Page 56 of The Moonstone Major
“Seductive? How is a plain cotton nightgown and a robe buttoned to my neck in any way seductive?”
“You could be wearing a sack of burlap and still put my body in a thrum.” Why was he not drunk enough to overlook every tormenting detail of her appearance? “Go on. Start yelling at me. Get it all out.” He needed to finish drinking himself into unconsciousness.
She sobbed again and began to pound on his chest. “I love you.”
This was not what he’d expected to hear, although he knew she did, and this was the crux of their problem.
“Do you hear me, you dolt?I love you.”
He did not know what to say, so he wrapped her in his arms, groaned in wretched agony, and then kissed her as though he was going to die if he did not take enough of her in. He hadn’t meant to, but his brain was in a fog and he did not know what else to do.
So he kissed her again, inhaling her and sucking her in as though she was the very air he breathed.
Obviously, he had not thought it through.
Then again, perhaps it was not such a bad idea to kiss her when he was drunk to the point of passing out and his breath reeked. How could she like such kisses?
He pressed his open mouth again to the tight purse of her lips. He was too drunk to control his tongue as he tried to stick it in her mouth, hoping to do it gently because he never wanted to hurt Chloe, just make her not like his kisses. When she resisted opening her mouth, he wound up drooling over the edges of her lips.
He knew what had to be running through her mind. She was not being kissed by a man so much as a slobbering dog.
Well, he wasn’t trying to be romantic. He was trying to prove he was an oaf and chase her away.
Nor did he manage to control his hands, which were now roaming freely over her body and should have earned him another slap. Remarkably, she did not protest when one of his hands found its way downward to cup her nicely rounded bottom and the other cupped a nicely rounded breast.
What felt like a volcanic explosion tore through him.
Dear heaven, she excited him.
He muttered something into her mouth while he continued to slobber kisses over her face and body. He could not make sense of what he was saying. He hoped she could not either. Especially if he was stupid enough to utter anI love youback to her.
A desperateI love you, because being drunk had not suppressed his feelings but sent them gushing out.
She moaned as he trailed kisses down her neck and into her cleavage.
Blister it! Had he somehow managed to undo those buttons at her throat? How?
Never mind.
He fumbled with the rest of them because he was going to burst every organ in his body if he did not tug that robe off her this very instant.
He now had only the nightgown remaining as an obstacle.
Was he insane? Drunk or sober, he should not be undressing her. Nor should she be allowing it.
He moved his face off her cleavage, trying to behave. But he noticed her lush, heaving breasts straining through the thin cotton fabric, and began to lick those magnificent peaks through it as well.
Only after licking the fabric did he think of easing the nightgown off her shoulders to get at those two luscious and creamy prizes. He wanted to taste her skin.
“Chloe, you haunt my dreams. You torture my heart.” Where had his glass and bottle gone? And now his head was reeling. His body began to sway like a moored boat on a rising storm tide.
“Fionn, no! I forbid you to pass out. Do you hear me? Do not pass out.”
He responded by falling backward onto the soft grass and taking Chloe down with him.
He braced himself for the sting of another slap, but she was laughing.
“Are you no longer mad at me, Chloe?”
