“‘Any buttock!’” Hollis fairly shouted. He was quoting Shakespeare to her and her heart was doing leaps in her breast. “I could not have even dreamed of meeting anyone who knows as much of Shakespeare as I do.”
He laughed. “Neither could I.”
She couldn’t have conjured a man like him, either. “Have I told you that you are very handsome, sir?” she asked dreamily.
His smile deepened. “You have not. I am certain I would have remembered such a compliment so freely given.”
A cry went up from the crowd, and they turned to look. Beck had been eliminated and was arguing with Mr. Harmon. Hollis turned a smile to Marek—he was watching her. There was something in his expression that made her pulse leap.
She suddenly couldn’t seem to look away from his mouth. “Are you enjoying the evening?”
He tilted his head to one side, and his gaze slowly moved down her body, stalling at her bodice before returning to her lips. “Je.Very much.”
“Are you surprised?”
“More than I can say. Then again, everything that has happened to me since meeting you has surprised me.”
She could feel the corners of her mouth curling up. “I will take that as a compliment and be pleased that I surprise new friends rather than bore them.”
His eyes shifted down, to her bodice. “How would you ever bore anyone?”
“Another compliment,” she murmured. She glanced up, to the mistletoe hanging over their heads. Marek looked up, too. Before he could discern what she was thinking, Hollis caught his lapels and pulled him forward as she rose up on her toes. “Happy Christmas,” she said, and she kissed him. She boldly planted her lips on his, and she felt the shock of her impetuous behavior and the fullness of his lips reverberate all the way down to her toes. His lips were so soft, feather-pillow soft, and she could imagine very easily being lost in them.
Just as she’d abruptly kissed him, she abruptly let go. She laughed breathlessly and pointed up. “Mistletoe!” she exclaimed, as if he hadn’t seen it. As if he would understand that the sprig would lead to such incautious emotion. Her heart was pounding, and her breath was short and she wanted to slip away with him, to someplace private.
“Je, du mugel,”he said. But his words came out like a rumble, and in the next minute, his arm was around her waist, pulling her into his body and pressing against her. He kissed her back. But his kiss...Hiskiss was much more than hers. Whatever Hollis’s intention had been, it was swallowed and forgotten and burned in the path of his response. She opened her mouth, felt his tongue slide in between her teeth. He cupped her face, his thumb stroking her cheek as his tongue tangled with hers. He kissed her with an erotic mix of demand and reverence, and while he did, her heart’s rhythm turned frantic and she imagined opening her legs and him sliding hard and long into her, his hands on her breasts. She moved against him, arching into him, sliding her pelvis against his body. She felt guilty and exhilarated, excited and buzzy with anticipation.Thisis what she missed. She missed a man’s touch, that feeling of being wholly desired. She missed abandoning herself to pleasure. She missed lying against someone, feeling the heat of their skin.
The kiss was wild and unacceptable and dangerous. With everyone’s backs to them, it was full of craving and an even strangely potent desire to be caught, to go as far as he would take her.
And then, suddenly, Marek ended his kiss. He let go of her waist and drew back from her. His gaze bore into hers and he slowly wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. His hair was mussed. Had she done that? She couldn’t think properly. Everything was muddled because her heart was still pounding, and she was a bit in her cups, and she was on fire.
“What are we to make of this, Mrs. Honeycutt?” he asked, as breathless as she was.
“I don’t know, Mr. Brendan,” she answered honestly. “But wasn’t it diverting?”
His smile matched hers and his eyes glittered in the light of the melting candles, and she felt that glitter in every corner of her soul. It was lust and pleasure and surprise and fascination and everything on which a new esteem feeds. She knew how feelings like this could consume a person, and heaven help her, she wanted to be consumed. She was ready to be consumed.
“We should...” She wavered, and in that moment of wavering, of asking for more, she spotted Lord Douglas. “Wait!” she cried.
“What?” Marek said.
Hollis darted past him. “Lord Douglas!”
Douglas was walking across the hall. He halted and turned around. He looked a little glassy-eyed and didn’t even seem to recognize Hollis at first. But when he recognized her, he grinned and walked unevenly toward her.
“Are you standing under the mistletoe and waiting for me, lass?” Douglas asked, and leaned in, as if he meant to kiss her.
Hollis quickly ducked away. “I should like to introduce you to my friend, Mr. Brendan,” Hollis said, and deliberately pointed at Marek in case Douglas hadn’t noticed the gentleman standing just there.
Douglas looked in the direction of her pointed finger.
“Marek Brendan of Wesloria,” Marek said, extending his hand in greeting.
“Marek Brendan ofWesloria,” Douglas repeated with jovial theatrics, and took his hand, shaking vigorously.
“I know you,” Marek said. “It is your ship that carried the lads to London recently.”
Douglas gave a snort of laughter. And then he squinted at Marek. “Do I know you, then?”
