The Importance of Being Wanton - Christi Caldwell Page 0,57

at her exposed legs.

She bit the inside of her cheek, never wanting this moment to end. Wanting him to continue holding her . . . And he curled his left palm into the high arch of her foot, then slowly massaged that aching flesh.

There was a purposefulness to his caress, one that sought to rub away the hurt, and yet . . . Emma swallowed hard. For there was more to whatever this was. Her body came alive, her senses tingling to life, and from nothing more than his touch. Then he pressed his thumb into that tender spot.

Her breath caught noisily.

He glanced up, and his gaze fixed on her face, his eyes darkening. “You like that.”

It wasn’t a question, but a statement from a man who knew the subtleties of a woman’s body.

It was, however, the first he’d ever made an attempt to know hers.

Oh, God.

Emma nodded once more. “I do.” She dampened her mouth. “Are you . . . attempting to seduce me?” It was . . . too preposterous to believe. To believe this man who’d avoided her for years should desire her . . .

“And if I was?” he asked quietly. “Would you allow it?”

Would she allow it? Would she be able to resist? Emma closed her eyes as a battle waged within her, that over which her body longed for, and that which her stubborn pride insisted she deny at any cost. In the end, she proved weak. Or mayhap it was that she was strong in knowing what she wanted. Emma held his gaze squarely. “I allow it.”

Not: she would.

She did.

And in this moment, she tossed her seduction over to this man and this moment with him she’d secretly hungered for.

Charles went still. From the way he gripped her dress, his white-knuckled fingers clutching her hem, to the tension of his broad shoulders and the fire in his eyes, Emma knew one thing with an absolute certainty: he was a man not so very much in control. Not so very much, at all.

Or mayhap Emma just projected the turbulent sea of disorganized thoughts and sensations onto him.

Something changed in that moment, in his touch, and in the very air around them. For ever so slowly, Charles unfurled his fingers and glided them along her kneecap, and down ever so slowly, tracing the line of her calf, all the way to her ankle and her previously sore, pinched toes.

Had they truly hurt? Everything was so confused in this moment. Every fiber of her had been reduced, tunneled, to simply sensation and feeling.

Charles reached the end of that distracted caress, then pausing ever so briefly at the arch of her foot, he resumed an upward stroke, following that same path his fingers had just taken.

Emma’s breath grew shallow, and her skin radiated, tingled under that simplest of touches.

Only there wasn’t anything simple about it. Not truly.

She should leave. She needed to. There was a carriage full of friends awaiting her, and ruin also lying in wait.

God help her. She couldn’t bring herself to care. Not enough. Not as she should.

Closing her eyes, she allowed herself to focus only on that wildly illicit touch. Then, his eyes holding hers once more, he reached for her stockings, and proceeded to lower one.

Oh, dear.

His gaze heated, the glint there a knowing one, belonging to a man well aware of the effects he now had upon her, and she couldn’t bring herself to care. Pride was an overestimated commodity in this instant.

Using the palms of his hands, he rolled that silk article lower, baring all her leg, and with a surprising care, he set aside her stocking. He set to work on the second, showing it the same tender care and attention.

This was a peculiar alteration of her body’s sensation, and the ability of her nerve endings to process them, where the cold was now a balm, a sough upon her heated flesh.

Of their own volition, born of an understanding as old as Eve and Adam’s joint fall from grace, she let her legs splay, opening for him, and then he lowered his head between her legs.

Emma hissed. Surprise, shock . . . and a shameful bliss sent her hips shooting up.

Charles looked up at her. “Trust me, Emma.”

Trust me.

They were the last words this man was deserving of.

And yet in this moment, she was hopeless to do anything but follow where he led.

Still, he waited. Allowing the decision to be hers. Not taking more than she was willing to