Hero, Come Back (Cynster 9.50)

“I beg to differ. From my vantage point, you appear quite fetching,” came the whimsical reply. “But here, let me assist you. It wouldn’t do for me to be caught with a half-dressed client of Esme’s.”

Client? Whatever did that mean?

Then like the storm from the night before, the old lady’s words clamored in her head. I could help you with it, if you like. For a small fee, that is.

Oh, what kind of muddle have I found myself in now? Amanda struggled and wiggled and tried pushing her arms this way and that, searching for a sleeve or the opening at the neck. How could getting dressed be so difficult? “Oh, the devil take this,” she muttered as yet another frantic attempt failed.

“Truly, I can help you,” her mysterious benefactor offered. “If you would just—”

A pair of warm, strong hands caught hold of her waist. After the shock of being held with such…such…enticing familiarity started to wear off, Amanda panicked. Oh, she could see now why her mother’s warnings had always been so strident; there was something altogether too tempting about being held thusly by a man. Something that made her want to lean into his chest, to reach out and touch him to see if the man surrounding the deeply sensual voice was just as promising.

What was she thinking?

“Unhand me!” Amanda cried, trying to get away. The back of her legs smacked into the cot, and she nearly toppled onto it.

Nearly, that is, only because of the unwanted help he continued to offer. His arms wound quickly around her waist and hauled her upright until she was pressed scandalously against his chest.

Really held, not at some proper distance, but gathered in close without any regard for decency or manners or society’s rules.

Amanda gasped as her body melded to his. In an instant, the warmth of his limbs sent a dangerous tremor of recognition through her. She was no longer just Miss Amanda Preston, but “fetching” and she felt it all the way down to her bare toes.

However, her mother’s stern warnings and her years at Miss Emery’s Establishment for the Education of Genteel Young Ladies overruled any further sense of adventure, and so she told him in the sternest voice she could muster, “Please, sir, unhand me.”

“If you would only hold still, I could get you dressed,” he said with such supreme confidence, she had no doubt that he was well-versed in the intricacies of ladies’ clothing.

Yet why did she have to be the lady men wanted to help get dressed?

“Hold still,” he told her again. “You’ve really got this in a dreadful tangle.” His fingers, which had been diligently searching for a sleeve, instead brushed over her breast, sending a quake of delight and shock through her.

“Oh, my!” she gasped. Being held was one thing, but this…this sent her to a realm into which not even her mother’s ominous warnings had strayed.

“Release me now!” she told him, this time in earnest, her hands finding the wall that was his chest and giving him a good shove.

It was enough to send him toppling over. She heard the clatter of his cane, but to her dismay, he had no intention of letting her go, and she fell with him into a heap on the cot.

“O-o-o-f,” he said as she landed atop him.

If merely being with a man in her undress was ruinous, then this, without a doubt, would be her final undoing. She sat straddling him, her bare thighs against the thin leather of his breeches, her breasts pressed against his chest. And what she felt pressed to her thighs—so hard and all too masculine, sent her heart pounding at a dangerous rate.

When she’d fled her parent’s house yestermorn, there had been a small, fervent hope that she would encounter her own bit of excitement. But never would she have believed that she’d discover it so quickly, or rather, that it would find her, and quite insistently, for that matter.

His hands found her hips and settled her exactly atop him. “I daresay if you wanted me beneath you,” he said, the tempting promise behind his voice bringing a hot blush to her cheeks, “all you had to do was ask.”

“I wanted no such thing,” she shot back, even as the delicious heat of his body enticed her to move closer to him. “Truly, I did not want this.”

Oh, now she could count lying as another of her newfound sins. That, and the unnamable desires this man stirred within her—irresistible notions of intimacy—the feel of his bare skin against hers, his confident touch, the whisper of his deep voice in her ears. If she didn’t find a way to resist his spell, she’d be a fallen woman in no time.

Not that such a thing mattered to her anymore. But still, she couldn’t erase Miss Emery’s exacting and uncompromising lessons on propriety so easily.

So resist him she should. Er, would. “Sir, if you do not unhand me I’ll—”

“If I must,” he said, a hint of playful regret in his voice. Next thing she knew, his hands no longer cradled her hips, but were once again pulling and tugging at her dress. Before she knew it, her arms found her sleeves, and the gown popped down over her head without any further mishaps.

That is, until she glanced at her savior, or as her mother would say, despoiler, and realized she must be dreaming.

“Oh, dear. Oh, my,” she sputtered as her heart sang with recognition and then lurched in despair.

The man beneath her was none other than Mr. James Reyburn.