Page 85 of Once More, My Darling Rogue
“But it looks like a great deal of fun.”
He pulled her to her feet and led her into the midst of the dancers. While the music was wrong, completely wrong, they waltzed. Or tried to. There was no room to be swept over the floor or to be circled about. But he was grinning, that dimple winking. She loved that smile, loved that dimple. Loved the way his eyes glinted.
He was a man striving to let go of his past, while she had none. She no longer cared about what had come before. She only cared about now, about being with this man. This man who knew what it was to press his nose to the glass, a man who was opening the door for others. Who weighed all his actions against a past she had only glimpsed.
A remarkable man with so much good in him, good he failed to recognize.
As the crowd pushed them together, she rose up on her toes and kissed him. Maybe it was the ale she’d drunk, the music, his broad smile, but she wanted his mouth moving over hers. She didn’t care that he was her employer and it was wrong. She didn’t care that she was his servant and nothing permanent would come of anything between them. She didn’t care about his past or her lack of one.
He pressed her closer as his mouth greedily welcomed hers. She was aware of whistles and cheers. When he drew back his eyes were darker than she’d ever seen them, smoldering with desire, burning for her.
She needed memories, craved them. She wanted tonight to leave her with ones she would never forget.
With his arm around her, holding her near, he was quiet in the hansom cab that returned them to the residence. He was quiet as he unlocked the door and led her inside. He was quiet as he prepared a bath. He was quiet as he lifted her into his arms and carried her upstairs.
It was only when they were outside the bathing chamber that he said, “I’ve dreamed of bathing you.”
His eyes held hers. She saw the earnestness there. Warmth swirled through her. She nodded.
“I’ve dreamed of much more than bathing you,” he said quietly.
Her heart was thrumming like some mad thing, but she seemed incapable of doing little more than nodding again.
“If at any time we are going further than you want, you need only say no.”
“I don’t think that word will be in my vocabulary tonight.” Words at last, words that encouraged, gave permission.
With a low feral growl, he took her mouth. She ran her hands up into his thick black hair. He was a man of many talents, it seemed. He held her, kissed her, carried her into the bathing chamber as smoothly as a skater moving over ice.
An image flashed of her skating over a frozen pond in the dead of winter with snow-laden branches overhead, but she shoved it back into the farthest recesses of her mind to be examined later, much much later. This wasn’t a time for memories to intrude. This was a time for memories to be made.
Slowly, slowly, her body unfurling and gliding against his, he lowered her feet to the floor and drew back from the kiss. “We’ll leave your hair up so it doesn’t get wet,” he said.
“I should like for you to wash it sometime.”
“Tomorrow.” He began undoing her buttons. “I tried very hard not to notice what you looked like as I undressed you the night I found you in the river.”
“Did you meet with success?” she asked breathlessly as he parted her bodice.
“Your legs were my undoing. You are not tall and yet they are incredibly long, and I very much like long legs.”
“Yours are long as well. I noticed that right off aboutyou.”
He laughed, deeply, richly. “They aren’t all that’s long.”
She felt the heat suffuse her face, because she was fairly certain, based on the wicked glint in his eyes, that he was being naughty. Leaning in, she buried her face against his chest. “I don’t know if I can joke about this.”
Cradling her face, he tilted it up. “I want you very, very badly, Phee. But I won’t force you and I won’t do anything that makes you uncomfortable.”
“I know. I’m not uncomfortable, I’m not even hesitant. I want you as well. I just don’t want you to be disappointed.”
“I won’t be.”
He removed her clothes slowly, provocatively. Shoes, stockings, silk underthings that he pressed openmouthed kisses to before removing, coating her skin in dew. Then he was crouched before her, looking up at her. “It’s like seeing you for the first time.”
“Except for my legs.”
He grinned. “Except for your legs.”
