Again the Magic (Wallflowers 0.5)(71)

Gideon struggled to a sitting position and yawned, scratching his chest. “She?”

“Lady Olivia, sir.”

“Livia?” Gideon was stupefied. “She can’t be here. She’s in Stony Cross.”

“She is indeed here, Mr. Shaw.”

“Jesus.” Gideon leaped from the bed as if electrified, searching hastily for a robe to cover his nakedness. “Is something wrong?” he demanded. “How does she look?”

“Wet, sir.”

It was still raining, Gideon realized in growing concern, wondering why in the hell Livia would have come here in the midst of a storm. “What time is it?”

The valet, who showed signs of having tugged on his rumpled clothes in a great hurry, gave a beleaguered sigh. “Two o’clock in the morning.”

Too worried to bother with finding his slippers or combing his hair, Gideon strode from his bedroom, following the valet to the entrance hall.

And there was Livia, standing in a little puddle of water. She smiled at him, though her hazel-green eyes were wary beneath the brim of a sodden hat. Right at that moment, staring at her across the entrance hall, Gideon Shaw, cynic, hedonist, drunkard, libertine, fell hopelessly in love. He had never been so completely in the thrall of another human being. So enchanted, and foolishly hopeful. A thousand endearments crowded his mind, and he realized ruefully that he was every bit the mooncalf that he had accused McKenna of being the previous day.

“Livia,” he said softly, approaching her. His gaze raked over her flushed, rain-spattered face, while he thought that she looked like a bedraggled angel. “Is everything all right?”

“Perfectly all right.” Her gaze chased down the front of his silk robe to his bare feet, and she reddened at the realization that he was na**d beneath.

Unable to keep from touching her, Gideon reached out and took her coat, letting a shower of droplets cascade to the floor. He handed it to the valet, who went to hang the garment on a nearby rack. The sopping wet hat followed, and then Livia stood shivering before him, the hem of her skirts drenched and muddy.

“Why have you come to town?” Gideon asked gently.

Livia gave an impudent shrug, her teeth chattering from the damp. “I had some sh-shopping to do. I’m staying at Marsden Terrace. And since our r-respective lodgings are s-so close, I thought that I would pay a call.”

“In the middle of the night?”

“The shops don’t open till nine,” she said reasonably. “That gives us some time to ch-chat.”

He gave her an ironic look. “Yes, about seven hours. Shall we chat in the parlor?”

“No—in your room.” She hugged herself in an effort to stay her shivering.

Gideon searched Livia’s eyes, looking for uncertainty, finding only a need for connection, for closeness, that paralleled his own. She held his gaze as she continued to tremble. She was cold, he thought. He could warm her.

Suddenly Gideon found himself acting before he gave himself a chance to think sensibly. He gestured to the valet and murmured a few directions to him, about sending away the footman and carriage outside, and that Lady Olivia would need to be conveyed back to her residence at a discreet hour in the morning.

Taking Livia’s hand, Gideon slid his arm behind her back and guided her to his room. “My bed isn’t made. I wasn’t expecting company at this hour.”

“I should hope not,” she remarked primly, as if she weren’t about to launch herself into a clandestine affair with him.

After closing the bedroom door behind them, Gideon lit a small fire in the hearth. Livia stood before him docilely, bathed in a flickering yellow-orange glow as he began to undress her. She was silent and passive, raising her arms when necessary, stepping out of her gown as it dropped in a wet heap. One by one Gideon draped her damp garments over the back of a chair, carefully removing layers of muslin and cotton and silk from her body. When she was finally naked, the firelight gilding her slender body and her long, light brown hair, Gideon did not pause to look at her. Instead he removed his own robe and covered her with it, swaddling her in silk that had been heated by his own skin. Livia gasped a little as he picked her up and carried her to bed, laying her amid the rumpled bedclothes. He straightened the covers around her and joined her beneath them, gathering her in his arms. Holding her spoon-fashion, he laid his cheek against a swath of her hair.

“Is this all right?” he whispered.

She sighed deeply. “Oh yes.”

They lay together for a long time, until Livia’s tension eased, and her silk-draped body was warm and pliant. One of her feet moved, her toes exploring the hairy surface of his leg. Gideon drew in his breath sharply as he felt her h*ps inch backward until they were cradled against his. With only a thin layer of fabric between them, she could not help but be aware of the turgid length of his erection.

“Are you sober?” she asked, nestling closer.

Gideon was acutely aroused by the voluptuous brush of her body against his hard, sensitive flesh. “I occasionally am, despite my best efforts to prevent it,” he said huskily. “Why do you ask?”

She took his hand and pulled it to her breast. “Now you can seduce me without being able to claim afterward that you didn’t know what you were doing.”

The sweet little hill beneath his fingers was too insanely tantalizing for Gideon to resist. He caressed her lightly over the silk, then slipped his hand beneath the robe. “Livia, darling, the unfortunate fact is, I nearly always know what I’m doing.”