“Can we return to the conversation we were having just before all that?” she whispered. “We were standing at the gate. You were saying how much you liked me, asking for a truce. And I . . .” She grazed a light touch over his cheek. “I was about to apologize for this.”
“Don’t. I deserved the punches and then some. For most of my life I’ve been a first-rate jackass. For the past year I’ve been trying to be less of one. But I don’t think I’m succeeding. I’ve merely graduated from first-rate jackass to flagship bastard.”
“I don’t know about that.” She tamed a lock of his hair. “You’ve had your moments this week. Saved me from falling not once, but twice. You were perfect with my sister. And I suspect that when you offered me this post, you thought you were doing it to rescue me.”
Now she wasn’t sure.
Now she wondered if she was here to rescue him.
He said, “At any rate, I owe you an apology for everything today. Including the water goblets.”
She laughed a little. “It truly was nothing. Just a silly tavern trick.”
“I have embarrassing party tricks, too.”
“Do you?”
“Oh, yes.” He released her, reclining in his chair. “I can pleasure two women with both hands tied behind my back. Blindfolded.”
“How boastful you are.”
“Boasting would imply I’m proud of it. I’m not boasting.”
Oh God. The look on his face told her he wasn’t. The images now filling Pauline’s mind made her a little bit queasy.
And very, very curious.
“I found the naughty books,” she said. “I have questions.”
“Oh, Lord.” He rubbed both hands over his face. “No, Simms. No.”
“But you’re the only person I can ask. And you owe me for the water goblets.”
He dropped his hands. “Very well. You have questions? Here are some answers. ’Yes,’ ‘No,’ and ‘Only with ample lubrication.’ Apply them to your questions as you like.”
She reached out and gave him a playful smack on the shoulder. “It’s just that the books make it sound so ridiculous. All this pulsing and divine throbbing and unparalleled ecstasy and cataclysmic smelting of two souls into one.”
“Cataclysmic ‘smelting’? What book said that?”
“Never mind the smelting,” she said. “But the rest of it. The unparalleled ecstasy part. Is it . . . is it really supposed to be that way?”
He sighed. “That particular question is best answered by experience.”
“But that’s just it, you see. I’ve had experience.” She cringed. “A little bit of it. And it was nothing like that. No ecstasy whatsoever. Nor even any flutterings. That’s why I was wondering if the books tell lies, or . . . or if it was just me.”
“Simms.” He rose from his chair and looked her in the eye.
It was killing her not to look away, but his expression made it clear he wouldn’t answer otherwise. So she slid from the edge of the desk, met him toe-to-toe, and held his gaze directly.
Then waited, miserable.
“It wasn’t you,” he said.
In Griff’s head alarm bells were sounding by the hundreds. He shouldn’t have this conversation. Hell, he shouldn’t even be here with her alone. But he needed to be with someone right now. And by God, she needed to hear this.
“It wasn’t you,” he said again.
“So the books do exaggerate,” she said.
“I’m not saying that, either.”
Her nose crinkled. “I’m so confused.”
“That’s because there are no simple answers. Can it be divine bliss? Yes. Can it be a dismal trial? Yes. It’s like conversation. With the wrong person, it can feel forced, perfunctory. Boring as hell. But sometimes you find someone with whom the discussion just flows. You never run out of ideas. There’s no awkwardness in honesty. You surprise each other and yourselves.”
“But how do you find that person without . . . conversing all over town?”
Griff gave a dry laugh. “What a question. Find the answer and bottle it, and you’ll have the most successful shop in England. I might even queue up myself.”
He had “conversed” with many women in his life, and he wasn’t proud of it. Oh, he had been proud of it once, and the women themselves had few complaints. But he’d come to realize it was a cold thing, when the best you could say of a bed partner wasn’t “I love you” or even “I’m fond of you,” but merely “I despise you a bit less than I despise myself.”
But he meant what he’d said at the foundling home gates. He liked this woman. He could talk with her, as he hadn’t talked with anyone in ages. And any man who’d let her go was a goddamned fool.
He reached for her, framing her sweet face. He traced her bottom lip with the pad of his thumb. “I don’t have many answers, but I can tell you this much. It wasn’t you.”
He approached her, feeling the darkness compress and heat up between them.
“Griff.” Her hand went to his wrist. “I wasn’t asking for this.”
“I know.” He leaned in, tilting his head for the kiss. The anticipation of her taste set his pulse racing.
“But—”
“Simms. You asked the question. Don’t interrupt when I’m making a point.”
He hovered an inch above her lips . . . then reconsidered. A kiss wasn’t what she needed. A kiss gave her too much room to hide. She needed to see him, see herself and how beautiful, how sensual, she was.
He ran his hands over the curves of her body, tracing them through her dressing gown. Her little gasp of pleasure thrilled him.
“I think I had a dream that went like this,” she whispered. “Just last night.”
“Don’t tell me that.” The vision of her dreaming fitfully beneath white sheets . . .
“What should I tell you, then? That you’re the most attractive man I’ve ever known, and the mere scent of your cologne sets fire to my petticoats?”
“You should tell me to go to the devil.” His hands went to the ties of her dressing gown. He paused, one finger looped in the corded sash. “But would you tell me so, if that’s what you felt?”
She gave him a smile. “Don’t you know me at all?”
He yanked on the knotted sash, drawing her to him. “I just know I’m desperate to touch you, everywhere.”