Noble Scoundrel - Amy Sandas Page 0,66
pulsed and tingled with the sensations he’d aroused in her. The aching in her core was a longing for something she was afraid to fully name. She wasn’t sure if she’d done the right thing by diverting his focus from lovemaking to fighting. All she’d known was that if he continued to kiss her and touch her, she would have given herself to him completely.
While he would have held himself back.
Not in the act, perhaps, but in himself. And she wasn’t sure she could accept that.
Chapter Twenty-one
Mason stood with his shoulders resting against the wall next to the enormous fireplace in the ballroom. His arms were crossed over his chest and one leg was bent with his bare foot planted against the polished mahogany wainscoting. Though there was an unsettled feeling in his gut, his gaze was hard and focused on the open double doors on the far end of the room as he waited for Lady Katherine’s arrival.
He’d finished with Frederick and then the others more than an hour ago. After that, he’d gone back to his room for a bath and change of clothes. He wasn’t going to touch Lady Katherine with the sweat of other men on his skin.
There was a good chance the woman wouldn’t even show up.
Rolling his shoulders, he tried to dispense the tension that gathered every time he recalled last night’s conversation. And the kissing.
Just thinking of how she’d felt in his arms, her thighs parted around his hips, her mouth tender and sweet beneath his, sent a rush of throbbing heat to his aching groin.
He’d known from the start that the obvious physical attraction between them would eventually have to be dealt with. He’d looked forward to it.
He’d also completely underestimated it.
When he’d finished his training regimen last night to find her staring at him with those dark, fathomless eyes, her lips parted and glistening, her lovely breasts rising and falling with weighted breaths—he’d simply lost all restraint.
The feel of her eyes on him all hot and intense made him desperate for her hands. Nothing could’ve stopped him from approaching her. Just as nothing could’ve kept him from taking her soft, pink mouth when she’d dared him to prove just what a brute he could be.
But he hadn’t planned the rest. Hadn’t intended the flames to blast so hot and untamed within him. He honestly could’ve gone a bit longer to discover how perfect her thighs felt in his hands, how her hips cradled his hardness. How her eyes glittered as her body awakened to his direction.
She’d asked for tenderness. And he’d given her what he had—heat and hardness. Nothing more.
But rather than admit she was wrong about him, she’d thrown down yet another challenge. The woman was dauntless. And determined. And so damned unexpected.
His body hardened further. Why the hell did that make him so bloody hot?
“Fuck,” he muttered out loud just as the woman torturing his thoughts appeared in the doorway.
He repeated the curse silently as he took in the stunning sight of her.
She walked slowly, proudly, into the room wearing black boots that reached to her knees, buff-colored breeches that molded smoothly to her lean, soft-curved thighs and hips, a white lawn shirt, and brown waistcoat. Instead of being twisted and pinned into an elaborate style, her auburn hair was secured simply in a thick braid that draped over her shoulder.
She stopped in the center of the room where he’d spread out an old carpet he’d found in the attic to cover the slick polished surface of the ballroom floor. Staring at him, she planted her hands on her hips and lifted her brows in expectation.
Mason couldn’t speak. He sure as hell couldn’t move yet. Not with the sexual pressure pulsing through his body.
She’d shocked him. He hadn’t thought such a thing possible, but the way she looked—almost cocky in her men’s clothes, as if she frequently dressed in such a way—fired his blood.
She released an audible sigh. “Are you quite finished staring, Mr. Hale?”
No. He lowered his chin and grinned.
“You said to dress comfortably.”
“And I’m glad I did,” he replied with an appreciative nod. “Where’d you find that getup?”
She tugged at the hem of her waistcoat. “I learned years ago that some things were nearly impossible to accomplish in skirts and slippers.”
As he allowed his focus to travel over every inch of her female form, he desperately wanted to ask what sorts of things she enjoyed doing in her breeches.
She huffed another exasperated breath. “I came here expecting