Page 45 of Mistletoe and Christmas Kisses
“Is foul language part of the seduction? I think I like it.”
He snapped his head up, embarrassed and provoked. The sweet, teasing fire in her eyes only brought him closer to doom. His emotions were tender, his chest aching. He debated, then decided touching her right now would be a mistake and stayed where he was.
“Merry Christmas, Dex.”
Christmas. He’d almost forgotten.
“I didn’t separate from you the first time,” he shocked himself by saying, thinking he’d love nothing more than to have a child with her, but if he admitted this, she’d run back to London like he’d lit a fire beneath her lovely bottom. “A risk for which I humbly apologize. I was overcome with—” He laughed, his temple knocking the window frame before he located her gaze again. “Hell, I couldn’t think, I could barely breathe I was so taken with you, with us.” He shrugged, scratched a nonexistent itch on his chest. “I have no words. I told you I wasn’t charming, not by half. This impressive speech proves it.”
Georgie tucked her bottom lip between her teeth in a move he grasped meant she was reasoning something out. He believed she wanted to laugh, which might not have gone over well. “Did I say I minded?” she finally whispered, sitting, letting the sheet plunge to her waist.
This was his first view of her in abundant light, and his pulse skipped, his mouth going dry. His childhood friend and the woman he loved melded into one. He fell hard, like a boulder over a cliff.
“I have five days until I return to London,” she said after a strained silence, her gaze sweeping from his bare feet to his neck and back again—the heat of her regard turning him to ash.
At least she seemed as entranced with his body as he was with hers.
His heart skipped a beat, two, as his blood raced through his veins. But he didn’t move, didn’t blink. If she wasn’t going to give him what he wanted—forever—he was going to make her construct the dwelling they were set to momentarily settle in and beg him to visit. “Five days for what?”
A long sigh left her with the rise and fall of her shoulders. “You’re frustrated because I’m not yielding to your wishes for once. The girl tripping along behind you is all grown-up, Dex. She has her own needs and wants and, yes,wishesnow.”
“After last night, I’m well aware. Very grown-up, indeed.” He produced a phony yawn when his stomach was twisting into knots. “We’ve gone over this in triplicate. I’m resigned, not frustrated. I adore your tenaciousness, except when it gets in the way of what I want. There, I’ve admitted it. I like to get my way.”
“An impasse, because I do, too.”
“Then, the farce continues.”
Georgie plucked at the sheet, looking like she was considering snatching it to her neck if they were going to argue. “You make finding a duchess sound as appealing as tossing out the contents of a chamber pot.”
“That about covers it.”
Sliding off the bed, Georgie crossed to him, her naked body a glorious thing in the bracing, pearly light of dawn. She had a knowing luster in her eyes only a woman of proficiency can obtain. He’d given her this and now felt like prey being tracked by a more cunning animal.
“What can I do to wipe away your fierce glower?” she asked with the barest hint of a smile. Enough of one to send her dimples roaring to life, the ideal time for them to appear, damn her. “My Christmas present to you.”
His gaze sharpened, his body tightening. “I don’t know. What can you?”
Going to her knee, she gathered his cravat from the rug and looking up at him, pulled it through her fingers. “How good are your knots, Dex?”
His breath left him in a rush. “You’d let me do this? Control you in this way?”
She wrapped the length of snowy-white silk around her fist, gave it a firm tug. “I trust you. You’re my closest friend. Everything between us flows from that reality.”
Slipping a hand beneath her elbow, Dex pulled her to her feet, his intent gentle but possessive as his mouth captured hers. Love was a dull blade carving him in two, but he could not, would not, admit it. Suffering to last a lifetime lay down that path.
Georgiana’s arms went around his neck as he turned and pressed her to the wall. His cravat fluttered heedlessly to the floor. They didn’t need it. He needed nothing but her.
“I’ll take the five days,” he whispered against her lips. “And your Christmas gift.”
But he couldn’t help but think as he lost himself in her—andwhen it’s over, I’ll release you even if it kills me.
CHAPTER9
Over the next five days, Georgiana glanced up from making notes in Dex’s folio and caught him gazing at her with the same bookish expression he carried when he categorized fossils. And at other times, too. After they made love, across a candlelit dining table, walking the moors, the look was there, searching, probing when she’d told him exactly what she was thinking, why she had to return to London, why she didn’t want to remarry.
Simple statements of fact when nothing was simple.
Opting to embrace cowardice, she’d revealed all except the critical fact that she loved him with every part of her being. If this deadly admission slipped free, he wouldn’t let her leave when the time came, which it would in twenty-four hours.