Just because her plan proved difficult didn't mean she ought to give it up.
"I won't give up," she muttered, forcing herself to leave her nest of blankets. She nearly crawled straight back. Her chemise and drawers were no match for the icy air. Goose-bumps sprang up along her skin, marching from ankle to neck and back again. Her breath was misting in the moonlight. Something suspiciously like a whimper left her throat.
Pretending she hadn't heard it, she stomped determinedly to the grate and knelt before it. This fire was going to catch whether it wanted to or not. Just as she'd seen the housemaids do, she twisted screws of paper between the coals. Match after match was sacrificed to her vow to see them light. When the coals began to smoke, she simply coughed and waved her arm.
She didn't realize how thick the air had gotten until the door banged open behind her.
"Jesus," said Nic, his candle blurred by the haze.
Goodness, Merry thought. That's a lot of smoke.
As soon as he saw she was all right, he strode to the window and heaved it open. She inhaled in protest
at the blast of frigid air and caught an unfortunate lungful of floating soot.
Nic crouched down and held her shoulders while she coughed. "What were you trying to do? Burn the bloody house down?"
Merry's teeth chattered. "I was c-cold. I was trying to light the fire."
"Well, it might help if you'd opened the flue!"
"Oh," she said, mortified. "I, uh, guess I forgot. How silly of me."
"I'll say. Why didn't you give up when it started to smoke? And what is all this paper doing in here? You're smothering the fire."
Merry could only hunch her shoulders in a shrug. She could hardly admit she wasn't sure what a flue
was, much less how one opened it. Something in the chimney, she thought, and stifled another cough. Despite her embarrassment, she couldn't help noticing Nic was bare from the waist up. The side he'd pulled her to during her coughing fit was smooth-skinned and toasty warm. As if he knew how good
he felt, he snuggled her closer. His ribs pressed her arm, moving evenly as he breathed.
She knew the moment his awareness of her shifted, because the rhythm of that movement changed. Apparently, being alone with a scantily clad woman affected even a jaded rogue like him.
"Here." He moved to his knees behind her, his long, lean body spooning hers. "Let me show you how
to find it."
He took her hand, cupping its back with his palm and guiding it up the chimney's maw. Merry's heart began to pound. He was so close his jaw brushed hers, its bone sharp, its skin appreciably smoother than her brothers'. When he nudged her hair back with his nose, a shiver skittered deliciously down her spine.
"Here's the handle," he said, his lips next to her ear. His fingers wrapped hers around a rusty metal hoop. He pulled and jiggled and she heard a muffled thunk. Air rushed down the shaft. Like magic, a tiny flame sprang up from one of the coals.
"There," he said, "now the fire can breathe."
Too bad Merry couldn't say the same.
Though he drew their arms back out, he remained on his knees behind her. His sleeping trousers were something a native of
India
might wear, silk with a twisted cord to tie them at the waist. Feeling her
shiver again, he chafed her arms, then hummed low in his throat. The sound of his pleasure was sweet
as honey.
"I never had to light the fires," she said, wanting to distract him. "I always worked in the laundry."
Nic smiled against her cheek. "No woman should have to light her own fire unless she enjoys it."
Heat washed Merry's body. She knew he wasn't talking about a fire you built with coal. He was talking about the pleasure she'd refused to give herself before.
The concept rocked a place inside her that had never moved before. That a man might know, and approve, and perhaps even want to watch what women did... She couldn't catch her breath. It came in shallow, ragged gasps. She knew he must hear, must guess what his words had done. He made a sound, low and rumbling, and rubbed his front against her like a cat. At once, her spine lost all its starch. His narrow, silk-clad hips slid slowly behind her own. Tiny hairs stood on her arms. He was aroused. His erection strafed her bottom, the friction light but unmistakable, as if he meant to tease them both. The ridge of his sex pulsed behind the silk, its motion enticingly erratic, its heat as humid as a summer day.
Merry struggled for control.
"I've always—" She drew a startled breath as he dragged the rounded tip along the parting of her cheeks. "I've always thought a woman should cultivate independence."
Nic chuckled, the sound a seduction by itself. "To be sure, independence is an admirable trait, but when
a man has the strength and the will to offer a woman aid, why shouldn't she accept?"
As he spoke, his longest finger drew a circle on her hip, a deft, suggestive circle that made her want to move his hand a few more inches to the left. With all her strength, she fought a groan. Nic didn't make
it easy. The tip of his tongue curled out to flick her ear. "Wouldn't you like my aid, Mary? Wouldn't
you like me to ease your needs?"
"I told you, I'm not a wh—"
"Sh," he soothed, before she could say the word. "I remember what you told me and you know what I answered. Nothing will happen between us that you don't wish."
He was rocking her now, hugging her gently with arms and thighs and chest—even the arch of his graceful neck. She wanted to turn in his arms and lift her mouth to his. She remembered the night he'd rescued her and the urge she'd felt to put herself in his hands. Then her longing had been for safety.
