access.
How could a rake like Harry understand her so well? Know her every need and desire? Even know what she didn’t know she wanted until after he’d done it?
Such as the caressing he was now doing with his hand on her waist. The caressing that was moving upward, closer to her breasts but not quite there.
He pulled back, his gaze hot, his face fierce and handsome and compelling. “I’m going to open your door, Molly.” His voice was rough, the same way it had been in the carriage after he’d kissed her.
She liked that voice. Very much.
He kissed her again, and she felt his hand move behind her, encircling her waist, and then felt the door give beneath their weight.
They walked backward into her room, and Harry kicked the door to the hallway shut behind him. Their lips were still locked, and he slid his hands up and down her back. Then he went lower, cupping her rear end in his hands and pulling her even closer against the hard length of him.
Which felt…perfect somehow.
So perfect she forgot it was Harry as she ran her hands up and down his back, too. And she forgot about him again when he locked one of her legs between his own, bending her back just enough to place a kiss on the top of her breast, exposed above Fiona’s impossibly low neckline.
She couldn’t help but moan at the pleasurable sensation. He murmured something deep in his throat, and then he yanked at her neckline with his teeth—his teeth!—and nudged it farther down.
And then his tongue began the most delicious exploration of her—
Molly’s eyes flew open.
She couldn’t forget. This was Harry. The bachelor to end all bachelors! One of Prinny’s own Impossible Bachelors.
“That’s enough,” she gasped, and pushed him away. “You’ve had plenty of kissing tonight. You kissed Athena, too, don’t forget.”
He laughed softly and grabbed her waist. “That meant nothing,” he murmured against her neck.
His mouth tickled in the most pleasurable way. But with everything she had in her, Molly pushed him away again. “This means nothing, as well,” she said in her best Miss Dunlap voice. “The fact is, Harry, I would simply rather not participate in nothing unless I have to. After all, I’m not your real mistress.”
“Yes, but—”
“Thank you for instilling confidence in me again,” Molly interrupted him. “But I think it best that you save your displays of so-called affection for when others are present to see them.”
Oh, she hated to say that! Because he was quite adorable just now, with that jet-black curl falling over his eye and the obvious disappointment in his gaze.
He sighed. “Have it your way. But remember,
She felt all mixed up inside when he left through the dressing room to go to his bedchamber—angry at him for being so shortsighted yet craving him, too, somehow.
He was her only friend at the house party. It was going to be a long, lonely week if even Harry were to give her the brush-off.
She listened as he opened a drawer. And then she heard his boots come off and imagined him cursing her under his breath. And then she imagined him taking off his breeches, and—
No. She must not imagine him taking off his breeches.
Slowly, she undressed, and then she put on a stunning embroidered shift which clung to her curves and was completely see-through. If she wore it—which she would because it was quite the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen—she was sure she’d go to hell if she were to die the next day in a freak accident.
Although she was probably already going to hell for letting Harry kiss her so.
She’d best pray.
After she’d finished a rushed plea to God to send her an extra angel to help her resist Harry and prevent her having an untimely death in the meanwhile, Molly decided to give herself some extra protection against both Harry and her own decadent impulses by dragging a chest over to their connecting door.
Not that she
Or that she’d wake up pretending to have had a nightmare so she could have the excuse of running into his room, where she’d cuddle next to him under the bedclothes and they’d resume kissing so her pretend nightmare— about a ghost? or a monster? she couldn’t decide which—would be irrevocably banished.
Although the nightmare idea was tempting.
She blew out her candle, crawled under the covers, and tried to sleep.
But she couldn’t. She had the noble thought that she must do better in the morning—first, by trying to win over the other mistresses, and then by somehow charming the men, even the vile Sir Richard, if she could do so without getting too close to him.
But she also couldn’t sleep because the bureau in front of the dressing room door reminded her that Harry was just on the other side. And thinking of Harry reminded her of how much she enjoyed his mouth, his hair, his whole body, pressed against hers.
It made no sense. This was
She was desperate, she decided, blinking into the darkness. That was all. She was almost a spinster, and no man had ever brought her flowers. She was to be excused for feeling all mushy inside when she thought of Harry kissing her.
But she couldn’t let those mushy feelings continue. She must cease them immediately. So she thought about the time a much younger Harry had planted all her dolls head-first in a little vegetable garden she’d cultivated long ago.
She heard a noise and sat up, her heart pounding. “Harry?”
Someone was scratching at her door, from the hallway. But Harry was in bed. And he would have knocked on the door connecting their rooms, if he’d needed to knock at all.
Molly crept to the door and made sure the key was in the lock. “Who’s there?” she whispered.
“Sir Richard,” the voice whispered back. “I just wanted to say good night. Will you open the door?”
“No!” she hissed. “Go away!”
He laughed. “Something’s different about you. And I intend to find out what it is.”
She heard his footsteps move down the corridor.
Thank God.
Returning to her bed, she drew the sheets up to her chin and stared at a beam of moonlight illuminating a corner of her room. If Sir Richard found out she was no mistress, he might find out her real name, and he’d tell everyone, and then she’d be properly ruined. Not even a bounder like Cedric would want to marry her. She’d be stuck with Cousin Augusta forever, and everyone would whisper about her behind her back.
Except for Harry’s family, of course. They were perfectly proper, but they were also fun, sometimes entertaining on a lavish scale and, other times, inviting just a few neighbors over for an afternoon picnic or an evening of music. It wouldn’t do for the duke and duchess to think badly of her. They were Penelope’s family now.
A tiny tear escaped Molly’s eye.
Penelope!
It was at times like this that Molly missed her sister.
Especially not Harry.
Chapter 12
