Page 98 of The Trouble with Anna

“It’s not unpleasant, exactly,” she allowed. “Just different. Like…”

Like the smell of earth after a hard rain. Clean, strong, and sustaining.

“Like wet dirt?” she offered.

He laughed and pulled her close. “You smell bright, like lemons, or the shock in the air after lightning. I’m always dreaming of dark corners where I can pull the pins out of your hair and chase your scent.”

His hands curled against the nape of her neck to cradle her head, and a spark of wickedness flared to life in Anna’s belly.

She met his eyes and slowly, deliberately, pulled one of her hairpins loose.

His eyes were like smoke.

She pulled another pin out, cupped it in her palm, and offered it to him.

“Let me.” His voice was strangled. “I’ve been dying to take down your hair.”

She smiled, and he lifted her up to sit facing him on the expanse of the bed, taking to his task with utter concentration, removing her pins one by one until her hair spiraled loose and tumbled down over her shoulder in a dark waterfall.

He swallowed. “Christ.”

Anna dropped her gaze, and Julian caught her chin. “No, please. Look at me. I love how it feels to have your eyes on me.”

Anna sucked in her breath. It was always such a fightnotto look at him, not to get greedy and take more than her share.

“See what you do?” His face was flushed, his remarkable eyes glittering and hectic. “The power you have over me?”

Anna swayed toward him, fascinated. “Power?”

He leaned closer as well. “I know the second you enter a room. I can feel it, as if I have an extra sense that turns on just for you. And when you kiss me…”

Anna felt quite drunk. “Yes?”

“When you kiss me, you own me.”

Anna’s breath caught. “Kiss me now.”

Julian went still, as if the smallest movement might send her running.

“Kiss me!” she commanded.

He gave a strangled laugh and lowered his mouth to hers.

He’d kissed her before—quite a lot, actually—but never like this. Never like it was the answer to an urgent question. Never with such reverence, such heat, suchoh god, please.

She reached out, dragged the flat of her palm down over the muscles of his chest.

“Will you…?” She ducked her head, too shy to say it.

His voice was gravel. “Anything.”

“I want to see you without your jacket.”

Julian yanked his jacket off, revealing the white expanse of his shirt, the broadness of his chest.

“Your cravat. Take it off.”

He removed it, baring the muscles of his neck to her fascinated inspection.

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