seemed. She’d liked that about him.
The sights and smells of the busy kitchen dissolved into the steam rising from the stockpot. She was in a shabby, beloved room—with books, books everywhere.
Home.
An Indiscreet Debutante
When Miss Charlotte Vale isn’t running a school for impoverished factory women, she takes tea with an insane painter—the mother she adores. Determined to avoid her mother’s legacy of madness, Lottie refuses to marry and nurtures the
Through her door strides a man who threatens all she holds dear. Her cherished school, her careful control and her guarded heart.
Sir Ian Heald has tracked his sister’s blackmailer to her last-known location—Lottie’s school. Although he would burn the place to the ground if it would save his sister’s reputation, Ian is drawn to Lottie’s bold candor and indifference toward polite society.
To find his sister’s blackmailer, Ian follows Lottie into a twisted world of illegal gambling clubs and eccentric parties. Even when their mutual passion ignites, Ian knows their affair cannot last. Lottie was never meant to be tucked away on his quiet pastoral estate, and she staunchly refuses his desire to wed. Yet fiery kisses and scandalous showdowns tempt this proper country gentleman to win the woman he loves and never let her go.
He couldn’t have been more shocked to see her. His lips parted on silence. Someone had found him a banyan. The dark blue silk wrapped around his torso, and he wore dark trousers beneath, but under
Her fingers curled into her palms.
They’d brought the tea, and he sat at a table next to the window. A tree’s leafy green canopy obstructed most of the view through the window, but she knew that was no hardship. Next door was a brick townhouse.
She needed assistance keeping her brain inside her skull because she was losing it. The throbbing, heavy weight in her blood was expanding through her whole body, the way she’d always feared.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said after a long moment.
Likely he’d tired of waiting on her to be less insane. “It’s my house. I’m allowed to be anywhere I like.”
“I doubt that.” He leaned one elbow on the arm of the chair. The embroidered lapels of the robe parted enough to display three inches of his chest. There was a division between two thick muscles. He was a man who hadn’t ignored his body.
He made her want to not ignore her own body.
Losing her virginity had been an idle thought, one born of convictions and supposition. Not need. Not any amount of want. She ranged closer to the table, closer to him. Her fingers trailed over the cold metal edge of the tea tray.
“I’m all but mistress of this domain.” She nudged a plate of iced biscuits to the side in order to get at a tiny dish of cubed sugar. The piece she picked up was rough between her thumb and finger. She rubbed it over her bottom lip, then licked away the grains left behind. Sweetness burst over her tongue.
He never moved. His hands didn’t shift, nor did his feet, nor any other variety of limbs. The tilted-down angle of his chin stayed still, and he watched her from under thick, dark lashes.
Despite not moving, he was…alive. Aware of her and of the heat that flowed back and forth between them. Far, far away in the recesses of the house a timepiece chimed. Between them was the thick molasses of promise and potential. His eyes all but burned her skin, turning the stretch between her shoulder blades into a tickling, sensitive place that begged for his touch.
Except instead of following through with those silent promises, he shook his head, so very slowly. “You don’t want to head down this route.”
She edged closer. Near enough that her skirts folded over and around his calves. His knees. She managed to smile, but no one would ever know what it cost her. The way her lips felt nearly numb. She wanted to run her tongue over them, just to feel.
Maybe she could feel his mouth instead.
She still held the sugar cube. When she lifted it to his lips, it almost seemed that the room would implode from what built and wove between them. He speared her with that wicked gaze, and despite the reluctance she could feel rolling off him, the tiniest quirk of his lips said she hadn’t gone too far astray.
His lips parted for the cube. His tongue darted out enough to wet the tip of her index finger. A full-body shiver rolled over her skin and dove into her veins, turning her into both more and less.
“Maybe I don’t want to wander down the route. Maybe I want to run.”
Ian knew better.
Sugar melted on his tongue. Granules rubbed across the top of his mouth with sweet abrasion. Comparatively, her finger had little flavor, with the slightest hint of warmth and life.
She made him feel like he were Genghis Khan. A conqueror who didn’t need to be bent on taking because the slave girl was already offering him everything she had. Everything she was.
Her lush bottom lip trembled, but her eyes were wickedly hot. Her gaze scalded him, made his brain fuzzy at the edges. She wanted to be taken, or so she implied.
Unlikely.
His fingers locked around the arms of his chair, but he wasn’t sure what he braced against. The rising need, maybe. He didn’t have time for her. Hell, he shouldn’t have agreed to resting in her house long enough for his clothes to dry. The likelihood of him catching sick in a short carriage ride was negligible. But he’d wanted to help her. Those wide eyes, the obvious distress on her face. It all combined into a compelling desire to give her what she wanted.
Not taking what
She twitched, her elbows tucking in closer to her ribs. “No?”
His hips shifted in his seat, tipping forward toward her. He slid his knees out a fraction and made room for her voluminous skirts. Apparently his own body didn’t believe his words. “It’s a common word. Do I need to explain its meaning? I’m sure you don’t hear it often.”
She smelled so sultry and edged with temptation that his mouth watered. The sugar slid and spun and washed through him. No substitution.
She laughed. “I hear it often enough.” She leaned down closer. Her hands rested on the chair’s arms. Her dress was modest. Tight. All the way up to her collarbones, with more white lace edging toward her slender, graceful neck. He hated the damn thing. “I don’t like the word.”
He couldn’t reach up and trace her pale neck the way he wanted. Otherwise all his control would snap. He shifted the first two fingers of each hand enough to rest them on her knuckles. Supple and hard in one, she was bone covered with silk. Barely concealed, barely hidden.
Though she didn’t realize it, her every emotion rode right beneath the surface. He was shocked she triumphed in society. Sharks should have scented her blood and taken her down.
“You might be improved by a little extra experience with denial.”
She shook her head. When she’d changed her clothes, someone had tried to repin her hair from the tumbled mess created during the park’s drama. They’d succeeded for the most part, but feathery red tendrils curled around her cheeks and temples. “I’m perfect the way I am. You should kiss me and find out.”
