“You look like you’re crying,” he said.

“I’m not,” was her muffled reply.

“I know. I just thought to tell you that, on the off chance someone comes in and thinks I made you weep.”

She peeked through her fingers. “Sorry.”

“What is so funny?” Because really, by now he had to know.

“Oh, it was just…last night…when you were talking to your uncle…”

He leaned against the back of the sofa, waiting.

“You said you wanted to restore me to the bosom of society.”

“Not the most elegant turn of phrase,” he allowed.

“And all I could think was-” She looked as if she were going to explode again. “I’m not so sure I like society’s bosom.”

“It’s not my favorite bosom,” he concurred, trying very hard not to look at hers.

This only seemed to make her laugh more, which made her quiver in rather bosomy areas.

Which had quite an effect on certain of his areas.

He stopped moving.

She covered her eyes in embarrassment. “I can’t believe that I just said that.”

He stopped breathing. He could only look at her, look at her lips, full and pink, still suspended in a smile.

He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to kiss her more than he wanted to breathe. He wanted to kiss her far more than he had sense, because if he’d been thinking sensibly, he would have stepped away. Walked out of the room. Found himself a very cold bath.

Instead he stepped toward her. Put his hand over hers, holding it gently in place over her eyes.

Her lips parted, and he heard a soft whisper of air rush across. Whether she’d exhaled or gasped, he didn’t know. He didn’t care. He just wanted her breath to be his breath.

He leaned forward. Slowly. He couldn’t rush it, couldn’t risk losing one second of it. He wanted to remember this. He wanted every last moment burned into his memory. He wanted to know what it felt like to be two inches away, and then one, and then…

He touched his lips to hers. One tiny, fleeting touch before pulling back. He wanted to see her, to know exactly what she looked like after a kiss.

To know exactly what she looked like waiting for another.

He wound his fingers through hers and slowly pulled her hand from her eyes. “Look at me,” he whispered.

But she shook her head, keeping her eyes closed.

And then he could wait no longer. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her against him, and brought her lips to his. But it was so much more than a kiss. His hands stole around and down to her bottom, and he squeezed. He didn’t know whether he was trying to press her against him or simply revel in the lushness of her body.

She was a goddess in his arms, soft and sumptuous, and he wanted to feel her, every inch. He wanted to touch and stroke and knead, and Good Lord, he almost forgot he was kissing her, too. But her body…her body was a thing of beauty. It was a bloody miracle in his arms, and when he finally lifted his mouth from hers to draw breath, he couldn’t help it. He moaned and then moved down to her jaw, to her throat. He didn’t just want to kiss her mouth. He wanted to kiss her everywhere.

“Annabel,” he groaned, his fingers nimbly finding the buttons at the back of her frock. He was good. He knew exactly how to disrobe a woman. He usually did it slowly, savoring every moment, every new inch of flesh, but with her…he couldn’t wait. He was like a madman, pushing each button through its hole until he’d got enough undone to push the dress down over her shoulders.

Her chemise was very plain, no silk, no lace, just thin white cotton. But it drove him wild. She didn’t need embellishment. She’d been made perfectly.

With shaking fingers he went to the ties at her shoulders and tugged, barely able to breathe as the thin strips of fabric fell away.

He whispered her name, and then again, and again. He heard her moan, a soft little squeak of noise which grew deeper and huskier as his hand slid along her shoulder, down to the luscious curve of her breast. She was only lightly corseted, but the stays pushed her up, making her breasts impossibly high and round.

He nearly lost control of himself right then.

He had to stop this. It was madness. She was a proper young lady, and he was treating her like-

He pressed one final kiss against her skin, breathing in the hot scent of her, and then wrenched himself away.

“I’m sorry,” he gasped. But he wasn’t. He knew he should be, but he didn’t think he could ever regret having held her so intimately.

He started to turn away, because he didn’t think he could see her and not touch her again, but just before he did, he saw that her eyes were closed.

His heart dropped, and he rushed to her side. “Annabel?” He touched her shoulder, then her cheek. “What is wrong?”

“Nothing,” she whispered.

His finger moved to her temple, right to the corner of her eye. “Why are your eyes closed?”

“I’m afraid.”

“Of what?”

She swallowed. “Of myself.” And then she opened her eyes. “Of what I might want. And what I have to do.”

