“It’s not the observation.” He laughed. “It’s the observer that has shocked me.”
“Hmph.”
“I am flattered that you think so highly of me.”
“I don’t think highly of you,” she muttered, her gaze still on the papers before her. “I don’t think of you at all.”
“You think I’m handsome.”
“It was an observation, Nathanial,” she said with a shrug. “Nothing more significant than that.”
His grin widened. “You think I’m exciting as well.”
“I didn’t say that.” She glanced up at him, her expression again composed and cool. “I was speaking in general terms about men who make their living as you do.”
“Nonsense, Gabriella.” He laughed. “You think I’m handsome and exciting.”
“I most certainly—”
“As we are making confessions.” He leaned toward her. “I find you exciting as well as quite lovely.”
“I am not the least bit exciting.”
He grinned. “But you will not protest my observation as to your beauty?”
“It seems rather pointless; I am well aware of my appearance. Not that it matters.”
“It matters to most women.”
“I am not most women.”
“No, you are not.” He chuckled. “Most women would not treat a compliment as though it were an insult.”
“You’re right.” She heaved an exasperated sigh. “It was rude of me of me. Thank you for the compliment, Mr. Harrington, it was very nice of you. Why, I am flattered beyond words.”
He snorted back a laugh.
She pushed away from the desk and rose to her feet. “You have no idea how wonderful it is to know that a gentleman”—she cast him a skeptical look, as if questioning whether he was worthy of the title—“thinks you are lovely.”
“Quite lovely.” He nodded in a somber manner and slipped off the desk to his feet.
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Why, it has quite made my life worth living.”
“Well.” He shrugged modestly. “One does what one can.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I daresay I should weep into my pillow each and every night if you did not think I was lovely.”
He grinned. “There’s no need for sarcasm.”
“I cannot imagine a worse fate than not being lovely in your eyes.”
He laughed, and she ignored him.
“Now then, I suggest we dispense with discussion of the fire in my eyes or the tilt of my chin, as I recall they were thoroughly discussed last night.” She waved at the papers on the desk. “These are my brother’s letters. I have read them countless times but you should go through them. You might see something I’ve missed. The letters contain the names of four men, including you and your brother—what are you staring at?”
“Your lips, Gabriella.” His gaze flicked to her eminently kissable lips and back to her eyes, which did indeed flash with at least annoyance if not fire. “We have not discussed your lips.”
“The lips that beg—” She bit her bottom lip as if to hold back the words.
He bit back a smile of his own. “That beg to be kissed? Yes, those lips.”
She stared at him, then rolled her gaze toward the heavens. “Very well, then.” She stepped toward him, closed her eyes and raised her chin. “Go on.”
He grinned down at her. “Go on what?”
Her eyes remained closed but her shoulders heaved with a resigned sigh. “Kiss me. It’s what you want. Go on, then.”
He bit back a laugh. “Now?”
“Yes, of course now.” Her eyes snapped open. “It seems to me we will never get anything at all accomplished if all you can think about is kissing me.”
“That’s not entirely all I’m thinking about,” he said under his breath.
She cast him a glance designed to wither the confidence of even the most arrogant man. “That, Mr. Harrington, is not my problem.”
“You called me Nathanial a moment ago.”
She paused. “Did I?”
“Indeed you did, and I liked it.”
“It was a slip of the tongue.” She shrugged. “Not the least bit important. I certainly didn’t intend for you—”
“There’s nothing like hearing your given name from the lips of a beautiful woman. Lips I might add that are—”
“Yes, yes, begging to be kissed.” She waved off his words with an impatient gesture.
“Regardless, I believe it would be most expedient for our purposes if we dispense with formalities altogether. You may call me Nathanial, I shall call you Gabriella.”
“Mr. Harrington,” she said firmly.
He raised a brow.
“Very well, then, I suppose it does make a certain amount of sense. And I have already been thinking of you as Nathanial. But only to differentiate you from your brother,” she added quickly.
“Exactly as I thought.”
“And it shall be no more importance that that of a…a…sister—yes that’s it—a sister calling a brother by his given name. Not the least bit significant. Now, then.” She again closed her eyes and raised her chin. “If you would be so good as to kiss me, we can put this nonsense behind us.”
“Behind us?”
“This too is a matter of expediency. Nothing more.”
“Expediency.” He nodded. “And efficiency too, I would imagine?”
“Yes, yes.” Impatience sounded in her voice. Her shoulders stiffened. “Go on with it.”
“It’s tempting,” he said in a low voice, and stared down at her. This was indeed an opportunity. But one only a fool would take. “I daresay I cannot remember when last I encountered anything this…irresistible.”
“I am flattered,” she said in a cool voice that nonetheless sounded just a touch breathless. Her chin rose another notch.
“But I think not.”
Her eyes snapped open. “What do you mean—you think not? How could you possibly think not?”
“It might have been that business about you calling me by my given name in the manner of a sister.” He shook his head. “For future reference, Gabriella, when asking a man to kiss you, you should not put him in mind of his sister. It does tend to spoil the mood.”
“I did not ask you to kiss me!”
