“Forgive me”—each word a panted breath—“if I find this difficult to believe.”
“We might find pleasure in one another’s arms for a few minutes or a night, but without those four elements, it will only ever be temporary, incomplete.”
She huffed, turned sideways in her seat.
“But the book does mention the physical bits. Sixty-four positions. Also what happens before them.”
Her gaze flew to him. “Before? Such as?”
“Kissing. Touching. Tasting.”
Her eyes fluttered closed, and her hand dropped off the table’s ledge to her lap.
He stood, wandered through the shelves of books. “Gwendolyn, are you in need of distraction still?”
Her voice flew to him on tart wings. “Of course not.”
Hm. Did she understand what he offered?
After several seconds, she said, “Jackson.” Her voice hoarse. “What are you doing?”
He gathered several books on ancient fortifications into his arms and returned to the table. “Working.”
She blinked, the red in her cheeks turning pink. “Yes. Of course.” She pulled a notebook and pencil from nearby and opened it up. She leaned over it, but he got the sense whatever she read there did not fully register in her mind.
He opened one book to a random page and turned it toward her, slid it across the desk. “What do you think of this?”
“Of what?” She frowned at the book.
“That bit about castles near the ocean.” No clue if the page said anything about castles near the sea. But the reality of the words on the page had little to do with his stratagem.
“You’ve lost me, Jackson.”
He rounded the table and stood right behind her chair, leaned low and braced a hand against the table’s edge. His body curved around hers, and the air between them spiked higher, warmer. With his other hand he pointed to the page. Then whispered in her ear, making sure his lips brushed its very tip.
“Right. There.” Not right there on page seventy-two. Right there onher, a bit of skin so small and vulnerable and lovely.
Her breath caught, and she turned to look at him, putting their lips so very close together. Kissing if wished. He wished. But he inhaled, exhaled, made sure to hold her gaze, then leaned closer, took the book back and stood, a rush of air freezing him where she’d made him molten heat.
The sound she made was half desire, half disappointment.
He strode for the tall shelves at the back of the room once more, disappearing from her view.
He waited.
There—the sound of a chair scooting across the floor, and lighter, slippered steps nearing him.
Gwendolyn peeked around a row of books. “What are you doing?”
“Looking for more books, of course.” Waiting her out. Seeing if she would come.
“And do you find anything of substance?” She turned her back to him and ran her finger down a row of books. An entire seduction in that single finger, though she did not know it.
“I do. The book I spoke of earlier is full of substance.”
She tossed him a saucy look over her shoulder. “Not what I meant, Mr. Cavendish.”
“Don’t I know it, Miss Smith, and yet…”
