He edged closer to me. “Unless you’d prefer to do something else. You know, you’ve been here with me, alone in my room, and haven’t once tried to take advantage of me. I feel as if I ought to be offended.”
I wanted to both laugh and kiss him. “Seeing as how you didn’t take advantage of me when I was drunk, I don’t think I should take advantage of you now.”
“Even if I want you to take advantage of me?”
I sucked in a deep breath, trying to keep my head clear and ignore the warmth pooling inside me. “Especially if you want me to take advantage of you.”
“You’re an excellent nurse, Emma.”
His abrupt change of subject and use of my name did nothing to ease the physical wanting I felt. “Thanks.”
“But there is one part of me that still aches that you have not tended to.”
My throat had closed in on itself as my imagination ran wild. “Oh?” I started scooting back, but he kept moving slowly toward me. My back hit his headboard, trapping me. He was so close, and my heart thudded so hard I worried it might explode.
“I should go,” I whispered.
“Yes, you should,” he agreed, right before he leaned in to start nuzzling my neck. My eyes rolled back in my head, and I grabbed onto his shoulders for support.
“I’m serious,” I said, in between little bolts of pleasure. “I shouldn’t be here . . . in your room . . . on your bed.”
Now his fingers were doing amazing things to the back of my neck. “My darling Emma, you have been in my bed every night since you first arrived.” He said the words against my skin, and I wanted to combust.
What in the world did you say to that?
Then he straightened up, letting go of me. The loss of his touch made me want to collapse like a rag doll. “You should go, because I can only think of one thing when I see you here.”
“Sleeping?” I asked weakly, already knowing that wasn’t the answer.
A slow, lazy, seductive smile crept across his face. “No. Not sleeping.”
Now everything inside me was on fire. Like the room temperature had suddenly gone up to ten thousand degrees. “You’re, uh, sitting really close to me.” I didn’t know what was wrong with my brain that it felt compelled to say obvious and stupid things to him.
“I’m afraid the situation requires it.”
“What situation?” I had turned into some kind of simpleminded, lust-fueled idiot who, because I couldn’t process what was going on, just kept asking dumb questions.
“The one where I am going to kiss you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
THINGS I’M GOING TO INVENT IF I GET STUCK IN 1816
Smartphones, so I can design an app that reminds me not to do stupid things.
I somehow managed to be both completely alarmed and totally excited. I seemed to spend most of my free time imagining kissing him again, even though reality tried to remind me about our situation. And how none of this could possibly work out.
But the rest of me did not care. He reached up and started taking out pins from my hair, letting them drop. My breathing hitched as I felt my hair hit my shoulders, and then his fingers were in it, massaging the back of my neck. It was like each individual hair follicle was a live wire, sending sparks along my veins.
“Better.” His voice was rough with something—longing? Desire? Whatever it was, I was feeling it, too.
I knew I should stop him. He was doing this only because of his current state of hillbilly-level inebriation. I had wanted him, wanted this, for so long that I didn’t move. I just let him keep touching me, and my skin burned underneath his hands.
Then he was impossibly close, and my heart fluttered hard, like a hummingbird trapped in a cage.
“Do you know how much I have come to love the smell of orange blossoms?” He murmured the words near my cheek, not quite making contact. For one heart-stopping second, I had actually thought he was going to say he loved me. But he just loved my soap. Which I was okay with, because I was pretty fond of his scent, too.
It took me a second to figure out what he was doing. Because while I had been expecting his promised kiss, instead he ghosted his lips over my neck, along my jawline, up over my cheeks, across my closed eyelids, up to my forehead. It was like he was kissing me without actually touching me.
Hartley was giving me the opportunity to say no. He was letting me stop him. Giving me the chance to go.
Problem was, even if my brain agreed that was the most logical thing to do, especially after I’d told him I wouldn’t take advantage of him, my body had totally taken over, and none of the rest of me had a say in the matter.
