His mouth moved down the tender flesh of her throat, sipping, nibbling, tracing patterns of delight with his tongue. Passion jolted through Megan, stunning her. She melted against him, letting her head fall back, giving him easy access to her throat.
The cloth of her dress impeded his progress, and impatiently his hand went to the buttons that marched down the front of her dress, unfastening them with fingers that trembled slightly. He slipped his hand inside her bodice, skimming over the lush tops of her breasts and delving beneath her simple cotton chemise. Megan jerked, sucking in her breath at the feel of his fingertips upon her skin.
His finger slid over the tight, prickling flesh of her nipple, and Megan quivered at the touch, heat flooding her loins. She had never imagined a man caressing her this way, never dreamed how her body would respond. She wanted to moan, wanted to move against his hand. She wanted, she realized with some astonishment, to feel his hands all over her body.
She opened her eyes and looked up at him, and found him gazing at her. His eyes stared deeply into her own, holding her as surely as if his hand had gripped her face, as he caressed her breasts, shoving down the thin cotton of her chemise and lifting each orb from its confinement. His thumb circled one nipple lazily, his eyes darkening. He saw, Megan thought, the desire that swelled in her as he teased at the small bud of flesh, and her hunger stirred his even more.
Her breath came hard and fast in her throat. She wanted to touch him, she knew, wanted to slip his buttons from their fastenings and slide her fingers inside his shirt. Her fingers ached to feel the texture of his skin, the heat that burned her flesh even through their clothing.
“Megan,” he murmured, his breath a caress on her cheek, and just the roughness of his voice spiraled her passion.
Startling them both, she moved up and kissed him. A small moan escaped him, and he kissed her back hungrily. His hand moved restlessly over her body, sweeping down and bunching up her skirts, pulling them up until he could slip beneath them.
Megan quivered at the touch of his hand against her leg, separated from her flesh by nothing more than cotton. He moved up her leg and over her buttocks, smoothing and squeezing, his fingertips digging into her flesh. Then his fingers slipped between her legs, pressing against the very center of her desire. Megan shuddered, lost in a maelstrom of sensations.
He tore his mouth from hers, kissing his way down her throat and onto the soft tops of her breasts. His fingers moved rhythmically between her legs, rubbing the cloth against her sensitive flesh, even as his mouth closed gently around her nipple.
Megan choked back a groan. The heat inside her coiled and tightened with each lash of his tongue, each pull of his lips. Her loins ached, and she wanted to move against his hand, to rub herself wantonly against him.
In another moment, she knew, she would be sliding down to the floor with him, opening herself to him, and the thought shook her. This was her enemy, the man who had killed her brother, and she was on the verge of giving herself to him like a wanton!
With a gasp, Megan tore herself from his grasp. She grabbed the sides of her bodice and held them together over her bared breasts, staring at Theo in horror. His eyes were fiery, his skin taut over his facial bones. His nostrils flared, his mouth tightening, and he took a step toward her.
Megan stepped back with a low, wordless cry, holding up her hand as if to stop him, and he halted, frustration stamped on his features.
“Megan…”
“No. No. I cannot. We cannot.”
He cursed softly and turned aside. “I am sorry. Go. Now.”
He shot a glance at her, and Megan saw in his blazing eyes the effort it took for him not to reach for her.
She whirled and ran blindly from the room, not stopping until she had gained the sanctuary of her own bedchamber. There she collapsed in a heap upon her bed and thought with dismay of what she had almost done.
Her body still throbbed with the passion he had aroused in her, the pulse hot and deep within her. She drew a finger across her nipples, still hard and aching from his touch. She could not understand how she could have responded so to him, knowing what he had done to her brother. It was wicked, worse than wicked, she told herself, and still she could not turn aside the yearning that twisted through her. There was nothing she could do, she realized, but lie there as the passion gradually ebbed from her body and wonder what she was going to do next.
She did not know how she could face Theo again. Indeed, given the way she felt right now, she did not know how she could look anyone in the house in the eyes again. She felt as if shame must be stamped clearly upon her face.
Megan got off her bed and went to the mirror above her vanity, peering into it. Her hair was tumbled about her face, wild and curling. Color stained her cheeks, and her lips were lush and faintly bruised looking. Her bodice hung open down the front, exposing a strip of her white cotton chemise. She could feel the scrape of the material of her bodice against her sensitive nipples, each breath gently abrading her flesh.
She looked wild and foreign to herself, someone she hardly knew. She remembered the feel of his hand between her legs, and the ache there throbbed into life again. With a soft groan, she turned away.
This could not continue, she knew. She had to get control of herself. The only question was how.
Sighing, she undressed and stood for a moment, savoring the feeling of the air on her naked flesh. It was distinctly unnerving, she thought, to know that she wished Theo were there with her. Heat pooled deep in her loins at the thought of him watching her.
Feeling decidedly wanton, she did not pull on her nightdress immediately, but moved about the room as she was, putting away her clothes and brushing through her hair. Finally she slipped on her nightgown and lay down. The window was open, admitting the soft summer breeze. Moonlight slanted in, silvering the furniture and carpet, and Megan lay staring at it, thinking of what had happened tonight.
It was a long, long time before she slept.
*
MEGAN WAS CAREFUL to keep out of Theo’s way the next day. She oversaw the twins’ lessons, which were always light on Saturday, giving them the afternoon off to do as they wished. The duke and duchess were attending the opera with Reed and Anna, and they were all four dining beforehand at Kyria’s house, so the twins were eating supper in the nursery, and Megan was able to join them there. She worried throughout the day that Theo might come into the nursery to visit with the twins, but as it turned out, he did not—a circumstance that, she admitted to herself, left her feeling both relieved and perversely disappointed.