Read Online Powder of Love (I) by Summer Devon - Free Book Online Page B

in her life, she’d felt her pulse quicken and a queer, eager alertness she now understood was lust.
    This was something more intriguing—and frightening.
    He wanted her, and his desire was out in the open, so to speak. She knew she wanted him. And they were alone. Had she ever been alone with a male for more than a few minutes? There was Robert in the gardens. He’d stolen a kiss. And Geoffrey during the dance—they’d retired to a balcony for fresh air…
    “Miss Ambermere, I beg your pardon. You’re frightened. I shan’t. I-I will not allow this to control my behavior.” His voice was gruff, but now she suspected the anger was directed at himself.
    She was afraid, and it wasn’t entirely his actions she feared. The way she felt when his intense stare drank her in…
    It kindled the response in her body.
    “I know. It’s just that I’m not certain what I should do. I mean…” She caught her lower lip between her teeth—a nervous gesture—but quickly stopped when she saw his hungry gaze fixed on her mouth.
    He flinched, groaned, and shifted sideways in the chair, turning away from her. He stared down at the list of names he’d brought as if he would devour it.
    If he could make his feelings clear, perhaps she might do the same. “Mr. Reed, when you look at me, I feel so queer. It is as if you were undress—”
    “Stop,” he shouted, then passed his hands over his face.
    “I wouldn’t advise touching your face,” she said. “It seems worse when the powder gets on more of your skin.”
    He shuddered. “You. No! No. You are playing with fire. You—I will sit in this chair and behave like a gentleman and not an animal. But you must stop .”
    The intriguing thought of allowing him to kiss her was momentarily nudged away by annoyance. “You needn’t raise your voice. And I wish you’d explain what exactly I should stop?”
    “Mentioning…things,” he snapped. “Undressing. Skin.” He pressed his lips tight. “Bodies.”
    She rose to her feet. Clearly if she allowed him to touch her—which unbelievably, she still wished he would do—he’d resent her. No doubt he’d claim she’d unmanned him, whatever that meant. She gave the sweetest smile she could muster when her heart beat so quickly. “What would you have me do, Mr. Reed?”
    His chest rose and fell in obviously ragged breaths. The long silence filled the room. “I think it best if I am left alone in peace. Until I might recover.”
    His hands, which had been formed into sizable fists, relaxed. He moved them restlessly over the arms of the chair, as if feeling the quality of the cloth. “And I must tell you…Miss Ambermere.” He sounded as if he was in pain as he said her name, and he would not look at her.
    It had to be mortifying for the man to be in this state in her presence, and she knew from years with her father that an embarrassed man was an angry one. She straightened, ready for another onslaught of words.
    He twisted in his seat and glanced up at her with dark eyes aglow, only for a moment before he looked away. “Ma’am, I apologize. I tampered with your property and then commenced carrying on as if you were a Jezebel.”
    She wished he wouldn’t do that—behave rudely and then apologize and smile so sweetly. The man’s physical presence befuddled her enough as it was; his behavior needn’t be so confusing.
    “I’m not a Jezebel,” she said, trying to convince herself as well as him.
    “No, of course not. I am. Or whatever the male equivalent might be.” She thought she heard him mutter, “Clermont.” His hands stilled. “The symptoms. Perhaps they aren’t as bad. I can—I can nearly think.” He drew in a deep breath and brushed his fingertips over the knot of his dark cravat.
    “You weren’t thinking? What were you doing before?”
    “Wanting. Craving,” he whispered and shut his eyes. “Needing you.”
    “Oh.” Again the bottom of her stomach seemed to drop, and her heart sped up. “And