Page 55 of Tremaine's True Love

This was how he teased, with a bit of a dare in his silliness. Nita hiked up on her elbows and reached beneath the bedclothes for the hem of her nightgown.

“A moment, please, my lady.” He sat up, cross-legged, beside her, and untied the three bows holding the nightgown closed at Nita’s throat.

“You are very competent with ladies’ attire, Mr. St. Michael.”

“Do you know, when you scold me like that,” he replied, easing Nita’s nightgown over her head, “all vinegar and starch, it makes my cock twitch?”

However he might have ended his sentence, Nita could not have anticipatedthat.She ducked back under the covers, which had become agreeably toasty.

“You have a hidden streak of naughtiness,” she said. “I like that about you. As for the twitching, a tisane of valerian taken regularly might provide some relief.”

“More starch and vinegar,” he said. “You’re not helping. ‘First do no harm,’ isn’t that the highest canon of a physician? You’re dealing mortal blows to my self-restraint.”

“I’m not a—” Gracious saints. Without clothing, the business of cuddling beneath the blankets was an altogether less innocent undertaking. “You’re very warm, Mr. St. Michael.”

“If you don’t start calling me by my name, I’ll spend before I’ve so much as kissed you.”

“But you’ve already kissed—”

He kissed Nita again, silencing her retort, pushing the warm, hair-dusted expanse of his chest against Nita’s breast and arm.

“My name is Tremaine. When I had more family, some of them referred to me as Maine. In spoken English, this likens me to a part of a horse. In French, I’m part of the human anatomy.”

La main, a feminine noun for the hand.

Nita ranherhand over the wondrous texture of his chest. “Are you babbling? I’d like it if you babbled a little.”

“I will sing ‘God Save the King’ in any one of five languages, if you’ll just keep touching me.”

A heavily burred growl more than a babble. She liked that even better. “I’ll enjoy your serenades some other time. My brothers would kill you did they find you here, and my sisters would never allow me to live down my disgrace.”

“Dammit, Nita, if we’re to be married—”

She drew her fingertip around his nipple lightly, clockwise, counterclockwise. “Interesting.”

“Heaven defend me from an anatomist in siren’s clothing—or lack thereof.”

Tremainehad the ability to make Nita smile with his complaining, also to inspire her. She licked that same nipple and inhaled a hint of heather and flowers.

“Do that again at your peril,” he hissed, making no move to dodge out of licking range.

“Are you threatening me in my own bed, Mr. St—?”

He pinned Nita’s hands above her head, his grip loose but implacable. “You like my naughty streak, may God help you. I didn’t even know I possessed one, sober man of commerce that I am, but I hope you come to adore it.”

His mouth descended on Nita’s breast, a hot, delicate onslaught of sensations that made her want to both squirm and hold very, very still.

“She desists,” he muttered, his tongue moving in a slow circle. “And she tastes of lemon.”

He drew on Nita gently, but that single overture had her back arching and her hands fisting in his hair.

“I like that.”

Assuming Tremaine did not slay Nita utterly with his attentions in the next five minutes, she’d thank Kirsten for the soap. He moved to the second breast, and Nita did squirm.

“Shall I dose you with valerian?” he muttered, lips against her heart.

“Dose me with your kisses, or I’ll scold you for the next hour straight. I have five brothers and three younger sisters. I am a prodigious scold when inspired.”