“This girl had a guardian, and her guardian introduced her to his domineering friend, a friend very fond of ordering people about.”
He made a sound of disapproval. “Sounds like frightfully dull chap.”
“She thought so too, at first. But it turned out not to be the case. You see, one day, she followed him into a yew maze to prevent him from ruining a meeting she and her sisters had meticulously arranged.”
“I’m sureyou,at least, were meticulous.”
“Sst!”She placed a finger over his lips. How soft they were. “When she went into the maze this girl had no thought in her mind other than to make the domineering friendslow down. However, just as she caught up to him, something in the brush gave her a fright, and she stumbled. Stumbled right into him. And fell into the most exciting thing, or rather the most excitingperson, she’d ever encountered.”
Beneath her hand, his chest stopped rising and falling. But his heart began to thump even harder than it had before.
“She meant to pull away. But she’d caught his scent. And she’d felt his warmth and his strength. And suddenly, he was not just her guardian’s domineering friend any longer. And her bodyfelt hot. And her mouth felt dry. And before she could puzzle out what was happening—”
“Oh God,” he interrupted.
“I had never felt such shocking feelings in my life. Being close to you left me tingling all over. I had no idea you thought I was teasing. Noideayou wanted to kiss me senseless. No idea the tingling meant I wanted you to kiss me senseless, too.” She swallowed roughly. “Such a thought would never even have entered my mind.”
He started breathing again, but his heart still rat-a-tatted against her fingers.
“Did you really feel that way?” he asked.
“Yes. And when Eliza told me all about intimacies earlier this evening, I couldn’t think of anyone else I’d want to share them with but you.”
She wiggled a little, wondering if she might brush up against the part of him Eliza had told her stiffened when he was aroused.Yes.There was something very hard against her thigh.
“Did you feel that way, too?” She sought verbal confirmation. “Do you feel that way now?”
He groaned. “I feel like I want topossessyou.”
“Possess?” She pondered. “Well, that doesn’t sound very pleasant.” Rather invasive, in fact. Although, according to Eliza, invasion was the point. “I don’t think I should like to be possessed.” On the other hand, he had sounded intriguingly needy.
She remembered the feeling she’d had when he’d been kissing her and stubbornly avoiding her lips.Tell me you want me. Tell me you cannot resist me.
“Candy,” she murmured.
“Pardon?”
“Something you want but you shouldn’t have,” she explained. But if they were to be wed, “shouldn’t” no longer applied! “What if wecanhave all we want?”
He cocked his head. “I’m not following you.”
“Let’s do something bad, Auggie.” She brushed her fingers back through his hair. Oh, wasthiswhy Adrian’s hair was always mussed! “Give in.Possessme now.”
“Delilah,” he whispered, softening the accusation with a low laugh. “We’ve danced around the subject, but I haven’t yet explicitly asked you to marry me, and you haven’t agreed.”
“I think we’re far past those details.” The night’s heaviness, the seriousness of their discussions, the weight of the internal decision she’d just made…they’d all become too much. She wanted to be light again, if just for a moment. She wanted to be light…and tingling. “Be bad with me.”
“I’mnotgoing to deflower my future wife in Harbury’s library.”
She laughed, low and throaty. “I don’t see why not.”
“Don’t you?” He adjusted them both, so his arm was wrapped even tighter around her shoulder. “Afterwe wed”—a shudder passed through his body—“I am going to join my body to yours in the most gloriously indescribable way possible. Repeatedly.”
Gloriously indescribable.
Huh. And the harsh way he’d wrung out the words—the wonder, the need, therepeatedly—was not at all displeasing.
“There’s another word for what you just described, I think…” she teased.