Twice Tempted by a Rogue by Tessa Dare

move to part her lips or explore her mouth with his tongue, though she would have gladly allowed it. If he’d wished, he could have taken everything. But he didn’t even try. He just kissed her softly, over and over again. The corners of her mouth. Her top lip, then the bottom. Sweet little sips of gin and heat.
    When at last he pulled back, she instinctively raised her hands to cover his, pressing them tight against her face and forbidding him to release her. The thought struck her that she could have been touching him all the while. She could have been stroking his hair, or smoothing her palms over the hard planes of his shoulders and chest.
    Damn, she was a fool.
    But she settled for this, dragging her thumbs over the back of his hands, tracing the delicate crooks between his fingers, and finally encircling his thick, corded wrists as she opened her eyes.
    “That was …” He looked down at her with a strangely puzzled expression. “That was nice.”
    “Yes. Quite.”
    He slid his hands from her face. She reluctantly released his wrists.
    With a self-conscious clearing of the throat, he reached behind him, groping for the latch. “Well, it’s late. I suppose I’d better be …”
    “Wait.”
    To hell with feeling fourteen again. And to the devil with “nice.”
    With decisive speed, Meredith grabbed him by the collar, hauled herself up on tiptoe, and kissed him, hard.
    He stumbled back against the door, and the moment of shock jarred his lips apart. She slid her tongue straight through that window of opportunity. That was all it took. Now he really, truly kissed her back. Mouths open, teeth clashing, tongues tangling. Desire evident.
    Yes, at last. This was what she’d been wanting—this frenzy of wild tastes and rough textures. The slick heat of his tongue, the scrape of his whiskers, his heady male scent. Rhys St. Maur, the man. And her body responding to his, all woman.
    Growling deep in his throat, he slid his hands around her waist and fisted them in the back of her dress, lifting her up and against him. Her whole body pressed flush to his. Her breasts squashed flat against his chest, and she could feel every deliciously solid inch of him.
    Until, with a regretful moan, he lowered her to the ground.
    “Well?” Her voice was breathless, but she hoped her eyes communicated the proposition with greater success.
    “Yes, I’m well,” he said, nodding absently. “Very well indeed.”
    She laughed softly, clinging to his neck. There was no doubt that Rhys St. Maur was all man, but in rare moments he had this sweet, uncertain, boyish look on his face. It endeared him to her all the more.
    She bit her bottom lip and swayed gently in invitation. “I meant, what do you think? About tonight.”
    “I think”—he unlaced her arms from his neck and squeezed her hands before releasing them—“that tonight, I’ll have very vivid dreams.”
    To her disappointment, he found the door latch and slid it open. Before stepping inside his bedchamber, he dropped one last kiss on her cheek. “And for once, I might enjoy them.”
    Five mornings later, Meredith sat in that same bedchamber, watching Rhys sleep. The first rays of dawn seeped in through the window. Gray, watery light, not yet gold. The white linens reflected it with a fuzzy glow, but the rest of the room remained in murky shadow.
    A cock crowed in the courtyard.
    From the bed, Rhys answered with a low, soft snore.
    Meredith released her breath and quietly adjusted her posture on the chair, just hoping the sun would rouse itself before Rhys did.
    She hated resorting to this kind of spying, but she couldn’t think of any other way to assess his … health. Over the past week, she’d developed a powerful suspicion that Rhys had suffered a war injury to his male anatomy. Why else would he have resisted that clear invitation the night they’d kissed? Not to mention the subtler ones she’d issued every evening since.
    Part of her couldn’t believe he was