The Problem with Seduction - By Emma Locke Page 0,43
from her hip to her thigh, her open palm caressing the curves he would give his last shilling to touch.
“Stop that,” he ground out.
She raised her eyes to meet his. “Is something amiss, my lord?”
“I didn’t come here to be seduced.”
“Ah. But there is no harm in a little surprise every now and again, is there?” She sauntered toward him. Her eyes never left his face. “I’d hoped we might get to know each other better. In fact, I’m quite set on it.”
She’d come within reaching distance again. This time he didn’t hesitate. Ignoring her gasp, he flourished his coat over her head and draped it across her backside, then deftly pulled the sleeves around her waist and knotted them.
He meant to step back after that. But her hands splayed over his chest, as though she’d meant to push him away and then changed her mind. Her breasts rose with quick, sharp pants of desire and her gray eyes fixed on him with luminous interest.
Confound it, he could smell her skin. Honeysuckle, and a faint, warm scent he couldn’t define.
“There.” His voice was husky with desire. “Much better.”
She didn’t move. He awarded her a point for sheer intrepidity. With a mental sigh for his own stringent morals, he dropped his hands and took a step away. He couldn’t do this. Not the way she was doing it. There were several strong arguments for why this was a poor decision, but he wasn’t concerned with any of them at the moment. It was something else.
Her seduction of him…just felt…wrong.
She straightened but otherwise didn’t move. Her gaze dropped to the superfine coat slung about her hips. Her eyebrows rose together. “Are you…” She paused. Her head shook. “Never mind.”
A maid entered, making it impossible for him to ask Elizabeth to finish her sentence. The maid’s eyes darted to her mistress’s awkward pannier. Without comment, she set down a tray arranged with a bottle of brandy and two snifters, then went to tend the fire.
The room brightened as the flames roared back to life. Elizabeth went to the fireplace and stretched her hands toward the grate. He was caught by the gracefulness in the gesture, the languid way her hands extended from her slightly curved posture… Then he realized what he’d unconsciously been aware of the entire time. Her grace was not unintended. It was planned.
“That will be all, Penny.” Her voice purred, thick for seduction. It trailed like sharp nails across his back. Arousing yet off-putting. What did she mean, entrancing him like this? They had no business in bed. Taking their arrangement between the sheets left them open for a lover’s spat, or worse.
Then where would Oliver be?
He didn’t mistake the hunger in her eyes when she turned around. The gentle snick of the door closing behind the maid broke the silence. They were alone. Why? The longer he searched her face, the surer he felt that this wasn’t right. She seemed…it felt as though she looked right through him. As if she were forcing herself to entice him, or playing a well-rehearsed part. Why? Why this sudden, brazen attempt to get him into her bed?
A very, very tiny little part of him asked very loudly, Couldn’t the answer wait until tomorrow?
Elizabeth easily read the emotions playing across his face. Hunger. Desire. Confusion. They mirrored her own tangled thoughts. She did mean to seduce him, to hold him physically so he wouldn’t feel the need to leave and find solace in another woman’s arms. He was a man, and a virile man at that. When he wanted to expend himself, he would. He must choose her when he felt that desire.
She hadn’t expected to want him.
He was attractive, of course; she’d already admitted as much. Impossibly tall, with a stylish disorderliness to his hair and that wrinkled line of concern between his brows. He cut a fine figure in his starched cravat, purple waistcoat and—heaven help her—billowing shirtsleeves. Perhaps that was when her head had stopped controlling her behavior, and instinct had kicked in. When he’d undressed, his muscles bunching as he’d struggled out of the tight coat, and watched her with a crystal fire that had seared her to her toes.
With his coat on he was broad of shoulder and trim through the waist, as she was used to seeing him. With his coat off and his shirtsleeves free to flow about him like a pirate captain’s, she was barely able to calculate her next move.