat. Yes, I know.” He moved closer, until his body lightly touched hers from chest to knee. “How fortunate that we aren’t cats.”
“I…I cannot fathom a single reason as to why you would wish to kiss me.”
Lowering his head until his lips hovered just above hers, he whispered, “Don’t worry. I can fathom enough reasons for both of us.”
He brushed his lips over hers once, then again, softly, searching. Her lips parted on a low sigh, and he took advantage of the invitation to deepen the kiss.
And was instantly lost. In the heady, flowery scent of her and the delicious, warm taste of her. He eased one hand slowly down her arm then around to the small of her back, and urged her closer. God, yes, she was soft, just as he’d known she would be. Warm and curvy, and she tasted so good…so damn good. And it had been so long since he’d held a woman. Kissed a woman. So damn long…
He sank deeper into the kiss, his tongue exploring the velvety heat of her mouth. She hesitated for several seconds, and then, with a low moan, her lips parted farther and she touched her tongue to his. And suddenly what he’d thought would be a simple kiss felt anything but. It felt hot and urgent and fired pure lust through him. And made him crave more. More…
Without breaking their kiss, he moved closer, pinning her to the wall with his lower body, and insinuated his knee between her legs. He might possibly have retained a small modicum of control if she’d remained passive, but instead she wrapped her arms around his neck, rose up on her toes and pressed herself more fully against him.
His body’s reaction was swift and unstoppable, and with a groan he slowly rubbed himself against her, pressing his hardness against her softness.
Pleasure shuddered through him and he lost all sense of time and place. He was intoxicated by the feel of her arching against him, a sensation that made it seem as if she were melting into him. One kiss melded into another, deep, drugging exchanges that grew in urgency. Mindless, heedless, to anything save the taste and feel of her, his hands smoothed over the curve of her bottom then came forward to cup the fullness of her breasts. Her head fell limply back, and he ran his lips down the fragrant curve of her neck, his tongue tracing the frantic beat of her pulse as her fingers slipped into his damp hair. Erotic sounds vibrated in her throat and she squirmed against him, stripping away another layer of his control. His erection jerked and he pinned her more firmly between himself and the wall.
Stop… He had to stop this madness, because if he didn’t, he was going to sweep her up in his arms, carry her to his bed, and put out this bloody fire she’d ignited. But he couldn’t do that…for some reason…some reason which entirely escaped him.
You’re looking for a wife, his helpful inner voice reminded him. And this woman—who is not an heiress—is not a candidate.
Right. And her very good friend was a candidate. Besides that, he wasn’t entirely certain he trusted this woman, again for reasons he couldn’t recall at the moment, but even in his lust-rattled brain he knew they existed. Which made this interlude a very bad idea. In every way. But bloody hell, she felt so damn good. In every way. And she made him feel better than he’d felt in a very long time. He needed to stop…yet he simply could not.
Reaching up, he gently grabbed one of her wrists and pulled her hand down, slipping it inside his robe and dragging her palm across his bare chest. A groan rumbled in his throat, and he urged her hand across his chest again. She’d just made a tentative, slow sweep of her own accord when a sound penetrated the fog of lust engulfing him. A low, deep sound that resembled a—
Woof.
Bloody hell. With a Herculean effort, he raised his head. And stared, captivated by the sight of her. She looked utterly aroused, and appeared lost in the same foggy haze as engulfed him. Erratic breaths puffed from between her full, moist lips, and her eyelids drooped half closed. He turned his head and shot Danforth a glare that should have sent the beast slinking from the room with his tail tucked between his legs. Instead, Danforth’s gaze bounced between him and Moorehouse, and Matthew could almost hear his canine musing: Well, well, what have we here?
Danforth gazed up at Moorehouse with an adoring expression, licked his chops and issued another woof. The beast then appeared to actually grin, and with a firm push of his snout, nudged Matthew back a step and insinuated himself between him and Moorehouse. Then sat. On Matthew’s bare foot. And proceeded to pant hot doggie breath. Against Matthew’s bare leg.
Bloody hell.
He turned his attention back to Moorehouse. She was staring at him with a dazed expression that perfectly matched the way he felt. Her hand still rested on his chest, right above the spot where his heart pounded as if he’d just sprinted to Scotland and back.
“Good heavens,” she said in a husky, breathless rasp.
If he’d felt capable of speech, he would have voiced a similar sentiment, although his most likely would have been more along the lines of Holy bloody hell, what just happened?
“I had no idea,” she whispered. “I’d wondered…but never suspected…not in my wildest imaginings.” A long, pleasure-filled sigh escaped her, blowing warm against his skin. “Oh, my…”
He frowned. Her words made it sound as if she’d never been kissed before. But surely a woman who’d sketched a naked man had been kissed. Yet there was something extraordinarily innocent about her. And her response to him, while undeniably heated, hadn’t felt the least bit practiced. Was it possible he’d been the first?
Before he could find his voice to question her, she blinked several times, then lifted her head from the wall and squinted toward the floor. “I’m guessing that blurry brown blob is Danforth?”
