Page 19 of Unmasked by the Marquess
“Shut your eyes and go back to sleep,” he said softly.
“I ought to go—”
“There’s no need.” He reached out and pulled her against him with one strong arm, easing her head against his shoulder. “Rest.”
As if that were a possibility. She could have laughed at the lunacy of such a command. How could she rest with her body next to his, with her cheek pressed against the fine wool covering his shoulder? With each breath she was confronted with the friction of her body against his, a reminder of all the places they met and all the places they didn’t.
Not moving her head off his shoulder, she glanced up at his face and saw that his eyes were open, but he wasn’t reading. Instead, his gaze was fixed on some spot on the wall opposite him. Letting her eyes roam lower, over the inky stubble of his jaw, down to his throat, she saw his pulse beating quickly, his Adam’s apple working as he swallowed. He was no more at ease than she was.
“I can’t,” she said, but she didn’t pull away. “I can’t rest like this.”
She felt him exhale, a sound somewhere between a sigh and a laugh. “No, Robin. No more can I. This is the least restful I’ve felt in my entire life.”
His fingers began tracing a circle on her shoulder. It was that easy circle that did her in—it seemed so of a piece with everything that had come before, the talking and riding and chatty bantering. It made her believe, for an instant, that what came next might also be a part of their friendship. It would be the two of them, only more so. It wouldn’t be a lie.
She breathed in the scent of him, which she now realized was the scent of this room. Books and brandy, a fire burning low.
God help her, she looked at the placket of his trousers. And really, what did it say that she felt no pang of conscience, no sense of remorse, nothing? She looked at the bulge in the Marquess of Pembroke’s trousers as incidentally as she might look at the wall hangings.
And he caught her looking. She could have died of embarrassment, or maybe desire, or maybe both those forces were working in concert.
“Indeed,” he said, and now he was not laughing, not at all. He was looking down at her very seriously, and his arm had tightened around her shoulder.
That was all the prompting she needed. What was she, made of stone? He was warm and solid and he wanted her. Or rather, he wanted Robert Selby, but in this fuzzy state between sleeping and waking, none of it mattered. All that mattered was the way his breath hitched when she reached up and, with shaking fingers, gingerly plucked off his spectacles.
He captured her wrist midair and looked at her with those dark, dark eyes for half an instant before closing the gap between them. His lips were warm, his stubble scratchy against her own smooth skin. She kept still, seized by the sense that if she actually kissed him back she’d be stealing the kiss. It would be taken on false pretenses. She, mere Charity Church, would have intercepted a kiss meant for Robert Selby.
But that was before his tongue stroked her lower lip and all her finer feelings went up in smoke. What was true, what was virtuous, and who the hell could bring themselves to care? Not Charity, not Robin, not anyone else she might be.
His tongue met hers and that was all that counted. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him down to her. She bit his lip, and when he groaned she felt the vibration against her mouth. So she did it again. He liked what she was doing and by God, she liked it too. Any further analysis was beyond her.
“You taste like lemon drops.” He smiled, and she could feel the quirk of his lips against her own.
She kissed the corner of his mouth, then kissed her way down to his jaw, before pressing her lips to the soft part of his throat where the stubble gave way to smoothness.
“Christ,” he said, his voice a baritone rumble, his hands threading through her hair.
And so she sucked gently on that very spot that had made him blaspheme, using her hands to push his perfectly tied cravat out of the way. Had he avoided a dinner engagement in order to stay with her? She didn’t care about that either. She cared about the pulse under her lips, beating wildly. She cared about the fact that the Marquess of Pembroke was whispering her name—or close enough—in her ear in between curses. She cared about the big hands that were sliding up her sides, tugging at the linen of her shirt—
No, that would not do. She had only enough presence of mind to remember that what lay beneath her clothes was not what Pembroke expected.
“Wait,” she panted. “Wait. No.”
His eyes were wild, his expression confused, but he took his hands away from her body immediately. He was a gentleman and she was a shameless deceiver.
Surely that knowledge ought to tamp down her desire, but it did not. She still wanted him. And she would continue to want him, even after tonight, even after this season, even after she had disappeared from his life, from his world.
She let herself skim her fingertips along his jaw one more time before dashing from the room.
Chapter Six
If Alistair had known Robin was going to act this way, he wouldn’t have kissed him in the first place. He didn’t go around kissing men willy-nilly. Or at all, for that matter. It was a delicate business. One couldn’t go about throwing oneself at men unless one wanted to be brought up on charges of sodomy or—at best—shunned by decent society and known as a criminal deviant.
Besides, Alistair would rather have Robin present and unkissed than Robin absent under any circumstances. The wretch hadn’t been at the park this morning, nor yesterday morning. He had also been conspicuously absent from their club ever since that blasted kiss.
A scratch at the library door, an apologetic cough, and Hopkins announced Mrs. Allenby. She had visited twice since the day she first requested his help, both times with inane questions relating first to the color of hothouse flowers Alistair intended to order for the ball (apricot) and then pertaining to the number of waltzes he planned (two). He had humored her, and he knew that was partly because he was distracted by other matters.
It was Robin who had driven him to distraction. Where was he, and why was that place not here, by his side?
