In the Shadow of Midnight - By Marsha Canham Page 0,103

you absolutely certain of that?” he mused.

“Absolutely. Why, I could kiss you now and feel nothing whatsoever.”

His eyes rose to the challenge, and Ariel realized her mistake, too late to withdraw it. She did not want to look at him for fear he could see the confusion beginning to crowd her senses. She did not want to look away either, for his fine gray eyes were subtly telling her how beautiful she was, how he did not believe for the merest instant she was not feeling something.

“Such confidence could easily be put to the test,” he murmured. “At the same time, it would help me prove to myself that I was only offering my comfort and sympathy.”

“You … require such proof?” she asked on a half-breath.

“I require something to keep my thoughts pure and mine eyes elsewhere.”

This time she saw him move a step closer and she matched it with a step back. He lifted a hand and Ariel felt a gentle tugging at the nape of her neck, but reacted too slowly to stop him from tossing aside the scrap of linen that bound her hair. Her hands were cold, her feet hot. Spans of flesh everywhere on her body felt tight, stretched to the limit, as if the slightest touch would send her bursting out of her skin.

He had been drinking a fair amount of ale, she could smell it on each heated exhalation of air. It was not the ale speaking, however. It may have emboldened him to speak, but it was not the ale speaking.

“I … do not think it would be wise to try to prove anything right now,” she stammered, conscious of his fingers combing through her hair, spreading it across her shoulders. “It might be best if I just return to my room … and … and we forget the whole thing.”

Eduard smiled faintly. He coiled a shiny red ribbon of her hair around his fingers. The silky heat of it slithered over his skin and sent a surge of hot blood pulsating into flesh that was already growing thick and heavy in response to the dark green sparkle in her eyes. His body was responding to a woman’s challenge, but it was the plea of a child—a spoiled child accustomed to getting her way in all things—who suggested they could just walk away and forget.

“Go then,” he said quietly, dropping the strand of hair. “And do not fling any more of your righteous airs of presumption in my face, for I could make of you, here and now, a woman of very strong urges indeed.”

He started turning away and something made Ariel reach out to stop him. His face was unreadable in the guttering firelight, his thoughts untouchable, and Ariel imagined she saw a shiver of a warning in the small muscle that flexed his jaw.

Very deliberately, she laid both hands flat on his chest. Keeping her eyes locked on his, she spread her fingers wide and skimmed them steadfastly up to his shoulders. Using the heat of his own muscles to bolster her nerve, she pulled herself up on tiptoes and pressed her lips over his, holding them there for a count of several pounding heartbeats. She broke away just as slowly, just as deliberately, and wilted lightly back onto her heels again.

“Pleasant,” was her analysis, given with only the barest tremor undermining her voice. “But rather too soured by ale for my liking. Perhaps another time, when there is nothing clouding your senses …?”

He raised a hand, startling her smugness into a faltering silence as he brushed the backs of his fingers along her cheek. The pad of his thumb stroked across the fullness of her lower lip, resting there while his fingers curved under her chin and started to tilt her face upward. His mouth began its descent and Ariel tried to pull back, but the heat of his hand shifted lower onto her neck, skimming around until it was pushing into the curling mass of her hair. She could not move in any direction but that of his choosing, and he chose to hold her steady a scant inch from his mouth.

The blush in her cheeks grew hotter and to her utter mortification she began to tremble. Her eyes began to shimmer with a film of silvery tears and her lips quivered apart as the tremors of shock shivered through her limbs, her breasts, her belly. She stood transfixed, doubting she could have moved even if he had