frightened her. Outraged her, terrified her, disgusted her. Instead, as he started toward her with his lazy, sinuous grace, she felt that sudden clenching in her stomach, the tingling in her skin, and she knew if he touched her she’d be lost.
She wanted to be lost, didn’t she? At least, that’s what she’d thought several hours ago when she’d come up with this absurd scheme. Now, of course, she wasn’t so sure.
“I don’t think…” she began, when he picked up the end of one of her plaits and untied the ribbon, slowly pulling her hair free. She looked down at it, mesmerized, the tawny gold against his strong hand, the way he let if drift through his fingers. Hair had no feeling, and yet she could feel the caress in every inch of her body. He spread it out against her shoulder and then took the other braid, repeating the act, running the strands through this thumb and forefinger like fine silk.
“You really do have the most glorious hair,” he murmured in that cool, detached voice. “It’s a crime to hide it in those dreadful bonnets.”
She couldn’t move. She wanted to lift her hands, to push him away, but she was frozen, if heat could freeze, staring up at him. He sat on the bed, and the mattress sank a little beneath his weight, and she started to roll toward him. She put her hands down to hold herself still, and he laughed softly. He leaned down and feathered his lips against hers, and unwillingly she responded, her body rising into the touch of his mouth, and she wanted to cry. She closed her eyes, so he wouldn’t be able to see the hurt and longing in her gaze. Let it be over soon, she thought dazedly. Let me just get through the next half hour and it will teach me that I wasn’t made for this sort of thing. I can survive anything.
He kissed her closed eyelids, so gently, then her trembling upper lips, the arch of her brow, finally the lobe of her ear. And then he sank his teeth into it, biting her hard, and an electric shock went through her body as her eyes flew open in outrage and something else that she didn’t want to examine.
He sat back, an expression of bemused satisfaction on his face. “Besotted, are you? That should make my job a great deal easier.” He rose, and she felt a momentary panic. He was going to let her go. He’d made his point—she was really terrified of doing this no matter what she said. Now he would send her away and she would go, defeated and humbled, and she’d never be fool enough to…
He had shrugged out of his jacket, no mean feat given the perfect fit of the garment. He unfastened the shirt studs and set them on the table beside him, slowly exposing his sun-darkened skin to the candlelight, and she took a swift breath. Wilfred had been very pale and thin, almost scrawny. Thomas had been covered with grizzled gray hair.
She’d thought Rohan was thin as well, but she’d been wrong. He was all sleek muscle and tanned skin as he stripped his shirt off, and she stared at him, conflicting emotions roiling through her.
She cleared her throat, searching for some kind of normalcy in the charged air. “Well, it’s no wonder I’m drawn to you,” she said in what she hoped was a pragmatic tone. “You’re ridiculously beautiful, and you know it.”
He was amused. “Do I?”
“Of course you do.” Now she could be acerbic with no effort. “You carry yourself that way, like a man who knows his own worth and recognizes his value. You stroll and swagger and move like a pirate surveying his prey.”
He let out a hoot of laughter as the snowy white shirt fell onto the floor. “And just how many pirates are numbered among your acquaintance?” he asked politely.
She wanted to come up with a clever response, but the sight of all that bare flesh momentarily silenced her. Until he reached for the fastenings of his breeches, and she let out a strangled cry. “Don’t!”
A look of irritation crossed his face. “Sweet Charity, if I wait much longer to shuck my breeches I’ll have a damned hard time getting them off. It’s not as if you’re a virgin. You’ve seen a man naked before.”
“No, I haven’t.”
He paused, then shook his head in disbelief. “It’s little wonder you have no idea what you