offers, even when those offers had grown blatant.
Another sign? Perhaps.
Gerrard watched her thoughts flow over her face. Some he identified, others…
He wanted to know them all, wanted to understand, to know and so be certain of her, in every way. He was a long way from achieving that goal. Standing beside her in the night, he still had no idea if she would agree to be his-his as he wished, as he’d-increasingly he suspected unwisely-stipulated.
It was time, perhaps, to alter his stance.
Looking down, he shifted, drawing her attention. “When we were here this afternoon, you asked me why I wanted a clear decision from you.” He met her eyes, shadowed and unreadable, and selected his words with care. “In the sense of sweeping you off your feet, of sweeping you into bed on a tide of desire-primarily mine…I don’t want to seduce you.”
She blinked.
Ruthlessly, his voice hardening, he went on, “I know I could. That all I need do is push a little harder. But-” He broke off. Looking away, he drew in a breath. “I don’t want just that from you.” He looked back and caught her gaze. “I don’t want what’s between you and me to be like that.”
He didn’t say the words, but Jacqueline heard them. The light was sufficient to limn the planes of his face, to confirm that there was absolutely no lightness in his expression.
From the first, he’d made it clear he couldn’t promise anything, yet equally clearly, he viewed her as different. As something more than just another conquest, one, she knew, of many.
Looking into his face, hard, unyielding, yet in the soft moonlight perhaps more revealing, she sensed for the first time that behind his confident, polished exterior lay someone with uncertainties, just like her.
What if he couldn’t promise because he didn’t know? Because, no more than she, was he sure of what lay between them, how it might evolve, what it might become?
What if she refused and walked away, and neither of them ever learned the answer?
She rose, all hesitation falling from her. Leaving the bench, she closed the distance between them; he watched her every step of the way, desire and more naked in his face. Drawing his hands from his pockets, he reached for her as she neared. She stopped only when her breasts brushed his chest.
For one moment, feeling his hands slide about her waist, feeling their heat seep through the shot silk, she gazed into his eyes…and found not the slightest change in his stance-no intention to seize, no inclination to step back. He was waiting on her-on her decision.
He wanted her to want him as much as he wanted her.
Reaching up, she set her hands on either side of the strong column of his throat, then eased them back; stretching up, she drew his head down to hers, drew his lips to hers, and fused them.
She kissed him, not the other way around, and he let her. Let her press her lips to his, slide her tongue between, and take, let her set the pace, let her explore. He followed, accepting all she gave, offering all she wished in return, angling his head to deepen the kiss when she urged him to do so.
It was intoxicating. To have him at her command, to have him metaphorically by her side, hand in hand, going forward into what she sensed was a landscape as mysterious to him as it was to her.
Desire, warm and now familiar, rose and washed through them, heating, welling, buoying.
Beckoning.
He dragged his lips from hers. In the shadowy light, from beneath heavy lids, their eyes met, held. One of his hands had risen to cradle her head; his other arm held her locked against him. “I don’t know where this will lead, but I want to follow the path on, with you.”
With the fingers of one hand, she traced his cheek. “Yes. I need to know, too.”
She sensed more than saw, felt more than knew, that he was no more in control of “this” than she; he wasn’t dictating it, wasn’t directing it-he was searching for answers, driven to it, as was she.
What lay between them was a shimmering temptation, both physical and emotional; he, too, could see it, and its promise, but the whole was as unknown to him as it was to her, and, it seemed, as confusing. With this, he was no more experienced than she.
That was a potent attraction-to know that if, in going forward, she was taking a risk, then so was he.
His breath brushed her lips and she yearned, not just for a kiss but for so much more.
“You know my decision.” Her voice was low, sultry, the siren he and only he evoked coloring her tone. Boldly, she pressed closer, lifting her lips to breathe over his, “Convince me I’m doing the right thing.”
She sensed his impulse to devour, to take her lips in a scorching kiss, but he refrained. Instead, from under heavy lids his eyes held hers as he raised his hands, sliding his palms slowly up until through the heavy silk he cupped her breasts, then his thumbs cruised knowingly over her ruched nipples.
Sensation lanced through her; a silent, tight gasp escaped her. For an instant he played, then he bent his head, took her lips in a long, lingering kiss, while with his hands, his strong fingers, he pandered to her senses.
When he eventually lifted his head, her body was aflame, senses stretched tight, nerves coiled, wanting. Waiting.
“I will.” In the weak light, she saw him grimace. “But not here, not now.”
She blinked, and returned to the real world, to the clearing by the pond. He was right. Not here, not now; they had to go back, had to thank their hosts and bid them farewell, had to journey home in the carriage with the others.
Her lips throbbed, her flesh ached with sweet anticipation. With one finger, she caressed the corner of his lips, then stepped back, out of his arms. “Later.”
She turned; together, they walked back to the house.
The waiting was going to kill him.
Gerrard paced before the windows in his bedchamber, and willed the minutes to tick by. He and Jacqueline had returned to the ballroom, behaved with appropriate decorum, then endured the journey home, opposite each other in the blessedly dark carriage.
Lord Tregonning had parted from them in the front hall. Jacqueline and her aunt had climbed the stairs. With Barnaby, he’d followed; turning his feet toward his room, not hers, had required considerable willpower.
He’d dismissed Compton; the house was slowly settling into slumber. Once it did, he would go to Jacqueline’s room.
How long should he give her to get rid of her maid?
Muttering a curse, he swung around and stalked to the hearth, staring-glaring-at the mantelpiece clock. Not enough minutes had elapsed.
He should have told her not to undress; a great deal of his fondness for her bronze silk sheath revolved about a vision of peeling it from her. He’d give a great deal for the chance to transform that vision to reality, but he doubted she’d realize-
Soft footsteps reached him. An instant later, his door opened and Jacqueline whisked in. She saw him, shut the door, and then she was flying to him-bronze silk sheath and all.
He caught her.
Wrapped his arms about her, lifted her from her feet, straight into an incendiary kiss.
Twining her arms about his neck, she parted her lips, surrendered her mouth, and sank against him.
Without thought, his hands shifted, one splaying over her back below her waist, angling her hips to his, the other rising to cradle her head, holding her steady so he could ravish her mouth.
No holds barred.
He’d warned her; now he could only marvel at his presentiment, for not in his wildest dreams had he imagined it would be like this.
Instant conflagration.
An immediate need more primitive than anything he’d felt before. He was a polished sophisticate, an experienced lover, yet she never seemed to connect with that side of him. The touch of her lips, the feel of her in his arms, the tentative, innocent trace of her fingers along his cheek, and he was lost to all sanity, all gentlemanly dictates, overwhelmed by an urgent and elemental need to make her his.
