His heart shot into his throat. “To bed? For purposes other than sleeping?”
“Yes. What did you think I was talking about?”
What?
Had he just heard her right? She was asking to leap into bed with him for the purpose of…satisfying their carnal urges?
Syd was completely innocent and had no idea what was involved. However, he breathed a sigh of relief that she was not thinking about running back to London. This is what he’d feared most. But sex? He needed to proceed very carefully before he said or did something unforgivable. “Go on, Syd. Tell me what you have in mind.”
“Why? Am I not obvious enough? I did not think you would care that I wanted you to teach me about these intimacies. What is so awful about us doing something more than merely sleeping together?” She groaned softly and continued. “We will be married tomorrow and I do not know what will happen afterward. What if you decide to send me back to London without you?”
Blessed saints.
He tried to form words, but they simply would not come to mind.
His unintentional silence only made things worse.
Syd looked like she wanted to melt into the furniture and never be seen by him again. “Octavian, why won’t you say something? How is your refusal, and now your continued silence, anything but humiliating? So, let us forget I asked…well, I did not ask, but you saw the look on my face and knew my intention because you seem to know my mind better than I do.”
Ha! That was surely a jest.
How had he gotten it so wrong?
He thought she intended to run away.
Gad, no wonder he was still a bachelor.
Syd looked so hurt, he knew he had to make it right immediately. He strode to the bed and sat beside her, taking her hands in his so that she could not hide her beautiful face in them. “Syd, look at me.”
“No.”
“You will make yourself dizzy if you stare down at your feet while we are talking to each other. I do not need you tossing up the remains of your afternoon meal in this confined space.”
“But you saw…and you know…and you do not want me even for one night.” She shuddered. “I am such an idiot.”
“No, I assure you that I am the complete and utter idiot,” he said with an ache to his voice, for a soft and vulnerable Syd wreaked havoc on his heart.
He could deal with the firebrand.
But the gentle Syd? She sent his protective instincts into spasms. He wanted to devour her and be with her forever. Having botched this conversation quite badly, he now had to make amends. Of course, he was never going to tell her that he hadn’t a clue what she was really thinking. But he knew that he had misunderstood her intentions and inadvertently hurt her feelings.
He had to make it right, but was it wise to have the two of them get too close to each other while things were still so unsettled? What if something went wrong? He did not want to leave her heartsick. “Syd, all I meant is that we are in a delicate situation right now and I do not want to push you into doing anything that you might regret later. What makes you think I am not attracted to you? In fact, I think you are one of the loveliest women I know. The loveliest, actually.”
She still would not look up at him, so he pressed on. “Even in sleep, I reached out for you. Is that not telling?”
“You said that you were afraid I was going to fall out of bed because you were taking up too much of it.”
“That too, but mostly it was my need to hold onto you.”
She gave a little snort. “Because even in sleep, you were afraid I was going to run away.”
“No, Syd,” he said with a low growl. “I thought I made it clear on our first night together that my reluctance to join you in the bed was because I wanted you more than was wise and might do something untoward while I slept.”
“Which is why I thought you would not mind my willingness now. But it is so obviously distasteful to you. If you are worried that I might be in love with you, then let me assure you that my reason has nothing to do with love. I just did not want to spend my life never knowing how things could be between a man and a woman.”
“And you think a big ox like me would be the perfect tutor? It is not my practice to despoil virgins, even irritating ones. If you want to know the possibilities, then let me make you my wife in truth.”
Her eyes popped wide and she now stared up at him. “How did we go from a mere liaison to husband and wife in a real marriage? I thought we agreed it was only to be make-believe.”
