Mein Gott. He must imagine that he saw someone else.
“Quentin,” she said, trying to control the shaking in her voice. “I shall count backward from five to one. As I count, you will become more and more awake, until—”
He leaned so close that his breath caressed her lips. “If I’m asleep, don’t wake me.” He pulled her into his arms, the motion rife with purpose.
Suddenly she felt small and fragile in a way she hadn’t since childhood. Not weak, not disadvantaged, but somehow protected.
How could a man like Quentin protect anyone, least of all her? And from what? Her analytical mind, always so ready to examine a problem from all angles, fell strangely mute on the subject.
But it wasn’t completely silent. She was still able to make a concise mental roster of her body’s reactions to Quentin’s embrace.
Heart pounding. Breath short. Skin sensitive to the slightest pressure. Spine thrumming as Quentin’s hands stroked her back. Nipples hardening where they met Quentin’s chest. And in the vicinity of her reproductive organs… an indescribable warmth she hadn’t experienced in many, many years.
All the symptoms of physical desire.
There was no doubt of Quentin’s.
His lips began the endless descent to meet hers. They made contact. Pressed. Demanded a response.
Her body answered, pushing intellect aside. She opened her mouth and felt Quentin’s tongue tease the inner velvet of her lips. An urgent spike of need drove down into her womb. She wrapped her arms around Quentin’s waist and let him bend her back as he deepened the kiss, as if she were the veriest, most insubstantial nymph.
A nymph with a bacchante’s appetites. And all the while it seemed that Quentin was somnambulating—acting upon the desires his conscious mind kept in check.
She had no such excuse. She kissed him in return, touching her tongue to his, savoring the purely erotic sensations she’d known but once before. Her seat and then her back came to rest on the chaise. Quentin’s hand found its way to the aching swell of her breasts, scorched her flesh even through the sturdy, sensible cotton.
“Quentin,” she half-protested.
“Johanna,” he paused to answer, resuming his kisses on the soft skin under her jaw. “I want you.”
His weight came down beside her on the chaise. His erection—quite considerable in size, her dazed mind calculated—pressed into her hip. She generally wore a minimum of petticoats; they hampered her movements and were unhealthily restrictive. What she did wear was hardly a barrier for a determined male.
She was the only barrier. Her will. Her sense of professional ethics. Her reliable common sense, which had somehow fled.
It was definitely time to call it back.
“I will now count backward,” she repeated breathlessly. “You will forget all that has happened since we began this hypnotic session. When I reach one, you will wake, alert and refreshed.”
He licked the tip of her ear. “Hmmmm.”
“Five.”
He drew her earlobe into his mouth and suckled it.
“F-four.”
His hand settled on the skirts bunched around her calves and began to push up.
“Th…” She gulped. “Three.”
He searched out the buttons at the top of her high collar.
“Two—”
The first three buttons came undone in swift succession.
“One.”
She held her breath. His fingers paused in their relentless work. His lips released her earlobe. He drew back.
The glazed look fell away from his eyes, replaced by complete awareness… and confusion. He jumped from the chaise and shook his head like a dog casting water from its coat.
“What happened?” he demanded.
She sat up and unobtrusively rearranged her skirts. “You don’t remember?”
“You were about to hypnotize me, weren’t you?”
She rose unsteadily from the chaise, leaving the buttons at her collar undone. She was sure she didn’t have the fine manual control necessary to do the job.
“I did hypnotize you,” she said. “The session went very well.”
“I’ll be damned—your pardon.” He gave her the by-now familiar wry grin. “We’re already finished?”
“We are, for today.” She had recovered enough to hide her relief. “Have you any idea at all of what took place?”
He frowned. “Was I talking? I seem to remember talking. The subject quite escapes me. I hope I wasn’t too much of a bore?”