Page 80 of A Relentless Rake

She caressed his cheek with her hand and smiled at the rough scratch of midnight beard against her fingertips.

He turned his head to place a tender kiss to her palm, and a long sigh fell from her.

“Are you all right?” Concern laced his deep voice.

She smiled. “I’m fine.”

But she didn’t trust herself to say what she really felt for fear she’d make an utter fool of herself by begging him to do the impossible and find a way for them to be together. She could smell him on her skin, that sweet intoxication of whiskey, leather, and lemons, now mixing with the musky scent of sex. He’d imprinted himself upon her, and she doubted she’d ever be able to free herself.

She loved him. There was no denying it any longer.

And absolutely nothing could come of it. She’d known that from the beginning. He was a gentleman with fortune and title, obligated to marry a lady befitting his rank, and she was only a schoolmistress with nothing to give as her dowry but an indebted school.

But she also refused to let that ruin this moment. With a smile that felt inexplicably shy, she brushed her hand over his shoulder and rested it on his chest. His heart beat steady and strong beneath her palm. Could she make it race again as she’d done before? And all the other things she’d done…

Her eyes trailed down toward his waist and stopped. His shirt was wet and stained. Embarrassment heated her cheeks. “We ruined your shirt.”

“Hmm.” He tucked his chin to glance down at himself. “So we have.”

With a quick kiss to her lips, he crawled out of bed and shed his waistcoat. His lips twisted at the longing expression on her face as he pulled his braces down over his shoulders to let them dangle around his hips. With her eyes glued to him, he stripped his shirt off over his head and tossed it onto the floor.

She sat up in the bed, and her eyes landed on his chest—on that hard, bare, deliciously sculpted chest with its light dusting of dark hair that trailed down his abdomen and beneath his waistband to where his…Oh my. His undone trousers did nothing to hide his manhood, which still hung free from its confines. He lay limp now, but heavens, he was still large, still tempting, and still sending throbs of pleasure through her at just the memory of having him inside her.

He grinned down at her like a cat that had gotten into the cream. Or, more exactly, like the rake who’d gotten into a woman’s bed.

“Like what you see?” he drawled in a seductive voice that had her longing to touch everywhere her eyes strayed.

Embarrassment heated her cheeks, and longing heated…somewhere else. She wisely kept silent.

He tucked himself back inside his trousers and fastened up his fall, then pulled his braces into place. When he buttoned up his waistcoat over his bare torso, the silk just barely covered his abdomen. She sighed. A man shouldn’t look so delicious as heput onhis clothes, as if the act of modesty were as erotic as stripping out of them.

But this was Alec. Nothing about him was as expected.

“I should go.”

Including that announcement.

Surprised, she glanced at the window. The night outside was black. “Dawn is still hours away.” Besides, she wasn’t ready to part from him and end this magical evening before she had to.

He turned toward the chair where he’d tossed the rest of his clothes earlier, and his grin faded. “We can’t risk that I’m found here.”

She watched as he picked up his discarded gloves and shoved them into his greatcoat pocket. A natural movement, not at all awkward, as if he did it all the time. Most likely, he was collecting his things unconsciously, the well-trained rake in him not wanting to leave anything behind. As if he were in any other lady’s bedroom and she were simply another conquest.

Olivia pulled the coverlet up to her bosom to cover herself. She suddenly felt cold.

“What are you afraid of?” she asked softly as she watched him wrap his cravat around his neck. She would have said he looked ridiculous as he peered into the little mirror over her dressing table to tie the cloth, with bare arms emerging from the silk waistcoat. But the hard muscles of his biceps bulged with every small movement he made, and the sight of him took her breath away. “That being caught here will call attention to your pursuit of the men my brother is working with?” She paused to take a deep breath. “Or that the Sinclair ladies will force you to marry me?”

He froze, his hazel eyes pinning hers in the mirror’s reflection. “That isn’t it, and you know it.” He looked back at his reflection and finished tying the cravat in a tangled knot, but at least it covered his lack of shirt when he tucked the ends beneath his waistcoat. “We’ve already risked far too much tonight.”

“Yes, I know.” That quiet reminder of all she’d been through before with Samuel hung in the shadows between them.

“Damnation…” Facing her, he ran his hand through his hair and left it in a rakish mess. One she found her own fingers itching to comb through and set right. “Do you want me to stay?”

“No.”

“Are you certain?” he asked somberly, calling that out for the lie it was.

Her shoulders sagged. “No.”