Chapter 34

Her eyes widened. Even before he'd caught them between his fingers, her lips had fallen open so most of the pins spilled. Except for one, which she clamped her shocked lips shut on.
Bending his head he caught it, expertly. Standing there, while his mouth brushed hers, the faint feel of his breath mingling with her own, as opposed to her sinking to the floor in a heap of white cotton, was an exercise in willpower even she had never known.
Her heart skipped a beat as he rolled the pin on his tongue, another as he turned his head. When he flicked it onto the rug, then bent his head in order to cover her mouth with his, only years of careful training allowed her to keep her face a mask-just.
Only for the papers did she do this. Only for the papers.
Because whatever kind of man he was, he was the one who could have let her see these papers for nothing. So she could not let him be one she suddenly felt she could never get enough of. His lips anyway. Especially when he was also the man she must bed.
His arms came around her back. The movement was unexpected. So much so she wished she could control her legs and they wouldn't quiver. But what was she meant to do, wrap them round him so he could carry her to the bed with her legs splayed?
To her horror, his hand came down and clasped her buttock, as if that was her intention.
Never mind the intimate situation it put her in. What if she toppled and then he had to pick her up from the floor? What if he got down on the floor with her? What if he glimpsed what was under that sofa?
She'd no choice but to attempt it. Except she'd honestly not expected, while winding one leg, for her other to stick. Why the hell had she worn the stupid petticoat?
"It's all right. I've got you."
"I-I'll walk."
"Walk?"
"Yes."
His brows drew together. He sometimes limped, but was she meant to let him drop her on the floor so she ended doing likewise? Trying to be seductive was bad enough. She didn't want a broken leg to add to her trouble.
"That won't be necessary."
He swung her up. She held her breath as the bed glided into her vision.
"Thank you, Lord Hawley. I-"
Setting her down, he shucked off his coat. "Do you always talk this much as a rule? Not that your voice isn't music to my ears. I'd just prefer if we could get on with this. Now."
His maroon neck-cloth followed his coat. He certainly was in a hurry. And hurry was good. Especially fevered, impassioned hurry. What he'd just said about doing things as a rule had caused uncertainty to sweep her skin. As a rule, she'd not done any of this.
"Yes. Yes, of course. Just tell me what-"
"Shhh. When a moment's so perfect, don't ... don't spoil it."
He tore his shirt over his head, and her alarm about perfection extended to what emerged, if only for the second she was permitted to glimpse his golden, sleekly muscled beauty, before his mouth descended on hers. His hands, hotly caressing and knowing, were everywhere-on the sides of her face, her arms, her waist. And not, so far, anywhere they shouldn't be. Although so far, anyway, she wouldn't have known if they were.
What gripped her in that instant was a panic about everything. Darkness descended as she closed her eyes. Of course she should answer the sweeping foray of his tongue with a thrust of her own. It would make her look very practiced.
That was what this was about. Jewel cases were more her specialty, but in some respects, a man's trouser's buttons were very much the same thing. She took a breath, reached between their bodies. Where she had learned this from she'd no idea. Her upbringing had been very checkered though as this afternoon had shown when she'd lost it ever so slightly.
She undid, she grasped, she kept her inner self intact.
If she could just get her hands on the damned buttons, without there being some sort of repeat of what had happened a second ago when she'd tried wrapping her legs round him. She couldn't.
She flicked open one eye. When she thought of what he took from her here, it was awful that heat glazed his eyes.Could she at least moan so she was giving him some kind of response?
Believing darkness lent her invincibility, she closed her eyes again and found the buttons. Softened, her face would look seductive, and a certain amount of seductiveness would outweigh the fact the damn button was stuck. How could that be?
He moved his hand the length of her leg, his palms skimming her stocking top, then the bare expanse of flesh above. The touch was cool enough to force another groan. A breathy one she was not in control of. Ridiculous, when part of her, the part that didn't want to do this, squirmed, bracing for his assault.
Trembling, she grabbed his wrist. It seemed better he didn't touch her. She was more green woman than green girl, although what spiked in her very center saidshe wasn't as green as all that. What spiked her center made pleasurable ripples fizz in her blood. How could she enjoy-how could she anything-giving herself for a set of papers? What were these few hurried movements he now made regarding his trousers about?
His eyes glazed, his ragged breathing hot against her face. Her body shrank from the smooth pressure of his erection against her thigh as much as it welcomed it. Her heart thudded fit to burst from her ribcage, the practical details of her shocking lack of knowledge, things she knew she must disguise. Quite how, except by clasping the sides of his face and pressing her lips to his, she'd no idea.
The breath retreated into the furthest corners of her lungs. The initial burning shock of her sensitive flesh being pierced almost forced a groan. She froze. Not showing it, was all that counted because she didn't expect to experience anything, except shock, as if she were drowning and there was no air in her lungs, just icy water. Her eyes widened.
Frankly? Sex was a lot of talk about nothing at all. After all, it was easier, when she was so ignorant, to let him do whatever he wanted, to just lie here and ...
"Jesus ... Great ..."
Whatever it was she was doing, at least he was happy. Just listen to him. Not just an exclamation of joy, a compliment of her prowess, a stopping to admire it, a look, so darkly impassioned her heart stuttered against her ribcage, missing all manner of beats.
"Yes? Lord Hawley?"
"Are you a virgin?"
A virgin? The cheek when she thought of what she gave him here, all she gave him here and how it killed her.Killed her so her tears boiled dry. Here she was doing her level best to be seductive and moan and all these things, after all that had happened to her today too, and all he could do was insult her.She smacked her hand off his jaw before she could stop it.
The noise cracked like a whip in the softly candlelit room. "How dare you insult me."
He tilted his jaw. How stupid to have struck him. It was even stupider when she wanted to see these papers, which were firmly in his possession. Shouldn't she just have cleaved to the insult that, for all her fumbling, fingering and moaning, she plainly couldn't do this for toffee? She was a thief. Not a seductress.
What if he now sent her packing? Was it so clever to lose this magnificent opportunity, the only one to come her way in weeks, because he'd plainly grasped Sapphire's little secret? The one she'd wanted to keep in every respect.
Mustering herself, she cleared her throat. "Nevertheless, you may continue."
He could, couldn't he? She was not going to argue about it, no matter what it cost to let him. They finished this, she saw the papers, that was that. All that mattered was exiting this situation with her pride and dignity intact.
Frustration, thinly-veiled irritation, was written all over his handsome face, the straight brows, the even straighter lips, the perfectly sculpted lines of his body. He drew backward, then off the bed and readjusted his trousers. Sighing, he retrieved his neck-cloth and his shirt. If he did that, this wasn't continuing.
Silence followed him all the way to the linked door and she swallowed the hot sticky constriction in her throat, dread holding her immobile as the handle turned.
"Thank you, but I don't think I will, Miss Armstrong."