“I-I-you-well—” Red high on her cheeks looked lovely as she pressed those lips closed. Those red, too. She was undeniably a beautiful woman. And cunning. No other word for that particular glimmer forming in her eyes.Uh oh.“What if I am?”
He licked his lips, stepped back. He’d never needed so much space between himself and a woman as he did now. “You arenot.”
Her gaze dropped, focused on his fall. And didn’t that just make his cock throb.Hell.
“I am,” she said. Slowly, her gaze meandered up his body. “You are an attractive man, Felix. I’ve always thought so.”
No longer just a throb. His cock was hard. Too quick, too soon. He might pass out from the relocation of all that blood. He leaned back, gripped a windowsill. If he let go, his knees would buckle and he’d crumple at her feet. Humiliating. Even if he would be able to see up her skirts, then. Good God. He’d be an amoral rake in less than a fortnight if he stayed here with her. But what choice did he have? He gripped the windowsill tighter, cock still hard.Bollocks.
Those, aching too…
“If you stay, Felix…” She sauntered toward him, her generous hips swaying.
“Perhaps—”
He regained his footing. Side stepped.
Still she pursued him. “We might—”
Another step, to the side and a bit forward as well. He wasn’t bolting. Of course not. But he couldn’t let her corner him. Not bolting at all. More like taking his leave at a leisurely pace.
Changing direction with a turn on her toe, still she came for him, swaying. “Reconsider our arrangement.”
He scuttled along the wall until he reached the doorframe, then he stood in the middle of it, bracing his hands on either side. He managed to grit out, “What do you mean, Caro?”
She drew a single finger along the waist of his buckskins then trailed it up his abdomen, all the way up until she could trace thevof his waistcoat. Every inch of his body she touched, teased,flirted with, made him harder, and made it more difficult to grasp the door frame and nother.
“I mean,” she said, voice soft as a feather and silky as desire, “that if we are to live in the same house, and since there are so few acceptable places to sleep, we might as well”—she flattened her hot palm against his chest, right over his frantic heart—“share a bed, too.”
He dug his fingernails into the doorframe hard enough to hear the wood crackle. He searched for control, clenching every muscle to keep from grasping her, kissing her. She held his gaze like the brazen beauty she was, confident, sure in her victory.
But then her gaze faltered, her throat bobbed. She licked her lips, but it was no erotic gesture.
Nervous.
Was she… bluffing?
Bloody hell, she was. Demeaning, that. Good way to deflate the nether regions. Mostly. Because she still stood before him, hand on his chest, breathing erratically, her pinkened skin so very close. It must be warm. And soft. And—
He would not fall for the siren.
Could he call her bluff, kiss her hard, and make her regret baiting him?
If he did that, would he be able to stop?
If he kissed her now, he’d slide his fingers into the hair at her nape, and then squeeze, gently but with enough pressure to send a message. Not sure what that message was. Something primitive, permanent. He’d conquer the small of her back again, too, rub his thumb in circles there, a promise of what he might do between her legs if she threw her skirts up.
Hell. Hard again.
He stepped away from her and backward into the hallway. “What do you think to achieve from that little act?”
“W-what act?”
“The one where you pretend to want me.”
“I—”
“Do you want me?”
