“Clasps,” she murmured as she kissed him. “In the back.”
Cameron splayed his hand over the placket, fingers so strong that he could rip open every single clasp without thought. He kept his hand there, rock steady as he again swept his mouth across hers.
Ainsley couldn’t breathe. Cameron tasted her to every corner, his mouth firm and bold, his a lover’s kiss. No stolen moments in a corner, no cooing of lovebirds, just a man bent on bodily pleasure, damn what anyone thought. He licked across her mouth, hungry, feasting on Ainsley. She wound her arms around his neck and feasted back.
Cameron raised his head. “If I asked it of you tonight, Ainsley Douglas, would come to my bed?”
The words of Phyllida Chase came back to her. Lord Cameron doesn’t take his women in a bed . . . Quite known for it, is our Lord Cameron.
“I thought you didn’t like beds.”
She felt him jerk, saw his eyes flicker. “True.” His voice changed, from soft cajoling to hard edged.
Ainsley’s own voice shook. “I should think a bed would be more comfortable.”
“Comfort is the last consideration, Mrs. Douglas.”
The tingling became hot waves of excitement. He was right: a bed was sedate, a place for a well-acquainted husband and wife who pulled on nightcaps afterward and rolled to either side to sleep. Lovers would use a chair, say, or a thick carpet in front of the fire. Or perhaps Cameron wished to learn what could be done on the top of a desk.
Words stuck in her throat. Ainsley, who could talk her way into or out of anything, suddenly couldn’t form a sentence.
She raised on tiptoe and kissed him instead.
Ainsley felt the change in him, from a man wondering what would happen in this room tonight to a man knowing what would. As he kissed her again, his competent fingers unclasped her bodice, his broad hand spreading the fabric.
Wild heat seared her body. She’d never forgotten the fire of the first time Cameron had kissed her, six years ago, and the fire had only grown hotter since. Ainsley molded hungrily to him, seeking his mouth. He kissed her back, lips taking, teeth scraping where he’d already bruised her. His hand on her back was an imprint of fire, and her bodice was falling. She wanted his touch on her breast, ached for it. She would give him anything she wanted, and propriety could go hang. She wanted this. She needed this. She arched to him, seeking.
Cameron’s whole body suddenly stilled. His kiss died on her mouth, and his hand froze on her back.
Ainsley, still swimming in dark madness, couldn’t decide what had happened. Then she felt a cool draft on her back, heard the click of paws on bare floor, and realized that someone had opened the door.
“Daniel,” Cameron said, voice hard. “Turn around and go out.”
“Fat chance.” Daniel Mackenzie blazed into the room, followed by McNab and the hound called Ruby. Both dogs circled Daniel, scattering the papers Ainsley had so carefully sorted. “I’ve come to save Mrs. Douglas’s virtue,” Daniel said. “Aunt Isabella’s looking for her, and I thought I’d better come up before she did.”
The frank expression of the boy who looked at Ainsley with his father’s eyes returned her to reality with a rush.
She’d been about to succumb to Cameron’s seductions—again. But Ainsley Douglas couldn’t afford to indulge in that joy. She wasn’t a sophisticated lady, lover to aristocrats, one who gadded off to the Continent to host salons in Paris and be wooed by wild gentlemen like Lord Cameron. Ainsley was a glorified errand-runner, trusted by the queen to solve domestic dilemmas, asked by her highborn friends to help with their social events. Dependent on others for her living. Exotic men like Lord Cameron Mackenzie were not for Ainsley. That dream was dust.
Cameron removed his hand from Ainsley’s back, straightened to his full height, and stepped a little in front of her.
“Daniel.” His voice held frustration, but at the same time, Ainsley knew Cameron was keeping a rock-hard rein on his patience. “Wait for Mrs. Douglas in the hall.”
Daniel grabbed a newspaper from the top of the stack and plopped himself into a chair. His kilt fluttered around his bony knees. “She’s a lady, Dad, I told ya. I’m not taking the chance that you’ll ravish her as soon as my back is turned.”
The absurdity of it all brought Ainsley back to herself. She stepped out from behind Cameron and rescued her lace shawl from Ruby’s questing mouth.
“Not to worry, Daniel, I wouldn’t dream of letting him ravish me.” Ainsley pulled the shawl, now a bit damp with drool, around her bare back. “Tell Isabella I’ll be with her directly.”
Daniel threw down the newspaper and sprang to his feet. “I’ll walk with ye.”
Ainsley looked back as she left the room behind Daniel. Cameron remained by the fireplace, stance rigid, his shirt open to reveal his brown throat. For the first time, Ainsley saw something naked in his eyes, not anger or frustration or old pain, but a longing so intense it stabbed at her from across the room.
Then Daniel slammed the door, and Ainsley’s view of him was lost.
“I’d better do up your back.”
“Pardon?” Ainsley stopped at the top of the stairs as Daniel jumped two steps past her. The dogs slithered by and ran all the way down the staircase, then hurried up again to see what was keeping the human beings.
“If someone sees ye like that, they’ll talk,” Daniel said. “Especially when ye disappeared so sudden.”
She’d forgotten about the undone clasps under her shawl, but Daniel had a point. Running about with a bodice undone would make even the dullest person realize what she’d been up to.
Smothering a sigh, Ainsley lowered her shawl and turned her back. Daniel, at her head height when he stood two stairs down, quickly hooked the clasps together. His skill told her that he, at sixteen, already had experience doing up women’s dresses. The apple didn’t fall far from the tree, she supposed.
“How did you know I was in your father’s study?” Ainsley asked Daniel when he finished.
“I saw you go inside the house with him. I always keep an eye on my Dad. Don’t worry, I made sure no one else noticed.”
When she turned around, Daniel was studying her with his Mackenzie eyes, darker than his father’s, his face sharp and fine boned rather than hard. Daniel could look at a person with remarkable percipience, seeing through every layer they tried to put in his way. While Ian Mackenzie didn’t like to meet a person’s gaze directly, Daniel Mackenzie bored into their eyes to the point of rudeness.