Page 70 of Never a Bride
What could she say to that? When he acted serious, it played havoc with her emotional control. She wanted to run into his arms, to ask why she couldn’t be the only woman who fascinated him.
“I haven’t forgotten our wager,” he said. “Now do you believe I can make Max a sought-after gentleman?”
“I know you’ll try, especially if there’s money involved.”
He walked closer, until she was forced to back up step by step.
“I already told you, I don’t want money.”
Her back hit the paneled wall. “Then what do you want?”
She made herself ask it boldly, even as he braced his hands on either side of her shoulders, trapping her. Her breath shuddered in and out of her lungs, and heat shot from her breasts deep into her belly.
“I want a kiss,” he whispered, leaning his head down, and his black hair fell about his cheekbones.
“Why do you keep wanting to kiss me?”
“Because I like it—I likeyou. You arouse me, Em.”
She closed her eyes, pressing her hands against the wall instead of his chest. “Surely other women arouse you,” she said, hating how her voice shook.
“Yes, but since I met you, I—”
With what sounded like a moan, he closed the last inches between them and kissed her. His body pressed hers into the wall, his mouth opened and slanted over hers, willing a response she gladly gave. His tongue stroked hers; his teeth nibbled her lower lip. All the while he pressed urgently against her, as if he would fall if she did not hold him up. She thrilled to the hard length of his body touching her everywhere.
Emmeline was the first to break the kiss. She turned away and felt his head lean against hers as his breath came in deep gasps. Was he truly as affected as she was? Did he desire her honestly, or only because she was not so easily attainable?
She wanted to laugh—not attainable? She responded to his every touch with an indecency that bordered on sinful. There was something about Alex, ever laughing, ever hiding what he was feeling. If only she understood him.
“Please, any of the servants could see us.”
He lifted his head and straightened, but continued to keep her against the wall. “Perhaps the wager shouldn’t just be a kiss, which until now I’ve taken freely, but rather a kiss freely given by you.”
“Oh Alex,” she whispered, feeling sorrow and guilt seep through her. “Why do you do this to me? What about Blythe?”
“Blythe who?”
He rubbed a stray curl of her hair between his fingers, then covered her mouth when she opened it in outrage.
“I barely remember her name, Emmeline.”
His hoarse words should not thrill her, but they did.
“I may have originally come here to see her, but no longer. She is…not you.”
His hands moved up her shoulders and behind her neck, and the laces on her ruff were suddenly loose. When the neckpiece fell to the floor, she stared at his hands as they worked the little buttons down the thin material of her bodice. He was shaking, which moved her as much as a declaration of feelings.
He spread the top of her bodice and looked down on the valley of her heavily corseted bosom. He took a sharp breath, and she watched in stunned amazement when his fingers dipped between her breasts. She moaned.
“Beautiful,” he whispered, then bent his head and placed a kiss there.
It was heaven and the torture of hell all at the same moment to have his mouth on her skin, to imagine her clothing gone and his mouth even lower.
But oh God, she was standing in full view of anyone who walked into the room, with Alex’s head at her breasts.
And he had just declared that he only wanted her to satisfy a physical need. He didn’t love her.
Rallying her courage, she ran her fingers through his soft hair and whispered, “Is this a proposal, Alex?” knowing it wasn’t, knowing that was for the best. He was too wild, too unsettled for someone as simple as she.
