It took more than effort, more than steely will—it took desperation to drag his hands from her breasts, to grip her waist and shift, turn, so her back was to the door and he was before her.
Even then she merely kissed him again, her mouth a gift he couldn’t refuse. It took several minutes of heated engagement before he recalled—again—why he, they, had to stop. Halt. Now. Before…
Before matters got entirely out of hand and stopping became impossible.
When he finally lifted his head, Madeline discovered hers reeling. Her lips throbbed, swollen and slick—and still eager.
So damningly willing.
Hauling in a breath, irritated to feel a sense of loss that his hands were no longer on her breasts, she opened her eyes and forced herself to meet his.
They’d never looked more tigerish, their expression more intent.
“Have you changed your mind yet?”
The words, gravelly and low, laden with male desire, nearly made her shiver. Distracted with suppressing the wanton reaction, when she stared at him uncomprehendingly, he clarified, “About warming my bed.”
Her mind refocused in a rush. She blinked up at him. “No.” Her hands had fallen to rest against his shoulders. She pushed. Hard.
And he budged not one inch.
A very odd sensation skittered down her spine, novel and distinctly startling.
She was helpless, trapped between the door and him, between ungiving wood and the hard muscle and bone of his unyielding body. Never before had any man made her feel captured.
To win free she would need to cede…something.
She blinked, inwardly snapped free of that ridiculous supposition. “Let me go.”
She endeavored to infuse every ounce of her will into the words; she lifted her chin to give them emphasis.
His expression hardened. But he eased his grip on her waist. “For now.”
The warning in the words was every bit as explicit as the kiss had been.
She glared, but it was a weak effort. With one hand, she groped behind her, found and grasped the latch. Stepping to the side, her eyes on his, she opened the door.
He stepped back and let her swing it wide.
Breathing a little more easily, head high, she flashed one last defiant glance at him, then turned and went through. Stepping onto the stairs, one hand on the stone wall, she started down.
It had been just a kiss, a part of his silly game. No matter what he’d said, he wasn’t—couldn’t be—seriously intent on seducing her.
If she repeated that statement often enough, she might again believe it.
“Fancy forming your own private gentlemen’s club in London, just so you have somewhere where society can’t bother you.” Edmond glanced up the breakfast table at Madeline. “Neat, don’t you think?”
“Better’n neat,” Ben opined around a mouthful of sausage, relieving her of the need to reply.
Just as well; in her present mood, any response she made regarding Gervase Tregarth and his doings was bound to be laced with frustrated ire.
She sipped her tea, and tried to shift her mind from that irritating gentleman, and his effect on her; unfortunately, in the present company that appeared a lost cause.
Bad enough that the interlude Gervase had engineered on the castle battlements, and all that had transpired there, had laid siege to her mind throughout the previous evening and disturbed her night, but his outing with her brothers and the exploits with which he’d regaled them had been the principal subjects of their conversation ever since.
Normally she could rely on her harebrained trio to distract her from any inner brooding. Instead, their speculation and comments about Gervase only reinforced his presence. Reinforced the reality that he was there, and she was going to have to deal with him.
“Do you really think what Joe and Sam said is right?” Ben turned to Harry, seated at the head of the table. “That there’ll soon be lots of men with no work and things will be bad around here?”