Page 12 of Private Arrangements
She'd wanted to touch him. That desire had been there in every full-on stare and every sideways glance all throughout the evening.Once our marriage is consummated, you need only to come back to me when you need heirs.The girl might be a virgin, but she was neither pure nor innocent. She knew about these things.
What she probably didn't know yet, but he already did, was that with her single-mindedness she would be a force of nature in bed. No man could roll out of her bed and walk away. His overriding objective, despite his exhaustion, would be how he could get her to lie with him again.
* * *
Camden dozed fitfully. Then suddenly he was awake. He had left the curtains and shutters open, out of years of habit, so that he could look out and recall in which country, which city he found himself. The blizzard must have passed; a shaft of silvery moonlight drifted through the window and lit the way clear to the door. A woman stood just inside, in a long nightgown, her back against the door. He couldn't see her face but he knew instinctively that it was Miss Rowland, she of the entirely unfitting, too-childish pet name Gigi.
The Rowland manse, while not a cumbersome behemoth like the ducal manor at Twelve Pillars, still had some eighty, ninety rooms. He had been put to bed in a different wing from where his hosts had their bedchambers. She had not accidentally returned to the wrong room after using the water closet. She had to have walked a good two hundred feet to visit him.
And he was naked beneath the covers. The late Mr. Rowland's nightshirt, kindly supplied at bedtime, had been too restricting.
She stayed in that spot, unmoving, for a long time, until he was tempted to tell her either to get on with whatever in the blazes she had planned or leave him to his tossing and turning in peace. Abruptly, she moved, coming toward the bed in long, determined strides, her feet silent on the Persian carpet.
She knelt by the bed, her eyes even with his elbow. Her hair was loose, dark as the fabric of the night; her white nightgown almost glimmered. He could not see her features clearly, but he heard her uneven breaths, a long, slightly trembling inhalation, a few heartbeats of breath being held, and a short rush of exhalation. Repeat. Repeat.
But she remained still. What was she waiting for? Hadn't she yet satisfied herself that he was really, completely asleep? He squeezed his eyes shut, pretending she wasn't there. But her breaths tickled the hairs on his forearm, triggering seismic tremors along his nerves. And her scent, a fine blend of chamomile and cucumber, warm, powdery, and insidious, enfolded him.
What did she want?
She touched him, placing her hand over his curled fingers, straightening them so that they were palm to palm, then she interlaced her fingers with his. Her fingertips were icy. A silent, dangerous thrill coursed through him. He wanted to pull her atop him and show her what awaited a foolish young woman who slipped into a man's bedroom in the dead of the night after having devoured him all evening with those dark, intense eyes of hers, setting his blood to simmer over three long hours.
Her hand moved. Her fingers encircled his wrist, searing him with her cool skin. Two fingertips slowly trailed up his arm, barely touching him. She rose from her crouch to access more of him, and a strand of her hair caressed the inside of his upper arm. He bit his lower lip, nearly undone by the spike of pleasure.
At the top of his arm, her fingers spread out over his collarbone and his shoulder. She hesitated before sliding her palm up the side of his face. He heard an almost inaudible gasp as she snatched her hand away. His stubbles—they had surprised her. Her inexperience excited him almost as much as her audacity. She had not done this before.
Her hand returned, the back of it this time, smooth skin over strong bones, skimming along his jaw. Her thumb found his lips and traced over them. He fought the urge to lick her fingertip. God, but he burned, everywhere. On the side away from her, his fingers clawed into the counterpane. She had no idea what she was doing to him, or she would not dare continue.
She moved again, settling a hip on the bed. As her head bent forward, her hair cascaded, a skein of silk threads unspooling on his chest, all gossamer coolness and teasing chaos.
Suddenly it became too much. A violent upheaval of lust seized him. He grabbed the front of her nightgown and yanked her down. She gasped and flailed. But he subdued her easily, rolling them so that he ended above her, pinning her down with his weight and her fear.
Only her nightgown separated them. And Gigi Rowland was all outrageous femininity: full breasts, soft belly, and lusciously rounded hips. A moan of sweet, terrible pleasure escaped him. He kissed her, her ear, her cheek, her neck, and, through the soft flannel of her nightgown, her shoulder. His hand settled at the indentation of her waist, above the flare of her hips. His fingers dug into young, firm flesh. Other parts of him also wanted to dig in, hard, harder.
She was at his mercy here, having thoroughly compromised herself. There were so many wicked things he could do to her, and she would not dare make a sound—she would be biting her lips to suppress her moans and whimpers, because he'd make her as wild and ravenous as he.
It took all of his willpower and a large dose of shame—shame over his lack of control, his bad faith toward Theodora, and his harsh handling of a girl who was guilty of nothing more than being attracted to him—to let go. He rolled off her, turned his back, and emitted a few grunts, as if he'd been dreaming.
She scrambled off the bed. But she didn't scuttle out of the room. She panted, as if she had been running from a wolf, a werewolf. In the raspy sounds she made, there was both terror and arousal.
He prayed that she would see herself out. Because if she didn't, if she came to his bed again, he would not be able to stop.
She moved,towardthe bed, her soft footfall as loud to his ear as a shot in the dark. His blood pounded thickly. His erection grew painfully hungry. She took one more step, until she was standing at the edge of the bed again. He balled his hands tight, digging his nails into his palms until he was sure he must be bleeding, afraid that if he didn't hold fast onto some shred of mastery, he'd—
She ran, slamming the door behind her. He listened as she sped down the corridor, feeling the vibration of the floor through the mattress beneath him.
When the house was once again silent, he rolled onto his back and let out the breath he had been holding. His cock stood straight up, hot and unsatisfied. He gave it a meanthwack.But it only bobbed, more famished and demanding than ever.
He let out a sigh, put his hand on it, and let his imagination run wild.
Gigi burned, one moment with the fires of hell, one moment with the ecstasy of that other afterworld, but mostly with an earthly amalgam of mortification and raw ferment.
She'd been a hairbreadth away from climbing back into bed with Lord Tremaine. The entire scenario had already unfolded in her mind: the ardor, the consummation, the dismay, and the consequences. In the end, he would marry her, because it was the honorable thing to do, despite his disgust for her and his relative blamelessness in the matter.
Everything in her yearned for him. He would be the equal she had never known, the deliverance from her vast loneliness, the balm to any and all misery. If only she could have him. . . .
But she had stopped herself. Because it was too craven a thing to do, too much beneath her dignity. And she wanted his good opinion, she craved it, she who had never cared what anyone else thought of her.
An eternity passed before it was time to dress and head down for breakfast. She thought she would be alone, but he was already there in the breakfast parlor when she entered. Her face burned again.
