Adele Ashworth by Stolen Charms

stood in front of her, hands on hips beneath his jacket, now pushed back behind his arms. “And your walk?”
    She batted her lashes. “My walk?”
    “Don’t be coy with me, darling Natalie.”
    She fidgeted, hardly able to look at him any longer as she glared instead at the ivory buttons on his shirt. “My walk was lovely, although as I said, it was slightly too warm.”
    “Perhaps you walked too fast,” he suggested pleasantly, reaching for her fan which he promptly pulled from her grasp and tossed on the bed to his left. “It’s difficult to walk slowly when one is trying to keep up with another.”
    Her eyes grew round in surprise. Then he grabbed her bare arm and pulled her up to his level, holding her close, almost touching. He scrutinized her face, not angrily, but with vague amusement.
    “Why did you follow me?” he asked, clearly puzzled.
    His breath touched her heated skin, his eyes bore into hers, and she’d had just about enough of the game. “Why did you feel the need to visit your mistress at ten o’clock in the morning of our second day in town? Your urges must be uncontrollable, Jonathan.”
    She had trouble defining his expression. At first he seemed stupefied by her words, or perhaps just her boldness. Then his mouth twisted upward again, and he lowered his voice to a cool whisper.
    “I’m controlling my urges perfectly, Natalie.” Tightening his grasp on her arm, he drew her so close to him her gown bunched between them, and her breasts grazed his chest. “The woman you saw is not my mistress.”
    She smiled sarcastically but didn’t try to pull away. “I’m not stupid, Jonathan.”
    “I’ve never thought so,” he quickly agreed, “but you are naive.”
    Her eyes lit with fire. “Not so naive I don’t know what goes on between a man and his mistress. You just seem to do it more than necessary.”
    Jonathan did his best to keep his features slack. She was so unbelievably adorable, sitting in their tiny, hot hotel room, waiting hours for his return, jealous without even realizing it. Knowing he could read her so clearly made his insides boil over with absolute satisfaction. He would always have that advantage, and they both knew it.
    She continued to stare at him defiantly, through glowering eyes of displeasure, her skin warm and dewy moist from heat and humidity, looking ridiculously out of place in her summer day gown made strictly for English weather. She had the appeal of an overdressed seductress in a steam bath, teasing him with a calculating look of “disrobe me if you dare.” With all her innocence and inability to know what she did to him physically, she’d been making him insane with desire since they’d left England, especially in bed when she snuggled up next to him in her nearly transparent nightgown and he could do nothing but restrain himself.
    Jonathan’s eyes narrowed mischievously as he continued to hold her against him. “What is it you think I do more than necessary?”
    That question she never expected, and he knew it confused her as he watched doubt shade her face.
    Nervously she raised her palms to his arms to push him away. “That’s irrelevant, and I refuse to discuss your intimate . . . problems when they are none of my business.”
    Thoroughly enjoying himself, he refused to release her, wanting to hear her attempts to get out of the messy conversation she’d started.
    “I think it is relevant,” he said at last through an exaggerated sigh. “Tell me, darling Natalie, do you know all of what takes place intimately between a man and a woman, or just bits and pieces?”
    She squirmed, turning her attention to the door to avoid his gaze. “I won’t discuss it.”
    “You brought the subject up,” he countered with pleasure.
    She wrestled uncomfortably to come up with a suitable answer, or at least just a way to close the topic. Finally she masked her expression and looked back into his eyes. “I have an excellent idea of what happens