She stood as if nailed to the floor. He felt different. He had cast off his smile, the fine shoes, and the dinner jacket. Instead, he was broody, booted, and cravatless. His shirt fell open below the throat down to the first button, revealing dark hair on tan skin. She glimpsed the glint of a fine gold chain around his neck.
“You’re going out,” she said, attempting a casual tone.
“I am,” he replied.
Now she noticed his binoculars, slung over his right shoulder. “Birding?”
“Yes.”
He walked past her, his arm an inch from brushing her shoulder. The scent of male anger clung to him, sharp and salty. It didn’t deter her, she followed him.
He stopped and turned back, and the set of his mouth was impatient.
“Birding,” she echoed. “Right now?”
His eyes flashed. “It is that,” he said in a low, hard voice, “or returning to the dining hall”—he pointed in the direction of it—“where I would . . .” He bit his lip, keeping the details of Leighton’s demise to himself.
She raised her hands, as if to place them against his chest. “He’s ghastly,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
This made him look at her with renewed interest. “Are you his family?”
She drew back. “Certainly not.”
A shrug. “Then you can’t apologize on his behalf.”
Her heart was racing at the thought of him walking away, angry like this, possibly put out with her.
“May I walk with you,” she blurted.
Elias slanted his head and his gaze traveled over her from top to toe. Something in his eyes sent a delicate shiver shimmying up her spine.
“You should go back,” he said. “You are the hostess.”
“These people are of no importance to me.”
A hawkish expression passed over his face. “What of your reputation?” he asked. “Is that of importance to you?”
“What can you mean?”
He took a step toward her and peered down his nose. “I mean that somehow, we keep ending up alone together—in my bedchamber or poorly lit places.”
Thoughts tumbling, she returned his reproachful look with a defiant silence.
Elias ran a hand over his chin, and the gesture felt more charged than a curse word.
“Madame,” he began, but paused.
Footsteps sounded on the stairs leading up to this particular poorly lit corridor. They saw their thoughts mirrored in each other’s eyes: Was the intruder coming, or going? It could be a college scout. A porter, or a fellow. It could be someone who would gossip about Lady Catriona being alone with the foreign scholar an awful lot . . .
Elias’s hand was on her upper arm, his thumb pressing into the soft flesh beneath the stiff sleeve of her gown as he walked her backward. For a breath, he was thrillingly close, the exposed hollow of his throat right in front of her nose. Then they were inside his flat, and her back was against the door, which shut with a slam.
A stormy-blue gaze bore into hers. He was still holding her by the arm, his grip warm and overwhelming in its easy strength. She held very still, so he would keep holding on.
Outside, the corridor was silent.
Their eyes remained locked.
“Why did you follow me?” he asked.
His tone wasn’t friendly, but his thumb stroked her arm, up and down, a slow, repetitive caress he seemed to be doing unawares. The surface of her skin warmed as if she had stepped too close to a fire.
“I wanted to see how you are,” she said.
He gave a gentle squeeze. “Why?”
She licked her lips. “Because you are our guest.”
A sardonic glint flared in his eyes. He kept his mocking gaze on her damp mouth while he took off his hat and placed it onto the commode next to the door.
“A guest,” he said, dark laughter in his voice. “I see.”
He clasped the back of her neck with a firm hand and leaned down. When his lips met hers, the lights went out inside her head. The hot, confident sweep of his tongue against hers was pure relief, like a deep breath, like letting go of a weight. She made a sound in her throat, lustful desperation, and Elias pressed into her, caged her against the door with one hand buried in her hair, the other flat on the wood. His body was hard, thighs, chest, shoulders, astoundingly solid. She had expected a man’s embrace to feel different, but she couldn’t have anticipated what it did to her. It made her offer her mouth when his tongue invaded deeper, it made her arch and quiver when he possessively palmed her breast. It wasn’t so much his physicality that compelled erotic surrender but something more ephemeral, the hot ardor pulsing under Elias’s skin that said nothing and no one would have kept him from kissing her, that he would have battled the very elements to feel her body in his hands. Sensing her yielding suppleness, he gentled, and she felt the weight of his arm around her waist to urge her closer. She touched the base of his throat, where his skin was warm and bare over firm muscle. His chest hair was surprisingly soft. Her fingertips grazed the metallic texture of his chain, followed it up to his nape. Emboldened, she grabbed a fistful of his thick, luxurious curls. With a low groan, Elias detangled himself and eased back. She blinked, breathless and disoriented. The light in the room blazed too brightly, anything that wasn’t him seemed to have been burned out of existence. They were holding each other’s faces now, both panting softly. He rubbed her swollen bottom lip with his thumb.
“Is this how you usually treat your guests?” he asked hoarsely.
His heart beat a visible rhythm on the side of his throat.
“No,” she breathed.
His lips twitched with a mirthless triumph.
“What now?” she whispered an inch from his chin.
He released her and stepped away. An impressive erection strained against his trousers, and her head went empty again.
Elias took off his jacket and hung it in the wardrobe.
“Now you should leave,” he said, glancing at her while he pulled off his gloves. “You can stay, too, but then we won’t stop at kissing.”
Chapter 18
Her ears hurt with sudden pressure. His scandalous announcement didn’t seem quite real. Elias held out his hand to her, his expression calm, but the glitter in his eyes said It is very real, darling.
“Do you mean intercourse?” Her voice came out weak, as though it had lost its range.
A smirk. “No. My word on it.”
“You’re not married, are you,” she asked.
“No.” His eyebrows indicated disbelief.
Before her courage left her, she placed her hand in his. His palm felt warm and dry against hers. The flame in his eyes burned brighter.
“On my honor,” he said, “I will have the sculptures back, one way or another.”