Page 24 of Meet A Rogue At Midnight
“We were always honest with each other.Always.” Jonas turned his face to the field. “Never, as children, was it necessary to spell out the need for telling the truth.”
“Because we simply were.”
“Then what changed?”
Gentle laughter rolled out of her. “Everything. Surely you see that? Ten years you were gone with hardly a word to those you left behind. And what happens your first night back? You kiss me!” She exhaled, blowing a wisp of hair out of her face. “I understand being your friend, at least what we had as children, but things have changed. We’re different.”
His mouth firmed. Light snapped like blue fire in his lapis lazuli eyes. Jonas advanced on her, dirt and snow crunching in the silence. He kept coming until she had to tip her head to keep eye contact.
He was a handsome man in daylight, the quiet, gentleman grandson of a furniture maker. Definitely the kind of man a woman could bring home to have tea with her mother. At midnight, Jonas devastated. Night caressed his features…his freshly shaved jawline, the width of his utterly kissable mouth, the sin-black hair falling around his face. He was an adventurer, dashing in a stoic fashion, a man of secrets and foreign places.
“I should’ve told you everything when I was in your bedchamber,” she said, forcing her arms to stay at her sides. Otherwise, she’d touch him.
Saying aloudwhen I was in your bedchamberhad an erotic effect, teasing the skin between her legs. Jonas’s brows arched. Were the words an aphrodisiac to him?
“But you kissed me and that changed everything.” Her voice was a wisp of sound on the empty road.
Jonas chuckled low and slipped his hand along her jaw. Black lashes hooded his beautiful eyes as his palm cupped the side of her neck. She sucked in hungry breaths. She needed him to say something, but Jonas was a man of few words, seemingly content to touch her.
“And then I kissed you when you came to my tower. An awful kiss. I was embarrassed,” she said, staring at his chin, her breath hitching. “I thought you had satisfied whatever lust or curiosity about me the first night, and well…my kisswasbad.”
“No it wasn’t.” His hand curled around her nape, warm and comforting. “Even a bad kiss with the right woman is heaven to a man.”
Oh, that melted her…those words said in his deep voice as his strong hand caressed her neck. Pleasure shot to her toes. Her body was flush to his.
He chuckled again and the rumble stroked her insides.
“That bad kiss? I made myself not respond. I had to know what was happening with you.” He kissed the crown of her head. “It’s my fault. I touched you when I had no business doing so.”
Waves of gooseflesh spread under her stays, the tickle skipping like pebbles down to her inner thighs. Words stuck in her mouth. Jonas’s fingers slipped into her hair before tracing her spine with painfully good slowness to the middle of her back. Her forehead rested on his velvet waistcoat, and she gripped the open ends of his outer black wool coat.
How far down would his hand travel?
Jonas stroked her velvet cloak, the hush of his hand the only sound on the empty lane. She pushed up on her toes, all the better to drink him in. His shirt smelled faintly of cedar, likely from his cedar-lined sea chest. An exotic soap-scent clung to his smooth jawline. She was lost in Jonas, his hand on her body, the still road, the excited flutter in her heart that he might…might—hedidpalm her bottom cheek.
She sucked a lungful of air. His big, beautiful hand rested right there.
Where else would he touch?
Jonas hugged her and spoke above her ear, his voice thick. “I want you to listen carefully to what I’m going to say. Know that whatever you decide, you will always be my friend, one of the best memories in my life.” He paused. “Give me a sign you understand what I’m saying.”
“Uh-huh,” she mumbled, nose deep in his cravat.
“I want to undress you. I want to kiss every inch of your skin until your voice is hoarse from crying out with satisfaction. We won’t think about the future or the past. We’ll be a man and a woman for—”
Chapter Seven
“Take me tothe tower,” she said.
“—for one night.”
Heat flooded his nether regions. He pushed Livvy’s shoulders back, needing to see her face. Did she know what she agreed to? Copper-colored lashes drooped over exotically tilted eyes. The full bow of her upper lip tempted him, the middle nub of her top lip inches from his mouth. He’d suck on it. Gently. And taste her…though he dare not say that. There was a hint of innocence in all her sauciness.
Yes, Livvy needed a thorough kissing, begged for it, her body swaying against him like a shameless tart. A definiteyes.
But her answer was too quick.
Logic and lust warred inside him. They were friends. Nor could he ignore that Livvy had consumed mulled wine tonight, and she was promised to another. Unofficially, of course. His mouth opened and shut, the chance for words crumbling when Livvy’s hands slipped inside his coat. She rubbed his chest, the whisper of skin on silk the only sound between them. Teeth clenched, desire surged hot and fast when she pushed his wool coat wide open. She took stock of his clothed chest, devouring him.