“Did you not want me to…” Dear God, had she not wanted him? He tried to think. Had she returned the kiss? Had she touched him in return? He couldn’t remember. He’d been so overwhelmed by her, by his own need, that he couldn’t remember what she’d done.

“No,” she said softly. “I wanted you to. That’s the problem.” She closed her eyes again, but just for a moment. She looked like she was trying to restore something within herself, and then she opened them again. “Could you help me?”

He started to say yes, that he’d help her. He’d do whatever was within his power to protect her from his uncle, to save her family and keep her brothers in school, but then he saw that she was motioning to the ties of her chemise, and he realized that all she actually wanted was help getting dressed.

So he did that. He tied her ties and buttoned her buttons, and he didn’t say a word as she took a seat near the window and he found one by the door.

They waited. And they waited. And then finally, after what seemed like hours, Annabel stood and said, “She’s back.”

Sebastian rose to his feet, watching Annabel as she peered out the window at Olivia, alighting from her carriage. She turned, and it just came out of him:

“Will you marry me?”

Chapter Eighteen

Annabel nearly fell on her face. “What?”

“Not precisely the answer I’d been expecting,” Sebastian murmured.

Still, she could not quite grasp it. “You want to marry me?”

He cocked his head to the side. “I believe I just inquired about it, yes.”

“You don’t have to,” Annabel assured him, because…because she was an idiot, and that was clearly what idiots did when men asked to marry them. They told them they didn’t have to.

“Are you saying no?” he asked.

“No!”

He smiled. “Then you are saying yes.”

“No.” Dear God, she felt dizzy.

He took a step toward her. “You’re not speaking very plainly, Annabel.”

“You purposefully caught me off guard,” she accused.

“I caught myself off guard,” he said softly.

She gripped the back of the chair she’d been sitting in. It was horribly uncomfortable piece of furniture, but it had been near the window, and she’d wanted to look out for Lady Olivia, and-oh for heaven’s sake, why was she thinking about a stupid chair? Sebastian Grey had just asked her to marry him.

She glanced out the window. Lady Olivia was still in her carriage. She had two minutes, three at most. “Why?” she asked Sebastian.

“You’re asking me why?”

She nodded. “I’m not a damsel in distress. Well, I am, but it is not your responsibility to rescue me.”

“No,” he agreed.

She’d been ready with an argument. Not a coherent one, but still, an argument. This, however, completely flummoxed her. “No?”

“You’re right. It’s not my responsibility.” He walked over, seductively closing the distance between them. “It would, however, be my pleasure.”

“Oh my.”

He smiled.

“I’m back!” It was Lady Olivia, calling out from the hall.

Annabel looked up at Sebastian. He was standing very close.

“I kissed you,” he said softly.

She could not speak. She could barely breathe.

“I kissed you in ways a husband kisses a wife.”

Somehow he was even closer than before. Now she definitely couldn’t breathe.

“I think,” he murmured, his breath now close enough to heat her skin, “that you liked it.”

“Sebastian?” It was Lady Olivia. “Oh!”

“Later, Olivia,” he said, not even turning around. “And close the door.”

Annabel heard the door shut. “Mr. Grey, I’m not sure-”

“Don’t you think it’s time to start calling me Sebastian?”

She swallowed. “Sebastian, I-”

“I’m sorry.” It was Lady Olivia again, bursting in. “I can’t.”

“You can, Olivia,” Sebastian ground out.

“No, I really can’t. It’s my house, and she’s unmarried, and-”

“And I’m asking her to marry me.”

“Oh!” The door shut again.

Annabel tried to keep her head, but it was difficult. Sebastian was smiling down at her as if he might like to nibble her from top to toes, and she was starting to feel the strangest sensations in areas of her body she’d almost forgotten she’d possessed. But she couldn’t forget that Lady Olivia was almost certainly standing right outside the door, and she also couldn’t forget that-

“Wait a moment!” she exclaimed, wedging her hands between them. She gave him a little push, and when that didn’t work, turned it into a shove.

He stepped back, but he didn’t stop smiling.

“You just said to her that you didn’t want to marry me,” she said.

“Hmmm?”

“Just a few hours ago. When I was crying. You said you’d known me barely a week.”