Upon hearing his name, Danforth issued a deep woof and swiped his tail across the parquet floor.
Matthew cleared his throat. “I’m afraid so.”
“How did he get in?”
“He can open doors.” He glared at his pet. “I taught him that.” And right now he wished like hell he hadn’t. Damn dog was too smart for his own good. And his timing was heinous.
Or was it perfect? His better judgment told him Danforth had quite saved the day. Had put a halt to something that never should have begun. His aroused body, however, wholeheartedly disagreed. And one look at the moist-lipped, loose-haired Moorehouse had him longing to snatch her right back in his arms.
Her hand slid slowly from his chest, and he immediately missed her touch. With a self-conscious sound she pushed back her mass of disheveled hair. “I…I feel the need to say something, yet I’ve no idea what.”
She said the words without a trace of coyness or guile, and he couldn’t stop himself from tucking a stray strand of her hair behind her ear. “You are…magnificent.”
She nodded, her expression serious. “Yes, that seems appropriate. You are magnificent.”
His lips twitched. �
�Thank you. But I meant you are magnificent.”
She studied him for several long seconds, confusion flitting across her features. Then she shook her head. “I’m not. I know I’m not. And this…what happened between us, should not have occurred. I shouldn’t be in your bedchamber and we shouldn’t have…”
“Kissed?” he supplied helpfully when her voice trailed off.
“Kissed,” she repeated in a husky whisper that had him clenching his hands to keep them off her. Then she shook her head, as if to clear it of cobwebs, and reached out to pluck her glasses from his desk. After putting on the spectacles, she looked at him. All traces of arousal and desire had vanished from her eyes, replaced by a coolness he didn’t care for in the least.
“I beg your pardon, my lord. I don’t know what came over me. I don’t normally…” She frowned, then continued in a brisk tone, “…conduct myself in such a way. I think we should forget this ever happened.”
“Do you?”
“Yes. Don’t you?”
“I think you’re correct that we should try. However, I think we shall fail.”
“Nonsense. One can do anything one sets one’s mind to. And now, I must go.” She stepped away from him, then reached down to pick up his shirt, which she’d dropped. Danforth was sitting on the sleeve and she had to tug several times to slide the material from beneath his rump. And then the woman who only moments ago had trembled in his arms strode across his bedchamber and quit the room without a backward glance, closing the door quietly behind her.
He stared at the door for several seconds, then with a sigh raked his hands through his hair and slid his foot from beneath Danforth’s bottom. Perhaps Moorehouse would forget about that kiss, but he knew he wouldn’t.
The question was, what did he intend to do about that? And about her? He had no idea. Then there was the fact that she’d seen him naked, and he’d always been taught that turnabout was fair play.
What did he intend to do about that?
He certainly knew what he wanted to do.
Hmmm. It appeared his many questions regarding Moorehouse would require a great deal of thinking about. And he was hit with the very unsettling realization that thinking about her would not pose any difficulties.
Chapter 7
Ten minutes before the other ladies were due to arrive for their one A.M meeting, Sarah stood before the cheval glass in her bedchamber and stared at her reflection. She’d changed into her plain white cotton night rail, secured the sash of her plain white cotton robe around her waist, and braided her unruly hair into a plain, single thick plait. She looked the same as she did every night—utterly plain. But she didn’t feel the same.
She raised her hand and skimmed her fingertips over her lips. Her eyelids fluttered closed and a sigh of pure pleasure escaped her. Never, not even in her wildest dreams, not once during the countless hours she’d lain awake at night imagining being kissed, touched by a man, had she ever suspected that the actual act could be so incredibly wondrous.
The delicious sensation of his body pressing against hers, his lips on hers, his tongue touching hers, his hands sifting through her hair, skimming down her back, urging her closer. The knee-stealing feel of her palms skimming across his chest, the sound of his rapid breathing, the heart-stopping sensation of his hardness nestled against the juncture of her thighs. Heat rippled through her and she clamped her legs together in an effort to lessen the aching throb where he’d pressed so intimately against her, but her effort proved futile.
He’d felt so warm. So strong and broad. Being wrapped in his arms was like being cuddled in a heated blanket fresh from drying in the sunshine. His wet hair had slipped through her fingers like dampened silk. He’d held her, kissed her, touched her, with a fiery passion she’d never dared dream she would experience outside her imagination. And as active as her imagination was, she had never conceived of a scenario like the one she’d shared with Lord Langston.
Why? Why had he kissed her like that? She opened her eyes to study herself and shook her head, utterly confused. Nothing reflected in the mirror would inspire a man’s passion. Perhaps he really had been foxed, although she hadn’t detected the smell, or taste, of spirits about him. As humiliating as it was to consider, most likely he’d been thinking about some other woman. Pretending she was someone else. Someone beautiful. There was no other logical explanation. Unless……
Perhaps he’d kissed her in order to distract her from the fact that he kept a knife in his bedchamber—a knife he’d pressed to her throat when he believed her an intruder bent on doing him harm. Did all gentlemen keep weapons at the ready as Lord Langston did? Perhaps. Or perhaps it was only those gentlemen who had something to hide. And she’d been considering just that about him…until he completely changed the direction of her thoughts with his kiss.
