The Elusive Lord Everhart: The Rakes of Fallow Hall Series by Vivienne Lorret

pinkened beneath his tender ministrations. He’d always wondered . . . and now he knew she felt as soft, if not softer, than any one of his dreams.
    “Curiosity has a voice as well,” she said, her voice faint with pleasure. “And are we not all creatures put upon this earth to learn, just as you have learned this exquisite medicine?”
    And sometimes curiosity could not be tamed.
    It was no use. Did he truly imagine he could resist her? “Well said, Miss Croft.”
    Unable to hold back a moment longer, Gabriel gave into temptation, lowered his head, and pressed his lips to her nape.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    C alliope jolted. Sitting upright, her spine snapped into place with the suddenness of an arrow hitting a target. “Did you just . . . just kiss me?”
    “Kiss you?” Everhart asked from behind her, his tone a combination of amusement and disbelief. “Preposterous. You know very well that I’m merely aiding in your recuperation. Nothing untoward. My fingers are here”—he thrummed them over the upper portion of her shoulders to demonstrate—“and my thumbs are here.” He burrowed the tips in a circular motion directly into the aching knot at the base of her neck.
    She tried not to moan, but a soft whimper might have escaped, nonetheless.
    While he claimed this medicinal massage had been around for centuries, she knew nothing of it. Even so, she never wanted him to stop.
    “I distinctly felt something that was neither thumb nor finger on the nape of my neck,” she argued, but with no force behind the words. She found it difficult to summon any censure. Her body hummed pleasantly as if his hands massaged every inch of her, instead of merely her shoulders.
    “This accusation comes from a wealth of knowledge on your part, does it?” He altered his grip, kneading her flesh with the heels of his hands.
    She swallowed down another moan. “Well, no. But I think I would know the diff—”
    “There you have it,” he said succinctly. “You would not even know a kiss if it had happened, which it did not . Now tilt your head forward like before, or you will strain yourself again.”
    Oh, yes . Every rumor she’d heard about Everhart’s skill with his hands was indeed warranted. Of course, she shouldn’t have paid any attention to what widows whispered behind their fans at balls, but one could not simply forget what one was not supposed to overhear. Those were usually the most interesting bits of conversation.
    Still, she could not allow her somewhat overactive imagination to let her lose this argument. “The flesh that brushed mine was decidedly warmer than your thumbs.”
    “Are you saying my hands are cold?” He did something almost wicked then, sliding his fingers along the ridge of her shoulders as his rotating thumbs slipped beneath the back of her gown.
    Sweet heaven . “Not at all. Only that I’m certain what I felt was softer than the flesh of your thumbs, but not overly soft, and warmer, like the heat rising out of a brazier.”
    “Hmm,” he murmured deep in his throat, causing her to feel the rumble of it rising up through the stair tread. “This is quite the mystery. Are you certain it was not this . . . ” He brushed the pad of his thumb along the curve of her nape, eliciting a pleasant series of tremors through her.
    Oh, please do that again . “I’m certain.”
    He shifted behind her. “What about this,” he said, closer now. His heated breath sifted through fine strands of hair to fan out over her skin. “Perhaps you merely felt my breath on your flesh.”
    Everhart made the notion sound sinful and decadent. Her mouth watered.
    His massage remained unhurried and thorough, delving into the deepest part of her ache, all the while creating a new one elsewhere—foreign and familiar at the same time, like a book slowly coming to life at the reader’s bidding. And when his breath caressed her, she felt her pages stir.
    Shortly after the beginning of their acquaintance, Everhart had been cold to