green eyes that could peer into one’s soul. The cat would stare at her, unblinking, and she had been convinced the feline could read her every thought. Adam shared that same trait.
“Are you surprised? You frighten me a little. The way you held that knife, the way you look at me . . .You must know I’ve never been with a man in any intimate way. I have no experience with this. That is why I hesitate.” She lowered her voice when she spoke of intimacy, not that anyone could hear her. They were quite alone for the moment.
Adam’s gray eyes studied her, unlocking something inside her, something that made her feel weak at the knees, yet she held her ground, even as his gaze seemed to burn her skin as it roved over her body. He reached up to catch a loose curl that fell against her throat. The whisper of his fingers against her skin sent her head spinning, her blood humming.
“I will endeavor to make us friends as well as lovers.” He leaned in just enough that she inhaled the scent of him, and her body hummed with a feminine awareness.
Friends and lovers, not merely husband and wife. A marriage, she knew, could have a profound meaning and connection between two people, or it could be a piece of paper and some muttered words that bound two unhappy souls together until one of them died.
“Are you afraid of me?” Adam asked ashe lifted her face to his.
“No . . . Not exactly,” she said, surprised at the ease with which she could answer him when he spoke in that commanding voice.It was true. She didn’t fear him. She was nervous and more than a little anxious, but not afraid. She was worried about what being a wife to him would entail, especially in the bedroom. She had experienced a great range of emotions in the last day,and she’d accepted that the life she’d wanted, the life she’d planned for, was not going to happen. She had longed for marriage, but under much different circumstances.
Yet when she was alone with him, as she was now, he seemed to cloud her thoughts until all she could think was that she wanted him to keep touching her, how the danger and excitement of that touch sent wild thrills through her.
“My wild one,” Adam sighed as he cupped her cheek. “You deserve bouquets, boxes of sweets, presents as well as passion. I’ve given you none of these, but someday I will remedy that. You can have it all, the gentleman and the rogue at your beck and call.” He stroked his thumb over her bottom lip. She exhaled as she lost herself in gazing at this gorgeous man.
“The gentleman and the rogue?” she asked.
He smiled a wolfish smile. “A man who can give you sweetness when you want it.” He threaded his fingers into the hair at the nape of her neck, tugging just enough that she felt completely in his power. “And a rogue’s brazen roughness when you need it.”
Something sharpened inside her, like a sense she hadn’t known she’d possessed. It heightened everything about that moment until she felt something pulse hard between her thighs.
Adam was not a brute, but she could tell that every inch of him was full of power, radiating a raw, primal strength. His face, while almost predatory in his handsomeness, was not without gentleness. She gazed upon her wild lion knowing she could trust him to protect her rather than devour her. He continued to hold her gaze, neither of them speaking. Her thoughts spiraled with dark, carnal images, and she wondered if he was thinking the same, given the way he looked at her with such heat. Then he blinked, breaking the spell, and she drew in a shaky breath.
“We should go to dinner,” he said. “Unless you still need a moment?”
“I . . .” She pulled her thoughts away from him and nodded. “I’m ready to go down.”
He stepped back and offered her his arm. Letty walked with him into the corridor, running her fingertips over the wood panels on the walls.
Adam took her down a different set of stairs, this one made of wood, not stone. Crouching lions sat on the banister,silently roaring at passersby. They were fine heraldic beasts, their front paws clutching shields that bore a unicorn and a Scottish thistle. Evidence of the ancient line of Morreys was everywhere.
The dining room was far more intimate in size than