Page 30 of Undercover with the Heiress
The moonlight kissed pockets of light under his eyes, which closed softly. As he released his pleasure, his rigid barriers fell away. And for all his common looks, his ridiculous ordinariness, in that second he took on a statuesque beauty. He had the longest eyelashes, which brushed little shadows over his cheeks. The smallest bracket hugged the edges of his lips as he almost smiled, and a hint of a crease whispered the possibility of that dimple.
He blinked a few times, then completely opened his eyes. The softness that had fallen on him evaporated, and every little intricacy retreated as he took on the demeanour of the man she had always known. Instead of sitting astride him completely naked, they might have been meeting one another outside their front doors.
‘You have sufficient knowledge now to hold your head high?’ he asked, tucked himself away, and fastened his trousers.
‘I shall tell them they should all find a clerk to be their lovers. All that writing gives them dexterous fingers.’
He leant to the side to retrieve her nightgown before flicking it at her. ‘I’m going downstairs to the library. I’ll walk you to your room.’
The staircase was wide enough that they could have walked side by side, but Phineas hung back, following her as she descended the levels to her room on the first floor. On the landing right before her door, she spun to face him, and he moved a little closer until his chest touched hers.
She could invite him in. Into her bed. Into her life.
He stood waiting, his arm resting on the doorframe. Then he reached behind her, fidgeted with something, and the door fell away. She squawked as she stumbled into her room.
He chuckled. ‘Goodnight, Hempel,’ he called, back turned, and already descending the stairs.
Chapter Thirteen
Thank heavens she knew so little about bedding.
Or she would know how extraordinarily spectacular last night had been.
And not even in a bed. Just hands and kisses. Simple. Astonishing.
He hadn’t slept so deeply in years.
‘Have you spoilt the raspberry jam?’
Rosanna startled, blushed, then frowned. ‘I do not like raspberry jam. So no, I haven’t.’
Act normal. And normal meant being particular about jam.
Phineas tried to focus on his broadsheet, folded into a more manageable half as he scanned the news. He only read the paper so that if he had the displeasure of engaging someone in small talk, he might find some common ground for conversation. He followed the lines of the columns, took in the headlines, then allowed his longing to draw his gaze over the top of the page, across the cloth, to the opposite side of the circular table.
To Rosanna.
She wore the same dress as she had that day she’d come to the bank, all light fabric and embroidered temptation. A flurry of sordid yearnings contorted in his imagination. From unfastening the pins and combs in her hair and letting her dark curls spill over one shoulder, to tasting her from the arch of her foot to the crease of skin at the top of her thigh, to swiping the table and upending every condiment onto the floor and spreading her before him and feasting on her body until she cried out again and again… Desire pulverised his senses. Last night in the darkness, he’d licked the traces of her taste from his fingers as he’d walked the lonely path to the library, and now, the sweetness and tang of her was all he could think of. He’d woken hungry, famished almost, as if nothing but her would satiate his appetite.
Phineas crunched into his toast.
Morning sun lit the neat braids in her hair and drew a line of light across the table where it streamed in between the rose-patterned curtains she’d had hung up last week. Both of her elbows rested on the table, and she cupped her chin in her palms. She leafed through one of her catalogues, then looked up, her eyes darting across the walls and examining the architraves around the doors and windows.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ he drawled.
She paused in her observations, only her gaze shifting to him. ‘This room would be so much brighter with a floral print. Or even something simpler, like this geometric style with gold leaf. Or even paint. Any colour but limewash—’
‘You have your rooms.’ He turned over the paper. ‘Leave me mine.’
She grumbled and flicked the next page in her catalogue. Narrowed her eyes as she scanned the page. Smiled, possibly planning some future conspiracy with Johannes to do whatever it was she wanted to do.
Licked her lips.
Sweet mercy. Those lips.
‘I mean it. Leave my rooms be.’ Phineas shook his paper to its full width and slunk behind the print. She’d already taken too much, inched her way into too much of his life, into his mind, his dreams.
His walls would stay as they were.
