He drew back, breaking the kiss. For a long moment, he merely stared at her, his chest heaving, looking as shaken as she felt. “This is not the place,” he said, his voice grating. “You have not…”
“I have not what?”
He frowned up at her, his hands sliding down her thighs in a proprietary movement. “Perhaps I make assumptions. I assumed you had never kissed another man before.”
Shame shot through her. “Was my technique so poor?”
“Not in the slightest.” He brought his other hand to her jaw. “I very, very much enjoyed kissing you, Chris, but my understanding was that you had no prior experience. Am I wrong?”
“No,” she said slowly.
“And it follows, therefore, that you have done nothing further.”
“If I had, I would have disclosed it before we were married.” She did not necessarily subscribe to the idea that ladies ought to be chaste when men were not required—or even expected—to remain so, but she also believed in honesty where possible.
If she had dallied with another man and the duke found this distasteful, he would be at his liberty to cancel their arrangement.
Chastity, she had assumed, was not something she need disclose in its specifics before their wedding.
“Yes.” He released a long, slow breath and rested his forehead against hers. “In which case, we should stop—we should stop there.”
“For what reason? Did you not enjoy…?”
His laugh was more of a groan. “That is not the issue. The issue is I have a rather pressing need to see you naked, and this would not be the place for it.”
Once again, Christiana glanced around, noting the piles of rubbish everywhere. No wonder Amelia had been certain they would be undisturbed here. Judging by the dust and the stale air, this room had not been entered in quite some time.
Besides,naked. That seemed like something one prepared for in advance. At the very least mentally.
The only people who had ever seen Chris without her clothes had been her maids.
Still, for a reason that defied logic, she was tempted to throw all caution to the wind and beg him to remove her clothes. Then, just as foolishly, beg him to touch her.
“I have a rather pressing need to see you naked.”
The words made her shudder with her own need, unfamiliar and heated within her.
Still, there was so much dust everywhere; he was probably right to say they should stop.
“All right,” she said, sliding back off his knees. Her skirts fell back down to her ankles, and she caught sight of her stockings—which meant thathehad also seen them. “Then let’s stop.”
He watched her with dark eyes, his good hand moving to his hair to brush it off his forehead, and her insides felt wrung, like awet towel. “But in the future,” he said, enunciating so clearly, he evidently intended for there to be no confusion between them, “if you would like to kiss me, or for me to kiss you, you may do so. Or ask.”
Christiana’s heart thudded, and heat crept up her neck to her ears. “Oh. Well, I—”
At that opportune moment, the key rattled in the door. “I hope you’ve made up,” Amelia called through the wood. “Mrs. Partridge is going quite out of her mind about the missing keys, and I doubt I could hide them for much longer.”
After taking a moment to adjust his breeches, Hugh strode to the door and opened it wide.
“We have resolved our issues,” he said. “You, on the other hand, are in a lot of trouble.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Hugh marched Ameliato his study. His blood still sang from that kiss—what a kiss—with Christiana, but his pride smarted not a little at how easily she had gone from kissing him back to looking totally unaffected.
Next time—and now that it had happened once, there would most certainly be a next time—he would do a better job.
He shut the door behind him. Amelia had paled somewhat, but she kept her chin raised as she looked at him.