Page 72 of Royally Wed
CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
The glass slipped from Amelia’s hand and landed on the bed. Neither she nor Asher made a move to pick it up. They just sat there, staring at each other, while Amelia tried to process what he’d just told her.
“I’m right,” she said woodenly. How could Asher possibly know that? Had he ever met Holden? Did Asher even know who he was? “I don’t understand.”
“I saw him.” Asher shookhis head slightly, then corrected himself. “I sawthem. I walked in on them and saw something I shouldn’t have.”
“Yousawthem? When? Where?” Amelia shook her head. This didn’t make sense. He had to be mistaken.
He didn’t look mistaken, though. His mouth was flattened into a thin line and his eyes were grim.
He looked 100 percent sure.
“At Westminster Abbey. Today. That’s why I came to yourroom earlier. I was going to tell you. I thought you deserved to know.” He reached for her hand and wove his fingers through hers.
She liked the way her hand felt intertwined with Asher’s. He had lovely hands. Hands filled with music.
“Holden and Lady Wentworth were together at the Abbey?” That took nerve. But at the same time, it made sense.
She’d just run into them at Cadogan Hall the otherday. She’d been so shocked to see Holden there that she’d barely noticed the strange looks that had passed between him and Wilhelmina. She’d assumed they’d been suspicious of her dubious explanation for being there. That hadn’t been it at all.
“Yes.” The pad of Asher’s thumb traced a soothing circle over the back of Amelia’s hand. He looked at it, seemed to realize what he was doing, and stopped.“I don’t want you to think I’m telling you about Holden because of what’s happening between us. I’m telling you because you deserve the truth.”
Her heart began beating hard in her chest. “Something is happening between us?”
They could talk about it now. She could say it out loud. Holden’s affair changed everything. If he wasn’t playing by the rules, then neither was she.
“You know there is,”Asher said. Then he took her hand and placed it on his chest so she could feel his heartbeat.
It galloped just as frantically as hers did.
That was all the encouragement Amelia needed. She leaned toward him and touched her lips to his, and this time it was a tender kiss. Gentle. Reverent. Full of honesty and longing.
She could feel it in the heat rising from his body. Shecould taste the yearningin his kiss. Every square inch of his beautiful body was hard.
But at the same time, everything had changed. There was an undeniable purity in the way they touched each other now. An innocence that hadn’t been there before.
They weren’t betraying anyone.
Amelia couldn’t marry Holden now. She wouldn’t. Somewhere in the back of her mind, beneath the swirl of pleasure that coursed through herwhen she shifted on the bed so that she was facing Asher, straddling his lean hips with his erection pressed hard against her center, she realized things weren’t so simple. The wedding was in just under fourteen hours. A bank holiday had been declared. Shops would be closed. Right this very minute, people were camped out on the Mall so they could have a front-row spot for all the pomp and circumstancethat came with a royal wedding.
England was preparing for the party of a decade.
But she didn’t want to think about that now. Not tonight. Not after fate had given her such a divine gift. Not while she was in Asher Reed’s bed.
“So lovely,” he whispered against her neck as he slid his hands up the back of her blouse and splayed them against her bare back.
“More,” she murmured. She wanted moreof him. More of his skin touching hers. More of his mouth on her body. She wanted all of him. Everything he had to give.
She lifted her shirt over her head and even before she could toss it aside, Asher’s hands were cupping her breasts. He kissed her nipples, running his tongue lightly over one,then the other. The scrape of his five-o’clock shadow against her softest, most sensitive flesh wasexquisite. She loved the raw masculinity of his body, the way she felt so small and delicate in his embrace. Not like a princess... like a woman.
“I need you,” she whispered, burying her hands in his hair and holding him close, anchoring him to her breast.
Truer words had never been spoken. She needed him. She neededthis. She’d spent far too long fighting her attraction to him. No matterhow hard she tried, no matter what she did, it was always there, humming beneath the surface. Always, always there.
“I want to see you,” he said. His voice was a low rumble that she could feel deep inside. “All of you.”
