She might have wanted to begin with kissing, but he wanted to end with her naked, spread across his desk, open to his hands and mouth and body, like a country summer.
And that was the problem.
He could not give her what she wanted. Not without taking everything he desired.
Dammit. She was too close. He took a step back, grateful for his long legs and the firm edge of his desk behind him providing stable, unmoving comfort. “I do not think Bourne would appreciate my instructing you in . . .” He trailed off, finding it difficult to say the word.
The lady did not have the same problem. “Kissing?”
He supposed he should be happy she had not asked about the other thing she seemed to have no difficulty referencing. “Yes.”
She tilted her head, and he could not help but be drawn to the long cord of her neck, the soft white skin there. “I don’t think he would mind, you know,” she said after a long moment. “In fact, I think he would be rather happy that I asked you.”
He laughed—if one could call the loud, quick ha of disbelief a laugh. “I think you couldn’t be more wrong.”
Bourne would kill him with his bare hands for touching her. Not that it wouldn’t be worth it.
It would be worth it.
He knew that without question.
She shook her head. “No, I think I’m right,” she said, more to herself than to him, he sensed, and there was a long moment while she pondered the question.
He’d never known a woman to think so carefully. He could watch her think for hours. For days. The ridiculous thought startled him. Watch her think? What in hell was wrong with him?
He didn’t have time to consider the answer because something changed in her gaze, partially hidden by the glass of her spectacles when she focused on him once more. “I don’t think this is about Bourne at all.”
It wasn’t. But she needn’t know that. “Bourne is one of the many reasons why I won’t tell you about it.”
She looked down at her hands, clenched tightly in front of her, and when she spoke there was something he did not like in her tone. “I see.”
She shook her head, and he could do nothing but look down at her pale, yellow hair, the color of cornsilk, gleaming in the candlelight.
He shouldn’t ask. It didn’t matter. “What do you see?”
She spoke to herself, softly, without looking up. “It never occurred to me. Of course, it should have. Desire is a part of it.”
Desire. Oh yes. It was an enormous part of it.
She looked up at him, then, and he saw it. Part uncertainty, part resignation, part—damn him to hell—sadness. And everything he had, everything he was, screamed to reach out to her.
Dear God. He tried to put more space between them, but his massive desk—the one from which he’d drawn such comfort just seconds earlier—was now trapping him there, altogether too close to her as her big blue eyes grew liquid, and she said, “Tell me, Mr. Cross, do you think I might convince him to touch me?”
He could have managed the words if not for their intonation—for the slight, panicked emphasis on the him, meaning someone other than he. Meaning Castleton.
Meaning she had been hoping for Cross to touch her.
She was temptation. She was torture.
All he had to do was reach out and take her. No one would ever know. Just once. Just a taste, and he would send her on her way, to her husband. To her marriage.
To her life.
No.
She was untouchable. As untouchable as every other woman he’d known for the last six years. More untouchable.
Infinitely better.
His throat worked as he searched for words, hating that she’d rendered him speechless. If his partners could see him now, clever Cross, laid low by this bizarre, bespectacled, beautiful woman.
The words did not come, so he settled on, “Pippa . . .”
Color flooded her cheeks, a wicked, wonderful blush—the kind that a younger, reckless Cross would have read as invitation. The kind he would have accepted.
Instead, she looked back at her hands, spread them wide, not knowing how those crooked fingertips tempted him. “I’m sorry. That was thoroughly . . . It was . . . that is . . .” She sighed, her shoulders bowing with near-unbearable weight. Finally, she looked up and said, simply, “I should not have said it.”
Don’t ask her. You don’t want to know.
Except he did. Desperately.
“What did you mean by it?”
“I would rather not tell you.”
One side of his mouth kicked up. Even now, when she no doubt wished to do so, she would not lie. “And yet I would know.”
She spoke to her hands. “It’s just that . . . since we met, I have been rather . . . well, fascinated by . . .”
You.
Say it, he willed, not entirely certain what he would do if she did, but willing to put himself to the test.
She took another breath. “By your bones.”
Would she ever say anything expected? “My bones?”
She nodded. “Yes. Well, the muscles and tendons, too. Your forearms. Your thighs. And earlier—while I watched you drink whiskey—by your hands.”
Cross had been propositioned many times in his life. He’d made a career of refusing women’s requests. But he had never been complimented on his bones.
It was the strangest, sexiest confession he’d ever heard.
And he had no idea how to respond.
He didn’t have to, however, as she was pressing on. “I can’t seem to stop thinking about them,” she said, her voice low and filled with utter misery. “I can’t seem to stop thinking of touching them. Of their . . . touching me.”