Now it was for risk. She knew his kiss would be sweet, knew it would sweep her into a mindless joy. Only the thought of all the women who'd succumbed to his charms before gave her the strength to
draw away.
"At the moment," she said, pushing to her feet as steadily as she could, "I wish you would leave my room."
He laughed at her tartness and got to his feet as well. Meaning to appear stern, she crossed her arms beneath her breasts. To her dismay, this simply drew attention to the painful tightness of their peaks, pulsing against the muslin, hardened by more than cold.
Look at me
, they seemed to say.
Look at what you've done.
No doubt the part of him that had teased her bottom was shouting the same refrain, but Merry refused to heed its seductive call. Nic smiled, sleepy-eyed, and licked his index finger's pad.
Now what, she wondered, does he mean to do with that? His arm reached toward her, the dampened finger aiming for her breast. Knowledge welled with molten heat. He meant to touch her nipple. He wanted the cloth to cling to her skin.
With a muffled gasp, she shrank out of reach. If Nic was contrite, it did not show.
"Are you sure you want me to leave?" he purred. "I could warm you until the fire takes hold."
He slid the hand she'd evaded down his front, over his breastbone and muscled belly, over the cord that tied his sleeping trousers. They were gray, she saw, with a tiny figure in russet red. She bit her lip as his hand slid lower still, palming the arrogant jut of his erection. To save her life, she could not have looked away. Her breath stalled as he cupped himself and rubbed, a strong, voluptuous motion that pushed the whole of his sex against his front.
Lord, he was ... it was ... impressive the way he handled himself so frankly. His fingers squeezed his
sack while his thumb worked a lazy circle beneath the crown. He'd grown so long his tip was caught under the cord. The silk clung damply there, outlining the flaring shape. She was staring so hard her
eyes were burning. He did not appear to care; in truth, he seemed to savor her attention. He also
seemed to know just how mesmerized she was.
"If you don't want me to touch you, you could watch," he suggested, his voice even rougher than
before. "See if you like the way my body works."
In that instant, she wanted to watch more than she wanted to guard her pride. This man was beyond
any rule she'd ever known. Free of inhibition. Ignorant of shame. She knew instinctively he'd take her places she'd never dreamed.
She spun to face the mantel. "I'm sure you'll manage fine without me."
He did not take her retreat as a rebuff. How could he when her voice was choked with lust? His hands found her upper arms, his thumbs sliding under the puffy sleeves of her chemise. It was her own
garment, cut close to her figure to fit the season's narrow gowns. Usually grateful for its lightness, now she felt unbearably exposed. Tingles spread outward from his caress as his chin nudged her hair from
the nape of her neck. His lips whispered like satin there, his breath like silent steam. Her very vertebrae were shivering with delight.
"Everything feels better when you watch," he said, his gravelly voice enough to melt her by itself. "You've no idea how hard you make me with a look."
The claim was nonsense, but that didn't stop her from yearning to believe. "You promised," she gasped. "You said you'd do as I asked."
"I said I'd do as you wished," he corrected. He lapped her shoulder with the flat of his tongue, catching
a traitorous drop of sweat. "I think you wish this very much."
"Please."
Nic seemed to sense the sincerity of her plea. He hesitated, then withdrew, pausing only to close the window on his way. It was an odd kindness, one that unsettled her as much as his honeyed words.
She suspected he knew just how tempted she'd been to let him stay.
* * *
With the candle to light his way, Nic padded to his room, down the gold, Morris-papered hall and the narrow stairs, past the still lifes and empty chairs. With one idle corner of his brain, he noticed the boots he'd set out for cleaning had disappeared. He couldn't imagine why anyone would collect them in the middle of the night—unless the new boy was trying to avoid him.
Strange, he thought, shaking the mystery off as he sat down on his bed. His gaze wandered inexorably
to the ceiling.
Mary's chamber sat directly above that ornate plaster rose. When he'd woken to the smell of smoke,
he'd experienced a wrench as terrible as the one he'd felt when he'd learned of Bess's passing. Not another, he'd thought. Not another death he could have prevented.
The relief of discovering she was safe must have unhinged his mind. It wasn't like him to push a
woman. Entice her, yes. Push her, no.
He wanted her more than he could explain.
She was spirited, true, and he liked the thought of teaching her to see her beauty. He had no doubt
she'd be a firecracker once he overcame her past experience. But why did he want her enough to risk frightening her off? What did his body read in hers, and obviously crave from hers, that his mind could not perceive?
He didn't for an instant believe the cause romantic. He'd learned long ago he was capable of affection, even attachment, but love? Not Nic Craven. Not for him the scourge of poets.
Rather than dwell on the puzzle, he slid back into bed. His body pulsed beneath the weight of the winter bedclothes but he resisted the urge to ease his discomfort.
Maybe his body wanted him to change his modus operandi. Maybe that was the message behind his reaction to Mary Colfax.
Let yourself want
, his body might be saying.
Let yourself wait.
Nic, after all, made his women wait. They seemed to like the end result. Perhaps he, too, ought to