Page 21 of Buon Natale, My Wicked Rogue
Still, he couldn’t completely regret probing so deeply into her past. He was glad that he had come to know her better through learning about her past. He understood how badly Jacob Berry had hurt her.
How could anyone have hurt her so willfully? He didn’t know.
A board in the ceiling creaked.
A floor board in Angela’s chamber.
She was awake. The board creaked again. Yes, she was awake and pacing her floor. She’d been just as wakeful the past nights. Just as he had been. Was she up there thinking about leaving for Boston?
He knew what thoughts had kept him awake. Thoughts of how marvelous she felt in his arms and how delicious her mouth tasted.
Those thoughts made his cock so rock hard that he couldn’t sleep.
But he didn’t want to pleasure himself. He wanted to feel every ache of longing for her. It was an agony of anticipation, a painful yet pleasurable feeling. He wanted to feel every moment of this affair. And the only way he could sleep was to drink himself into drowsiness, slowly sipping brandy until he drifted away into dreams of her.
But what thoughts were troubling her sleep?
A knock on the drawing-room door startled him. He must have fallen asleep. With effort, he shook off his sleepiness.
“Come in. It is open,” he said.
The door opened, and in the dim light of the fire, he saw Angela enter the room. She was clad only in her nightdress, a heavy white flannel garment trimmed with ribbons and lace. He was intimate enough with her now to know she would be wearing heavy woolen stockings.
The thought made him impatient to strip her of all those layers. Her primness added a piquant note to her appeal, especially when he had come to know the sensualist beneath the primness.
She was, in truth, a tigress.
“Angela,” he said, hearing the slur in his voice. “You should know that I am not completely sober.”
“Should you be sober? It’s the middle of the night.”
“I might not be able to control myself.”
“Hush, Evan.” She came closer and sat beside him on the chaise longue. His stomach tightened, and his cock twitched at her proximity.
He leaned towards her and watched the play of firelight on her face, letting his gaze drink in her loveliness. “You’re abeautiful and most welcome sight in the wee hours of a long, lonely, sleepless night.”
He put his mouth on hers and pressed gently, holding back the tide of desire that pressed on him, so he could kiss her tenderly. He wanted to show her without words that she was not just a dalliance to him. He didn’t dare voice such a thing aloud. He still didn’t know if he was holding a spy in his arms.
He didn’t know if he was becoming deeply infatuated with a spy.
His heart pounded, and the blood roared in his ears, and he knew that he was falling so hard for her.
Maybe the Americans really needed a helping hand to get their industry going. She loved the United States enough to risk her life to help her countrymen. Didn’t that make her a heroine, depending on which side one viewed the issue? He could have laughed at how his lust addled his thoughts if only his cock didn’t ache and throb so badly. He lifted his head and studied her hazel eyes. The way they sparkled in the firelight enhanced their luminosity. “I am on fire for you, love.”
“I couldn’t sleep either,” she said.
Was she changing the subject? Or did she mean that she couldn’t sleep because she was on fire for him as well?
She moved closer to him until she fit against his chest. The softness of her breasts made him catch his breath. Their rigid peaks, pressing into him with an urgency more telling than anything she might say, made his cock throb. Painfully.
She placed her hands on both sides of his face. Her eyes had dilated pupils and appeared large and luminous in the firelight. Her cheeks were flushed.
The scent of her bathing oil, lavender and rose, wafted to him.
And the scent of something else.
Her arousal, spicy and feminine.
