She put her hands behind her, covering the doorknob before he could get to it. “It’s not all.”
He sighed, his arms dropping to his sides. “Of course it’s not,” he muttered.
“I’m really here because you’re leaving, and we don’t know when you’ll be back—”
“But I will be back, Kay. I promise you. Just don’t go getting engaged to someone else in the meantime, if you please.”
She laughed, but it was a decidedly nervous laugh. And so it should be, he thought sardonically, since they were both standing here in his hotel room at midnight. Nearly naked.
And with that reminder, Devlin felt his desire flare into hot, blazing lust, and he knew he had to get her out of here, now.
“Kay, for God’s sake, if you don’t leave this instant, I swear I’ll come undone.”
“You will?” Her smile widened. “I think I’d like to see that.”
“No,” he denied, growing downright desperate. “No, you wouldn’t.”
“But I would,” she whispered, letting go of the doorknob and stepping forward to close the distance between them. “That’s why I came. I decided that before you go, we needed to finish what we started.”
Trying to steady himself, he took a deep breath, but he inhaled the luscious gardenia scent of her hair, and his fortitude slipped a notch. “Kay, we can’t. I told you, this is a proper courtship.”
“We’ve never been proper before,” she reminded him, lifting her hands to finger the edges of his robe, putting all his honorable efforts in serious jeopardy.
“Well, no,” he was forced to agree, “but—”
She stepped closer and wrapped her arms around his neck, cutting off whatever he’d been about to say. “Why start now?”
He wrenched free, grabbed her wrists, and pulled them down, deciding it was time to be ruthlessly blunt. “Damn it, Kay. If you stay I’ll take your virtue. Do you know what that means?”
She actually seemed nettled by the question. “Of course I do. I’m not a child. I’m thirty-two, for heaven’s sake.”
“Then you know if I give you what you’re so sweetly asking for, the result could be that you’re with child. And I’ll be on the other side of the world, with no idea when I’ll be back.”
“Yes, well…” She paused and gave a little cough. “I… ahem… I thought of that.”
He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You did?”
She nodded. Pulling free of his hold, she reached into the pocket of her robe and pulled out a long, flat envelope of red velvet. “That’s why I brought this. It prevents pregnancy, I understand?”
“My God,” he muttered, rubbing his hands over his face, praying for fortitude, fearing such a thing was quite impossible at this point. “My holy God.”
“It’s called a French—”
“I know what it is.” He grabbed the envelope and the condom he knew was tucked inside out of her hand. “Where in blazes did you get this?”
“I saw an advertisement for it once in one of Mama’s ladies’ magazines. A shop in Soho has them. So, after we parted this afternoon, I went there and bought one.”
“How could you have done? Only men and married ladies can buy these.”
“Yes, so the advertisement said. So I took Mama’s wedding ring out of her jewelry box and put it on my finger. And I took off my gloves while I was there. That way,” she added as he gave a groan, “they’d believe me when I assured them I was married.”
Devlin’s control was slipping further into oblivion with every word she spoke, but he had to try, one last time, to dissuade her. “Kay,” he began.
“I love you, too, by the way,” she said, cutting the grass from beneath his feet in an instant.
“You do?”
She bit her lip, nodding as she looked up at him.
