the memories away, and for the first time since he’d returned he succeeded. They didn’t pull him under and force him to relive every death, one by one. He inhaled deeply the scent of her skin and hair. He’d never been this close to her, and to say he was tempted was a gross understatement. The spicy and sweet scent of her seemed to warm him from the inside.
“Why is it always you?” she asked.
“Why is what always me?”
“You always seem to be there whenever I’m revealing my most humiliating secrets.”
He could well ask her the same thing.
There was only one woman in all of London he lusted after this fiercely. And only one woman whose judgmental disdain he found so irritating. Why was Tilly that one woman?
Did she think he wanted to be the one to know her secrets? The one to rescue her?
He did not.
Nothing would have pleased him more than to never see her again and be able to forget about her entirely. But instead, fate had cursed him.
His stomach knotted. He tried not to think about that night so many years ago when she’d confessed her love for his brother, Thomas. He took a chance and smoothed a hand over her hair, hoping she wouldn’t pull away. She didn’t.
“I’ve never told anyone about that. And I won’t tell anyone about this, either.”
“Promise?”
“Of course. Your secrets are safe with me.” One more rub of her hair and then he dropped his arm back to her and pulled her tighter against him. “Go to sleep.”
“Just listen to the rain,” she murmured, her voice sleepy.
“Yes.” Meanwhile, he’d try to sleep. Despite the curve of her bottom pressed against him. Despite the fact that his hand rested against her stomach. He could so easily slide it upward and tease her nipples, or downward and sink his fingers into her warmth. He’d attempt to sleep, even though his cock was hard to the point of being painful. He’d try to ignore all of that, but most of all he’d try to pretend this didn’t feel right. That having her pressed against him in bed, his mouth mere inches from her neck wasn’t absolute perfection.
Tilly was having the most delicious dream. Warm breath blew gently on the back of her neck. A firm palm was cupping her breast, her nipple tender and puckered.
She moaned, arching into the touch, then realized with alarming clarity that she was neither dreaming nor asleep.
Sullivan. In bed with her, pressed against her. And she was naked.
She assessed the situation. She was still mostly covered and he had, true to his word, stayed atop the blankets.
Still, it was his hand clutching her bare breast. His soft, sleeping breath brushing against her neck and making her nipples pebble tightly. No man had ever touched her so intimately. She couldn’t deny that she found his palm against her skin tantalizing and pleasurable. Wetness gathered between her naked thighs, and she clamped her legs together.
Something hard pressed into her backside. Too hard and narrow to be one of his legs. Perhaps he’d brought something into the bed to keep them safe. Still, it was unpleasant pressing into her. She shifted.
“Sullivan!” she hissed. “Wake up and kindly remove your hand from my body.”
He groaned and his hand flexed in the process, effectively caressing her. Without her consent, her body reacted, arching into him and whimpering. That was enough to rouse him, though, and he quickly withdrew his hand.
“Sorry,” he mumbled. His sleepy morning voice was deep and rumbly and did funny things to her stomach.
“What, pray tell, is that pipe pressed against me? Did you bring some sort of weapon to bed to protect me from the storm?” She chuckled at her own jest. She reached behind her to get a better feel of the object in question.
Sullivan hissed and bolted out of the bed.
She sat up, clutching the covers to her, and gaped at him.
He stood—the blanket wrapped around his middle—with a very apparent bulge in the front. She’d, of course, never seen a man in this state of undress, and the only depictions of male nudity she’d seen were in statues and art. They had all led her to believe that that particular appendage would be much smaller. She swallowed. Her hand burned where she’d gripped him as if she’d been reaching for a candlestick.
Oh my God. Mortification crept up her body, no doubt creating unattractive red splotches across her fair skin. He was aroused. Her heart sped and she