Page 39 of The Governess’ Unlikely Suitor (The Dashworth Brothers #2)

K ate kept her fingers in his hair long after Edward had succumbed to sleep. She should pull them out of the soft strands and leave the room, but she couldn’t make herself do it, not yet.

Approaching his room, she’d been so confident she could help him with his sleeping problem, but when he’d stood before her, so large and male, her idea had seemed foolish.

The notion she could send a grown man to sleep with her touch and her words were laughable in the face of reality.

And yet it had worked with surprising ease.

Now she wished she hadn’t blown the candle out. Although possibly slightly sinister, she would have liked to watch him sleep, to see his powerful body finally relaxed.

He turned, one large arm flinging itself across her waist. It would still be easy to slide out from under it, but she stayed exactly where she was, enjoying the weight of it on her body.

Since her mother’s death nearly twenty years ago, she’d had very little human contact, none of it male.

Yes, she found him desperately attractive, but he was still her friend, someone whom she liked more than most people, more than anyone really, and being in his arms, albeit accidentally, was a joy she was not going to give up.

Glad to have a reason to stay a little longer, she shifted slightly, straightening her legs out on the mattress.

She woke with a start. The room she was in was pitch dark, but she could tell it was not her bed she was lying in.

‘I am sorry,’ said a deep voice next to her. ‘I did not mean to wake you.’

For a moment, all she could do was lie there in stunned silence, unable to fully believe that she had fallen asleep next to Edward. It was so beyond inappropriate she could not begin to fully comprehend what she had done and yet she did not appear to be leaping from the bed to get away from him.

‘I am very sorry. I did not mean to fall asleep. The last thing I remember thinking was I should get up and then…’

‘It is fine,’ he said softly, his deep voice warm and addictive. ‘If you are worried about people finding out, I can promise you I will not tell a soul.’

‘My brother would challenge you to a duel if he knew, even if I explained it was entirely my fault.’

‘Then we are lucky I sent him to America.’

The mattress moved beneath them with their shared laughter. It was strangely normal to be lying next to this man making jokes in the dark like this.

‘You are awake again.’ That was disappointing; she had thought once he was deeply asleep his exhausted body would carry him through until morning.

He hummed in agreement. ‘I am, but I have never fallen asleep that quickly, so your plan worked. Besides, for the first time ever, I do not mind waking in the night. Your quiet snuffling is very endearing.’

‘Snuffling! You make me sound like a pig.’ It was strangely not strange to be having this conversation while lying next to a man who wore no clothes. She waited for embarrassment to set in or even some slight shame, but instead she felt nothing but bone-deep rightness in the situation.

‘Oh no, you are much sweeter than that. A piglet perhaps.’ The mattress shook again as he chuckled to himself.

‘At least I do not snore like a wild boar.’ She had no idea whether Edward snored or even what the animal sounded like, being as they had not existed in England for a very long time, but that was not the point.

Her riposte only made him laugh harder. She lay in the dark listening to it, enjoying hearing him relaxed like this.

He was often tightly wound, which she suspected played a large part in his sleep deprivation.

If she was allowed to spend more time with him, she would find as many different ways as possible to get him to unwind.

His amusement slowly ebbed away to be replaced with an expectant silence.

‘Should I go?’ she asked into the darkness. She did not want to overstay her welcome, but the corridors would be cold, her bedroom even more lonely without his solid presence.

‘Do you want to?’

‘No.’ Her bold answer surprised her, but if it did him, he did not comment.

‘Then stay.’

‘Do you want me to? I do not want this to be like the kiss.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I fear I forced you into that by playing on your good nature. I appreciate it is different for a man, that men kiss more freely than women, but all the same, I should not have done it.’

The mattress dipped as he moved. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness well enough that she could see he had propped himself up on one arm.

‘I feel we need to address some things here. Firstly, not all men are the same. I am not in the habit of kissing women all over the place whether they ask me to or not. That kiss meant something to me.’

‘Oh,’ she said softly. She was close enough she could feel the heat radiating from his skin. Although tempted to reach out and touch it, she kept her fingers to herself.

