“I’d rather hoped everyone had been too preoccupied to see that,” she murmured, those butterflies becoming battering rams as she fought the urge to find a way to press her thighs together as she walked. Such an odd sensation filled her, that desire warring with her nerves. Those nerves warring with the urge to turn and pull him to her brazenly.
“I’d rather have stolen you away for them not to see at all.”
He said it so plainly, his voice calm despite the instant havoc it wreaked on her.
Her eyes darted to him, her stomach dropping at the fond way he regarded her, his hand resting lightly over hers as they ascended the stairs and turned to go down the hallway where her bedchambers had been designated to lie.
“You’re excused Tabitha,” Henry continued, raising his voice to be heard by the maid trailing them several yards behind.
“Your Grace?” Tabitha squeaked, her steps faltering without fully coming to a stop.
The impropriety of it was no doubt making her mind race, but Henry only smiled, looking back over his shoulder at her with a raised brow.
“I’ll see my intended to her room myself,” he said slowly, his tone brokering no argument.
Tabitha teetered there, her eyes dropping finally as she nodded. “Your Grace.”
Josephine might have worried. In another lifetime, she might have. But she knew she could trust Henry. She knew his servants were devoted to him. So, the only nerves were those that sent her blood pounding in her head and down through her limbs.
“You speak very freely, Your Grace,” Josephine teased. Or rather, she attempted to. The statement came out more breathless than she would have liked, her tongue almost tripping over the words.
“Your Grace,” Henry mused. “Not Just Henry?”
Her breath caught again, her steps slowing alongside his as they neared the door to her bedchamber.
Just Henry.
She could feel his breath against her face all over again, just like before when he had uttered those words. Feel the heat of his hands like phantom presses along the same grips he had held her by before. But he hadn’t touched her.
Not at that moment.
Yet she felt him still.
His eyes were burning coals in his face, the green spearing right through her as she turned to face him, her tongue darting out to wet the suddenly overly dry line of her lips.
“If my speaking so freely is impertinent or unwelcome …” He paused, his body going overly still as he misread her silencefor the opposite of that desire that froze her tongue to the roof of her mouth.
“You misunderstand me,” Josephine breathed. “I – You–” she cast around uselessly for the words to explain herself, but none came, her hand lifting from his arm to rest against his chest as he hesitated still in front of her.
Lord, help her, but how did she tell him that his words set her ablaze in the very best of ways?
Wordlessly, she gripped his hand in one of hers, bringing it up between them and flattening his palm out so she could press it over her collarbone. Just over that space where her heart beat in rapid tandem with that blood coursing through her.
Henry stared at his hand, where it lay against her heaving bosom … and then he moved hers on his chest, pressing his hand down atop hers until she felt a rapid matching beat within his own breast.
“You are not what I expected,” he said raggedly, stooping to rest his forehead against hers. His breath gusted against her face, his hand leaving the top of hers to move his fingers to her face much in the same manner he had earlier that afternoon.
They traced her cheekbones where she could feel that blood coursing, his eyes roving her face as if seized by a hunger that he couldn’t satiate.
“This is not what we agreed upon,” Josephine whispered. There was no doubting that she was pleased by it, though, her body swaying forward as she felt his fingertips drift until his palm cupped her cheek instead.
“You only have to tell me to stop if that is what you wish.” Henry’s words were a mere whisper, his nose brushing against hers as he stepped even closer.
She could feel the heat of his body against hers then, his chest brushing her own, and she nearly forgot how to breathe.
“I do not wish,” she answered fervently.
She wanted the opposite. Anything. She did not even know what she wanted, her stomach in knots as Henry’s face lowered to her own once more.
