Page 47 of Lord Appleby's Gorgeous Imposter
“Only you,” he crooned, his smile erotic and eager.
She headed for the washstand. He came to stand right behind her. Close. So close that the churning desire he’d ignited in her loins with this antics under the table set her aflame now.
Her eyes drifted shut, and she fought for a semblance of sanity as he pressed her back into his embrace.
She felt rather than heard him sigh.
This was torture. Did he intend to raise her skirts and give her the fullness of his attentions? Her body ached with need ofrelease. She squeezed her thighs together, wanting to ask for his affections and hating that she’d give in to him.
But he made no move to fulfill her need. He only dropped tiny kisses to her shoulder. “Since when do you play cards?”
Melting at the pressure of his lips on her skin, she could not drag her eyes from him in the mirror. “Since an hour ago.”
He smiled but narrowed his gaze to a squint. “You hate cards.”
She curved her shoulder, feigning the ploys of afemme fatale. “I’ve changed.”
“Charmaine is a genius at counting them.”
“A cutthroat,” she blurted, using her father’s term for his oldest child. She inhaled Tate’s essence, his truths, his admissions that he cared for her. Her head reeled at the combinations.
He ran a fingertip up the arch of her cheek and buried his lips into the hollow behind her ear. “You won’t win, darling.”
Lost to his touch, she closed her eyes and swayed in his arms.
He turned her to him and brushed his lips on hers. “You’ll lose your money, sweetheart. You’ll hate that.”
The spell broken by mention of money, she snorted. “I won’t lose.”Not at any of it.She flipped him an insolent wink and spun to leave. “Watch me.”
He caught her arm. “I am, my darling. And you have never even known how to play! At cards or deception.”
“I’m older. I have had so many lessons. Chess, archery, guns. All of them by so many teachers—”
“Not all were hideous,” he whispered, and caught her to him, his palm to her cheek. He brushed his lips on hers, and she felt herself surrendering, going up on her toes. To taste him, she drew closer. “Some were glorious.”
Some were irresistible.
His jaw set in frustration, he growled as he turned her toward the mirror. “Look at us there.”
She rebuked herself for enjoying his possession of her. Finger her, kiss her, hold her, fight her. He showed each time he was her man. Hers. She shook her head, ignoring his command. If she did meet his gaze there in the glass, he’d see in her eyes how she wanted more of him—and should not be so foolish as to want. Not now that she had this purpose.
He dropped more tiny kisses to her throat. “It is how we are meant to be.”
“A fantasy.” She tried to step away.
He secured her to his frame as his arms crept around her and his hands bound her breasts. “Years ago, we were both so young. We had barely begun to find our own inner selves, and how we cared for each other.”
She never wanted his embrace to end.
“I wanted you then, sweetheart.”
Tears scalded her eyes.
He stroked her throat and lifted her face so that she had to look at the two of them. “I came to you that summer to ask you to marry me. You were, I think, all of sixteen.”
Through tears, she pleaded with him, “Tate, do not say this.”
“I will go on. I will not argue with you. I will instead say what I have hidden in my heart for so long I can scarcely count the years I’ve lived without you. My darling,” he went on, his lips near her ear, his voice a mellifluous enchantment. “Let me take you home. To England. To Norfolk and Cantrell Manor. Let me show you what I have always wanted to share with you.”
