“You exaggerate,” she scoffed, still refusing to look at him.
“Margaret.” He said it as if it was an order.
Once again she looked up at him—she couldn’t help it—and found herself trapped in his gaze. Embarrassingly, tears filled her eyes and she didn’t know why.
“Don’t,” she whispered, turning away from him. “I can’t … it’s not possible …”
He had his hand on her arm and took her three steps into a small alcove that led off from the parlour. There was a low door at the end of it and he opened it. Startled, she glanced behind her, but no one seemed to have noticed their disappearance. Lady Strangeways had her back to them, and the vicar was deep in discussion with some of the other men, while, surprisingly, Lady Sibylla was chatting with Louis Scott.
Then the door was closed and they were alone in a much smaller room. There was a table by a window looking onto the backyard of the inn, a chair, and not much else. Perhaps this was where he had been when she arrived, discussing business with the solicitor.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she hissed. Did he know what her father would say if he’d seen them go off alone together? Did he realise the storm of disapproval and condemnation she’d find herself at the centre of?
He didn’t seem to realise and if he did he didn’t care. “I’m doing what I feel like doing every time I see you,” he told her.
He was already pulling her into his arms. She tried to catch her balance but couldn’t, stumbling against him. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight, so they were pressed together from shoulder to knee. She was too stunned to pull away, aware of the hard muscle that defined him, and that perfectly balanced her own soft shape.
We are made to be together.
The thought entered her mind before she could stop it, and once it was there she knew it was true. She could feel the steady thump of his heart against her cheek and the warmth of his breath in her hair as he bent his head to hers.
“My lord …” she whispered, wondering what on earth she was doing here and why she wasn’t struggling and screaming.
“My name is Dominic,” he reminded her, his voice deep and intimate.
“You must let me go,” Margaret told him in what was meant to be a firm and no nonsense tone, but instead turned soft and breathy and not at all convincing.
His fingertips slid down the side of her face and when they reached her chin, he lifted it so that she had no choice but to meet his eyes again. He was very close.
“I want to kiss you, Margaret,” he said in a tight voice, as if he was on the verge of losing control.
When she opened her mouth to protest his closed over it. She’d enjoyed his kisses before, but she had told herself they couldn’t possibly be as wonderful as she’d remembered. Only they were. The warm and insistent pressure of his lips, of his tongue caressing hers, gave her tingles all the way down to her toes.
“Oh,” she said, or something similar, as it was difficult to speak sensibly when someone was kissing you. Besides, she didn’t want to miss a moment of it.
She felt him smile, his mouth curving against hers, and something about that made her insides melt with longing.
His lips pressed a little more firmly and his tongue played with the crease in her lips, dipping inside her mouth in a way that made her ache. She swayed, her arms lifting so that her fingers could cling to his shoulders, and then his neck. The hair at his nape was softer than she’d thought.
“Where is that girl?”
The voice was right outside the door. Her father, sounding pained, as if Margaret made a habit of disappearing every time he wanted her. She stiffened and took a step back, afraid they would be discovered at any moment.
The earl’s mouth slid along her cheek, his breath warm in her ear. “Softly,” he whispered. “Unless you want him to find us?”
Margaret stepped back further and frowned up into his face. “What do you mean?”
“It would certainly solve your problem, wouldn’t it?”
“It would solve nothing!” she gasped, trying to keep her voice down.
“Wouldn’t it?” He made a sound in the back of his throat, and his fingers brushed against the pulse in her neck, slipping down to the soft collar of her gown. Then his fingers ran back and forth along it, slowly, mesmerizingly, and she found she was barely able to breathe. Her chest was rising and falling so rapidly that her breasts pushed against his chest, and the sensation was exquisite.
Although it would be so much better if we were naked.
Again the thought lodged in her head, and shocked her into protest.
“My lord …”