Page 8 of The Secret of My Seduction
Chapter Four
Liam was glad she was facing away from him; she couldn’t see the amusement that must surely be visible on his face as she perched on the edge of the sofa, spine rigid and hands folded primly in her lap. Not a virgin, she’d said, but also not a woman of experience. He’d never known Bathsheba to be awkward or skittish, which showed how out of her depth she was tonight.
He put his hands on her waist and tugged her closer, until her bottom was snug against his groin. Hers was a very nicely rounded bottom, and Liam’s anticipation of the evening jumped an alarming amount. Aside from a catch in her breathing, she made no protest. He ran his palms up her arms. Bathsheba shivered. In her plain white undergarments, she looked younger and more innocent than ever. Thank God he knew she wasn’t—or at least, didn’t want to be. Liam shifted his weight and reached for the pins holding her dark hair in a simple knot.
“How would you like to be seen?” He drew out one pin and set it aside.
Bathsheba started at his touch. He saw her eyes flicker toward the pin, but she didn’t move. “As a decent, respectable woman.”
“Decent.” He drew out another pin. “What does that mean?”
“Honorable. Honest. Kind.”
“Ah.” One more pin and the long braid collapsed into his hands. He plucked at the end of it, noting with mild surprise how silky soft it was. Or perhaps he hadn’t paid enough attention to a woman’s hair before. “And respectable?”
“The opposite of this,” she said tartly, although he noticed a tremor in her shoulders as he leisurely loosened the plait.
“I am the only one who will see you like this,” he replied. “The only one who will ever know, if that’s what you desire.”
“Of course!” She seemed to get tenser as her braid unraveled in his hands.
Liam was somewhat distracted by how sensual it was, running his fingers through her hair. There were threads of bronze in it, and he caught the faintest whiff of lavender. “Whatever you wish,” he murmured.
“I wish—” She stopped and spoke in her normal voice, not a breathless rush. “I wish you would get on with it. Danny will be expecting me by a certain time, and it was a long drive here.”
“Where did you tell him you were going?”
“To the public assembly rooms where I usually collect gossip.”
A frown touched his brow. “You go there alone?”
An impatient sigh; she was drifting back toward her usual take-charge-and-charge-onward demeanor. “No one wants to accompany me, Liam.”
“Do you wear that?” He glanced at the brown velvet dress, which really did make her look drab and insignificant.
“I told you, it’s my best dress.”
“Don’t wear it again,” he said brusquely, and then, to keep her from arguing, he leaned forward and feathered his lips down the nape of her neck.
He felt the shudder run through her; he caught the swift flexing of her forearms as her fingers clenched in her lap. He also felt a sharp zing of arousal through his own muscles. He didn’t intend to make love to her tonight, but his body was ready and eager. A little too eager, to be honest—already his plan, to spend several evenings stoking Bathsheba’s desire to a feverish pitch before actually taking her, seemed pointlessly restrained. She’d come here to be ravished, why shouldn’t he get on with it?
Liam didn’t quite know what to make of that. He was a healthy man with hearty desires. He certainly had expected that when the moment came, he would rise to it and give Bathsheba every pleasure she could imagine. But he also possessed a heretofore iron will and a strict personal discipline that seemed to have gone missing tonight.
Perhaps it was the way she had propositioned him, instead of the other way around. There was something very exciting and unexpected about a woman asking him to make love to her.
He pushed her hair forward so it spread over her shoulders, baring her back, and let his mouth roam her skin. She was warm and soft, and the touch of his tongue sent another shiver through her. Silently Liam smiled; it was damned arousing, the way she responded to the slightest thing. When he finally had her naked in his bed, she might well go up in flames.
“Not a virgin, you said,” he whispered in her ear. His fingertips skated up her arms, barely contacting her flesh. “When was your first time?”
Her head was thrown back, her breathing rapid. With her hair down and her drab dress off, she looked completely unlike her usual self. Liam didn’t know about decent or respectable, but she damned sure looked like a woman now.
“It was years ago.” Her voice was even softer than his. “A man who worked for my father. He was charming and I was…curious.”
“Did you enjoy it?” He ended the question by tracing a circle on the sensitive skin below her ear with his tongue. She jolted, but then slowly angled her head to the side, inviting him to repeat the action, so he did. “Did you?” he asked again.
“What? Oh—not much. It began pleasantly enough but he—he took none of the care…” Her voice trailed away in a quiet gasp as Liam caught her earlobe between his teeth.
“No care?”
