CHAPTER4
He woke with an aching hip and a hard cock.
With a groan, Hart rolled to his back on the rigid floor of his room as sleep cleared from his eyes. The ceiling stretched above him, the same sight he had beheld every morning for years, and yet, somehow changed. The sun’s position in the sky had lightened the chamber, chasing the shadows as it filtered around the edges of the heavy curtain obscuring his window.
Morning had dawned in full.
And still, no relief from the lust that had been haunting him, even in his reluctant sleep. All he had to show for sleeping on the floor was the same bleeding longing that had been chasing him to sleep, along with the aches and pains of having spent hours—how many he knew not yet—slumbering on the discomfort of the floor, a lone blanket for warmth.
“Saint Hugh’s bones,” he muttered, his disgust rising to rival his damned prick.
The familiar sound of bedclothes rustling hit him, far closer than it should have been. He turned toward the sound, rocking onto the hip that had been paining him once more with a wince.
Long hair was spread over a pillow like skeins of pure, spun gold.
Lady Emma had joined him on the carpets, and she was still asleep, her eyes closed in slumber, lashes a fan on her pale cheeks. How peaceful she looked, her lush lips relaxed and parted for deep, even breaths. One of her elegant hands was tucked beneath her chin and the other was hidden within the blanket cocoon she had fashioned for herself. His mind was too sleep-addled to deny himself the pleasure of drinking in the sight of her in full.
Her nipples were blessedly concealed by the counterpane, but the twin swells of her breasts rose and fell with each breath, tempting him. His eyes followed the dip of her waist, the womanly curve of her hip. The bedclothes had been tossed from her feet in her sleep, revealing her bare toes and the tempting turn of her ankle.
Hunger surged anew.
Curse the woman, he had slept on the floor to avoid this unacceptable yearning. Why would she not have slept in the comfort of his bed as he had directed her to do? And how deeply had he been sleeping not to have been awakened by her nocturnal movements?
None of those questions mattered now, for she had moved, and she was within reach, far too close for comfort’s sake. As if she sensed his regard, she shifted again, making a low noise of satisfaction that had him smothering a groan and tamping down the feverishly swelling tide of his desire.
He had to rise. To splash cold water on his overheated face. To quell the inappropriate reaction he could not seem to keep from happening in her presence. Floating hell, what he truly needed was to pay a call to The Garden of Flora.
He sat up and shed the lone blanket he had taken from the bed, thinking that if she had chosen to sleep on the floor, she could have at least had the grace to inform him so that he could have slept in comfort instead. What a strange creature she was.
As he crossed the room as quietly as possible, making his way to the basin and pitcher for his morning ablutions, the memory of Lady Emma on her knees before him rose. His reaction was almost vicious. If he had asked her then, she would have sucked his cock. She would have taken him down her throat, and he could have fucked that pretty pink mouth as he had so desperately longed.
Irritated, he hauled his shirt over his head and tossed it aside. An entire night spent in the damned thing meant it was time for fresh togs. Too bleeding bad he had not thought about the particulars of walking around in his birthday suit while he had an innocent seductress he couldn’t bed inhabiting his space.
With a smothered curse, he splashed cool water on his face.
He needed to pour it down his bleeding trousers whilst he was about the business. Mayhap that would teach his rampant arbor vitae to calm down.
“Hart?”
At the sweet aristocratic voice, he turned, face dripping, and saw her standing there in her bare feet and that bleeding night rail. Perhaps it was her posture, mayhap a draft in the chamber that made her night rail cling to her lush form in all the most wicked ways. The awareness of her that he had been attempting to banish surged right back. He didn’t know what was responsible.
The cause didn’t signify anyway, because all that did matter was the sunlight behind her, rendering the prim white cotton of her gown sheer. All that did matter was her hair was a wild tangle around her shoulders that made him think of what she would look like after she had spent the night in his bed, properly loved.
“Emma,” he bit out, dimly aware of water rolling down his throat and chest.
It did nothing to cool his ardor. He was on fire.
Her eyes were locked to him, fanning those cursed flames, trailing over his bare shoulders and arms, down his abdomen to where his cockstand had no shame and was rising rudely to the occasion.
“You are wet,” she said, as if he were blissfully unaware of his sodden state.
He swallowed, trying to keep his sinner’s mind from thinking about other wetness aside from his own. “Aye. I was washing the old dial plate.”
Instead of remaining where she was, at a safe distance, she moved nearer, an alluring frown of bewilderment on her lovely face. “Dial plate?”
“My face,” he explained.
“And the rest of you.” She moved past him, the fine cotton of her gown searing his right arm as she scooped up the linen towel kept neatly by the pitcher and basin. “Let me help.”
Before he could protest, she was using the towel to blot the water on his chest, her fading jasmine scent taunting him. Where the devil could he get more of that luscious smell for her? He wondered if Winters soap possessed such a decadent floral note. And then he wondered why he was thinking about buying Lady Emma Morgan bloody soap, as if he were some aristocratic fribble gadding about Bond Street.
What the floating hell was wrong with him?
He was a Sutton.
There was one reason for her presence in his chamber, in his life, and it was not…
She moved the cloth up to his throat and stepped closer. So close, her hungry nipples were prodding his chest through the cotton of her borrowed night rail. So close, her skirt brushed against his legs, gliding tauntingly over his painfully rigid cock. He felt that whisper of cotton every bit as strongly as if it had been her hand or her lips.
“I missed a drop,” she said, and then dipped her head.
The flick of her tongue against his bare skin, wet and quick, licking up the waterdrop, sent shock and lust roaring through him in unison. His hands were in fists at his sides as he used every bit of restraint he possessed to keep from reaching for her. To keep from seizing her waist and grinding her against his body so she could feel exactly what she was doing to him with this little game.
“There.” Her voice was a whisper over his skin, snaking through him like a streak of lightning across a calm night’s sky; sudden and intense, brilliant and dangerous. She stepped back and finished drying his face with tender dabs. “The water was cold. Do you not have heated water delivered in the morning?”