“No.” He shrugged. “You told me. That too tends to destroy the ambience of the moment. A man likes to believe—even if it’s not true—that he is in command of such things.”
She stared in disbelief. “Then you are not going to kiss me?”
“Oh, I am most certainly going to kiss you, but not at this particular moment.”
“Don’t be absurd. This is your opportunity, and I warn you, Nathanial, there shall not be another. Now.” She huffed, stepped toward him and once more closed her eyes and lifted her chin. “Let’s get this over and done with.”
He bit back a laugh. “My dear Gabriella, a kiss is not something one gets over and done with. It is not a foul tasting medicine one is forced to take.”
Her eyes opened. “I do know—”
“Surely you have been kissed?”
“Of course I have been kissed,” she said sharply. “Any number of times.”
He raised a brow. “Have you?”
She blushed yet again, and he noted how there was something quite compelling about an intelligent, confident woman who blushed so easily. “I am not a child.”
Still, he’d wager his next big find that she had not been kissed often and probably not well. “And were those previous kisses such that you simply wished for them to be over and done with?”
“Well, ye—no!” She forced an awkward laugh. “Each and every kiss was quite enjoyable. Really, very nice.”
“Very nice?” He shook his head in a somber manner. “A kiss, Gabriella, should never be merely nice.”
She opened her mouth to protest.
“Even very nice is not good enough,” he said before she could utter a word. It did seem best. “First
of all, a kiss is…an overture, if you will, to the grander symphony to come. A prologue to the rest of the story.” He clasped his hands behind his back and slowly circled her. Her wary gaze followed him. “A taste of the banquet yet to be savored.”
“Mr. Harrington—Nathanial.” She jerked her gaze back to a point directly in front of her and squared her shoulders. “There will be no symphony, no story, and certainly no banquet.”
Nate smiled. “You are taking my words in a manner in which they were not intended. I am explaining the nature of a kiss in general terms, not the nature of our kiss.” He paused. “Unless, of course, you see our kiss as the first step toward you joining me in my bed.”
She shot him a look of disdain over her shoulder. “I most certainly do not! And would you stop circling me. I feel like a chicken being marked by a fox.”
“Regardless.” He casually moved to stand in front of her. “A kiss is still a beginning. As well as a turning point. A kiss should make you feel as if it were the first moment of something wonderful.”
She snorted.
“You don’t agree?”
“No.” Her foot twitched as if she were resisting the urge to stamp it. “A kiss is…”
“Yes?” His brow rose.
“It’s…” She raised a shoulder in an offhand shrug. “It’s a momentary loss of control of one’s senses. Yes, that’s it. It’s nothing more than an instant of surrender to one’s baser instincts.”
“Oh dear, Gabriella.” He shook his head in a mournful manner. “You may have been kissed but you have obviously not been well or properly kissed. And you have never been kissed by me.”
“Come now, Nathanial.”
“Do you doubt me?”
“I do not doubt your arrogance.”
“A kiss is not something one closes one’s eyes and braces oneself for as if one were England preparing for a Viking invasion.” He cast her a slow, wicked smile. “A women who has been well kissed does not think of a kiss as merely a kiss.”
She stared for a moment then accepted his challenge. “A woman who has kissed you, you mean?”
He shrugged in a modest manner. “I have yet to hear a complaint.”
“Very well, then.” She smiled pleasantly. “Prove yourself.”
He hadn’t quite foreseen that. Caution edged his voice. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, Nathanial, I have offered you a kiss for the one you feel I owe you. And even I can understand how you might have a legitimate claim. Therefore, as I can see you will be like a dog with a bone and not let this go, I shall give you another chance.” She crossed her arms over her chest, a gleam of triumph in her eye. “Kiss me.”
“I don’t know that I should.” He shook his head slowly. “A kiss—especially a first kiss—is to be savored and enjoyed. And remembered always.”
She raised a brow. “Not up to the challenge, then?”
“Oh I am certainly up to the challenge,” he murmured, and studied her for a moment. “I’m simply not certain if I wish to be commanded to kiss you.”
She shrugged. “It remains your choice.”
“Indeed it does.” He paused. “And were I to kiss you, I should begin by stepping very close to you.” He moved closer and stared down at her, close enough to see the satisfaction in her eyes fade to uncertainty. “So that I may take you in my arms.”
“No doubt. Go on.”
He wrapped his arms around her and gently drew her closer. “I would then gaze into your eyes, your endless blue eyes that could hold a man, even a man of strength, spellbound. Lost, if you will.”
“Nonsense,” she said weakly. “They’re simply blue.”
“There’s nothing simple about them. They are the color of a mountain lake, the calm waters before the storm. Eyes that carry within them secrets, and promises of something wonderful for a moment or forever.”
“Utter rubbish.” Nonetheless her arms slipped around his neck and he bit back a smile
“Then my gaze would slip to your lips.” He glanced at her mouth. She bit her bottom lip in the nervous manner he had already noticed, and his stomach tightened. “Just for a moment, just long enough to anticipate the soft, ripe warmth of them against my own. To wonder at the taste of you. Will you taste of bold, erotic spices or will you taste as sweet and delicious as new picked berries? Or as intoxicating as champagne? Anticipation, Gabriella.” His gazed shifted and locked with hers. “Anticipation in a first kiss is most important.”
