First Comes Scandal (Rokesbys #4) - Julia Quinn Page 0,72

then a little more after that, inch by inch until she could slip out from under his arm. Then she could turn. She could see what he looked like when he slept. Was he a quiet sleeper, or did his dreams play out on his face?

Were his lips closed, or did he hold them ever-so-slightly open? And what of his eyes? Had she ever truly looked at him when they were closed? No one held a blink for long enough for someone else to remember the expression. Did he still look like a Rokesby if she could not see the electric blue of his irises?

She pushed herself forward again, wiggling across the sheets, using all of her concentration just to move an inch. And then she waited, because it wouldn’t do to move too quickly. She needed to be sure he’d settled back into sleep before she moved again.

And maybe she also needed one last moment before leaving the bed, because nothing had ever felt quite so perfect as his hand on her hip.

She sighed. She loved his hands. Big and strong and capable, with flat square nails. Was she mad to find a man’s hands so attractive?

Then she felt him move, a yawning, stretching motion, the kind one made when one wasn’t quite yet awake. “Georgie,” he said, his voice sleep-slurred and husky.

“Good morning,” she whispered.

“Georgie,” he said again. He sounded a bit more lucid this time. And happy.

“You were sleeping,” she said, not really knowing what to do with herself. “I didn’t want to disturb you.”

He yawned, and she took the moment to rise from the bed, but his hand tightened on her. “Don’t go,” he said.

She did not leave the bed, but she did sit up. “We probably need to get ready. It’s—” She looked around. If there was a clock, she didn’t see it. “I don’t know what time it is.”

He rustled in the bed behind her, and out of the corner of her eye she saw him sit up and look toward the window. “It’s barely dawn,” he said. “The sun is still very low on the horizon.”

“Oh.”

What was he really trying to tell her? That she didn’t need to get out of bed yet? That he didn’t want her to get out of bed?

“I love the dawn,” he said softly.

She should turn around. He was right there behind her, close enough that she could feel the heat from his body, even beyond the hand that still rested on her hip. But she was nervous, and she felt oddly misplaced, and she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do.

And no one liked not knowing what to do.

“You were asleep when I came in last night,” he said. “I didn’t want to disturb you.”

“Thank you, I mean—” She shook her head, just a little, in that way people did when they weren’t sure what to say. “I mean, thank you,” she said again. Not that it sounded much different backward. “I was very tired.” She turned to face him. She was a coward if she didn’t, and she did not want to be a coward. “I meant to wait for you.”

He smiled. “It’s all right.”

“No, I don’t think it is.”

“Georgie,” he said, affection coloring his voice. “You needed to sleep. Hell, I needed to sleep.”

“Oh.” Did that mean he did not want her? That didn’t seem to make sense after the hours they had spent in the carriage. He’d kissed her like he wanted her. He’d kissed her like he wanted more.

He tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. “Stop thinking so hard.”

She frowned at him, taking in the amusement in his azure eyes. “How do I stop thinking so hard?” she asked, with perhaps just a touch of peevishness in her voice. This was easy for him. Or if not easy, at least not quite so complicated and new.

He gave a shrug. “I don’t know, but I swear if you think any harder, steam will start coming out of your ears.”

“Steam. Really.”

He grinned. “Smoke?”

“Nicholas.”

“You’d be surprised what they teach us these days in medical school,” he said, his expression oh-so-innocent.

“Apparently so.”

His fingers walked their way up her thigh, crossing to her hand, and then up her forearm. “I’d like to kiss you again,” he said softly.

She nodded. She wanted that, too, but she wasn’t sure how to put it into words. Or even into action. It wasn’t that she felt frozen—that was far too cold a sensation to describe what had come