Untouched

If he touched her, he’d take her.

He resented her. He mistrusted her. But he couldn’t deny he wanted her.

He didn’t know how long they waited. He, pretending to sleep. She, trapped between fleeing and advancing. All the time, his unruly flesh swelled and rose, insisting she was his for the price of reaching out his hand.

“I know you’re awake,” she said huskily.

“Yes.” He gave a heavy sigh and sat up, placing his bare feet flat upon the floor. Although it was dark, he dragged the blanket across to cover his nakedness. “What do you want, Mrs. Paget?” he asked wearily, running his hands through his hair.

“I don’t know.”

That was a lie. They both knew why she was here. She was his uncle’s obedient cipher. But God help him, she sounded so innocent and bewildered. He tried to revive his earlier rage but he was too dizzy with lust.

“Sweet Jesus,” he muttered to himself rather than to her. He couldn’t take much more. He stood, hitching the blanket more securely. She gasped and lurched back. Copulation might be her goal but she seemed less than reconciled to the idea.

The darkness was dangerously intimate. He leaned across and lit a candle to dispel the web of awareness between them.

A futile hope. He was always aware of her.

She’d tied her thick dark hair into a glossy plait that fell across one shoulder and dangled between her breasts. Under her transparent ice-blue night rail, the outline of her slender body was visible.

She kept her gaze lowered. Even so, she must have sensed where his eyes dwelt. To his reluctant regret, she wrapped her arms around herself, covering her chest. It was a characteristic gesture she used when she was frightened, or at least pretending to be so.

“You’re safe enough,” he said in a dismissive tone, praying it was true. “I can restrain my manly passions.”

“You don’t have any manly passions,” she said sullenly.

“What?”

He stared at her, startled. A flush of color seeped under the creamy skin of her face.

“No, I meant…That is…” She took a deep breath and at last looked at him. Unbelievably, he watched the beautiful eyes widen and fix on his bare chest. Her color rose higher and her tongue flickered out to moisten her lips. Her arms dropped loosely to her sides as though she offered herself. If he hadn’t known better, he’d believe she found him as compelling as he found her.

She wrenched her gaze up to meet his. “I’m sorry. I referred to your interactions with me. I mean, I’m sure you have manly passions. Every man…” She trailed off. She glanced away and her attention focused on the rumpled sofa. “I didn’t know you slept down here.”

He shrugged. “You occupy the only bed in the house.”

“I know.” Again she licked her lips, pink, moist, succulent. The simple action tightened the coil of lust inside him. “Or I know now. I looked for you upstairs but only one chamber is set up for sleeping.”

That explained some of the restless movement he’d heard. The picture of her pursuing him through the darkened house was evocative enough to stop his breath. Thank God for the blanket around his waist or his unwelcome visitor would have no doubt about his manly passions.

He bent his head in an ironical bow. “Until your delightful advent into my existence, I hadn’t expected to entertain guests.”

She flinched at his sarcasm. His brain kept telling him she was a deceitful little cat. His heart stubbornly insisted that every time he attacked her, he should be horsewhipped.

Right now, though, even the most obstinate part of his mind foun

d it hard to credit she was quite the lying witch he believed her. She followed his every move with her drowned dark sapphire eyes as if unsure whether he meant to tumble her or strangle her.

Although if she were genuinely reluctant, she’d cover her body with a robe. If she were genuinely reluctant, she wouldn’t be in this room at all. He forced his gaze away from the tantalizing shadows beneath her flat belly.

“I want to talk to you,” she said in a reedy voice.

“Do you?” he asked unhelpfully.

She wasn’t here to talk. There was only one reason she stood before him in her delightful dishabille. She contrived to seduce him as his uncle had commanded.

Now the time had come, and she was unable to complete the act. He mocked himself for that burning instant when he’d imagined she felt the first sparks of desire.