She’d been an art historian by trade for the last five years, but her hobby had always been antiques. Every weekend of her adult life had been devoted to haunting local flea markets and garage sales in an endless quest for precious finds.
“I guess I’ve learned a few things about antiques through woodworking. I do some carpentry.” He tossed back a gulp of his brandy and pointed to the ceiling draped with embroidered linen as if eager to focus the conversation away from himself. “The tent effect is cool.”
“And very in keeping with the sensualist’s theme.” After sniffing the brandy, Esme couldn’t bring herself to actually try it. Ack. Maybe she would become equally intoxicated by inhaling the fumes. “Everything in the room just makes you want to reach out and touch, doesn’t it?”
Hugh’s gaze snapped to hers as if he suspected her words for the blatant come-on that they were meant to be.
But damn it, he seemed to willfully ignore all her subtleties. Almost as though he’d backed off getting any closer to her since they had kissed.
Yet she knew the kiss had been good. Better than good, in fact. Her body still sang with the want of him.
“The fabrics are all top-of-the-line,” he agreed, wandering farther away to admire the babbling brook tripping through the room again. He put more distance between them at the same time he put himself closer to the door.
And didn’t that say a lot about her charms?
Then again, she had read somewhere in a magazine that in this era of political correctness, men were more careful not to proceed physically with a new woman unless the female was very clear that was what she wanted. So maybe Hugh was simply being upstanding and polite.
But take-charge Esme didn’t need her date to be so solicitous. She needed him to kiss her again in the way that tripped off a reverberating alleluia chorus in her brain.
Time to set the record straight.
Resting her brandy on the little table—sorry, Bette—Esme struggled to connect with her inner wild woman as she closed the distance between her and Hugh.
Her instincts told her to try and entice him into kissing her again. So of course, she needed to ignore that instinct and move straight to kissing him herself.
Consequences be damned.
“When I said everything in the room makes you want to reach out and touch, I wasn’t just referring to the fabrics.” Her pulse jackhammered against her wrist, her neck, her chest. Her words seemed to hover in the heated current of air between them, wrapping them in a suggestive cocoon Hugh couldn’t possibly escape.
“You weren’t?” He set his drink down now, too, providing her with his complete, undivided attention.
Either that, or he was freeing up his hands so he could sprint away if she got any closer.
“No, I wasn’t.” She took a measured half step nearer to him, watching him carefully to see if he would flee.
He remained rooted to the spot, his dark eyes raking over her with a heat that didn’t feel so polite any more.
“I was referring to a different kind of touching altogether.” She edged closer until she could rest her fingertips on the black cotton expanse of T-shirt stretching over his chest.
Hard muscle rippled underneath her touch. His breath hissed out between his teeth. “You’re a woman full of surprises, Esme Giles, but I don’t know if—”
Stretching up on her toes, she kissed him into silence.
Maybe he had been about to voice a valid concern, but she wasn’t in the mood to hear it. If he wanted out of this moment and this kiss, he was going to have to find his own way not to be subtle.
But from where she was standing, he didn’t strike her as a man who wanted out of the kiss. His arms banded around her with a strength that made her shiver. And this time, she didn’t wait for him to stroke his tongue over her lips and seek entry. She parted her lips on contact, ready to receive more of him.
A low groan rumbled through his chest. She didn’t hear it so much as feel it, almost as if he’d stifled the sound. Still, she knew the sentiment had been there.
He wanted this as much as she did and the knowledge fired her with more resolve to wear down his defenses and show him exactly what she wanted tonight.
She’d never minded her lack of a love life—well, not too much anyway—when she’d had her work to be passionate about. But now that she’d had that taken away, too, Esme couldn’t help but feel a little desperate to be passionate about something.
Hugh Duncan filled the bill oh-so-nicely.
The man was passion personified with his romantic dark eyes, his polite consideration mingled with his scorching kisses. Yes, he definitely lit her fire—and he did so far more thoroughly than any new acquisition to the Floridian architecture exhibit ever had.
Wrapping her arms around his neck, Esme lost herself in the sensations swirling through her. She closed her eyes to the warm earth tones of the suite and focused on the heat they generated together.
The bristly skin of his jaw scraped along her chin, providing a surprising contrast with the soft fullness of his lips. He tasted faintly of brandy and Esme found herself swaying on her feet as she grew all the more intoxicated.
His hands shifted on her back, his fingers smoothing their way over the thin silk of her dress to graze the bare skin of her shoulders exposed by the generous neckline.
She wanted nothing so much as to wriggle her way out of that dress and feel his hands all over her body, to let the fire he ignited overtake her and burn away any bad memories she harbored of the last time another man had touched her.
Clinging to him with a fierceness that surprised her, Esme backed them deeper into the room, closer to the piece of furniture she wanted to test with him tonight.
The mahogany replica bed that this man recognized as French Empire neoclassical. Dear God, he was a dream come true.
Esme plastered herself to him with abandon, shedding her old reserve with relish. She was in charge here. She could decide what happened tonight.
And she wanted. Oh, how she wanted.
Her hands strayed over his body, absorbing the hard masculine angles of his shoulders and chest, the narrowed hips that housed the most male part of all.
Not ready to go there quite yet, she contented herself to feeling that particular part of him against her belly as she kissed him with all she was worth and continued her relentless track backward to the bed.
Hugh’s hands raked through her hair, disturbing carefully arranged curls and making her feel totally decadent, wild, free.
Everything she felt tonight seemed new and different, unlike anything she’d ever experienced before. Sex in her experience had always been a secret, covert act committed in the dark, not a blazing firestorm that bowled her over before she was even horizontal.
Chills radiated down her spine as his fingers massaged their way through her hair to her scalp and the sensitive back of her neck. Her breasts pressed more urgently against his chest, craving the same attentive touch.
As the back of her leg finally grazed the bed she’d been searching for, Esme was more than ready to topple them on to it. She caved into the taupe-colored duvet, dragging him along with her so that they never broke their kiss.
He landed on top of her with a soft thud, his hands breaking their fall as she knew they would. Something about his very nature, some old-fashioned sense of nobility suggested