He drew back, and I forced my eyes open. He held my face in his hands, looking at me like I was something wonderful and precious, and surprisingly it made tears blur my vision. It was so unexpected. His thumbs stroked my cheeks, and I swallowed several times in response to the sensation.
The wanting I felt for him pulsed through my blood, making it impossible to turn back. What little space that still existed between us had become electric and heated, making it so I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t resist. It was like I had no control at all over my own limbs.
He moved his head slowly toward me, and a giddy, bubbly excitement fizzed up inside me, but he didn’t kiss me. Not on my lips, anyway. Instead he was alternating between leaving soft little kisses on my cheek and brushing his mouth against my skin. My cheeks were super sensitized, and everywhere he touched left little tremors in his wake.
There had been no actual meeting of lips yet, but I had already gone limp like a rag doll, hanging on to him for dear life. If his plan was to seduce me, I was getting the distinct feeling he might end up successful in the attempt.
He moved from my cheek toward my earlobe and the sensitive skin on my neck. He was so close to me now, that as he drew in ragged breaths, I could feel his chest expand against me. I placed a hand on him, and his heartbeat matched my own frantic one.
When he nipped at the bottom of my ear, whatever was still keeping me upright gave out, and I had to cling to him, wrapping my arms around his neck, letting my fingers play with the ends of his silky hair.
“Emma,” he whispered, saying my name like I was some kind of goddess that he was begging a favor from. His mouth was against my throat now, and the feeling whipped through me like lightning. Heat radiated out in concentric circles from everywhere he nuzzled me—my jaw, the exposed part of my shoulder, at the pulse point in my throat.
Then he was looking at me again, and my fuzzy brain demanded to know why he had stopped. He was studying my mouth, and then he began to run his thumb across it. I parted my lips slightly at his touch.
“I never did tell you what part of me still ached,” he said in a low voice.
“No, you didn’t.” The fact that I could still speak seemed like a complete miracle.
“My lips.”
There was the possibility that he had planned to say more, but I’d had enough of his particular brand of delicious torture. My lips ached, too.
And they were done waiting.
When his mouth crashed against mine, like two asteroids colliding against each other, that hummingbird feeling in my heart intensified a thousandfold. And it spread out everywhere, making my skin shiver with the same flappy, electric sensation.
All my senses exploded as his warm, strong mouth met mine, demanding and taking, but giving and soothing all at the same time. It was like every other kiss in my entire life had been wrong, and I was only just now realizing how kissing was supposed to work.
And who I was supposed to be kissing.
Hartley.
Only Hartley.
His hands were on my back, pulling me toward him, and I went. I still had to keep my arms wrapped around him tightly, because otherwise I would have slid off the bed and collapsed into a heap. My muscles twitched in response to his touch but were not willing to contribute to keeping me vertical.
Our heads moved from side to side a
s if he couldn’t find the best way to kiss me and had to keep searching for a way to get us closer, to feel more.
Shimmery endorphins lit up my brain, making everything feel even more amazing. I thought I might be getting a kissing high. If a kissing high was anything like a runner’s high, I suddenly understood why most of the girls in my freshman dorm went running every day at five in the morning. If I’d known, I would have joined them.
The kiss had started out explosive, and we never slowed down. Where before there had been boundaries and lines not crossed, now neither one of us was holding anything back. There was no caution, no hesitation. Just sensation and longing and the desperate need for more. I was in the middle of crawling into his lap when he suddenly stopped. It was like somebody had ripped off my right hand. As if part of me had gone missing.
“Are you not afraid?” he asked, his voice harsh and out of breath.
“Of what?” I asked, my tone matching his.
“The storm,” he said. It was then that I realized a massive storm raged outside, lighting up his bedroom windows with lightning every few seconds. Rolls of thunder made everything shake. I should have been terrified. I wasn’t.
“I didn’t even hear it,” I said, taking the opportunity to run my fingertips over his five-o’clock shadow. “Because there’s only you.”
