Page 16 of His Wicked Little Christmas
She fell into the kiss for a long, hypnotic instant, then wrenched her head to the side, sending his lips trailing along her cheek. “Dex, stop,” she gasped. “Fight fairly for once.”
He cursed beneath his breath and released her so abruptly he stumbled into a stack of folded towels, sending them scattering to the floor. His vision had adapted to the darkness, and she flooded into view, a curvaceous, irresistible shape eclipsed in shades of violet and gray. “Apologies. It’s the wine.” He loosened his cravat with a jerking pull, his breath flowing free in an aggravated gust. “Or my intense attraction to you. Or my loneliness.” He slipped the length of silk from his neck and wadded it in a ball in his fist. “Take your pick.”
“Or your need to win. Can I choose that option?”
His head came up, gaze finding her obscured one across the short distance. “Are we going to eradicate our desire with an argument? An age-old trick. Well done.”
Her lips pressed, released. “I want to control for once. I lead,youfollow. I deserve it after a lifetime spent shadowing you.”
He shoved his cravat in her hand. “Tie my wrists to the bedpost, and I’ll let you control everything.”
Her head dropped, her fingers clenching around the silken square. Then she asked the most unexpected question of his life, “Could you get loose?”
Astuteness or insight born from sympathy,something, saved him from approaching Georgie in the wrong way in that cracker box of a closet on a blustery Christmas Eve. Too forcefully, too selfishly, as most men would have with their cocks hard enough to bust buttons, fierce desire and greed racing through their bodies. He took a mental step back, examining the details he’d gathered about her. “Not if you didn’t want me to, I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.”
“I won’t marry again,” she murmured, the words so low he had to strain to hear them. “It’s too late for me, that life.”
His heart pitched in his chest, a deep, winded dive. He struggled to imagine what her declaration meant when he wanted more, and sheknew it. He was, in turn, seduced and wounded. “Is that the deal? You gain experience. I teach. We part as friends when you return to London?”
Her hand settled over his thumping heart. “It’s much more. I missed you dreadfully when you weren’t a part of my life. Spending even this short amount of time with you here, at home, in Derbyshire….it’s been wonderful. My first proper Christmas in years. I want your friendship. Forever, I want it. But I want this, too. I wantyou. I always have. I desire you as I desire no one.” She halted his move to gather her close at her impassioned avowal, her fingers splaying over his chest. “Let me say this while I have the courage. So you understand.”
“Georgie,” he whispered, a plea, because he was falling swiftly in dire love with her—and he worried what she told him would further connect them in a way he’d be unable to break despite any promise he might make.
“When I said Arthur was cruel, I mean…” Her arm trembled, but she didn’t release her hold on him. “When I close my eyes and imagine making love, I see nightmarish images instead of erotic ones. I want you to help me wipe those away. Replace ugly with beautiful. In turn, I want you to see what we share, you can find with another. You’ve already shared with another. This night will release us in different ways. Burdens of the past removed.”
His teeth clenched in frustration, but he reined the emotion in. “I’m trying very hard not to be insulted by this discussion, while the disreputable part of me is amenable to anything allowing me to tear your clothes off.”
She issued a ghost of a laugh, and he imagined her cheeks heating to a seductive, rosy glow. “It’s easier for a man. Not for me. Not when you’re the only one I’ve ever wanted.”
His breath and the last of his resistance left him. She was going to break his heart, be his downfall; this was clear. Might as well get on with it.
Leaning resignedly against the door, he brought her hand to his lips, pressing a rough kiss to the inside of her wrist. “I haven’t been with leagues of women, Georgie. Enough, I suppose. But not so many thattouching you will be anything but devastatingly momentous. An event which will leave me in tatters.”
“Is that a yes?” she asked, the hand holding his cravat sliding to cradle his jaw, the sleek brush of silk against his skin making him shudder.
He nodded and lowered his lips to hers, allowing himself to believe he could change her mind about everything.
Chapter Eight
Georgiana pulled him into a frenzied kiss at the bottom of the staircase, where they deposited his coat on the third step. Another against the morning room door, where her cape was left in a puddle on the floor. The last in the hallway outside her bedchamber, where she concluded the unfastening of his waistcoat, and he began fumbling with her bodice strings. A trip from the linen closet to her bed, usually taking three minutes, took ten and left her without thought or plan, her skin, every last inch, sensitized as if she’d rubbed a razor across it.
“Christ,” he said against her lips, his breath churning as if he’d run a race, his fingers trembling where they cupped her jaw. “Which door is yours?”
She wrapped his cravat around his wrist, turned, and tugged him into her bedchamber.
He kicked the door closed, backed her against it, his lips falling to the nape of her neck. He bit gently, and she couldn’t repress her moan. “You’re sure, no servants? My coat, your cape…”
“Only three employed. It’s a small manor. They return to the village each night. Widows do not require companions.” She slipped his waistcoat from his arms and dropped it to the rug. “We’re alone.Completely. Any noise you might like to make?—”
He laughed, lifting her off her feet, walked two steps toward the bed, paused, his eyes changing, darkening. With one arm, he brought her down his body, an abrasive slide that had her knees threatening to weaken and leave her in a puddle at his feet. A spear of moonlight splashed across him, throwing his features into a tantalizing mix of shadow and light.
“What’s that look, Dex?” Dear God, had he changed his mind?
He gazed at her, his collar twisted, the top two bone buttons of his shirt undone, the crisp linen parting to reveal a tantalizing smatter of dark hair. His eyes were the pale green of a lily pad, brimming with wonder when they met hers. Delighted and disheveled, he looked charmingly undone. “I’ve never…” He sighed, flexed his shoulders up and back. “Laughing, this lightness of spirit. It’s never been fun. Not like this. I’m unprepared.” He scrubbed his cheeks to hide their flooding with color. “Bloody hell, I think I’m nervous.”
Her own delight was a wild beast charging through her body, dragging her heart away from her. “That makes two of us.” She made quick work of releasing the remaining buttons and sent his shirt to the floor. “But I plan to work through it.”
They disrobed with taunting kisses, whispered words of admiration and pleasure, learning each other’s bodies through layers of wool, cotton, and muslin, then with no barriers at all. He was perfection, she decided, her gaze wandering from his narrow feet to his lean hips, flat stomach rippling with muscle, chest with a gorgeous sprinkling of hair, his entire body sculpted by his work. His career, his passion. She smiled. Maybe she could be his passion for at least one night.
