Betina Krahn - Make Me Yours

“I have not the temerity to suggest, madam.” He clasped his hands firmly behind his back and stared past her out the window.

“But you have had the temerity to suggest, sir. You put four men on this list, so you must have some opinion on their suitability.” She motioned with the paper, inadvertently brushing his vest with it. His abdominal muscles snapped taut. “This Thomas Bickering, is he a tall man?”

“I couldn’t say, madam.” He refused to look at her.

“Do you know if he is portly or balding or has snuff-yellowed teeth?”

“I do not. I am not personally acquainted with the fellow.”

“Yet you would marry me off to him without a blink. What about the others? Richard Stephens, Winston Martindale and Gordon Clapford?”

“Clapford lives near Grantham, but is heir to a barony somewhere in Ireland,” he rattled off. “Stephens’s income is from some cotton mills south of London. Martindale is a friend of the Earl of Chester’s son…comes recommended by the earl. Bickering is a solicitor in Lincoln. That and the men’s income is all I know about them.”

Silence fell as she looked between him and the paper in her hand.

“You honestly expect me to choose one of these men to share my bed and partner my life, but you cannot tell me which is tallest, which dribbles gravy on his shirtfronts and which is stingy with his household allowance…all matters critical to the success of a marriage?”

“How on earth is a man’s height significant to wedded success?”

“It is easy to see you have never been married, sir.” He glanced down to find her eyes lit with feminine superiority. “Otherwise you would know how a man’s dimensions enter into his wife’s contentment. How can I be expected to choose without seeing, much less experiencing these men?”

She leaned against the windowsill, her eyes darting over some private vision, running her hands up her arms. Nice hands. Long-fingered and graceful. Probably strong enough to—damn it!

What was he thinking, giving her more than one name at a time? Women took weeks to make up their minds about a damned hat. But Bertie had said for him to cast about and come up with some names, plural. He had done so, never guessing that he would be the one to present them to the wily, audacious wid—Wait—what? He found himself bracing, scrambling mentally. Experiencing men?

“I shall just have to see them for myself,” she said calmly.

“Beg pardon?” He shook himself more alert.

“I said, I shall have to see them for myself in order to decide which to marry. Where do they live? Surely you will be able to learn that much.”

“What are you proposing?” Every inch of his skin contracted. He had gooseflesh all the way down to his John Thomas.

“To visit these men, compare them and perhaps…sample a kiss.”

“The devil you will.” He stepped closer, reaching for her before he checked that reaction and curled his hands into fists at his sides. “You cannot go gallivanting around the country demanding kisses from strange men.”

“But they’re not strange men. They’re men who were selected for me. By you.” She edged closer, her face raised, her eyes bright with challenge. “I doubt they would shrink from providing a sample of their amorous skill. Men are usually eager to oblige in such matters.” She raked him with a look that could have ignited a wet lump of coal. “Most men, anyway.”

His mouth opened, but after a moment shut. Heat was thundering through his veins. Frustration, annoyance and outrage, he told himself.

“You managed to survive one of my kisses.” Her gaze landed on his lips as she wetted her own. “Can you honestly say it was objectionable or an imposition?”

She was mere inches away, her eyes glistening, her cheeks rosy. Her lips—soft lips that had moved with such exquisite provocation over his—were moist and succulent and so very, very near.

It was all he could do to do nothing at all.

“I thought not.” Her voice seemed thicker, sultrier as she stepped back. “Then tomorrow morning we shall leave for Lincoln to find this Thomas Bickering, Esquire. You did come by coach, did you not?”

He jerked a nod, realizing only now the full scope of the task before him. He was stuck husband-hunting with a woman who had beguiled and disarmed half a dozen men hell-bent on dissipation, with nothing more than a fiddle and a punch bowl. She was striking, sensual, self-possessed and had already proven she had as much command over his body as he did.

“Excellent.” She caught his gaze and held it in triumph. “While there you can visit Barclay’s Bank and arrange the funds to cover my note.”

She paused, waiting for a response that he refused to give her. With a growl, he turned on his heel and headed for the door.

“Cheer up, Jack B. Nimble.” The satisfaction in her voice scraped his broad back like cat’s claws. “By tomorrow night you might be celebrating my upcoming nuptials.”

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