LITMIR.BIZ

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breath was coming hard and she recognised it for what it was, despite her innocence. He was struggling with arousal and desire and holding himself in check with an effort that shook his body.

      ‘I will be fine, just let me walk,’ she protested, her face buried against the front of his greatcoat, too shy to raise it and look at him. Was it the realisation of where they were that had stopped him, or had she done something wrong, something that revealed her complete lack of experience?

      He ignored her protests, shouldering open the kitchen door and setting her on her feet by the range. She stood there, head down, shivering with embarrassment and cold as he tugged off her shawl, unbuttoned her pelisse and freed her of her soaking outer clothing. ‘Sit down.’ She found herself pressed back into the big Windsor chair and he knelt, unlacing her boots, drawing her cold feet free. ‘Poor darling.’ He lifted both her feet and began to rub them between his broad palms. ‘You need a hot bath.’

      ‘Yes, yes, that is all. I will be fine then.’ Decima felt herself gripping the arms of the chair in an effort not to reach out and catch his damp, dark head in both hands and pull him to her. ‘I’ll just take some water…’

      Adam stood up, pulling her to her feet and she saw his face properly for the first time since he had kissed her. His mouth was set hard, a muscle throbbed in one cheek. Oh God, he was angry with himself for kissing her, with her for being such a gauche, awkward old maid. Then she saw his eyes and the breath caught in her throat. They were silver, intense, and as they met hers they held such a look of tenderness and desire her hands flew to her mouth, holding back the plea to kiss her again, to take her, here and now, on the old rag rug in front of the range.

      ‘I will bring you water. Go into my dressing room, there is a big tub permanently in there.’ She hesitated and he snapped, ‘Go,’ his eyes turning fierce.

      Decima fled upstairs, whisking past Bates’s half-open door on soft feet. The murmur of voices reached her, then was gone as she entered Adam’s bedroom. She should not be doing this, should not be in this masculine room that smelt of his cologne and of leather and of him. Her hands trembling, she opened the door in the corner and found herself in a spacious dressing room. As might be expected, it had a washstand and shaving mirror, a screen across one corner of the room, a rack of thick towels, but it also had, in pride of place, a handsome tub. The sides were painted in imitation of green marble, it stood on ball-and-claw feet and a spigot hung over the side against the wall. Decima tried it cautiously: cold running water. Such luxury.

      She heard footsteps in the bedchamber and stepped behind the screen.

      ‘Decima?’ She tried to reply, but only managed a squeak of acknowledgment. Quantities of water were poured into the tub. ‘This will take a few more journeys. Get out of those wet clothes as quickly as possible.’

      Decima took a deep breath and tried to pull herself together. He had kissed her, that was all. It was nothing to get into such a state about. She had wanted it, for goodness’ sake. It had been wonderful. She wanted him to do it again—and she was terrified that he would.

      She untied her garters and rolled down her stockings, then reached behind her and unhooked her gown, even managing the final tricky button that needed her to reach back over her own shoulder. Her petticoats came off easily, clinging to her calves with chill dampness around the hem as they fell away. That left only her stays over her chemise.

      Decima stilled, her fingers on the stay laces as another torrent of water poured into the bath. ‘One more journey,’ Adam said. His voice sounded perfectly normal. Decima wondered if she could ever open her mouth and say a coherent word again.

      The door closed behind him and she began to tug at the laces. They were wet where the melted snow had soaked through the back of her clothes and cut unpleasantly into her fingers as she fought with them. They would not untie, she realised. They had swollen with the wet and now were set into hard knots. Decima winced as a fingernail broke, but she struggled on. No, it was hopeless.

      The door opened again. ‘There you are, full now.’ Adam’s voice rose over the splashing water. ‘Use the spigot on the wall if you need to cool it down a little. I’ll go and start dinner.’

      Decima hesitated, racked with indecision. She should wait until he was gone, then creep out and call Pru. But if she did that she would have to explain how she came to be soaked through, so wet that her hair was sodden.

      ‘Adam!’

      ‘Yes?’ She could hear him come back into the room.

      ‘May I have some scissors, please?’

      ‘Of course, but for heaven’s sake, don’t hang around getting chilled cutting your fingernails, have your bath first.’

      ‘I can’t…I cannot untie my stay laces.’

      Silence. Did he think that was amusing? Or perhaps she had embarrassed him. No, of course not. This was an experienced man of the world; he had probably untied more sets of stay laces in his time than she had.

      The screen moved. ‘No! Just give them to me.’

      ‘And have you stab yourself in the back? Let me see, Decima, I might be able to untie them.’

      Crimson with embarrassment, she turned her back and mumbled, ‘All right.’

      The screen panel shifted and she could feel the heat of his body right behind her. There was the brush of linen against her shoulder. He must have shed his coat before carrying the water. Decima shut her eyes as the image of Adam standing there in shirtsleeves and breeches filled her mind.

      His fingers caught in the laces, pulling and twisting. ‘You had better cut them,’ she muttered.

      ‘No, almost…almost got it. There.’ The knot gave with an immediate lessening of the pressure, but not content with that he began to loosen each of the criss-crossing strands. Then he stopped, his hands resting either side of her ribs. ‘They do go all the way down,’ he murmured.

      ‘What?’ Decima gasped. If he didn’t take his hands away in one second, she was going to turn round and…

      ‘Your freckles. I wondered if they went all the way down and they do. Here.’ His fingertip touched lightly across her shoulders, across the nape of her neck, trailed lightly down the dip of her spine.

      Decima shuddered at the touch, her mind reeling at his words. Her freckles? He found those disfiguring brown marks attractive?

      Then his lips replaced his hands and she was pulled back against him, his hard thighs supporting her, his mouth trailing tiny kisses across the soft skin of her shoulders. His aroused body was branding her buttocks with heat through her flimsy chemise and she gasped at the feel of him and the primitive urge that coursed through her to press herself back, rub herself like a cat against the evidence of his arousal.

      His hands lifted to cup her breasts gently, his palms cradling the soft weight, while his thumbs touched the hard peaks of her nipples, which were thrusting shamelessly through the fine fabric.

      ‘Decima.’ His face was buried in the curve of her shoulder, his voice harsh and muffled against her neck. ‘One of us is going to have to step away from this. Now.’

      ‘I know,’ she murmured, her voice shaking. ‘I know, and I do not think I know how to.’

       Chapter Nine

      Adam drew in a deep breath. He had never had a problem with self-control before. It seemed he had never found himself in a position where his conscience was in direct conflict with his deepest desires. And just at that moment his desire was to carry Decima through into the bedchamber and bury himself in her soft, strong, innocent body.

      With an effort that was painful he brought his hands away from the tantalising weight of her breasts, stepped back until her clothing no longer brushed against his body, and back again until he could put a shaking hand on the screen and draw it closed on the image of

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