She swallowed hard. “How absurd.”
“And then I would lean closer, until my senses are awash with the scent of you.” He angled his head toward hers until his lips were no more than a breath from hers. “Fresh and vaguely like lavender, with the merest touch of something more. Something exotic, unknown as yet but exciting and completely irresistible.”
“Oh…” The word was no more than a sigh, the merest breath of air against his lips. Her eyes drifted closed.
“It would be very nearly perfection itself.”
“Yes…” Her body pressed closer to his with a movement so slight he doubted she was aware of it. But he was. “Perfection…”
He had her now. She wanted to kiss him as badly as he wanted to kiss her. And he couldn’t remember ever wanting to kiss a woman more. But as much as he wanted this, he knew one kiss with Gabriella Montini would never be enough.
“Very nearly.” Nate drew a deep breath and summoned every bit of self-control he possessed. “But without moonlight, it is not the kiss you promised.” He straightened and released her, ignoring the stunned look on her face. He moved around the desk and settled in the chair. “Now then, we should get on with these.”
She sucked in a sharp breath and glared. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind, he would pay for this.
He grinned to himself. He couldn’t wait.
Seven
You—You—You—” Gabriella sputtered as if she couldn’t quite catch her breath. As if she’d been hit in the face with a pail of cold water. Not that she was going to let him know how shocked and, well, possibly disappointed she was. As if she had wanted him to kiss her, which she certainly hadn’t and never would. Regardless, his behavior was nothing short of dastardly. “Nathanial Harrington, you are an arrogant ass!”
“My, my, Gabriella, your language.” He shuffled through the letters on the desk, his gaze firmly on the papers in front of him as if she hadn’t said a word. As if she wasn’t there!
There was nothing to be done about it. She was going to have to kill him. Slowly.
“Your brothers have obviously been a bad influence on you.”
My brother and men exactly like you. She bit back the words and drew a deep calming breath. It hadn’t been easy to discard the manners, or rather, lack of manners, she acquired in the years spent with her brother. Propriety, especially when it came to language, had always been something she’d had to work at, much like any of her other studies.
“One would have thought one was back among his comrades in the deserts of Egypt,” Nathanial said mildly.
She clenched her fists by her side. “My apologies, Nathanial.”
“Accepted.”
“I am eternally sorry—”
He smiled in a benevolent manner. “Not at all.”
“—that you are such an arrogant ass.”
He glanced up at her, his eyes wide with feigned innocence. “I don’t know why you’re glaring at me like that, it’s not as if you wanted to kiss me.”
“I’m not glaring,” she said in a clipped tone.
“My dear Gabriella, if looks could kill, I would be lying on the floor dead by now, shot through the heart by your gaze alone.”
“That would be a very great pity.” She sniffed.
“I’m glad you think so.”
“It would be entirely too fast.” Gabriella braced her hands on the desk and leaned toward him. “No, you deserve something much, much slower. Tied to stakes and stretched out over a hill of African ants perhaps.”
He rose to his feet. “Tied, did you say?”
“Under the hot, blistering tropical sun.”
He planted his hands on the desk, mirroring her stance, a distinctly wicked smile on his lips. “Naked, no doubt?”
Naked? Why on earth did he have to use the word naked? At once the image of a naked Nathanial Harrington staked over an ant hill popped into her mind. Not that she knew exactly what an adult male would look like in that position, but between her limited experience and the paintings and sculptures she’d seen, well, she did have a fairly vivid imagination. She pushed the thought firmly aside.
“Or perhaps torn from limb to limb by savages in the jungles of South America.”
“Savages who have first ripped my clothes to shreds, do you think?” The gleam in his eye matched his smile.
Again a naked Nathanial Harrington filled her head, savages pulling on every limb, tattered remnants of his clothes dripping off him like icing from a cake. She winced and shook her head. “Or…or…eaten by cannibals. Yes, that’s exactly what you deserve.”
“Boiled alive probably.” He nodded in a solemn manner belying the look in his eye. “Naked, of course.”
“Would you stop that!” A naked Nathanial Harrington sat in a large iron pot over a fire surrounded by cannibals. She straightened with a jerk. “Stop that this minute!”
He raised a brow. “Stop what?”
“Stop using that word!”
“What word?”
“You know what word!”
He shook his head and grinned. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
She huffed. “Naked, Nathanial!” Good Lord, had she just used naked and Nathanial in the same sentence? Aloud and in front of him? “The word is naked! Naked, naked, naked!” And she couldn’t seem to stop. “As you well know.”
His grin widened. “The examples were yours.”
“Not the way you embellished them with…with…” She closed her eyes and sent a quick prayer heavenward to beg for calm and to give thanks that she wasn’t armed. “It was highly improper, most suggestive, entirely too…too intimate and…and…” Erotic, exciting, seductive. She drew a deep breath and met his gaze. “Uncomfortable.”
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