The Temptation of Rory Monahan. Elizabeth Bevarly

of her sweater in such a way as to make the vision strangely…arousing?

      Oh, surely—

      It was then that a burst of recollection shot the memory of his previous night’s encounter with Miss Thornbury to the very forefront of his brain. They had been outside, in front of the library, Rory remembered, and something had kept making him envision her in that goddess get-up that he caught himself thinking about her wearing every now and then. But not very often, truly. Only once, or maybe twice, a week. Three times at most, honestly. Like when he happened to see her, oh… Rory didn’t know. Perched on a ladder, for instance. Like now.

      Uh-oh…

      And last night, he hurriedly rushed on, dispelling the realization, they’d been holding hands for some reason, too, hadn’t they? But why…? Oh, yes. Now he remembered. For a purely innocent reason. He’d been helping her gather up an assortment of periodicals that she’d dropped on the ground. What had they been…? Oh, yes. Now he remembered. Metropolitan magazine, which he’d thought an odd choice for her. Especially when he pondered what some of those headlines had contained. Hadn’t there been one, in particular, that had caught his attention? Something about loving one’s man orally to—

      Oh, yes. Now he remembered. Now he remembered very, very well. Too well. He remembered how Miss Thornbury’s mouth had been so full and luscious. And he remembered wondering if her other body parts would be as full and luscious as her mouth. And he remembered wondering—well into the night, in fact—how it would be to have her mouth, not to mention her other body parts, being full and luscious alongside his own body parts. Preferably while they were both alone. And horizontal. And naked.

      Uh-oh, indeed…

      “Miss Thornbury,” he called out quickly, hoping to distract himself enough that the memories—not to mention the sudden discomfort in his lower regions—might disappear. And he called her name out quietly, too, of course—he was in the library, after all, and didn’t want to disturb anyone.

      However, it wasn’t, evidently, quiet to Miss Thornbury. Because when he uttered her name, she gasped in surprise and started visibly, then immediately lost her balance on the ladder. As she began to fall backward, Rory instinctively stepped forward, extending his arms before himself in an effort to steady her. But to no avail. Because she fell from the ladder, at an angle which, upon impact, created enough propulsion to send them both stumbling back. And then, before Rory could say Stegman’s Guide to the Peloponnesian War, he had landed hard on his fanny, and Miss Thornbury had fallen quite literally into his lap.

      For a moment neither of them seemed to know what had hit them, and neither reacted in any way. Rory sat with Miss Thornbury seated across his thighs, and having the weight of her body pressing against that particular part of him was a surprisingly appealing sensation. And that sensation, coupled with the memories he had just been entertaining—not to mention her slim skirt and snug top—left him feeling more than a little dazed.

      He glanced down to see if they both still had all their parts in place, only to discover that he could see one of her parts still in place quite clearly. Probably more clearly than was actually prudent—or, at the very least, socially acceptable. Because, at some point during their tumble, Miss Thornbury’s slim skirt had ridden up on one side, and now the slit that before had offered only a hint of the leg beneath, suddenly offered a view that went way, way beyond the hint phase.

      And Rory saw that his goddess-vision of Miss Thornbury’s creamy thigh simply had not done justice to the reality of Miss Thornbury’s creamy thigh, that the silky skin beneath her skirt was as smooth as satin and as flawless as a sheet of glass, and as warm and welcoming as a summer afternoon. And then he wondered hazily how he could possibly know that her thigh was smooth and warm, and to his astonishment—nay, to his utter horror—he realized he could know that because he had his hand placed firmly on that smooth, warm thigh, his fingers curling into her bare flesh as if they had every right to be there.

      Immediately Rory snatched back his hand, mumbling an incoherent apology for having placed it where it was to begin with. For a scant, delirious second, Miss Thornbury gazed back at him with lambent—yes, lambent was most definitely the word he was looking for—eyes, and for one brief, dizzying moment, he thought she was going to ask him to put his hand right back where it was, if he pleased. And Rory realized then, with much amazement, that it would have pleased him, very much, to do that very thing. He even felt his fingers begin to curl slightly and creep forward again, as if they’d already decided to take matters—or, at the very least, Miss Thornbury’s thigh—into their own hands.