Chase cut through the room easily, that presence she’d felt so intensely the night she’d met him on full display once more.
She felt almost embraced by it. But it was no innocent embrace. This? It caressed her. Surrounded her senses. Awakened…
Ha, she thought to herself, what a foolish line of thought. He had no thoughts of such kind toward her. Anything else was but her imagination. Her husband had made it quite clear to her that they would have separate lives, and she was glad of it. Indeed, she was.
She stuck out her arm to him and propped her free hand on her hip. She bounced on her slippered toes, trying to ignore the strange feelings in her belly as he towered over her.
He eyed her wrist as if it was the Devil itself.
“I’m not going to bite you,” she teased, longing to break the strange tension between them that had overtaken the ease of just moments before.
Those words did not produce the effect she’d thought they would. If anything, they caused that muscle in his jaw to clench even tighter.
His eyes sparked with something she couldn’t identify, and then, oh so slowly, he reached out with his hard hands and took the edge of her sleeve in his roughened fingertips.
He tugged then, and the tug was so hard it pulled her toward him. She stumbled and gasped as she collided into his sculpted body.
“My goodness,” she marveled. How did one get quite so big and strong, in all events? Most of the men she was acquainted with were mere twigs to his mighty oak. She cleared her throat, gathering her thoughts, which really were being quite silly. “You need not use quite so much vigor.”
The feel of his muscled body pressed to hers was unique, and like any good scholar, she made note. She made note of the ridges, planes of his body, the heat emanating from his skin, through the linen of his clothes.
His hand slid over the curve of her waist, steadying her. “You’ll find that I have trouble tempering myself.”
That splayed palm of his now rested along the small of her back.
Something was amiss with her breathing. And her thoughts. The coherent ones seemed to be vanishing apace. She tilted her head back, taking in his features, surprised to find that he looked as shocked as she felt.
“Do you?” she asked, her voice ridiculously breathy. She hardly recognized it as her own. “You don’t seem as if you do. You seem quite in control.”
His eyes sparked this time; it was unmistakable, the heat in his gaze. “I usually am.”
She blinked up at him, at a loss as to how to navigate the strangeness of their interlude. “Is something amiss?”
“Yes,” he replied, his voice low as his hand pressed her into him.
She swallowed. In all her life, she’d never been this close to a man. And certainly not a man like him. Her head spun with the wantonness of it. He made her feel as if she was liquid fire. “What is it?”
“You,” he growled.
“Me?” she all but yelped.
His hand slid down across her hip, and his free hand came up to cup her cheek. “I am used to experiencing a certain set of emotions, all of which I have developed mechanisms to keep in control of. Little causes me to stray from the path that I choose. But you—”
“Yes?” she prompted, her mind rioting at where his hands were upon her body.
“You’re causing me to feel unfamiliar sensations.”
“Oh, dear.” She licked her lips, wondering if she should explain that she, too, was experiencing the unfamiliar. Only her sensations were pleasant. More than pleasant. In fact, pleasant did not begin to describe how she felt. “You don’t seem pleased.”
“I’m not,” he said, pulling her closer.
Her heart sank. “I do appreciate all that you’ve done for me, so I should hate to be of an annoyance to you. I don’t really think I wish to change, though. So, alas—”
He laughed, except that deep rumble sounded more like a groan of pain. “How I adore this about you. I’m glad you don’t plan on changing for me. You shouldn’t change for anyone.”
She smiled up at him, uncertain. “I’m glad you agree with me. It isn’t a sentiment largely accepted by the male sex. I do find that men generally hope that ladies will change to suit their needs.”
His gaze roamed over her face, serious. “Is that the experience you’ve had?”