“I’m the only one who uses this floor.” He started forward. “Aside from my own rooms, the rest are vacant.”
His repeated evasion of her questions was growing tiresome. She could not understand his mood. With her own emotions a confusing jumble, she didn’t have the wherewithal to translate his feelings, too.
They reached a set of open double doors. Jasper gestured her in ahead of him.
Taking a deep breath, Eliza crossed the threshold. Like her room in Melville’s house, Jasper’s sitting room was predominantly burgundy in tone with occasional splashes of cream to alleviate the dark hue. But unlike her space, his was thoroughly masculine. There were no tassels or patterns to any of the materials, and no carvings in the wooden arms and legs of the chairs and tables.
The air smelled of him. She breathed the scent into her nostrils, finding it calming to her jangled nerves. Then, she looked at the open doorway to her left, the portal to Jasper’s bedchamber, and her stomach knotted all over again.
“There are games women play,” he murmured, his gaze hot enough to heat her skin. “Tests they devise to gauge a man’s interest.”
“What sorts of tests?”
“They make certain a man learns of their favorite flower or color or important dates, then wait to see if he will remember and gift them accordingly.”
Her hands linked together nervously. Should she sit? Or remain standing as he did? She escaped into the conversation, not knowing what else to do. “The objects of feminine and masculine sentimentality are often widely different. To expect a man to assume what might be an unnatural form of sentiment to prove devotion is an unreasonable experiment with a high probability of failure. Why not accept his instinctual gestures of affection in whatever manner they are manifested? They likely mean more to him and reveal more about his character.”
Jasper’s smile curled her toes. “Do you have any notion of how sexually arousing I find your intellect? One day I should like you to expound upon this topic while I’m inside you. I suspect I would find it highly erotic.”
A flush swept over her face.
He shut the door to the hallway and locked it. The soft click of the latch rippled through her.
“I tested you today,” he said, with his back to her. “Considering how irritating I find such ploys, it astonishes me that I did so.”
“Did I pass?”
Facing her, he shrugged out of his coat. “You are in my home, so I would say so.”
He swiftly unfastened the buttons of his waistcoat. Eliza found she could not look away, despite the voice in her head that lectured about privacy and proper maidenly modesty.
She cleared her throat so she could speak. “You sent for me without telling me why.”
“If Montague had sent for you, would you have gone?”
“Of course not. He does not work for me.”
Jasper stiffened. When he returned to the act of shaking off his waistcoat, it was with notable impatience. “If Reynolds had sent for you, would you have gone?”
“No.”
“But he works for you.”
Clearly the expected responses were not the ones he wanted to hear. He wanted the truth.
“I would not have expended the effort for anyone else,” she admitted, her mouth drying as he untied and unwound his cravat, baring his throat. The sight was intensely provocative to her. His skin was darker than her own, firmer. She wanted desperately to touch it, to feel him swallow beneath her fingertips.
He toed off his buckled shoes. “That was the test. I needed to know if you would place me in a different category from other men you know. I was also curious to see how deep your adventuresome proclivities were buried.”
“I am far from adventuresome,” she protested.
“You would like to believe that.” Jasper tossed his cravat on the floor, then yanked his shirtsleeves over his head.
Eliza’s knees weakened and she staggered over to the nearest chair, half-sinking and half-falling into it.
Dear God, he was beautiful. Astonishingly, breathtakingly so. She remembered how he’d urged her to touch him the first time he kissed her. He had been so hard beneath her questing fingers, like stone. She could see why. Her hand lifted to her throat. As dry as her mouth had been, it was now flooded with moisture.
She had never seen a rendering of a male body that could compare. The washboard-like cording of muscles across his abdomen and the light dusting of dark hair that thinned into a fine line were new to her. And delightful. Her gaze followed the trail to where it disappeared beneath the placket of his breeches.
Then lower…
He was hard there, too. Cupped by the expertly tailored doeskin, the outline of his erection was thick and prominent. The knot in her stomach tightened. He was such a blatantly masculine creature. Primitive in the most vital of ways. A male whose appetites were undoubtedly fierce and expansive. How could she, a woman who knew nothing about exploiting her own femininity, sate such a man?
When he didn’t move, she jerked her gaze upward to find him staring back at her. A tight smile preceded him taking a seat on the opposite settee. He had allowed her to look her fill, she realized. Unashamed of the visible proof of his lust. Unabashed.
Jasper rolled down his hose, one leg at a time. “I
“I do more than tolerate you,” she rejoined softly, having lost the strength to speak louder.
He stood, and her eyes stung. She was enamored with the sight of him. Smitten as she’d thought she could never be. There was nothing she would alter about him, nothing she found fault with. In that moment, she was certain she would pay any price for the pleasure of looking upon him indefinitely. The sensations moving through her were drugging and addictive. She wondered helplessly if there was any way she could feel like this every day.
Approaching her with hand outstretched, he said, “From the moment I first saw you, I desired you and knew I had to have you. Since then, I have come to realize it isn’t mere craving that drives me. It is wanting, Eliza. I
“I understand.” She allowed him to pull her to her feet. “But I don’t know what conclusion to draw from that understanding.”
He gestured for her to face away from him. “I ceased trying to find reason in it. I cannot waste any more time trying to puzzle out what I don’t know. I must act on what I do know-you are the one thing in the world I want, and I can have you. I’m also lacking the scruples that would prevent me from doing whatever is necessary to keep you. The details can be dealt with later, when I can once again think about something other than bedding you.”
His fingers went to the buttons that secured the back of her gown and released them with laudable dexterity.
“Have I no say in the matter?” she asked.
He pressed his lips to the top of her bared shoulder. “If you intend to say you have no objections, speak away. Otherwise, I ask that you give me the next few hours before voicing anything that might make my task more difficult for me.”
Eliza looked straight ahead, which was a straight-line view into Jasper’s bedroom. The bed was directly in front of her, custom-made from the size of it. The back of her gown gaped open and he pushed it free of her shoulders, then down to the floor. “Step out,” he ordered.
She obeyed, too overwhelmed to do otherwise. “You are giving me too much time to think,” she groused, averting her gaze from the bed.
Jasper laughed softly, the moment of levity sufficient to lighten some of the incertitude preying on her. “Would you prefer to be ravished?”
“I would prefer not to have these fits of nerves.”
“I should like to ravish you.” He loosened her stays. “Not tonight, when I need both of us to have no doubt that you came to my bed willingly, but soon.”
Crossing her arms over her chest, she held her loosened corset to her breasts. Jasper rounded her and backed up, putting distance between them.
