He turned, saw her, nodded, then walked to the armchair before the fireplace. Dropping into it, he stretched out his long legs, crossing his booted ankles…with a start she noticed that he’d changed out of his evening clothes; he was now garbed in breeches and boots, a neckerchief loosely knotted about his throat, a soft hunting jacket hugging his shoulders.
Sitting up again, he pulled the cushion out from behind him and tossed it on the floor, then he shrugged out of his coat and flung it over the chair’s back, then relaxed back once more.
Remembering her position, her raised and bare knee, and that he could see extremely well in poor light, she abruptly lowered her leg, twitched her nightgown down, fleetingly considered redonning her robe, but decided that smacked too much of accommodation. She wasn’t feeling accommodating at all.
She marched around the end of the bed, but halted a safe five paces from him. “What the devil are you doing here?”
Her hissed whisper filled the room.
He turned his head and looked at her. “I told you I’d see you later.”
“I thought you meant tomorrow. What on earth do you think you’re about, settling down there like that?”
“I was thinking of going to sleep.”
“You can’t sleep here, in my room—you know that perfectly well!”
He regarded her for a long moment. “You don’t seriously imagine I’ll allow you to sleep under the same roof as Nicholas, a potential murderer, unguarded?”
CHAPTER 10
THE QUESTION HADN’T, UNTIL THAT MOMENT, OCCURRED to her, but now he’d uttered it, the answer, she realized, was in fact No.
However…she drew in a deep breath, focused on his face. “This is not possible. You can’t just sleep here, in my room.”
“I grant you this chair isn’t the most comfortable bed”—he shifted his shoulders—“but I’ve slept in far worse. I’ll manage.” Putting his head back, he closed his eyes. “Where’s Nicholas’s room?”
“In the other wing. You can’t stay here—if you insist on guarding me, I’ll lock my door, and you can sleep in the next room.”
“The lock on your door’s too easy to pick—I looked. If I’m next door and Nicholas is good at this game, I’ll never hear him. Get into bed and go to sleep.”
The sheer command in his voice had her turning back to the bed before she caught herself; exasperated, she swung around and, seeing his eyes were closed, marched up to the chair. “Charles. No. Wake up.” She put a hand to his shoulder. “This is simply—”
He moved.
She landed in his lap. Swallowed her shriek.
“I did tell you to get into bed.”
His arms came around her.
Planting her hands on his shoulders, she tried to hold him off—tried to stop him from drawing her to him. “Don’t you dare kiss me!”
From a distance of inches, his eyes met hers. A fraught second passed, then one black brow arched. “Or you’ll what?” His voice had dropped an octave. “Scream?”
She blinked at him.
He closed the distance, closed his lips over hers.
He kissed her. Not as before but as he never had before.
Ravenously. With a hunger, a need, that simply slayed her. That poured through her, vanquished any resistance she might have made, vaporized any wish to do anything other than gather to her that greedy, rapacious, devastatingly desperate need, and appease it.
Her hands rose; she wrapped them about his head, clung rather than pushed him away. Held on until she found her feet in the welling, surging tide. Until she could meet him and kiss him back—give all he so flagrantly wanted, take all he so blatantly offered in exchange.
Their mouths melded; their tongues dueled. Heat flared and raced under their skins.
Sexual awareness awoke; she had nothing on beneath her lawn