My Seductive Innocent by Julie Johnstone Page B

“No, but I need to undress you,” she said to Nathan.
    “I’ve heard that before.” His tone was an odd mixture of humor laced with pain.
    The mental picture she got of him naked made her cheeks flame.
    Behind her, Frank coughed. “I’ll just go fetch some water.”
    “I already have water,” Sophia muttered through clenched teeth.
    Frank locked his fingers around the bones of her shoulder. She bit her lip to keep from crying out in pain.
    “I’ll get more,” Frank said. “Ye may need it.”
    She didn’t bother responding. Frank was going to do what he wanted no matter what she said.
    Once he was gone, she peered at Nathan again. “I’m just going to take off your coat, shirt, and cravat, all right?”
    Laughter danced in his rapidly dulling eyes and pain twisted his lips. “That sounds rather boring.”
    She shoved her embarrassment―and, truth be told, a little bit of curiosity—away. Leaning over him, she slid her arms under his back to get a good grip. When her chest brushed his, she gasped.
    He half chuckled, half moaned. “This has to be the strangest seduction I’ve ever been subjected to.”
    “I am not trying to seduce you,” she spat and yanked him upward. The low hiss that escaped him made her loosen her hold. “Push away from the bed with your good arm.”
    He pressed with a loud grunt as she tugged with an equally loud one. They careened backward and tilted precariously to the left, but somehow, by the grace of God, did not fall over. They ended up sitting face-to-face on the bed, just as she’d intended. Nathan was no namby-pamby duke. He was solid and very heavy. Thick, corded muscle covered his back and rose under her fingertips as she grasped his arms to hold him in place.
    “So it begins,” he teased in barely a whisper. His head came to rest on her shoulder and his warm exhalation tickled her neck. Her stomach fluttered as they sat there, pressed so close that you couldn’t slide a piece of foolscap between them.
    Her heart thudded and the veins in her neck pulsed with each beat. Using the utmost care, she struggled to draw off his coat. The one grunt he made told her it hurt, but other than that, he was silent. Despite the cold room, perspiration trickled down her brow from her effort to hold him up, though that exertion was nothing compared to trying to get his shirt off at the same time.
    She spent several minutes attempting to tilt him one way and then the next, but it was futile. Once she got him into a position she thought might do, she realized she needed to untuck his shirt first. She let out a string of Frank’s favorite expletives, which elicited a low chuckle from Nathan.
    “My ears are burning,” he chided.
    She snorted. “Somehow I doubt that.” Trying to avert her eyes, so as not to see too much, she reached into Nathan’s breeches at the tip of the waist and tugged at the fine material of his shirt.
    With bashfulness burning her cheeks, she withdrew her hand from his breeches and let out a yelp when his warm hand came to rest over hers.
    “I’m sorry.”
    “Don’t fret yourself. It’s not often a lady gets to stick her hands down a duke’s pants.” Heaven above! Had she really just said that? She wasn’t sure where the thoughts had come from. Clearing her throat, she added, “Almost done.” With care, she quickly removed his cravat, then glanced at his shirt. The slit near his collarbone exposed the top of his glistening chest. A knot formed in her throat. This was certainly not the way she had expected to see a man’s naked chest for the first time in her life, but so be it. “Can you raise your arms?”
    “The one that doesn’t have a gaping hole in it,” he grumbled.
    “Right, then.” She gently laid him back down, reached into her boot where she’d sheathed her dagger, and came up to kneel over him. “I bet you would have never thought to see a lady leaning over you with a dagger in her hands,” she joked, trying to relieve some of the