‘Secondly, I would not have kissed you if I had not wanted to do it. If we are being honest with each other, and I think, given the circumstances, we should be, I have thought of little else other than kissing you since the moment you stepped into the Blue Lounge all those weeks ago.’

‘Oh,’ she said again, because that’s all she could manage.

‘Yes, oh.’

‘But…’

‘But?’

‘In those first days, you seemed so very displeased with me.’

‘Did I? I remember spending an inordinate amount of time cutting a piece of cake to look like a fish. Did that strike you as something a man would do if he was not thinking about kissing?’

‘I thought you were trying to be funny.’

‘I was.’

‘But you also wanted to kiss me.’ Little darts of pleasure were shooting through her veins, and a restless, squirmy feeling made her clothes seem too tight. She wanted to get closer to him, to feel his skin against hers.

‘I did.’

‘Then why did I have to ask you?’

There was a long pause and she began to regret asking; if the reason was something bad, reminding him of it was not a good idea.

‘You are living under our protection. I do not want to take advantage of you. If you want to kiss me, touch me, that is different, but it has to be because you want it, not because you are acting out of a sense of obligation.’ He paused.

‘When I was younger, I kissed a maid. I thought she liked me, but she was doing it because she thought it might lead to advancement in the household or more money, or something.’

‘This is nothing like that,’ she rushed to reassure him. ‘I…’

‘I know’—his voice was calm, soothing—’but the incident reminded me that there are lines between people who come from different backgrounds whether we want that or not.

What I am saying is… I do not want to be like your previous employer, taking something that is not mine to have, just because I am in a position of power over you.

You’ve had that once before in your life and I do not want you to live through it again. ’

For a while she stared at his dark outline.

She had never considered he might want her as much as she wanted him and had been holding himself back, not wanting to overstep some invisible marker.

Her heart expanded, pressing against her ribs.

His words had made her feel cherished and protected in a way no one had ever done for her before.

There was nothing she could truly give in return but perhaps her trust.

‘Are you saying if I wanted to stay with you here, we could kiss again, if I wanted it?’

She heard his swallow. ‘Yes.’

‘What if… what if I wanted more?’

‘Do you trust me?’

‘Yes. I trust you completely.’

He reached out and traced his thumb along the edge of her jaw. ‘Then I would very much like for there to be more .’ Darts of pleasure shot along her skin where he touched her. ‘May I put my mouth on your body to give you pleasure?’

Her head spun; she had no idea what that meant exactly but she guessed that if it felt even half as good as the slight caress of his fingertips against her neck, then she wanted it more than anything in the world. ‘Yes.’

‘And do you promise to stop me if I do anything that makes you feel uncomfortable?’

‘I promise.’ Her words were breathy, barely there and hardly out of her mouth before his mouth claimed hers, hot and demanding.

She opened to him, his tongue sweeping inside her mouth in that strangely delicious way.

Her hands reached for him, desperate to touch his skin now she had permission.

As her fingers skimmed over his shoulders, his arms, the length of his back, his mouth became frantic.

His fingers found the ties of her dress and she helped him pull it from her, their mouths only parting to get it off over her head.

She thought she heard the material of her undergarments tear as they followed her dress but she did not care and when his lips closed over her nipple, she lost all semblance of thought.

She cried out, bucking against him. He bit lightly and her world turned into sensation, her body completely overrun by the way her sensitive skin responded to his touch.

Everything was moving so fast, the heat roaring to life as if there had been no time since their first kiss in the music room.

Her body moved through no conscious effort, craving more of something she couldn’t put a name to.

‘I want…’ she tried to say, her voice slurred and incoherent. ‘I want…’

His guttural growl was the only sign he had heard her.

He rolled her to her back, one heavy arm pinning her down.

‘That…’ she managed before trailing off.

The weight of him was heavenly, decadent, like nothing she had ever experienced.

She wanted to tell him it was exactly what she wanted from him, but words refused to form as he pressed open-mouthed kisses to her stomach.

She writhed beneath him, gasping as he moved lower still.