God help them both, neither could he.
He shouldn’t ask. He shouldn’t.
But the King himself could have stormed into the room and it wouldn’t have stopped him. “Touching you where?”
Her head snapped up, fast enough to have done damage if she had been standing any nearer—if she’d been standing as near as he would like for her to be. He’d shocked her. “I beg your pardon?”
“It’s a simple question, Pippa,” he said, leaning back against the desk, impressed with his ability to seem calm while his heart raced and his fingers itched for her. “Where do you imagine coming into contact with my bones?”
Her mouth fell open, honeyed lips soft in their surprise, and he crossed his arms. Her gaze followed the movement, his hands clutching his biceps, the only thing keeping him from grabbing her and kissing her until they were both gasping for air.
“Your hands,” she whispered.
“What about them?”
“I wonder what they might feel like on . . .” She swallowed, and the movement drew his attention to her throat, where her pulse no doubt pounded. He missed the next words on her lips—which was likely best for them both. “On my skin.”
Skin. The word conjured images of pale, beautiful flesh, heated curves and soft swells, of wide expanses open to exploration. She would be sin and silk, and everywhere he touched, she would respond to him. He imagined the sounds she would make, the way she would gasp as he stroked up one leg, the way she would sigh when he ran the flat of his palm down her torso, the way she would laugh when he inevitably found a place where she was ticklish.
She was riveted by his left hand, braced against his arm, and he knew without question that if he moved it, if he reached for her, she would let him have anything he wanted. Everything he wanted.
He did not move it.
“Where, specifically, Pippa?”
She shouldn’t tell him, of course. She should run from this room as quickly as she could . . . no doubt she would be safer on the floor of the casino than she was here, with him. But he wasn’t about to tell her that.
“My hands,” she started, the hands in question splaying wide. “M—my cheek . . . my neck . . .”
As she spoke, she traced the body parts she named—unbeknownst to her, he would wager—and his desire deepened with every word, with every soft touch. Her fingers trailed down the long column of her neck, across the soft, pale skin of her chest, toward the edge of her bodice, where it stilled, hovering there on the green fabric.
He wanted to reach out and rend it in two, to ease the passage of those marvelously flawed fingertips. He wanted to watch her touch every inch of her body, pretending her hands were his.
Damn that. He wanted her to use his hands.
He wanted to do the touching.
No.
“What else?” he said, moving his hand, releasing her from her trance.
She met his gaze, eyes wide, cheeks pink. “I—” She stopped. Took a breath. “I should like to touch you, as well.”
And there, in the simple, unbridled confession, he discovered the last, fragile thread of his control. He was too close to her. He should move. Should place distance between them. Instead he said, “Where?”
He knew he was asking too much of her—this innocent girl who knew the human body but had no knowledge of it. But he couldn’t stop himself. He couldn’t have her. But he could have this.
Even if he would burn in Hell for taking it.
Hell would be a welcome respite to the torture he suffered now. Here.
“Where would you like to touch me, Pippa?” he prompted after a long silence.
She shook her head, hands spread wide, and for a moment, he thought she might give up. Go home. Disappointment flared, hot and frustrating.
And then she said, simply, “Everywhere.”
The single word robbed him of strength and breath and control, leaving him shattered and raw. And desperate for her.
Desperate to show her pleasure. Some way. Any way.
“Come here.”
He heard the roughness in his voice, the urgency, and was shocked that she was so quick to do his bidding, coming to stand mere inches from him. Her dress was a collection of layers, the topmost fastened by a thick green belt. He pointed. “Open it.”
God help him, she did, as though it were the most normal thing in the world, the edges of the gown falling open to reveal a finer green fabric beneath. “Take it off.”
She shrugged out of the outermost layer, letting it pool at her feet, her breath coming faster. His, as well. “All of it.”
She turned her back to him. She was saying no. Strength where he was weakness. Frustration flared, and he reached out, stopping just short of touching her, of tearing the cloth from her body and replacing it with his own.
Of course she was saying no. She was a lady. And he should not be near her. He was the worst kind of villain, and he should be flogged for what he had done. For what he demanded.
The heavy green wool of her dress lay on the floor at his feet, and he crouched to retrieve it, fingers brushing the fine fabric in desperation, as though it were her skin. As though it were enough.
It had to be.
He cursed himself, promising Heaven and himself that he would pack her back into this dress and send her home, but it was too late.
