LITMIR.BIZ

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with even greater speed.

      It shocked Tilly how silently and lethally fast Silas moved, dropping down onto the bed next to her and imprisoning her in his arms as he rolled her torso down under his own and then covered her mouth with his.

      Tilly tried to push him away, but he was holding her too tightly, one muscular leg thrown over her in what was surely one of the most intimate embraces a fully clad couple could perform—even if he was only adopting it to keep her pinned beneath the weight of his body. Pinned in such a way that she was shockingly aware of the physical differences between them—his hardness pressed to her softness, his body dominating and unyielding, while, to her outraged horror, her own was soft and accommodating, as though her flesh welcomed the possessive maleness of his.

      While she tried to grapple with her own confused reactions he started to kiss her. Not gently, but fiercely and possessively, and with an added edge of almost dangerous urgency, as though there was nothing he wanted more than to have her mouth under his, as though at any moment now he would strip the clothes from their bodies so that her only covering would be him, and then…Somehow or other his free hand was cupping her breast, the hard pad of his thumb resting against her hard nipple.

      This couldn’t be happening. It certainly should not be happening. Incredulously she struggled to resist him, distantly aware of her mother’s amused, ‘Whoops! Sorree…’ and then the immediate closing of the bedroom door.

      He could let Tilly go now. Silas knew that. The danger was over. No way could she tell her mother now that they had quarrelled and that he was leaving after what she had just witnessed. But the bedroom was bitingly cold, and the rounded warmth of Tilly’s breast fitted into his hand as though it had been made for him. It surprised him to discover just how much he wanted to go on cupping it, and just how strong his urge was to caress the hard thrust of her nipple slowly and thoroughly, until she responded to his touch with her own urgency, arching up into his hands, wanting him to peel back the layers of her clothing until they could both see her arousal. He could certainly feel his own. He slid his other hand up into Tilly’s hair, lifting his mouth briefly from hers, watching as her eyes opened, her gaze soft and clouded. He traced the shape of her mouth with small, teasingly light kisses that mirrored the delicate touch of his fingertips on her breast.

      Tilly was hazily aware that what she was doing was very dangerous—that Silas was very dangerous. But the room was so cold that it seemed to be numbing her ability to respond and react in a normal way. And Silas felt so warm, lying on top of her, even if he was tormenting her with those tiny kisses that were compelling her to arch up to him, wanting something much more intimate. She shuddered with pleasure when he spread his fingers against her scalp and held her head while he plundered her mouth with the intimate thrust of his tongue, over and over again, until she was shuddering in the grip of the most intense physical longing she had ever experienced.

      The shock of her own sexual arousal was enough to bring her to her senses and make her push Silas away. She was trembling from head to foot and felt foolishly close to tears. What she was feeling made her feel both vulnerable and confused. She didn’t even know how it had happened—or why.

      ‘You had no right to do that,’ she told him, almost tearfully.

      ‘I thought it was what you wanted.’

      ‘What? How could you think that? I’d just told you that I wanted you to leave.’

      Silas looked into her flushed, mutinous face and a sensation, an emotion he couldn’t recognise, speared through the armour-plating of his cynicism. He lifted his hand to his chest, as though he could actually feel the sharp, unfamiliar pain as a physical reality, and then let it drop to his side as he pushed the feeling back out of the way.

      ‘And I’ve just shown you that I don’t want to,’ he responded softly. ‘In fact…right now I don’t even think I want to leave this room.’ A corrosive inner voice, no doubt prompted by his conscience, was demanding if not a retraction then at least an explanation of this outright lie. But he had a job to do, a truth to find, and he needed real, hard facts. As far as Silas was concerned it was his ethical duty to get those facts, and that came before any duty he might have to maintaining the same degree of truth within this current aspect of his personal life.

      As ugly and unpleasant as it sounded, Tilly was using him—and he was using her. Both of them could claim that they were being forced into doing so in order to benefit others, of course. And that made it acceptable? Maybe not, but it certainly made it necessary, Silas told himself harshly.

      Tilly’s mouth had gone dry. She couldn’t bring herself to look at him. Her heart was pounding so heavily she wanted to press her hand against her chest to calm it.

      ‘If you’re trying to imply that you…’ She picked her words as carefully as she could, but they still literally stuck it her throat. ‘That you want me, then I don’t believe you,’ she finally managed to say. ‘It’s less than ten minutes since you were warning me off and accusing me of hiring you for sex,’ she reminded him.

      ‘Ten minutes ago I hadn’t kissed you or touched you,’ Silas told her meaningfully. ‘Ten minutes ago I hadn’t been so turned on by the way your body was responding to my touch that right now I can’t think beyond taking that response to its natural conclusion—to our mutual benefit.’

      To Silas’s chagrin his own words were conjuring up the most erotic images inside his head, and his body was responding powerfully to them. So powerfully that it was making it clear to him that, no matter what his brain might have to say, his body was more than willing to have sex with Tilly.

      The room might still be icy cold, but suddenly Tilly felt far too hot. He had to be lying to her, and she had better remember that. Instead of…Instead of what? Wanting him to be telling the truth? Wanting him to mean what he was saying? Wanting him to want her? Was she crazy? This kind of thing was her mother’s emotional territory, not hers. She knew better. Didn’t she? She started to shiver. She didn’t want to stay here in this room with Silas any longer—a room that she could have sworn now smelled subtly of their mutual arousal, and his deceit, and her own foolish longing. She wanted to go back downstairs, where she would be safer—and warmer.

      ‘It’s your own fault that I kissed you, you know,’ Silas told her.

      Tilly had had enough. ‘Look, I’ve already told you, I did not hire you to have sex with me,’she insisted fiercely.

      ‘I didn’t mean that.’ Silas was smiling so tenderly at her that her insides twisted with need. ‘I meant that it’s your fault because when you offered me the chance to leave I knew that I couldn’t, and that in turn told me how much I want you.’

      Tilly stared at him. It really wasn’t fair of fate to inflict this on her. It was almost Christmas, for heaven’s sake, and she was very vulnerable. Silas had touched a note, a chord deep within her, that she badly wanted to ignore. It would be far too dangerous to let herself believe that he meant what he had said, and even more dangerous to admit how much she wanted him to have meant it.

      ‘We’ve only just met,’ she reminded him. ‘We hardly know each other…’ She was almost stuttering, she realised, as she squirmed inwardly at the sound of her own ridiculous words.

      ‘So? Isn’t fate giving us an opportunity to remedy that?’ He smiled at her again, and Tilly felt her heart literally flip over inside her chest as though it were a pancake. ‘She’s even ensured that we’ll be sharing a room, and a bed, and she’s provided the added incentive of the need to share our body heat just to keep warm.’

      Tilly could feel not just her face but her whole body suddenly growing hot as she curled her toes into her shoes and looked helplessly down at the bed. Things like this just did not happen to her. She wasn’t that sort of person. She was too sensible, too cautious, too wary…too damn dull! She looked at Silas.

      ‘We are engaged, after all. Who knows what might happen, or where fate might lead us?’ As he spoke he reached out, sliding his fingers between her own so that they were intimately held together. ‘Why don’t we just

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