Twice Tempted by a Rogue (Stud Club #2)(26)

When at last he pulled back, she instinctively raised her hands to cover his, pressing them tight against her face and forbidding him to release her. The thought struck her that she could have been touching him all the while. She could have been stroking his hair, or smoothing her palms over the hard planes of his shoulders and chest.

Damn, she was a fool.

But she settled for this, dragging her thumbs over the back of his hands, tracing the delicate crooks between his fingers, and finally encircling his thick, corded wrists as she opened her eyes.

“That was …” He looked down at her with a strangely puzzled expression. “That was nice.”

“Yes. Quite.”

He slid his hands from her face. She reluctantly released his wrists.

With a self-conscious clearing of the throat, he reached behind him, groping for the latch. “Well, it’s late. I suppose I’d better be …”

“Wait.”

To hell with feeling fourteen again. And to the devil with “nice.”

With decisive speed, Meredith grabbed him by the collar, hauled herself up on tiptoe, and kissed him, hard.

He stumbled back against the door, and the moment of shock jarred his lips apart. She slid her tongue straight through that window of opportunity. That was all it took. Now he really, truly kissed her back. Mouths open, teeth clashing, tongues tangling. Desire evident.

Yes, at last. This was what she’d been wanting—this frenzy of wild tastes and rough textures. The slick heat of his tongue, the scrape of his whiskers, his heady male scent. Rhys St. Maur, the man. And her body responding to his, all woman.

Growling deep in his throat, he slid his hands around her waist and fisted them in the back of her dress, lifting her up and against him. Her whole body pressed flush to his. Her br**sts squashed flat against his chest, and she could feel every deliciously solid inch of him.

Until, with a regretful moan, he lowered her to the ground.

“Well?” Her voice was breathless, but she hoped her eyes communicated the proposition with greater success.

“Yes, I’m well,” he said, nodding absently. “Very well indeed.”

She laughed softly, clinging to his neck. There was no doubt that Rhys St. Maur was all man, but in rare moments he had this sweet, uncertain, boyish look on his face. It endeared him to her all the more.

She bit her bottom lip and swayed gently in invitation. “I meant, what do you think? About tonight.”

“I think”—he unlaced her arms from his neck and squeezed her hands before releasing them—“that tonight, I’ll have very vivid dreams.”

To her disappointment, he found the door latch and slid it open. Before stepping inside his bedchamber, he dropped one last kiss on her cheek. “And for once, I might enjoy them.”

Five mornings later, Meredith sat in that same bedchamber, watching Rhys sleep. The first rays of dawn seeped in through the window. Gray, watery light, not yet gold. The white linens reflected it with a fuzzy glow, but the rest of the room remained in murky shadow.

A c**k crowed in the courtyard. From the bed, Rhys answered with a low, soft snore.

Meredith released her breath and quietly adjusted her posture on the chair, just hoping the sun would rouse itself before Rhys did.

She hated resorting to this kind of spying, but she couldn’t think of any other way to assess his … health. Over the past week, she’d developed a powerful suspicion that Rhys had suffered a war injury to his male anatomy. Why else would he have resisted that clear invitation the night they’d kissed? Not to mention the subtler ones she’d issued every evening since.

Part of her couldn’t believe he was even still here. Contrary to all her arguments and the application of common sense, he’d forged ahead with this cottage plan. Every night she’d thrown him flirtatious glances in the bar. Surely he’d come to his senses and leave any morning, she reasoned. She wanted one night with him first.

Last night had been the final indignity. He’d come in from another day of hard work up on the moors. Damp from the pump, but still glowing with the day’s exertion. Wildly attractive. He’d sat down at his usual table, eaten his usual three plates of food whilst enduring the suspicious glares and muttered curses of the villagers. Then he’d approached her at the bar to apprise her of the day’s progress.

“Finished fitting together the plinth today,” he’d said. “Now that the foundation’s done, I’ll start preparing the earth for cob. I’ll need to hire ponies from you tomorrow to haul up a load of straw. If all goes well, tomorrow I’ll be able to start the first rise.” He’d yawned the grizzled, lazy-yet-lethal yawn of a lion. “I think I’ll turn in early tonight, unless you need me.”

Oh, she needed him, all right. She’d wanted to lean over the bar and kiss that sleepy mouth, right in front of the whole room. The sweet, bloody fool was building a house of stone and earth with his own two hands. For her father. How could she not want to kiss him? How could she not want to do far more than that?

Instead, she’d whispered shamelessly, “Shall I come to your room after I lock up?”

And though he’d sucked in his breath, and his eyes had fair blazed with desire, he’d bid her a polite good evening and retreated upstairs. Alone.

Something had to be wrong down there. Red-blooded men—and Rhys was a fine specimen of a red-blooded man in his virile prime—just didn’t walk away from invitations that obvious.