His senses leapt. She was wearing her silk robe again, and nothing else. His hands tightened on her upper arms, long fingers encircling, holding.
“Oof!” She blew strands of tumbled hair from her face, then looked up.
“Your room.” His inner male salivating, he tried to turn her.
“No.” Hands against his chest, she resisted. “Your room. You have a bigger bed.”
A pertinent consideration. He nodded, released her, and stepped back, taking her hand in his. Anticipation escalating with every step, he led her back through the corridors to the landing before his door.
Lifting the latch, he sent the door swinging wide, held it open, and waved her in.
He followed.
He would give her no time to talk, to question and expect answers. To argue. Words were of no use to him; better to avoid any verbal exchange.
Ahead, she slowed.
He turned and shut the door.
Turned back—
And she was there.
She stepped close. Eyes locking with his, her hands sliding up his chest, over his shoulders to twine about his neck, she stretched sinuously up, silk susurrating against his coat. Lids lowering, she drew his head down to press her lips to his.
And kiss him.
Kiss him in a manner patently intended to circumvent all discussion, all questions.
Kiss him in a way that made his head spin, that made him—
Giddy with a need she pledged herself to fulfill. To sate, to satisfy.
With her lips a firm pressure tempting his, her mouth a luscious offering, she wordlessly promised to engage, indulge, and gratify whatever desires he wished.
His temptress incarnate. A siren like no other.
Her lips parted beneath his; with her mouth, succulent and sweet, offered as a delight, with her tongue a fiery brand inciting — nay, demanding — his response, she flagrantly invited him to state his need. His wish, his want.
She pressed closer, the firm mounds of her breasts impinging against his lower chest, her hips meeting his upper thighs, her taut belly cradling his rampant erection, the long, slender lengths of her thighs sliding against his in an evocative promise of sweet passion and tempting heat, and pleasure without reservation.
One hand rising to palm her head, to frame her jaw, he was kissing her back before he’d thought — but his response required no thought, no logical consideration.
If she was offering, he would take.
Gladly.
His other arm banding her waist, he drew her flush against him, sensed the hitch in her breathing, the momentary tensing, then she melted, and gave. Yielded.
Even as he slid the reins from her grasp, as he took charge of the kiss, took control of the exchange and settled to plunder the delights of her mouth — slowly, savoring, claiming as his due — even as he instinctively, intuitively assessed, and planned the tempo of the interlude, the rhythm and the cadences of the dance to come, he wondered at her agenda.
Clearly she had one.
Equally clearly, hers didn’t involve words, either.
Regardless, with their mouths fused and heat and desire stirring, welling, rising, and swirling through them, with her hands sliding from his nape, one upward to tangle evocatively in his hair, the other cruising over his shoulder, then sliding down his chest to slip beneath his coat and fragment his focus, with her body the ultimate distraction in his arms, he had no space left in his head to pause and think. To question, even mentally, what she was about.
No doubt he would learn later. For now. .
She’d given him the perfect lead, the perfect opening to demonstrate and display all he wanted to and needed to reveal, so she would see and know, and so understand, all the things he couldn’t say.
All he felt for her.
All that filled his heart.
He couldn’t have wished for a better opportunity, a more helpful setting of their stage.
Now all he had to do was capitalize on the moment.
Heather knew he was planning. Even as he’d reacted to her blatant invitation and then pressed for control of the kiss, even as she’d relinquished the reins and let him take charge, she’d known he had some end of his own in mind.
He hadn’t been surprised when she’d run into him in the corridor; he’d been on his way to her room.
He’d been intent on instigating another interlude. . letting herself flow into his kiss, setting herself to follow wherever he led, she was curious to see what he would do, where he would lead her, and even more curious as to why.
That, after all, was precisely why she’d left her room and headed for his. She’d tried encouraging him verbally; she’d tried abstinence. Neither tack had yielded the desired result. So she’d decided to try one last, infinitely more risky, throw of the dice.
He angled his head and deepened the kiss, his lips commanding, his tongue demanding. She let herself respond openly, without guile or reservation. Sent her tongue to tangle with his, to stroke, to invite, to incite. To ignite the passion and set flame to the desire that smoldered between them. She kissed him back with fervor, let her need infuse her lips, her mouth, her body as she pressed against him. Into him.
As she wordlessly asked, and made it perfectly clear she would if necessary plead, or even beg.
She hid nothing. Nothing of her reaction as he sank deeper into her mouth, as he evocatively plundered and heat and sensation rolled through her. Sinking her fingers into his hair, she gripped his scalp as his tongue caressed, then heavily, provocatively probed, and desire slid, hot and heavy like syrup, through her veins. To ultimately pool, a mass of heated yearning, low in her belly.
A familiar, slow-building ache.
She stirred against him. Splayed one palm on his chest, over his heart. Rolled her hips against him in blatant entreaty.
Wordlessly encouraged. Flagrantly incited.
Deliberately provoked.
With her lips, her tongue, her body, and her hands, she strove to make her want, her hunger, and her need blatant, to write it in large capitals on their sensual slate. . in the resulting moment of vulnerability, fleeting though it was, she sensed why he might hesitate to be so emotionally naked.
Yet she couldn’t afford not to try — not to put her need on display, not to expose it fully. Catriona had told her she might have to risk her heart in order to secure his. She wanted him — wanted a future with him — enough to take that risk.
In her heart she prayed that he wouldn’t fail her, that he wouldn’t turn aside from her desperately yearning need. That he would acknowledge it, not ignore it.
That he would meet it, match it, and not simply use it.
She was wagering her heart that what had grown between them was not just about physical satiation but meant more, not only to her but to him as well.
She was wagering that if she took the plunge and exposed her heart first, he would respond, that he would follow her lead and take the risk, too — a lesser risk if she had risked first, if he already knew that she loved him.
She was wagering that if she showed him her love, unequivocally and without reserve, then he would reciprocate and show her. . enough at least for her to know that he felt a similar connection, that underneath his reservations he loved her in the same way.
How to make her point. . at some stage she would have to convince him to cede the reins to her.
But not yet.
Not when he was lavishing heat and pure pleasure on her mouth, and slowly steering her to the bed.