Something flashed in his eyes that I didn’t understand, and then he was kissing me again. Hard. Driving. Intense. We were caught up in a storm of a different kind, and I had to rely on him to keep me anchored. What I had said was true. I couldn’t hear the storm.
There was only Hartley and his feverish kiss.
Every touch, every sensation, everything between us was fierce and hot and consuming. Like I’d dived headfirst into an erupting volcano. He tasted me, explored me, and I did the same. And even though it seemed impossible to get closer, we did. We were wound up in each other, like all the necklaces in my jewelry box back home.
When I thought I’d reached the threshold of what I could feel, what I could take, we surpassed it. His kisses became hungrier, more intoxicating, more demanding. Wild. Frantic. Like we were using our lips to break down all the barriers and boundaries between us, every reason we couldn’t and shouldn’t be together, all gone with the movements of our mouths and hands.
My blood felt thick, my pulse out of control. My entire body had gone so tight, so coiled up, like at any moment it would shatter from the tension he was creating. It was all rioting sensation and unbelievable pleasure and gasping breaths and passionate touches and earth-shattering kisses.
Somebody should have told me kissing could be like this. Like liquid fire that could light up your soul.
And it wasn’t enough. I wanted more. I needed more.
Apparently, so did he. He moved his mouth away from mine, tasting the skin at the base of my throat, running his fingers against my neck. I leaned my head back while digging my fingers into his shoulders. It was all so perfect. Everything was perfect and fantastic and the best thing I’d ever felt.
Then his fingers were against my collarbone, leaving little eddies and whirlpools of molten fire. His hand moved slowly, the fire still following, and a moment later he touched my . . .
I gasped, shooting off the bed like a bullet out of a chamber.
Some reflex kicked in, and I gave him a totally soap opera–worthy slap across the face. I put both of my hands over my mouth, immediately horrified by what I had done. I couldn’t believe that I had just smacked him.
His head hung down, as if he couldn’t meet my gaze.
“Hartley, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to . . .”
“Go.” His voice was rough and hoarse. “Run back to your room. Before I convince you to stay.”
Humiliated by all my behavior, I did as he said, running back to the safety of my own room, locking the door behind me. I didn’t know when the tears had started. I wiped them with the back of my hand as I leaned against the door, my chest heaving. I was on the verge of totally breaking down.
Nothing between us had changed. Not our circumstances, not what he wanted, not what I wanted.
I heard a quiet growl and turned to see Sir Reginald perched on the top of my desk. Even in the dim firelight I saw new scratches on the drawer. I tested it, but it was still locked. More of Mrs. Farnsworth trying to discover my secrets. I needed to head her off at the pass. I had to tell Hartley before she did. Even if he would think I was crazy.
The thing was, I wanted to tell him. I wanted to share this part of myself with him. I wanted him to know everything. I sank down onto my bed as I realized why I wanted to confess. It had nothing to do with Mrs. Farnsworth.
It was because I was totally and completely in love with him. I loved Hartley. And he . . . was drunk. All of that making out had happened because he drank too much. Not because he loved me back. Not because he didn’t want to live without me.
But because he was doing his best Captain Jack Sparrow impersonation and had drunk all the rum in London.
I had been so stupid, so totally caught up, that I had convinced myself none of the rest of it mattered. Like desiring me was the same as loving me.
It wasn’t, and I’d been an idiot to have hoped that it was.
And I had no idea how I was going to face him in the morning.
Obviously, I didn’t sleep much. I just kept running the details of that kiss through my mind over and over again. It was as if I could feel the phantom pressure of his mouth against mine, of being wrapped up in his arms. Almost as if he were there with me.
Then I’d relive my own stupidity, my own pathetic desperation and wants that made me forget where I was and how this was going to end.
There was some small, whispering voice that kept reminding me I hadn’t been totally honest with Hartley. That while he was telling me about his dead girlfriend and parents, about the things he’d suffered and gone through, I was always lying to him. Always.
