Page 44 of Too Sinful to Deny
He almost laughed at the naïveté of that question.
“Oh, I don’t know,” he said slowly, softly, his voice deepening as he let the delicious images tumble forth from the dark corners of his dreams. “Once I have you alone, unprotected, you might find yourself in my arms once again. This time, I won’t stop with a simple kiss. I will divest you of your pelisse, your gown, your shift... andthenI will start the sort of kissing I’ve been desperate to do all along. The sort of kiss that begins at your mouth, and travels down your throat to your shoulders, all the way to your breasts. The sort of kiss where your nipple is caught between my teeth, where your back arches in pleasure, and—”
A choking gasp escaped her. She shoved herself away from him and up onto solid ground.
Had his ploy worked?
“You’d do no such thing,” she whispered. Or possibly panted. Both her palms were pressed to her chest as if preventing her bodice from tumbling open of its own accord.
“I wouldn’t?” he asked, not bothering to hide the amusement—and arousal—from his voice. He had half a mind to start right here at the edge of the cliff. “How can you be certain?”
“B-because you’rebusy.With something important.” Her eyes were huge. But determined. “Remember?”
A more effective bucket of ice had never been thrown on his ardor.
“That’s right. I’m busy.”
He turned and stalked off, leaving her behind. Though truth be told, he was far angrier with himself than at her.
Even when he heard her little booted feet hurrying to catch up with him.
“Wait!”
He didn’t wait. He imagined she’d follow him anyway.
He was right.
When they reached the porch leading to Timothy’s door, he turned and put a finger to her soft mouth before she could start asking a barrage of unanswerable questions.
“Stay here,” he ordered. “No matter what.”
She nodded quickly. Too quickly.
“I mean it.”
“All right.” Her lips opened and closed against the pressure of his finger. “I won’t move.”
He paused to be sure, then leapt up the steps two at a time.
The door was unlocked. Technically, it was still off its hinges. He should never have left the house unsecured. Heart racing, Evan moved the broken door aside and slid into the darkened entryway. His worst fears were realized.
The cargo was missing.The cargo was missing. He turned around in a slow circle, half-hoping it might magically reappear.
It did not.
Timothy had deposited the first mission’s spoils inside his entryway before heading out on his secret mission, and then... Somebody had stolen the stolen goods. Who the devil could’ve done such a corkbrained thing? This was Bournemouth! Evan was the one who did the stealing, and he did it from other people. He did not steal from people he knew, and he particularly avoided stealing frompirates.
Besides, who would bother risking their neck to steal stolen tea sets, anyway? The captain’s secret buyer? To protect his anonymity—and to obfuscate the trail leading back to treason—the man had never stepped foot in Bournemouth. Butsomebodyhad carted the goods away. Someone with a large carriage.
“No wonder you look so shocked,” came a soft female voice from just outside the doorway. Miss Stanton slipped inside, glancing around in awe. “What hit this place, a hurricane?”
His hands twitched. “I thought I told you to stay put.”
“I did. At first. And then I came in to see what you were doing.”
Evan stared at her. Such insubordinate behavior was precisely how a person found himself tied to the mast while at sea.
She stood in front of a portrait of a small boy. “Who’s this? Your brother?”
