AMY GASPED AS SHE
finally realized what was happening. She spit the snail into her napkin. "Colin Chase," she demanded. "What have you done to these?"
Wiping tears from his eyes, Colin sputtered, "S-salt. And sugar."
A smile dawned as she reflected that she'd been well and truly duped. She deserved it, she decided, starting to giggle. "What else? What else was in there?"
"Nothing, I swear. You didn't care for them to begin with, remember?" His eyes glittered again, devilishly. "Oh, I forgot. You'd never admit to that."
"I admit it; I admit it," she choked out, laughing. "I hate pickled snails! I'll never eat another of those vile creatures so long as I live—with or without your special recipe."
She laughed again, partially because his joke
was
funny, and partially in relief, because she felt as though he'd just given her a test which she'd passed with flying colors.
One wasn't allowed to be close to Colin Chase if he or she couldn't take a joke.
And yet…he wasn't really trying to get closer to her, was he? She'd be leaving the country tomorrow, after all. His pleasure at her reaction, and the motive she'd credited him with, must be a figment of her imagination.
"Having coerced that admission from you," he declared now, "I proclaim my practical joke an unqualified success."
"Wait a minute, Lord Greystone. You were forced to eat two of those putrid snails, the same as I was. Surely a superior practical joke would not require its perpetrator to suffer the same consequences."
"You would dare to criticize the quality of my joke?" Though Colin's eyes went wide with pretended outrage, in truth he couldn't have been more pleased with Amy than he was at the moment.
He was pleased with her good-humored response to his joke. Pleased with her rediscovered ease in his presence. Pleased with her quick wit, pleased with her high color and those incredible sparkling amethyst eyes…all in all, he was very pleased.
Dangerously pleased.
"Mrs. Goldsmith, what qualifications do you have to recommend you as a joke judge?"
"My qualifications are beside the point entirely. The fact is, I saw the joke you played on Kendra a few days ago, and she told me about Benchley's fake murder and other tricks you've played over the years." She raised her chin. "The fact is, this joke was just not up to your usual standards."
Raising a brow, he brought his nose to within an inch of hers. "Is that so?"
Amy inhaled his distinctive scent, and her heart beat a little faster at his nearness. "Absolutely. Without a doubt—" She broke off as his mouth came down on hers, cutting off any further aspersions on his joke, not to mention her air supply.
Their good-natured argument was forgotten as his lips covered hers with demanding finality. Her senses reeled with now-familiar feelings of pleasure, and she instinctively moved closer to the source, parting her lips in invitation. Slick and warm in her mouth, his tongue sent new spirals of delight throughout her awakened body.
Urgently, Colin eased her back onto the couch. He knew he was acting irrationally; he'd been irrational since the day he'd walked into her shop. But she would be gone tomorrow, and he could be rational for the rest of his life.
Besides, the two of them couldn't be as good together as he remembered. It wasn't possible.
It
is
possible, his inner voice told him. It's possible and true, and she's beautiful and sweet and intelligent and…
You're a fool, Colin Chase
, the voice said,
a fool if you let her get away.
But a louder voice was there, too, the voice that Colin considered his honor and his logic. It drowned out the other one, telling him he was committed to a lady who fit his every requirement. Unbreakably committed.
He should be committed to Bedlam, he thought briefly as his fingers worked feverishly to detach the embroidered stomacher from Amy's bodice. Then he bent his head to capture her lips once more, and the voices were quieted for good.
Caught up in her feelings, Amy barely noticed her stomacher drop to the floor, and the next thing she knew, her bodice had been magically unlaced and her breasts sprang free between the parted front, veiled by her loose chemise.
Colin's fingers teased through the thin fabric, and her nipples swelled and tightened in reaction to his expert touch. A delicious shudder rippled through her as she ran her hands up and down his back. Feeling lightheaded, she pulled his shirt from the waistband of his breeches and slipped her hands inside to feel the warm skin beneath.
He sat up and tugged off one of his boots. Bereft of his mouth and body, Amy marshaled her senses and realized what he was doing. "Colin—not here!"