Even if what I told him was partially true, it was still mostly a lie.
I knew him. I loved him. I loved his loyalty, his steadfastness, his humor, the way he protected me and made me feel safe, how smart he was, his amazing family, how he was an actual man. Not a boy pretending to be a man, but a real, grown-up, mature man. Who looked out for me. Took care of me without a second thought. Was generous and kind underneath his prickly exterior. Who got so jealous of other men flirting with me that he had gotten thoroughly smashed.
But had I really given him a chance to love me? Had I ever shown him my real, twenty-first century self? Explained to him why I didn’t know the rules and how completely different our worlds were? I hadn’t let him in.
Maybe it was time to do that.
Sir Reginald woke me just after dawn, growling at me. He’d never made that sound before. He had always been a mostly silent specter of doom. I briefly wondered what he wanted. Deciding to just get up, I walked him over to my bedroom door, and he darted out when I opened it. I pulled on the servant’s bell. When Rosemary arrived, I was grateful that she didn’t say anything about the bags under my eyes.
Charles would have breakfast in her room, and I was supposed to have breakfast with Hartley downstairs in the dining room. Just like I did every morning.
How was I supposed to sit across from him? Would I get the apologizing Hartley or the let’s-pretend-this-never-happened Hartley? Truth be told I was a little tired of both of them. I didn’t need the reminder that he wasn’t interested in being with me. He was obviously attracted to me. He couldn’t deny that anymore. I had been there and felt it. There was no question.
But he still wanted me to marry his brother. His brother who was arriving today. I didn’t know how fast marriages could happen here, and I still didn’t have a way back to my own century. And I was running out of time to make that happen.
Another sound at my door. Rosemary opened it to see Stephens on the other side. “Lord Hartley wishes to speak with you, Miss Blythe.”
I put a hand over my corse
ted stomach. It felt like I was at the top of a really high roller coaster in that moment just before you plummeted down to the bottom.
Whatever he had to say, I hoped I was ready to hear it. I needed to stop letting him distract me. I needed to find a way home and forget all this kissing-boys nonsense.
My only fear was that it would be easier said than done.
* * *
Hartley’s throat tightened when Emma walked into the study. She wore a beautiful pale-yellow dress, which made her hair look even darker and more lustrous than usual, her fair skin gleaming in the early morning sunlight. Even from here, he could smell that orange blossom/vanilla combination that threatened to drive him completely mad.
He had hoped sobering up this morning would have returned what little sanity he still retained. That he would be able to keep her at arm’s length. Not respond to her.
Not still want her.
He had been sorely mistaken.
Stephens closed the door, and Hartley couldn’t help but grimace. “Does your head hurt?” she asked.
He nodded, trying to ignore the throbbing sensation inside his skull. He didn’t know whether the pulsing was from having too much to drink the night before or her proximity.
“I know something that helps with hangovers. Don’t drink so much.”
That made him smile. He didn’t deserve her kindness or good humor after his behavior in his room.
But before he could say as much, she spoke again. “I want to say I’m sorry. I’ve never hit anyone before . . .”
He held up his hand, signaling her to stop. “I am the one who should be making sincere apologies to you, Miss Blythe. You are a guest in my home, under my protection, and I’m afraid that I have used you poorly. I am ashamed of myself and my behavior, and I beg your forgiveness for the lines that I crossed last night.”
She looked crestfallen, as if he’d said something amiss. She sank down into one of the chairs, looking down at the hands in her lap. He moved to sit in the chair next to her. It made him ill when he remembered what they had done. Not because he hadn’t enjoyed it, but because he had enjoyed it too much. Because he’d had every intention of carrying on. It was only Emma’s good sense that had stopped him from breaking every code of honor and chivalry he held dear. She was innocent, intended for another, and he had behaved like the worst kind of reprobate.
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