A layer of linen joined the heavy wool, the soft fabric brushing against his knuckles, still warm from her body. Scorching. His breath caught at the sensation and he froze, knowing with the keen understanding of one who had fallen before that this moment would be his destruction.
Knowing he shouldn’t look up.
Knowing he couldn’t stop himself.
She was clad in nothing but a corset, pantalettes, and stockings, arms crossed over her chest, cheeks flaming—the red wash an irresistible promise.
He fell to his knees.
She couldn’t believe she’d done it.
Even now, as she stood in this marvelous, wicked room, cool air running across her too-warm skin, she couldn’t quite believe she’d removed her clothes, simply because he’d ordered it in that dark, quiet tone that sent strange, little flutters through the pit of her stomach.
She should research those flutters.
Later.
Now, she was more interested in the man before her, on his knees, hands fisted on his long, lovely thighs, eyes roaming over her body.
“You removed your clothes,” he said.
“You asked me to,” she replied, pushing her spectacles up the bridge of her nose.
One side of his mouth rose in the half smile, and he ran the back of one hand across his lips, slow and languid, as though he might well devour her. “So I did.”
The flutters became more pronounced.
He was staring at her knees, and she was suddenly, very aware of the condition of her stockings, a plain, cream wool, chosen for warmth rather than . . . well . . . than this. No doubt they were hideous in comparison to the silk stockings he was used to women wearing in his presence. Miss Tasser likely had stockings in a score of colors, all laced and lovely.
Pippa had always been practical about her undergarments.
She pressed her knees together and tightened her arms across her chest, uncertain, wishing he would reach out for her. When he didn’t, she wondered if she somehow disappointed him—she wasn’t as beautiful as the women he was no doubt used to, but she’d never thought of herself as being unpleasant-looking.
Why wouldn’t he touch her?
She swallowed back the question, hating the way it whispered through her, making her cold and hot all at once, and said, “What next?”
The words came out sharper than she’d intended, but they served their purpose, bringing his attention instantly to her face. He stared at her for a long moment, and she was distracted by his eyes—more pewter than grey, with little black flecks, framed by long, auburn lashes.
As she watched, his gaze flickered to the large chair several feet to her right, then back to her, slow and languid. “Sit.”
It was not what she’d expected. “Thank you, I prefer to stand.”
“Do you want your lesson or not, Pippa?”
Her heart leapt at the words. “Yes.”
The half smile came again, and he inclined his head toward the chair. “Then sit.”
She moved. Sat as primly as possible, back straight, hands clenched tightly on her lap, legs pressed together, as though she were not alone in a casino with one of London’s most notorious rogues, wearing nothing but a corset and pantalettes. And her spectacles.
She closed her eyes at the thought. Spectacles. There was nothing tempting about spectacles. She reached up to remove them.
“No.”
She stilled, her hand halfway to her face. “But—”
“Leave them.”
“They’re not—” she began. They’re not smoldering. They’re not seductive.
“They’re perfect.” He did not move toward her, instead leaning against the heavy ebony desk, extending one long leg in front of him and raising the other knee, propping his arm on it as he watched her through heavy-lidded eyes. “Lean back.”
“I’m quite comfortable,” she said quickly.
One ginger brow rose. “Lean back anyway.”
She retreated on the chair until she felt the soft leather back against her skin. He hadn’t stopped watching her, eyes narrowed, taking in every bit of her, every movement.
“Relax,” he said
She took a deep breath and exhaled, attempting to follow instructions. “It isn’t easy.”
The smile again. “I know.” There was a long moment of silence, and he said, “You’re very beautiful.”
She flushed. “I’m not.” He did not reply. She filled the silence with, “These underclothes are quite old. They were not meant to be . . .” She trailed off as his gaze flickered to the edge of her corset, suddenly tighter. “ . . . seen.”
“I’m not talking about the clothes,” he said, low and dark. “I’m talking about you. All that skin you want me to touch.”
She closed her eyes at the words, mortification and something much more dangerous coursing through her.
He didn’t stop talking. “I’m talking about your lovely long arms and your perfectly shaped legs . . . I find I am quite jealous of those stockings for knowing the feel of you, the warmth of you.” She shifted, unable to keep still beneath the onslaught of his words. “I’m talking about that corset that hugs you where you are lovely and soft . . . is it uncomfortable?”
She hesitated. “Not usually.”
“And now?” She heard the knowledge in the question.
She nodded once. “It’s rather—constricting.”
He tutted once, and she opened her eyes, instantly meeting his, hot and focused on her. “Poor Pippa. Tell me, with your knowledge of the human body, why do you think that is?”