He reached for his other boot. "Yes, here," he said in a husky tone. "Whyever not?" His stockings followed his boots, thrown to the floor in an untidy heap.
"It's not…there's no bed!" Hot color stained Amy's cheeks. One was supposed to make love in the bedchamber, wasn't one? Her parents, had they done so at all—and she admitted to herself that she was living proof of the deed—had certainly never made love in the study. Of course, they hadn't had a study, but that was beside the point.
While Amy worried about their circumstances, Colin pulled her feet into his lap and slipped off her shoes, adding them to the pile of assorted clothing on the floor. With a devilish grin, he plucked off her garters and sensuously rolled down one stocking, his fingers brushing feathery paths along the length of her leg. Lifting her foot, he removed the stocking and pressed a spine-tingling kiss to her sole.
Her toes curled as the sensation shot all the way up her leg and further, straight to the part of her he'd awakened the night before.
She shivered, and Colin chuckled.
"We need no bed, love," he murmured in a low, passion-roughened voice, while removing her second stocking in a manner similar to the first. "This couch will do fine. Or the floor—or the desk, for that matter."
At her sharp indrawn breath of shock, he chuckled again. "The grass is nice," he continued, slowly sliding up her body to lie atop her, "but it's a bit cold out there right now. The bath is wonderful. I haven't tried the stairs…yet."
He bent his head to kiss her throat, his warm mouth caressing the hollows there. She shivered again. His lips trailed up to her ear, and she could feel his heated breath as he whispered, "No…I think the stairs would be uncomfortable…"
Burning all over, from both his touch and the sensual images his words evoked, she turned her head and caught his lips with hers.
His kiss was unhurried, his mouth exploring hers as though he were trying to memorize every nook and cranny. She felt drugged, and time slowed until nothing else mattered but his taste, his scent, his touch.
With shaking fingers, she unlaced the top of his shirt and slipped her hands inside to grasp his shoulders. Her palms swept the corded muscles, then traveled over his chest. She felt and heard his breathing become uneven, matching hers.
Muttering a soft curse, Colin leapt up and drew the shirt over his head and off in one smooth motion. Reaching down, he pulled her to her feet and pushed her gown off her shoulders and down past her hips, until the worn lavender fabric pooled at her feet.
He stepped back to look at her.
"The light," she protested weakly, gesturing with a sweep of one arm at the oil lamps she'd been reading by a short time ago.
Making love half-cloaked by flickering firelight was one thing, but surely he didn't intend to unclothe her in the bright lamplight?
"You're beautiful in it," he responded huskily. His hungry, seductive gaze roamed her body. "Like a painting by Sir Peter Lely."
Amy's gaze shot down to her diaphanous chemise, and a blush heated her face. Lely was famed for his paintings of court ladies. Nude court ladies.
Resigned to the fact that he had no intention of dousing the revealing lamps, Amy shyly perused him in return. Though the room wasn't overly warm, his broad shoulders were glazed with a thin sheen of perspiration. The light sprinkling of crisp black hair on his chest tapered in toward his waist, disappearing into the waistband of his breeches, where his long fingers worked to loosen the laces. He impatiently tugged the tight breeches down and off.
Her eyes widened at the sight of him, large and ready. Surely that wasn't the same part of him that had slid inside her last night, was it? But though her cheeks flushed at the mere thought, her body moved toward him of its own volition, leaning against his solid chest as one hand closed around his velvet warmth.
Colin gasped. He reached for the hem of her chemise, pulled it up and over her head and tossed it away, even as he guided her back to the couch and came down on top of her.
The woven fabric was rough under her bare skin, but Amy's senses careened, and she could have been atop the finest linen sheets for all she was aware of it. Her awareness was for Colin only: his warm weight; his hot, wet mouth; his already familiar spicy scent.
His lips played over her face and neck, while his fingers roamed her body, grazing her arms, her legs, her breasts, her belly. Wherever he touched, tendrils of desire raced from his fingertips to her core, until she thought she would faint from anticipation unless he touched her there.
