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now.”
    Half-sick with anxiety, she watched the doorknob turn.

Chapter Five
    W HATEVER RAFE HAD been expecting, it wasn’t what he found awaiting him on the other side of the door.
    For a second he thought she’d disappeared, climbed out a window and dropped down into the snow-covered garden below. Then he noticed her face peeking out from behind the sheet and blanket she’d drawn tight over herself like a shield.
    She looked unsettlingly childlike, her dark, melting eyes wide and unsure. If he didn’t know better, he would think she was an innocent rather than a widow of mature years. But she was a widow, he reminded himself. She understood full well the ramifications of their liaison, knew all the intimate dealings that went on between a man and a woman.
    They would have a satisfying affair, he mused, one he would take care to see they both enjoyed. Unlike some men, he wasn’t the sort who thought solely of satisfying his own pleasure and nothing more. Sex, he’d discovered, merely improved when the woman took delight in the act, when she experienced as much physical gratification as did her lover. There was nothing better than watching a woman lose herself to pure carnal delight, hearing her throaty sighs and breathless cries of pleasure as she came in his arms.
    He planned to hear Julianna Hawthorne sighing and crying for him often. Very often.
    Loosening his cravat, he drew the cloth from around his neck and tossed it onto a nearby chair. While he’d been waiting for her out in the sitting room, he’d removed his jacket and waistcoat and kicked off his shoes. For now, he decided, he would leave on the rest of his clothing—shirt, pantaloons, and stockings. If all went well, he hoped to persuade Julianna to assist him in removing the last of his garments.
    He stiffened in painful arousal at the idea, his pantaloons suddenly too snug as he imagined her tiny hands roving over his naked flesh, cupping him, caressing him. It had been a while since he’d kept a mistress. As a breed he found such women a nuisance, not worth the trouble and expense required to see to their myriad pleas and demands, at least not after the first few weeks.
    But Julianna was unlike any woman he’d ever known. True, she might be selling herself to him, but she was no courtesan. There wasn’t a coarse, crude bone in her body; her every movement and gesture was one of gentle grace and elegant refinement.
    He didn’t understand why, but his hunger for her went bone deep, leaving him glad he would have her in his bed for six months. More than enough time, he decided, to extinguish even the fiercest of flames.
    Strolling forward, he watched her track his progress with her dark, velvety gaze. Her eyes snapped closed, though, the moment he reached the bed.
    What is she about? he wondered. Is she really, truly as nervous as she appears? And what, if anything, is she wearing under those sheets?
    Julianna held herself motionless, her body board-stiff as she tried her best not to tremble. But her efforts proved useless, a faint quiver traveling through her the instant his weight depressed the mattress. She swallowed as he scooted close, vitally aware of his long body stretched out at her side.
    He was staring. She could feel his eyes—those cool, clear green eyes—moving over her with bold intent. She could feel the warmth of his body as well. Sense his male strength. Smell the light, pleasant scent of the bayberry soap he used, and something more, something earthy and masculine that could only be his own.
    Gently, but firmly, he tugged at the sheet and blanket. Julianna bit her lower lip as he pulled the bedclothes slowly from her grasp and folded them back to expose her body.
    Her cheeks warmed as she waited. Waited for him to touch her. Waited for him to kiss her, maybe once or twice if she pleased him. Then he would squeeze her breasts, push up her chemise, climb between her legs, and enter her.
    Instead he did nothing.
    Didn’t so much as