The Girl is Not For Christmas - Emma V Leech Page 0,64
He wanted so badly to laugh and then to kiss her until neither of them could remember their names that he felt quite winded. But that way lay madness.
“Well,” he said, once he could find words to form a stiff enough reply. “That should scare off any right thinking male within a ten mile radius.”
“Oh?” Livvy said, all innocence and wide eyes. “Do you think so? I thought it rather appropriate, what with the description of a pettish, pert old maid. Fits me to a nicety, does it not?”
King gritted his teeth, aware of what she was doing.
“No,” he said evenly. “But they’ll all think it does with a performance like that, as you well know.”
“Forgive me, King.” And now she was all repentance, sighing with regret. “You see, I am a hopeless case. So… no piano. I cannot bait a hook to catch my husband, at least not with music. What next, then? Teach me all the tricks so I may play him like a fiddle. That is the expression, I think? I’ve never acted the fortune hunter before, so you’ll forgive me for not knowing all the cant just yet, but fear not, I’m a quick study.”
Something in King’s gut twisted. He stared down at the keys of the piano, struggling to keep his breathing even. “You’re not a fortune hunter, Livvy, and you’re not… not like me. This isn’t for your own pleasure, or even your own security. You’ve a nobler cause, I know that. Don’t think that I don’t.”
There was another silence, this one fragile, with too much exposed between them.
The next time she spoke her voice was quiet, soft, but with more than a hint of teasing. “My goodness, King. Was that another compliment?”
He was grateful for the levity of the comment and laughed as he was supposed to. “Possibly. I must be feverish again.”
“The only likely explanation,” she agreed.
“I’d better have a lie down.”
“Let me come.”
King gasped and even Livvy looked shocked, but she held his gaze, not turning away.
“Why not?” she asked him, as if there weren’t a million answers he could give. “I’m not a pretty young thing whose beauty and innocence is going to make a man want me. You said yourself I need to take another tack. So… why not this one? Teach me, King. I know you can. Teach me how to make a man wild with passion.”
King’s mind blanked and in his panic, he evaded in the only way he knew how by retreating into sarcasm. “At this hour of the morning? No man with an ounce of sense would have even broken his fast by now. You’ll only make him wild with the need for another hour of sleep and possibly a hair of the dog that bit him.”
Livvy glowered at him. “Be serious. I need help.”
“You need to be spanked and told to behave like a good girl!” King retorted, leaping to his feet, and putting distance between them.
“Don’t patronise me,” she snapped back, her blue eyes flashing.
“Don’t ask me to set you on the road to ruin, then.”
“Why not?” she demanded tartly as she folded her arms. “You seem to be enjoying the scenic route to the same destination.”
Desire burned beneath his skin, his muscles taut with wanting, his entire being aware of her, aware of what she was offering him. Take it, his mind and body demanded in complete accord. She’s offering herself up like the fatted calf. Take it all. His heart, however, was having none of it. No, this isn’t what she wants, it isn’t what you want. You’re both lonely and afraid and desperate. This is desperate. This is wrong. Oh, God, but he wanted her.
“I won’t be ruined by taking that road,” he growled, determined to keep from giving in to temptation, for once in his sorry life.
Livvy snorted. “No, you’ll be dead.”
His temper unravelled, fuelled by desire and frustration, and his words were cruel and hard and unthinking. “That’s unlikely, as some harpy has hidden anything remotely alcoholic, and there’s nothing resembling a comely wench for miles. That doesn’t mean I’m desperate enough to seduce my friend’s plain spinster sister.”
Oh, God. The look in her eyes... and yet, perhaps that was the only way to make her stop, to make her believe….
“Oh,” her voice quavered, and his heart ached. It was the beach all over again and he could not allow her to believe herself undesirable.
“Damnation, Livvy, I didn’t mean that. You know I didn’t. Why won’t you let