“Indeed you might.” His lips curved upward as he gazed down into Megan’s face. He put his hands on her arms and slid them up, sending tingles shooting through her. “There are a number of nefarious activities in which you could be engaged. If, of course, you were not such an honest person.”
“Are you impugning my character, sir?” Megan snapped back, indignation coming to her rescue. “Tell me, what ‘nefarious’ thing do you think I am doing, standing here in a room full of books and scholarly papers? Do you suspect that I am going to steal your father’s correspondence? Or perhaps abscond with his research?” She gestured toward the duke’s desk, piled with papers and books.
“I don’t know,” he responded, his eyes lighting in a way that set her heart tripping in its beat. “I think, perhaps, you are guilty of ensnaring me.”
Theo reached up and grazed his forefinger along the line of her jaw. Heat flowered low in her abdomen, unfurling and stretching out. Her breath was suddenly unsteady, and Megan could not look away from his face. She knew she ought to protest, ought to step back and break the contact. But something kept her rooted to the spot.
His other hand came up, cupping her face. Megan looked at him, knowing that he was about to kiss her, but still she could not move away. Indeed, deep down inside her, she knew that she did not want to move away.
He bent and kissed her, his lips grazing hers gently, almost teasingly…once, then twice, then settling into a long, deep kiss. Megan shuddered as yearning and excitement exploded within her.
She had never felt anything quite like this before. Her senses were bombarded with the taste and scent and feel of this man. She felt achingly soft and yielding inside, and something so hot and sweet that it made her want to moan was pulsing between her legs. Almost without volition, her arms went around Theo’s neck, and she clung to him tightly as desire thundered through her. His arm curled around her back, holding her to him like a band of iron as his mouth plundered hers.
Megan was enveloped by his heat. She could scarcely breathe. But she made no move to break away. She wanted nothing but to feel more of the passions raging through her.
Theo raised his head and for an instant looked down into her eyes. Then, with a little groan, he kissed her again. His arm tightened around her, pulling her up and into his hard body. His other hand slipped down her side, his thumb caressing the curve of her breast. Megan started at the unexpected touch, the heat between her legs expanding.
His hand was slow upon her body, moving downward and curving around to her back, gliding over her buttocks and onto her leg. Megan trembled under his fingertips, amazed and aroused. His hand slipped back up the side of her leg, caressing her, and he closed his fist in her skirts.
Megan swallowed a moan. She felt as if she might melt into him. She wanted to have his hands all over her body, stroking her as he had stroked her back and leg. Her breasts were full and aching, the nipples taut, and she was aware of a shameless desire to rub her body against him.
He pulled his mouth away from hers and buried his face in her neck. “Sweet heaven! Ah, Megan…”
His breath was harsh and panting. The brush of it against the tender flesh of her neck sent another twisting thread of heat through her loins.
“I—I’m sorry,” he said haltingly.
He held her tightly for another instant, then let go abruptly and took a step back. Megan felt the loss of his heat and strength almost like a pain through her, and she tightened her hands into fists, her fingernails digging into her palms, to keep herself from reaching out to draw him back.
She struggled to bring her thoughts together, to pull herself back to reality. Whatever was she doing? She had been standing here in Theo Moreland’s arms, kissing him like a wanton!
Megan’s hand went up to her mouth in dismay. Her lips felt tender and moist, kiss-bruised. Heat flooded her cheeks. She looked at Theo. His face was soft and slack with desire, his eyes bright.
“I—” he began.
Megan threw up her hand in a halting gesture. “No! No, please! Don’t speak of it. I am—oh, this is awful!”
She was appalled at what she had done. This man had killed her brother; she had hated him for years. He was the last person in the world she would ever have thought she would kiss. Yet she had just fallen into his arms as if she had no morals. And even less sense!
“I can’t—you must not—” she began. “This can’t have happened!”
Megan whirled and ran from the room.
Theo stood looking after her, his chest still rising and falling rapidly. He felt dazed and shattered, as if he’d just been picked up by a whirlwind. Desire choked him, lying heavy and hard in his loins. He hadn’t expected their kiss to shake him like this.
With a sigh, he opened his hand and looked down at the key that lay nestled in his palm.
Now what the devil was the twins’ tutor doing trying to steal the key to his father’s collection room? And what the bloody hell was he going to do about it?
*
MEGAN RAN DOWN THE HALL and up the main stairs, heedless of the noise she might make. She rushed into her room and closed the door behind her, leaning back against it as though to hold it against all intruders.
What in the name of all that was holy had she done? She could not understand how she could have been so lost to sense, so disloyal to her brother and family. Her heart twisted as she thought of how she had betrayed him, kissing the man who had killed him, and not just kissing him, but thoroughly enjoying it—indeed, not wanting it to end. A few more minutes, she thought miserably, and she would have been loosening her clothes to the man!
With a groan, Megan threw herself onto her bed, burying her face in the cool sheets. She lay there, berating herself, wishing she could cry…wishing she could stop the heat that still coursed through her veins and throbbed in her loins.
He had caught her by surprise, she told herself. And he was so devilishly handsome!
Megan had never considered herself weak. No other man’s blandishments had ever turned her head. Why, Timothy Doyle, who had the face of an angel and owned half the girls’ hearts in St. Anthony’s parish, had kissed her once when they were alone in her parlor, and she had felt little more than a pleasant tingling. She would have said that she was immune to seducers, and she had always held a certain contempt for women who were so weak they gave in to such men.
And then tonight, the man she hated most in the world had turned her into a trembling, quivering, helpless female, exactly the sort of woman she despised.
Megan knew that she had had no control over herself or the situation. Indeed, she had not even been the one who had called a halt to their kisses. It was Theo who had stopped!