Page 81 of Outrageous

He nodded and pulled her toward him, his hands like manacles around her wrists. “Yes, oh.” Their lips met in a lazy, languorous kiss that lacked the intensity of earlier, but offered her far more opportunity for exploration.

He grunted and moaned approvingly as she learned the shape and feel of him, allowing her to explore all she wanted as his hands softly stroked her back, sides, and bottom.

When she finally came up for air, he was gazing up at her from beneath heavy lids, his lips slick and bruised and split on the one side. Which reminded her. “Aren’t I hurting you—sitting on you like this?”

“Yes, but haven’t you figured out yet that I like pain.”

Eva met his teasing grin with a smile of her own. “I’m beginning to think there may be more than a few shingles loose,” she admitted.

He laughed and Eva suddenly realized just how much she’d come to enjoy his company over the past few days. He was not at all as she’d believed him to be—stodgy and cruel and unpleasant. Instead he was amusing, surprising, and often kind. And he was also very, very good at this.

Unwonted, the memory of his hand on Mrs. Crosby and her hand on his waist came back like a bucket of cold water.

“Uh-oh,” he said, reaching up to cup her face. “What is it now? I’m not letting you up until you tell me.”

“You and Mrs. Crosby,” she blurted.

“Ahhh.” One of his eyebrows—the one over the unswollen eye—cocked in a particularly annoying fashion.

“Godric. You can’t ask me questions about things that annoy or upset me and then mock me when I answer you.”

His expression was instantly serious and he took her shoulders in his hands, holding her firmly. “You’re quite right, Eva. So which one of the things is Mrs. Crosby—the kind of thing that upsets you, or the kind that annoys you?”

“Both,” she retorted, pulling herself free and sitting up.

He sighed and then laced his hands behind his head, wincing slightly, reminding her they were still on the floor. “Do you want to get up on the bed?”

“In a moment. First let me put your suspicious mind at rest. I was not engaging in a clandestine amorous tussle with Mrs. Crosby. As much as I dislike telling tales regarding any woman, she approached me and put her hand on my face; when I removed it, she put her other on my side. That is when you arrived.” He smiled at her and then shook his head, his eyes going vague. “I don’t know what is wrong with her—or Norton, for that matter.”

“Why, what do you mean?”

“Only that Norton is more nervous than a sack of cats and Mrs. Crosby won’t stop flinging herself at me as if I were the most fascinating man in England.”

“I thought you were the most fascinating man in England.”

His eyes moved back to hers and his smile returned. “Oh, why, thank you, darling.”

“I didn’t say I thought that—but I thought you did.”

“That’s because I am,” he admitted mildly.

“Well, then you should be accustomed to women flinging themselves at you.”

“I am, but not usually in the first ten minutes. Mrs. Crosby has been quite insistent since the moment I opened my eyes.”

“Perhaps she is just bored? After all, there isn’t much going on and Mr. Norton isn’t exactly a stimulating conversationalist.”

“True. But something still feels . . . off. Or perhaps I’m just imagining things.”

“No,” Eva said, weak with relief that he’d been entertaining similar suspicions to hers. “I’ve felt the same thing. Do you think Mr. Norton is nervous because he thinks Flynn will find out we are here?”

“The thought has crossed my mind.”

“But Flynn let us go—surely he wouldn’t be angry that we took shelter here. Indeed, what else could we do in such weather and with bridges down all over the place?” And you unable to speak or move?

“That is rational, my dear, but I’m not so sure Flynn is entirely rational.”

Eva thought back to Flynn’s maddened expression when he was hauling his battered brother-in-law away and had to agree.