Stepping off the stage, she told herself, her unruly senses, to concentrate on the former and forget the latter. To focus on all the reasons she had to feel vulnerable about him. About getting too close to him in any way.
Predictably, as she walked with feigned calmness down the aisle, her senses, skittering in breathless expectation, gained the ascendancy. Being within four feet of him was not a wise idea. Yet…
The light from the window behind her fell on him, illuminated his face as, remaining seated, he looked up at her.
There was something in his expression, usually so utterly uninformative. Not tiredness, more like resignation-along with a sense of…emotional tension.
The observation puzzled, just as another puzzling fact occurred. She fixed her gaze on his dark eyes. “How did you know I was here?”
“I was in the corridor outside your room. I saw you come out, and followed.”
She halted in the aisle beside him. “Why?”
The moonlight didn’t reach his eyes; they searched her face, but she couldn’t read them, any more than she could tell what he was thinking from the chiseled perfection of his features, yet they still held that certain tension, a need, perhaps, or a hunger; as the silence stretched she sensed it more clearly-honest, sincere, direct.
Real.
A lock of sable hair had fallen across his brow; entirely without thinking, she reached out and smoothed it back. Fingertips seduced by the rich softness, by the sensual tingle, she hesitated, then started to withdraw her hand.
He caught it, trapped it in one of his.
Eyes widening, she met his gaze. Fell into it.
He held her ensorcelled for a long moment, then, uncurling her fingers with his, he turned his head and, slowly, deliberately, pressed his lips to her palm.
The shocking heat leapt like a spark into her; the blatantly intimate touch made her shiver.
He shifted his head; his lips drifted to her wrist, there to bestow an equally intimate lover’s caress.
“I’m sorry.” The words reached her on a dark whisper as his lips left her skin. His fingers shifted over hers, locking her hand in his. “I didn’t intend it to be like this, but…I can’t wait for you any longer.”
Before her brain could take in his meaning, let alone react, he surged to his feet-angling his shoulder into her waist, using his hold on her hand to pull her forward-in one smooth move hoisting her up over his shoulder.
“What…?” Disoriented, she stared down his back.
He turned to the door.
She grabbed the back of his coat. “For God’s sake, Royce-put me down!” She would have kicked, tried to lever herself off his hard shoulder, but he’d clamped a steely arm over the backs of her knees, locking her in position.
“I will. Just be quiet for a few minutes.”
A few minutes? He’d already walked out into the corridor.
Clutching the back of his coat with both hands, she looked around, then braced as he started climbing; through the dimness she recognized the hall before the west turret stairs-watched it recede.
A scarifying thought formed. “Where are you taking me?”
“You already know. Do you want me to state it?”
“Yes!”
“To my bed.”
“No!”
Silence. No response, no reply, no acknowledgment of any sort.
He reached the gallery and turned toward his rooms. Any doubt that he meant to do as he’d said evaporated. Realization of how helpless she was grew; she couldn’t prevent what would follow because she simply wouldn’t, not once he’d hauled her into his arms and kissed her.
Just the thought of his hands-his clever, wicked hands-on her skin again made her shiver with damning anticipation.
Desperate, she braced her hands on his back, struggled to push up enough to drag air into her lungs. “Royce, stop!” She poured every ounce of command she could muster into her tone. When he didn’t so much as pause, she quickly continued, “If you don’t set me down this instant, I’ll scream.”
“A piece of advice from one who knows-never threaten what you’re not prepared to deliver.”
Incensed, she drew in a massive breath, held it…waited.
His strides didn’t falter.
But then he halted.
Hope flared-only to be drowned by a wave of disappointment.
Before she could decide what she truly felt, he walked forward again, then swung around. Her gaze raked the line of his armillary spheres. They were in his sitting room. Her last chance of being saved, by any means, died as she heard the door shut.
She waited, breath bated, to be put down. Instead, he walked through the next door, kicked it shut behind them, and continued on across his bedroom.
All the way to the foot of his massive four-poster bed.
Halting, he gripped her waist; dipping his shoulder, he slid her slowly down, breasts to his chest, until her toes touched the floor.
Valiantly ignoring the sudden rush of her pulse and her swooningly eager senses, she fixed her eyes, narrowed, on his as he straightened. “You can’t do this.” She made the statement absolute. “You cannot simply carry me in here, and”-she gestured wildly-“ravish me!”
It was the only word she could think of that matched the intent she could now see in his eyes.
He studied her for an instant, then raised his hands, framed her face. Tipped it up as he shifted closer, so their bodies touched, brushed, settled, as, eyes locked with hers, he bent his head. “Yes. I can.”
His statement trumped hers. It rang with innate conviction, with the overwhelming confidence that had been his from birth.
Lids falling, she braced for an assault.
It didn’t come.
Instead, he supped at her lips, a gentle, tantalizing, tempting caress.
Her lips already hungered, her body thrumming with awakening need when he lifted his head just enough to catch her eyes. “I’m going to ravish you-thoroughly. And I guarantee you’ll enjoy every minute.”
She would; she knew she would. And she no longer knew of any way to avoid it-was fast losing sight of why she should. She searched his eyes, his face. Moistened her lips. Looked at his, and didn’t know what to say.
What reply she wanted to convey.
As she stared at them, his lips curved. Thin, hard, yet mobile, the ends curved up just slightly, invitingly.
“You don’t have to say anything. You just have to accept. Just have to stop resisting…” He breathed the last words as his lips lowered to hers. “And let what we both want, simply be.”
His lips closed on hers again, still gentle, still persuasive, yet she felt the barely leashed hunger in the hands cradling her face. Lifting one hand, she closed it over the back of one of his-and knew to her bones his gentleness was a faзade.
Ravish he’d said, and ravish he meant.
As if to prove her correct, his lips hardened, firmed; she felt his hunger, tasted his passion. She expected him to press her lips apart, with no further invitation claim her mouth, then her-but abruptly he reined in the passion about to break free.
Enough for him to lift his lips an inch from hers and demand, “If you don’t want to know what it would be like to lie with me, say so now.”
She’d dreamed of it, fantasized about it, spent long hours wondering…looking into the dark richness of his eyes, at the heat already burning in their depths, she knew she should deny it, grasp the chance and flee, yet the lie simply wouldn’t come.
“If you don’t want me, tell me now.”
The harsh words grated, deep and low.
His lips hovered over hers, waiting for her answer.
One of her hands lay on his chest, spread over his heart; she could feel the heavy, urgent thud, could see in his eyes, behind all the heat, a simple need-one that pleaded, that touched her.