She swallowed, tried for a deep breath. Failed. “It’s because my heart is threatening to beat out of my chest.”
The smile again. “Have you overexerted yourself?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“What, then?”
She was not a fool. He was pushing her. Attempting to see how far she would go. She told the truth. “I think it is you.”
He closed his eyes then, hands fisting again, and pressed his head back against the side of the desk, exposing the long column of his neck and his tightly clenched jaw. Her mouth went dry at the movement, at the way the tendons there bunched and rippled, and she was quite desperate to touch him.
When he returned his gaze to hers, there was something wild in those pewter depths . . . something she was at once consumed and terrified by. “You shouldn’t be so quick with the truth,” he said.
“Why?”
“It gives me too much control.”
“I trust you.”
“You shouldn’t.” He leaned forward, bracing his arm against his raised knee. “You are not safe with me.”
She had never once felt unsafe with him. “I don’t think that’s correct.”
He laughed, low and dark, and the sound rippled through her, a wave of pleasure and temptation. “You have no idea what I could do to you, Philippa Marbury. The ways I could touch you. The wonders I could show you. I could ruin you without thought, sink with you into the depths of sin and not once regret it. I could lead you right into temptation and never ever look back.”
The words stole her breath. She wanted it. Every bit of it. She opened her mouth to tell him so, but no sound would come.
“You see? I’ve shocked you.”
She shook her head. “I have shocked myself.” His gaze turned curious, and she added, “Because I find that I would like to experience those things.”
There was a long moment of silence, in which she willed him to move, to come to her. To touch her. To show her.
“Show me,” he said, the words seeming to come from her thoughts.
Startled, she said, “I—I beg your pardon?”
“Before, you told me that you wished I would touch you. Show me where.”
She couldn’t. But her hand was already moving, already trailing up the bones of her corset to the place where silk met skin. The edge of the stays was lower than the line of the dress had been, mere centimeters from—
“Your breasts?”
She flushed at the words. “Yes.”
“Tell me how they feel.”
She closed her eyes, focused on the question. On the answer. “Full. Tight.”
“Do they ache?”
So much. “Yes.”
“Touch them.” Her eyes flew open, captured instantly by his. “Show me how you wish I would touch you.”
She shook her head. “I can’t.”
“You can.”
“But why not you? Your hands are here . . . you are here.”
His gaze darkened, and a muscle leapt in his jaw. “This is all there is, Pippa. I won’t touch you. I won’t ruin you.”
Obstinate man. She was aching and frustrated, could he not see that? “I’m ruined, whether you touch me or not.”
“No. If I don’t touch you, you’re safe.”
“And if I don’t wish to be safe?”
“I’m afraid you haven’t a choice.” He flexed one large hand, as though it ached him. “Shall I tell you what I would do if I could touch you?”
The words were soft and dark and all irresistible temptation. “Yes, please.”
“I would lift them from that prison in which you keep them, and I would worship them in the manner they deserve.”
Oh, my. Her hands froze, rendered unusable by his beautiful, liquid voice.
“And then, when they’d forgotten how it felt to be caged by silk and bone, I would teach you about kissing, just as you asked.” Her lips parted, and she met his gaze, filled with dark promise. “But not on your mouth—on your beautiful breasts. On the soft pale skin of them, on the places that have never seen light, that have never felt a man’s touch. You would learn about the tongue, my little scientist . . . there on those pretty, aching tips.”
The image he painted was graphic and groundbreaking, and she was instantly entranced by the idea of his tongue on her—too entranced to be embarrassed, her hands following his words, teasing, touching, and for a moment she could almost believe it was him touching her. Making her ache. She sighed, and he shifted, straightening, but coming no closer, damn him.
“Would you like me to tell you where else I would touch you?”
“Yes, please.” The words were a whisper.
“So polite.” He leaned forward. “There’s no place for politeness here, my bespectacled beauty. Here, you ask and I give. You offer and I take. No please. No thank you.”
She waited for him to continue, every inch of her humming with excitement, with anticipation.
“Hook one leg over the arm of that chair.” Her eyes went wide at the order. She’d never in her life sat in such a way. She hesitated. He pressed on. “You asked.”
So she had. She moved, opening to him, her thighs widening, the cool air of the room rushing through the slit in her pantalettes. Her cheeks burned and she moved her hands to block his view.
He was watching them, and he made a low sound of approval. “That’s where my hands would be as well. Can you feel why? Can you feel the heat? The temptation?”
Her eyes were closed now. She couldn’t look at him. But she nodded.
