Her cool gray eyes studied his face with such intensity that for a brief moment he lost the thread of the conversation.
“Fine. I’ll play. If you return alive, Morgan Davies, I’ll give you…”
His brain snapped back to attention. “Three wishes? Like a genie in one of those Eastern fairy tales?”
She scowled at his cheeky suggestion. “No! You’d make me do something illegal, or dangerous. Or something that would ruin my reputation.”
He clapped his hand to his chest in faux distress. “You wound me, Miss Montgomery! But all right, think of something else. Something good. If I lose, I’ll be dead, remember. And you’ll be celebrating.”
“If you win, I’ll declarein publicthat you’re my favorite Davies.”
“Pfft. That’s like saying I’m your favorite strain of cholera. Try again.”
“Very well.” Her gaze dropped to his lips and a flash of naughty amusement lit her face. His cock twitched in his breeches.
“If you win, and return home unscathed, I’ll grant you three… kisses.”
Morgan blinked. In all their previous interactions, they’d never bet with anything so physical.
So intimate.
With anything he’d wanted more.
Harriet’s cheeks were scarlet and he could see from the panicked rise and fall of her chest that she’d surprisedherselfwith her provocative response, but she forced her gaze back up to his and their eyes clashed again.
The gauntlet had been thrown down.
The game was on.
He leaned in, enjoying the way she backed against the wall to try to maintain a chaste distance. He caught a tantalizing whiff of her floral perfume, and bent his head until his lips hovered near her ear.
“Enduring three kisses from me is the worst forfeit you can think of?”
“It is.” She sounded rather breathless.
“Worse than attending a ball without a corset, or accepting a dance from Lord Litchfield?”
He pulled back just a fraction, until they were nose to nose, and tilted his head to indicate the aging, lecherous aristocrat to their right. The man was as renowned for his lack of bathing as he was for his wandering hands.
A flash of defiance lit Harriet’s gray eyes. “A hundred times worse.”
He sent her a cynical, mocking look. “What did Shakespeare say about ladies who protest too much? I’m starting to think you’dlikeme to kiss you.”
“I’d rather kiss a frog,” she said quickly. “A frog would have a chance of turning into a handsome prince.”
“Whereas I’ll never be anything other than an ugly rogue, is that it?” he finished, amused.
“Precisely.”
“Ah well. Since Iama rogue—although I disagree with you about the ugly part—I can’t refuse your suggestion. Three kisses if I come back alive? Done.”
He let his gaze linger for a long moment on her lips. God, if only he could give her a brief sample of what she’d let herself in for. His blood surged at the thought of pressing his mouth to hers. He’d dreamed of it forever. She would taste of disapproval and desire: a heady, irresistible combination.
She’d slap his face, of course, or knee him in the groin, and there would be one hell of a scandal. He was tempted to do it anyway and then sail away, leaving her blustering to make the necessary explanations.
But he wasn’t such a cad as to ruin her in public. She might be a Montgomery, but she was still a lady.
“Would you like me to enter it in White’s betting book? Make it official?” he teased, just to be perverse.
