Page 4 of Meet A Rogue At Midnight
Between his smile and the room’s muted light, her legs refused to budge. She’d watched him shave and bathe tonight. The image of him barefoot and shirtless in travel-worn breeches as he dragged his razor across his jaw had burned into her mind.
“My friendship is true as it ever was. If you need something…” Jonas’s half-hearted words trailed off.
His obligatory offer wasn’t enough. A man chasing down his next adventure couldn’t help her. She needed someone to stay. Plumtree’s gossip claimed Jonas would be gone when Twelfth Night ended. The still packed sea chest confirmed the news.
She unlatched the window panel, and Christmas Eve bathed her face with cold air. “Thank you for understanding.”
“We’ve shared worse scrapes,” he said, donning a red velvet coat.
She held on to the window frame and hooked a leg over the ledge. “Red velvet. Dashing attire for a pirate.”
“Don’t climb out yet. Let me get outside to see you safely off.”
He disappeared from the room. She took one last breath of his lingering scent, a spicy, foreign aroma that clung to his sheets, the air. Plumtree’s quiet lad, her childhood friend, was all grown up. From downstairs, male voices overlapped with hoots of laughter through the open door. It was time to go. She swung her other leg out the second-story window. Grabbing a branch bare of leaves, she planted both feet on a lower limb and scooted toward the trunk. The climb down was easy, a matter of descending the tree’s convenient symmetry. Her feet landed on the ground not far from the parlor’s back window where light glowed on new fallen snow. Fiddle music whined as Jonas jogged around the corner, his breath puffing tiny clouds.
He made an imposing silhouette, his heavy black coat spanning colossal shoulders. “You were supposed to wait.”
“Why?” She shook out the cloak she’d left on a shrub.
“So I could catch you if you fell.” His voice caressed each word, half-amused and a touch sensual.
Her hands stilled. Eyes the shade of lapis lazuli glinted with messages she shouldn’t be receiving. As a woman of twenty-four years, she was acquainted with lust. Was this shift in Jonas because he’d glimpsed her bosom tonight? He’d courted her sister, not her. Confusion swirled inside her—glee at being the object of his fancy and disappointment that her friend held the better part of himself back.
Jonas was a man after a kiss. Nothing more.
What else could she expect? He was leaving Plumtree after all.
“I’d better go.” She spun around and whipped on her cloak.
Behind her, boots crunched snow and pebbles. Light snow had fallen on Plumtree, sprinkling the world clean and white. She fastened the first frog when a firm hand touched her shoulder.
“Let me help you put that on,” he murmured in her ear though his voice saidlet me take that off.
Flesh pebbled across her bottom. His baritone strummed delicate nerve endings along her inner thighs. There was something solid and poetic in his voice, a combination that made no sense, yet with Jonas, it did. Eyes closed, she willed composure.
“Livvy,” he whispered and her knees weakened.
Was it possible a woman could sink in a sea of lust with a childhood friend? They’d spent summers together hunting tadpoles for goodness’ sake.
Big hands grasped her shoulders and turned her around. She opened her eyes and he filled her vision. Moonlight limned ink black hair not long enough to be tied in a queue. Jonas had to have shaved his head and was growing it again. And his gold earring…it winked at her.
Yes, they both had their secrets.
Inside the house, fiddle music ebbed. Silence curled as mysterious as the crisp winter air. The Captain and his friends rumbled a new song without the fiddle, their solemn voices blending for the first time.
“God rest ye merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay…”
Jonas cracked a smile. “At least they don’t sound like howling cats.”
Their bodies shook with gentle laughter. She could lose herself in him, the comfort and the thrill. Jonas dipped his head, his vivid blue gaze taking her breath away. Infinite stillness lit the depths of his eyes. Her lips parted to announce she was leaving, but Jonas slipped both hands into her unbound hair, urging her close.
Her breath hitched at large, warm hands cradling her head. Gentle heat melted her. Her thighs brushed his. She wanted Jonas…his touch, his friendship…whatever morsel of happiness he could share during his short stay in Plumtree.
Her lashes drooped. The world was his spicy soap, big hands riffling her hair, and baritone whispers of, “You’ve grown up, Livvy…beautiful, lively…”
Carnal lips rubbed hers, softly coaxing her mouth open.
Tender, poignant messages poured through her limbs, sayingyou were made for his kisses.
