He gathered her against him. ‘No regrets, then?’
‘Not one.’ She turned her face up and he obliged her with a long, lingering kiss. ‘Mmm.’ She snuggled closer. ‘I feel quite dizzy. Perhaps I should not have drunk that Madeira last night.’
‘You need some water.’ He slipped out of bed and went to the cupboard. Zelah watched him, enjoying the sight of his bare, athletic body moving effortlessly as he crossed the floor.
‘How did you know to come back?’ he asked her, pouring water into two glasses. ‘I thought I had done everything I could to keep you away, damned fool that I was.’
Zelah scrambled off the bed, but she paused to find her chemise from the tumble of clothes on the floor before she joined him, not quite comfortable yet to stand naked before him, except when she was in the grip of passion.
‘Jasper told me how angry you were when you thought that he was merely toying with me.’ She took the proffered glass. ‘He said you wanted me to be happy.’ The water was sweet as nectar. ‘So I told him what would make me happy. Pray do not frown so, Dominic. I thought if anyone could tell me if there was any hope, it would be your twin.’
‘And what did he say?’
‘He had guessed you were not...indifferent to me, but we agreed that you were—how did he put it?—too damned noble for your own good.’
He scowled at her, his look promising retribution for her mockery. It sent a pleasurable shiver of anticipation down her spine. She continued.
‘Jasper consented to bring me back with him, so that I might try to discover how you felt about me.’
‘Damned foolishness,’ he said explosively. ‘What if I had turned you away? Worse, what if I had taken you to my bed and then cast you aside?’
Her stomach tightened in horror at the thought, but she merely shrugged, turning to put down her glass as an old quotation came to her mind. ‘Then I would build me a willow cabin at your gate...’
‘Ah, don’t, love!’ He pulled her into his arms. ‘I don’t deserve you,’ he muttered, covering her hair and her face with kisses. The now-familiar flame of desire began to burn inside, but she tried to quell it.
‘You are right, of course,’ she murmured, her head against his chest. ‘As I shall endeavour to remind you at every opportunity.’
He put an end to her teasing by forcing her chin up and kissing her ruthlessly.
‘When all our visitors have gone,’ he growled once he had reduced her to shivering, adoring silence, ‘which I hope will be very soon now, I plan to make love to you in every room in Rooks Tower. But for now, we will have to confine ourselves to this one.’
As his mouth covered hers, his arms tightened and he lifted her off the floor, carrying her backwards until she felt the solid edge of the desk against her thighs. The kiss deepened as her lips parted and his tongue invaded her, hinting at the pleasures to come. Her pulse was racing, control slipping away as he pushed her back on the desk. Her wayward body began to sing, straining for his touch. She made one last conscious effort to be rational.
‘Dominic, the books!’ she muttered against his mouth as he swept everything from the desk and laid her down on its unyielding surface. His mouth ceased the tender exploration of her lips and he raised his head a fraction to gaze down at her. The intense look in his eyes was so dark, so dangerously seductive that she shivered pleasurably beneath him.
‘Damn the books,’ he growled, before lowering his head again and continuing his meticulous inch-by-inch kissing of her body that taught her more about her anatomy than all her reading had ever achieved.