Finally,
finally
, his strong fingers urged her thighs apart, and when she felt his intimate caress, warm against her slickness, she thought she would explode with relief. Her nails dug into his shoulders.
"Oh, Colin," she breathed in a tremulous whisper.
"Oh, Christ," he grated out. In one lithe motion, he came over her and buried himself in her taut sheath.
A moan of ecstasy escaped her lips.
He froze. "Oh, love," he whispered in an agony of concern mixed with desire, "is it too soon? Are you too sore?"
"No," she whispered on a sigh. "God in heaven, no."
For one second her face flamed at the intimacy of his question, for the next second she was astonished that her soreness had indeed disappeared, was forgotten completely, and then she felt him move inside her and all thoughts fled. She arched against him, abandoning herself to the whirl of sensation.
At first Colin shifted slowly, until she squirmed beneath him in a frenzy of passion. Then he moved faster, matching every arching motion of her straining body, until waves of burning sweetness overcame her. Her arms tightened around him, her breath came in long, shuddering moans, and when she heard his cry of release she was flooded with an amazing sense of completeness.
Lying beneath his welcome weight, Amy filled her lungs with great gulps of air, more satisfying than the most splendid meal. Colin showered her face and neck with small, wet kisses, and she marveled at her feelings of attachment, so new and so perfect.
"Sweet love," Colin murmured. He couldn't make himself cease kissing her, stop and collect himself. For such would bring thoughts—thoughts that would confirm their impossible perfection together, thoughts that would tell him he'd be making the worst mistake of his life if he let her go. He couldn't afford such thoughts. They were the thoughts of an emotional man, and he was a rational man.
Still, he couldn't stay on top of her forever.
When he finally eased himself off her, molding himself against her on the narrow couch, Amy made a small sound of loss. She turned to him, wrapped an arm around his middle, pressed her satin breasts against his chest, entwined her legs with his.
He groaned in contentment. "Are you cold?" he asked softly.
She shook her head and wiggled against him, attempting to get closer still—and making him nearly fall off the edge.
He caught himself just in time. "We don't really fit here, you know," he teased, raising his eyebrows a fraction.
The moment was shattered. Amy came up on an elbow. "I told you so," she retorted good-naturedly, "before…before…"
"And so you did," Colin interjected, saving her from saying what they'd done out loud. Standing, he took her hand and pulled her up beside him. "Shall we?" he asked, gesturing to the bedchamber next door. Still holding her by the hand, he headed out to the corridor.
She blushed prettily at finding herself casually walking beside a man, the both of them stark naked. He didn't leave her much time to dwell on the strangeness of it, however, as he seemed unable to resist stopping every few steps to draw her into his arms for a long, lingering kiss. When they reached the chamber, she broke away and ran for the bed, diving under the quilts.
"Brrr!" she said with an expressive shiver, pretending she'd run for cover because of the cold—and not fooling Colin for a second.
He stirred up the fire and added a couple of logs. It was a shame they wouldn't be together long enough for her to become truly comfortable with him, for him to take pleasure in watching her come to terms with her sensuality. The thought of her freely giving herself to another man, without embarrassment or artifice, made his insides clench—but he knew, given her passionate nature, it was inevitable.
He would have to content himself with the memory of awakening her passion in the first place.
From the safety of the bed, Amy watched him boldly, enjoying the view more than she would ever have thought possible. She felt like a whole new person, an entirely different Amy.
Amethyst
. She pronounced it in her head, drawn-out and elegant.
Amethyst Chase. Lady Greystone.
No, she decided, she was still Amy. "Lady Greystone" would never design and create jewelry, never own and run a shop. She wouldn't—couldn't—let herself contemplate the possibility of anything permanent with Colin. Lucky circumstances had resulted in these short hours of bliss, and it was almost time to return to the real world.
But must she be wrenched from his side so soon? She knew full well it couldn't last, but they had scarcely discovered each other. She cast around wildly for an idea, any idea, and just as he crawled into bed beside her, she came up with one. "Colin?"
He turned toward her expectantly. "Yes?"
The idea suddenly seemed stupid. It was impossible to believe he would agree to it.