“Cynthia.” He hoped to ease her awake, but his soft tone failed completely. She didn’t even twitch. “Cyn!”
Nothing.
Apparently he could’ve thrown himself into bed beside her and not worried a bit.
“Cynthia! Wake up!”
Finally, she stirred, but only to groan and turn away from his voice. Her hand emerged from the covers to pull the blankets over her head.
Sighing, Lancaster wandered toward her desk. “We need to get moving if we’re to get out before noon.”
“Mm,” she grunted.
“Sweet as morning dew,” he muttered back, idly pushing around a few blank papers strewn across the desk. “Out of bed, love. The—Good God above!”
The pile of papers had spilled forth a very interesting sketch. He squinted at it.
“What? What’s wrong?” Cynthia asked in a raspy voice.
Lancaster looked from the sketch in his hand to the stick of charcoal rolling slowly toward the edge of the desk. Then he looked back at the drawing.
A naked man, clearly aroused, who looked a bit like a malformed, slightly lumpy version of him.
“Is this me?”
The sudden rustle of sheets drew his attention in time to watch Cyn’s eyes widen in his direction. When her gaze darted to the paper in his hand, she popped upright—the sheets clutched to her bosom, unfortunately.
“What are you doing?” she screeched.
“Waking you up. Cyn, you didn’t tell me these were your drawings.”
“Get out!”
“I’m sorry. I’d never have called them horrid and immature and—”
“You didn’t call them horrid,” she snapped. “Until now. Just get out! You’ve no right to be in my chambers. I’m not even decent.”
“Um, Cyn…”
“Completely outrageous!”
“You wouldn’t even be in your chambers if I hadn’t carried you in here in the middle of the night. And you weren’t decent then, I’ll remind you.”
“Oh!” she growled, her brow falling low as she looked frantically around the bed.
“Nothing to throw, dearest?”
He should have backed away when her eyes narrowed to slits, but in the end he was glad he didn’t. Cynthia rose up in all her warm and rosy glory and leapt at him.
There was only one brief moment to brace himself before her heat wrapped around him.
“Good aim,” he gasped as he spread his hands over her generous bottom. “Amazing, really.”
Now that she was plastered to him, Cynthia didn’t seem to know what to do with herself, so Lancaster decided to help out. He stepped to the bed, let her fall to her back, and helpfully followed her down to the mattress.
“Well then,” he murmured, pressing her hands down as he nestled between her hips.
“You have no…” She stumbled over her words when he nuzzled his open