arms, that heat deepening, intensifying, as he held her, his chest and those long elegant legs brushing temptingly against hers as they danced together.
Just a few minutes in Marcus Wilding’s company today had shown Julianna that she still felt at least that unrequited desire for him. Her breasts were so full and aching beneath the bodice of her gown, the nipples sensitively engorged, and there was that uncomfortable heat between her thighs.
Sight.
Marcus had told her that it was the first sense to awaken in sexual desire, and these past few minutes of gazing upon his wicked handsomeness had been enough to show her how true that claim was.
Just to look at this man’s face was enough to cause Julianna’s fingers to itch with the desire to touch the rakish curls that fell dark and thick onto his brow and curled so temptingly about his ears. And the pale, knowing glitter of his eyes as he looked at her was enough to cause a trembling deep within her.
As for Marcus’s mouth—no man should ever have been blessed with such a decadently sinful mouth; he had lips she could all too easily imagine feasting on her body, caressing her skin along with those long and elegant hands.
‘Time is passing, Julianna, and I still require an answer. Will you return here tomorrow morning to begin your lessons, yes or no?’ he pressed.
Yes or no....
Chapter Four
‘A h, I am pleased to see you have acted upon the instructions I gave before you left yesterday morning and have worn something less funereal for me to gaze upon, for our second encounter,’ Marcus murmured with satisfaction at six o’clock the following morning once his butler, having brought Julianna to him, had removed himself and closed the door behind him.
Julianna had thought long and hard about returning to Worthing House today, and in the end had only done so because she refused to suffer the mockery she knew would be in those pale green eyes the next time they met if she did not.
And she was now more than a little unnerved at finding herself alone with Marcus in the confines of what was obviously his private study. Even more so by the fact that Marcus’s hair was slightly damp from where he must have bathed earlier, that he wore no jacket or cravat over or above his waistcoat, and that his white shirt was unfastened at the throat as he sat behind the heavy leather-topped desk.
As Marcus had informed her yesterday, sight was usually the first of the senses to be pleased by a lover. Julianna had no doubts of that as she found it hard to do so much as breathe, totally unable to look away from the temptation of that open V as it revealed the silkiness of dark curls that no doubt covered the whole of Marcus’s chest. And lower.
‘Do you like what you see?’
It took every ounce of willpower that she possessed for Julianna to slowly drag the heaviness of her gaze back up to meet Marcus’s piercing green eyes, to sweep the moisture of her tongue across lips gone dry before answering him. ‘You should have had your butler inform me on my arrival if the time is inconvenient for you, after all.’
Dark brows rose. ‘The time is perfectly convenient for me.’
‘I—but—you have not finished dressing after bathing.’ It was nervousness that made Julianna point out the obvious.
‘Deliberately so, for your own delectation,’ he assured her huskily. ‘I thought you said yesterday that you also wished for your own senses to be aroused, as much as the man’s? Does the informality of my clothing arouse you, Julianna? Answer me, pet,’ he ordered as she remained silent.
‘I—yes!’ She had been married to John for three long years, and never in all that time had she seen her husband without so much as his jacket during their waking hours, and he had always worn a nightshirt fastened tightly at his throat on those increasingly rare occasions he had briefly visited her darkened bedchamber, before returning instantly to his own adjoining room once he had