Another sigh escaped her. Regardless of whether he’d been thinking of someone else or attempting to divert her, now she knew of this magic she’d overheard other ladies discussing. This enchantment Carolyn had often alluded to. It was intoxicating. Addicting. And, she very much feared, unforgettable. Would her sister, her friends, be able to tell? Did the heated, pulsing glow she felt within show on the outside?
She leaned closer to the mirror. No. She still looked like plain, bespectacled Sarah on the outside.
A soft knock sounded on the door, and she pulled her gaze from the mirror to quickly cross the room. She opened the door to find Carolyn, Julianne, and Emily in the corridor, clutching bundles against their robes.
“It looks as if you all were successful in your scavenger hunt,” Sarah said after the trio had entered and she’d closed and locked the door.
“Yes,” said Emily, her eyes glowing with excitement. “Did you get Lord Langston’s shirt?”
Among other things. Heat crept into her face. “Yes.” She cleared her throat. “Everything went smoothly for all of you, I trust?”
“I was in and out of Lord Thurston’s bedchamber—cravat in hand—in less than one minute,” Emily reported with a smug grin while setting her treasure on the bed. “It was almost too easy.”
“Same for me,” said Julianne, adding the pair of Lord Berwick’s boots she’d procured. “I didn’t encounter anyone, but my heart was pounding so hard I thought I might swoon.”
“Plucking Lord Surbrooke’s breeches from his wardrobe was as simple as picking daisies in the garden,” Carolyn said with a smile, holding her offering aloft before setting it on top of the other things on the bed.
“Sarah asserted that men are nincompoops,” Emily said with a devilish grin, “and it would appear, at least in regards to this situation, she is correct.” She turned to Sarah. “How did you fare?”
Sarah’s face burned hotter and she knew the blotches were on their way. “Fine. No problems.” At least none she was willing to share. She added Lord Langston’s shirt to the pile and forcibly banished from her mind the image of him, wet and naked, and instead concentrated on Carolyn’s smile.
“We’ll be able to fashion a very fine facsimile of our Perfect Man with these articles,” Sarah said. “All we need are some rags or batting with which to stuff Franklin N. Stein.”
“We could go to the village and buy batting,” Julianne said. “The gentlemen have an archery tournament scheduled for tomorrow so the timing is perfect. I’d love an excursion to the shops.”
“That’s a sentence we should teach our Perfect Man to say,” Sarah said with a grin. “‘I’d love an excursion to the shops.’”
The ladies laughed, and Emily suggested, “Let’s make a list of things our Perfect Man would say and do.”
They all agreed to the idea. Sarah sat at the escritoire while the others seated themselves upon the bed’s ivory counterpane. Pen in hand, Sarah asked, “Besides loving an excursion to the shops, what else would he say?”
Julianne cleared her throat and adopted a deep voice. “‘Spending the day at my club isn’t important, darling. I’d much rather be with you.’”
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“‘I’d love to dance again, my dear,’” added Emily in a manly tone.
“‘You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,’” came Carolyn’s suggestion.
“‘The most intelligent woman with the most interesting opinions,’” added Emily.
“‘I could talk to you for hours,’” said Julianne, her words ending on a wistful sigh.
“‘Are you tired, my dear? Why don’t you sit on the settee and let me rub your feet.’”
They all broke into giggles at Carolyn’s last suggestion, and Sarah’s hand flew across the vellum to jot down each idea.
“‘I love the sound of your name,’” said Emily.
An image of Lord Langston, dressed in his robe, his hair wet, his eyes roaming her face, flashed through Sarah’s mind. I recall your name… Sarah Moorehouse.
“‘Your hair is beautiful,’” said Julianne.
Sarah’s hand hesitated and she closed her eyes, hearing his voice say those exact words.
“‘Your eyes as well,’” added Emily.
Has no one ever told you how lovely your eyes are?
“‘You smell beautiful,’” added Carolyn.
“Like a garden in the sunshine.” The words Lord Langston had murmured escaped Sarah before she could stop them and her head jerked up. And found her sister and friends nodding in approval.
Knowing her face was flaming, Sarah applied her attention to her list with renewed zeal.
“I think he should say ‘I want to kiss you’ with unwavering frequency,” Julianne decreed.
I want to kiss you. The words reverberated through Sarah’s mind, pulsing heat to her every nerve ending. She’d heard those very words only a short time ago. And they had indeed been perfect.
“And ‘I love you’ as well,” said Carolyn softly. “Those are the loveliest words I’ve ever heard.”
The wistful note in her sister’s voice tugged at Sarah, and she said softly, “I love you, Carolyn.”
Just as she’d hoped, her sister smiled. “I love you too, poppet.”
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