Page 25 of Meet A Rogue At Midnight
“Livvy…you’re sure?” he asked, his voice hoarse. “About the tower?”
Curious hands traced the dip between his heavy chest muscles. “There’s little room for interpretation when a man says ‘I want to undress you’ followed by a promise to kiss every inch of my skin.”
Fingers digging into her velvet clad shoulders, he stifled a smile. He was a cad twice over for propositioning a promised woman on a country road. His stay in Plumtree would soon end. He had no prospects, no will to stay, and he was jealous to boot. He wanted to crush the man who asked for her hand.
What he wanted made no sense, but he was in no position to fish for motive and reason. His brain absorbed lust for a certain redhead the way a sponge soaked water.
“What I said was pure desire of the flesh.” His voice was strained. “I didn’t think.”
“I don’t want you to think. I want you to feel…to speak freely with me.”
Speak freely? When he was always guarded? His carnal proposition had popped out, spoken from his heart or, more accurately, from his loins.
“A true gentleman would see you safely home to the bosom of your family.”
Livvy’s smile curled like a sated cat. “The tower is closer.”
He groaned. Pleasure numbed his brain and shot straight to his stones. He breathed in her fragrance, a hint of vinegar from her toils and rose-scented soap. Did her skin taste like rose petal jam? She was supple against him, her shoulders pliant under his greedy hands rubbing her. The velvet teased his palms; her bare skin would be softer.
Two of Livvy’s fingers drew a painstaking line down the middle of his waistcoat. “One…two…three—”
“Have you considered that the mulled wine has dulled your better judgment?”
Silky brown eyes smirked at him. “We can stay out here in the cold or you can trust me. It’s your choice,” she said. “Four…five…six—”
“What are you doing?”
“Counting the buttons I must undo to get you out of your waistcoat.” Her hand stopped above his navel and her gaze met his. “Will you believe me when I get to your breeches and count the buttons on your placket?”
His stones heard that. They clenched inside his smalls.
Laughing low, he turned around and crouched low. “Get on my back.”
She jumped on and slipped both arms over his shoulders, her voice light. “You’re carrying me to the tower.”
Jonas hooked both hands under her knees and began the hike. He’d carried her home in the same manner when she’d twisted her ankle chasing a butterfly. Was she eleven years old then? Twelve?
Livvy nuzzled his ear. “I was hoping you’d toss me over your shoulder. It’s what a pirate would do.”
His step faltered on a rut. Her voice, rich as warm chocolate, tickled him. She wiggled, pressing her breasts against his back, and his traitorous brain flashed images of a man’s shirt stretched across sumptuous breasts when Livvy was in his bed his first night home.
“I’ll pretend you’re a lusty pirate, then,” she said, oblivious to her effect on him.
He forced himself to focus on the toes of his boots. “Sorry to disappoint, but I was an honest sailor. If it helps, I did grow a beard and braid it in three parts for a time.”
“I would have loved to have seen that.”
“It was a passing fancy.”
“And your employer, the Earl of Greenwich, tolerated such an appearance?”
“Lord Edward isn’t your typical nob. Doesn’t care about appearance or status,” he said, trudging up the road, the flesh heavy between his legs.
Plumtree was pristine and white, a wintry purity. Livvy was warm at his back, a welcome burden. Would it matter to her that he’d never captained a ship? Or that the highest position he’d achieved was man of business in service to an earl? He’d seen the world as a law-abiding man, worked with his hands, the same hands he’d use to pleasure Livvy.
Bed sport leveled a man and woman…two naked bodies lost in hot, grinding sex.
He hugged her knees tighter. Being with Livvy would be nothing of the sort, and it scared him, made his heart thud. He’d tupped women, but this night with Livvy wasn’t a tup. Slow, deep tenderness or frenzied passion, there was much to explore with her—and this one night for it.