“Of course you can . . . I can almost feel it myself.” The words were hypnotic, all temptation, soft and lyric and wonderful. “And tell me, my little anatomist, have you explored that particular location, before?”
Her cheeks burned.
“Don’t start lying now, Pippa. We’ve come so far.”
“Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, I’ve explored it before.” The confession was barely sound, but he heard it. When he groaned, she opened her eyes to find him pressed back against the desk once more. “Did I say the wrong thing?”
He shook his head, his hand rising to his mouth once more, stroking across firm lips. “Only in that you made me burn with jealousy.”
Her brows furrowed. “Of whom?”
“Of you, lovely.” His grey gaze flickered to the place she hid from him. “Of your perfect hands. Tell me what you found.”
She couldn’t. While she might know the clinical words for all the things she had touched and discovered, she could not speak them to him. She shook her head. “I cannot.”
“Did you find pleasure?”
She closed her eyes, pressed her lips together.
“Did you?” he whispered, the sound loud as a gunshot in this dark, wicked room.
She shook her head. Once, so small it was barely a movement.
He exhaled, the sound long and lush in the room, as though he’d been holding his breath . . . and he moved. “What a tragedy.”
Her eyes snapped open at the sound of him—of trouser against carpet as he crawled toward her, eyes narrow and filled with wicked, wonderful promise.
He was coming for her. Predator stalking prey.
And she could not wait to be caught.
She exhaled, the breath coming out on a low, shaking sigh that could have become a moan if she weren’t careful and, God help her, she moved her hands, opening to his touch and sight, ready to thank God and Lucifer and anyone else who might have had a hand in this moment for finally, finally bringing him to her.
Except, he didn’t touch her.
“Shall I show you how to find it, lovely?” he asked, and she could have sworn she felt his breath against her hands, hot and tempting. “Where to find it?”
She’d never know where the courage came from—how she pushed past the embarrassment and the shame that should have been there. “Please,” she fairly begged, and he did, in soft, devastating words.
She did as he told her, parting folds of fabric, then folds of a more secret kind, following his whispered instructions, answering his wicked questions.
“So pretty and pink . . . does it feel good, love?”
She whimpered her reply.
“Of course it does. I can smell the pleasure on you . . . sweet and soft and very very wet.” The words brought sensation, a thundering pleasure that she’d never felt before, not even in the dark nights when she’d quietly explored on her own.
“Oh, Pippa . . .” he whispered, turning his head, breathing against the curve of her knee, but not touching—never touching. He was destroying her. “If I were there . . . if my fingers were yours, I would spread you wide and show you how much more pleasurable it can be when the experience is shared. I would use my mouth to give you your second lesson in kissing . . . I would teach you everything I know about the act.”
Her eyes went wide at the raw confession, for she could see it. She could see him, on his knees before her, brushing her hands from her and replacing them with his beautiful, firm mouth, stroking, touching . . . loving. She had no reference for the act—she’d never even imagined it before now—but she knew, without question, that it would be magnificent.
“I would feast on you . . . yes . . . right there, lovely,” he urged her on, rewarding the bold, little movements of her fingers with a growl of pleasure, knowing, even before she did, that she was on the edge of something stunning. “Would you like my mouth there, my sweet?”
Did that happen? Dear heaven. Yes. She wanted it.
“I would stay for hours . . .” he promised. “My tongue would show you pleasure you’ve never known. Over and over. Again and again until you were weak from it. Until you couldn’t bear it, and you begged me to stop. Would you like that, love?”
Her body answered him, rocking against the chair and her hand, giving her everything he promised . . . and somehow none of it. She cried out for him, reaching toward him, desperate for the feel of him, for his strength and sinew.
In that moment, she was his, open and raw, racked with pleasure and somehow, still aching with desire.
Desire only he could slake.
She whispered his name, unable to keep the wonder from her voice, and her fingers grazed his hair, gleaming red silk.
He moved like lightning at the touch, rolling to his feet with a grace that defied six and a half feet of man. He crossed the office, turning his lovely lean back to her, one long arm reaching out to brace himself on a pile of ledgers stacked a dozen high in the corner of the room.
The loss of him was like a blow, stripping her of fleeting pleasure. Leaving her wanting. Empty. Unfulfilled.
His head bowed, candlelight highlighting the ginger strands she itched to touch. She did not move as his shoulders rose and fell once, twice, a third time—his breath coming as harshly as hers did.
“That’s enough research for tonight,” he said to the books in front of him, the words firmer, louder than any of the others he’d spoken that evening. “I promised to teach you about temptation, and I believe I’ve accomplished the task. Dress. I’ll have someone take you home.”