An Heiress for All Seasons (The Debutante Files #1.5)(4)

His gaze crawled over her face. “Perhaps I’ll stay like this forever. I rather like the feel of you on top of me.”

She gasped at his shocking words.

He grinned then and that smile stole her breath and made all her intimate parts heat and loosen to the consistency of pudding. His teeth were blinding white and straight set against features that were young and strong and much too handsome. And there were his eyes. So bright a blue their brilliance was no less powerful in the dimness of the stables.

Was this how girls lost their virtue? She’d heard the stories and always thought them weak and addle-headed creatures. How did a sensible female of good family cast aside all sense and thought to propriety?

His voice rumbled out from his chest, vibrating against her own body, shooting sensation along every nerve, driving home the realization that she wore nothing beyond her cloak and night rail. No corset. No chemise. Her breasts rose on a deep inhale. They felt tight and aching. Her skin felt like it was suddenly stretched too thin over her bones. “You are not precisely what I expected.”

His words sank in, penetrating through the fog swirling around her mind. Why would he expect anything from her? He did not know her.

His gaze traveled her face and she felt it like a touch—a caress. “I shall have to pay closer attention to my mother when she says she’s found someone for me to wed.”

Violet’s gaze shot up from the mesmerizing movement of his lips to his eyes. “Your mother?”

He nodded. “Indeed. Lady Merlton.”

“Are you . . .” she choked on halting words. He couldn’t be. “You’re the—”

“The Earl of Merlton,” he finished, that smile back again, wrapping around the words as though he was supremely amused. As though she were some grand jest. He was the Earl of Merlton, and she was the heiress brought here to tempt him.

A jest indeed. It was laughable. Especially considering the way he looked. Temptation incarnate. She was not the sort of female to tempt a man like him. At least not without a dowry, and that’s what her mother was relying upon.

“And you’re the heiress I’ve been avoiding,” he finished.

If the earth opened up to swallow her in that moment, she would have gladly surrendered to its depths.





CHAPTER TWO



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The heiress he’d been avoiding intrigued him.

This was his sole thought as he surveyed her. She was young. Pretty. Prettier than she realized. He recognized that at once. She did not possess an inch of self-awareness and that was a refreshing change. Most heiresses he had met floated around with inflated egos, confident that their positions and dowries would win them anything. The pretty ones were the most insufferable.

His fingers flexed against her arms. He itched to move his hands and grip the hips splayed above him, settle her to his liking against him. She was curvy. Her body soft and yielding. He appreciated the cushion of her breasts on his chest.

Perhaps his mother had finally found someone he could sincerely consider.

“Miss Howard, I presume.”

If possible, her eyes widened even further. She nodded jerkily, all that unbound hair of hers tossing around her face and trailing down to his chest. He itched to touch the pale brown mass, gather it in his fist to test its texture.

“I don’t recall your Christian name.” Something with a V. Vera? Victoria? He really should remember. His mother had talked of her incessantly since she had extended the invitation for her to join them through the holidays. As though the constant barrage of her name and talk of her dowry would persuade him to propose.

It was apparent that no man had ever handled her thusly—or uttered suggestive words to her before. He knew that at once from her wide-eyed expression. Enough reason for him to peel her off him and stand, and yet he remained just so. She was a guest in his home. Worse than that. She had come here for the sole purpose of snaring him into marriage. He should be thrusting her from him and running in the other direction. And yet here he remained.

“My Christian name is Violet,” she supplied, reminding him of a wild animal on the verge of biting or bolting. Her hazel eyes, so wide and gleaming green-gold, watched him without blinking. Her voice was husky, her accent soft and sultry.

“Violet,” he pronounced, studying her—this strange creature so unlike the icy heiresses his mother had paraded before him in the hopes he would form a match and drag his family back from the brink of debt his father had left them in.

“I did not give you leave to use my Christian name.” That chin of hers lifted. He knew she was trying for haughty, but she missed the mark. He knew haughty. He’d been surrounded by haughty all his life. There was something genuine about her. A female without airs or pretension. A girl who would sneak into the stables on a cold winter night wearing naught but a cloak and nightgown.

It was clear she hadn’t known his identity . . . which made her reaction to him all the more interesting. Her face burned every shade of red. He was no green lad unable to recognize his effect on her. He felt her response to him.

Her body trembled against him. After her initial struggling, her curves sank pliantly into him. His body stirred, aroused.

“True. You did not give me leave,” he finally answered. “Addressing you by your Christian name does imply a close acquaintance, but is that not why you are here? To make my close acquaintance?”