Page 42 of The Tempting of Thomas Carrick
Addicting. She was that and more; her luscious lips, her supple body, and the vibrant, undeniable fire that burned within her made her the ultimate lure for him.
The sensation of falling—of simply going and not caring, of relinquishing control without further thought—jerked him back from the invisible brink. And let sanity return enough to recognize that the danger he’d intended to guard against had materialized and blindsided him.
Caught him. Trapped him.
He hauled back on his senses, pulled back from the kiss.
He couldn’t afford to let her influence him, much less allow her to rewrite his path.
Determination coalesced, hardened.
But when he raised his head and looked into her eyes, the emerald so dark in the night, and saw the soft flush of pleasure tinting her alabaster cheeks and passion sparking in the depths of those mesmerizing eyes…the truth hit him like a blow.
She wanted him. Until that moment, he hadn’t thought of her in this, but only of himself. He hadn’t thought of what her actions in kissing him, in initiating such an engagement—not once, but twice—said of her, of her desires.
But he couldn’t—simply couldn’t—be the man he saw reflected in those eyes. The man she wanted him to be.
He cleared his throat. Eyes locked with hers, he softly said, “This…isn’t wise.”
Lucilla blinked, then studied him—searched his eyes, his face. He might have broken the kiss, but he hadn’t—yet—set her from him. That he would at any second was obvious, but for that moment, she was close enough to read him in more ways than the obvious; she detected no hint of true rejection, of denial of what lay between them, in him.
She didn’t understand why he’d uttered those words, but she had more important issues to address. “What do you know of the Lady?” More than anything else, she needed to know that.
Carefully, he set her from him—slowly, as if it took concentration to make his arms do as he wished.
She took heart from that. When she didn’t step back, he did.
His frown showed more in his eyes than on his face. “The Lady?”
Thomas had no idea why she wanted to know that—what had so compelled her to ask that of all things, given the circumstances. He took an instant to consider, but the subject seemed safe enough—much safer than what had gone before. So he shrugged and answered honestly. “She’s the local deity in these parts—in your Vale and for some here on the estate, too.”
That his answer was, for some reason, important to her showed in her intentness, in the way she searched his face.
He narrowed his eyes. “Why do you ask?”
She blinked again. Several seconds passed before she replied, “Niniver happened to mention that you haven’t, through your life, spent all that much time here. I…thought you had spent more.” She shrugged. “So I asked.”
To his surprise, she turned and started walking again, albeit more slowly. Her fingers lacing over her waist, her expression suggested she was both disturbed and thinking furiously.
He fell into step beside her.
She glanced at him. “But you were born here.”
Her tone made the words something akin to an accusation, but he replied as if she’d posed a question. “Yes, but only by accident.”
“Accident?”
Her tone now held a note of…latent panic? That couldn’t be right. With a touch on her arm, he steered her through a side door and into the house—back into the safety of uncertain privacy. “My parents intended me to be born in Glasgow, but they came for a short stay, and I arrived weeks early.”
“Ah.”
Why those details should soothe her, he had no clue, but that single syllable had been infused with relief.
The shadows in the corridor made it impossible to read her eyes. He had no idea what was going on in her mind, but he knew without question that keeping distance between them was now imperative. She had to understand and accept that he was not for her, no matter what happened when they kissed.
They reached the stairway hall. He paused at the bottom of the stairs. “Do you know the way to your room?”
Lucilla nodded before she thought.Damn!She watched him step back.
