She perused Tobias’s eager, handsome face. She wanted to put her faith in him, but how could she? What if this was just the first of many failed ventures? “You do not yet have a business partner. And no, I will not do for such a position.”
He shrugged. “You’d do as well as I would. Better, likely.”
“No. I know nothing of it.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “What doyouknow of starting a business.”
“Not a thing. I’ve admitted as much in my search for a partner.”
She’d been right to doubt him, then. He was a man of grand ideas and little follow through.
“A business partner is not necessary for the business of getting a wife, Pocket Princess. You need not worry about it. I’ll muddle through. I always do.”
She shook her head. “I cannot. It feels wrong.”
“Oh?” He stared intently at her, eyes almost glowing. “My guess is that it would feel very right indeed. Lady Magnificent?”
“Yes?”
“May I kiss you?”
“I … I don’t—”
“Let me show you another reason we should wed.”
She nodded, helpless to do anything but.
He scooted his body until his knees touched hers, then he reached across the small space between them and speared his fingers into the hair behind her ears, his thumbs gently caressing the curve of her jaw on each side. “You have the most luscious lips I’ve ever seen, and I bet they taste even better than they look.” He urged her forward and dropped his lips to hers.
It was not her first kiss. She’d kissed two other men before him. Or had she? This kiss was nothing like the others. They’d approached her as if she were fragile, a porcelain figurine to place high on a shelf and preserve. Their lips had barely touched hers as they’d breathed her in, proclaimed themselves inspired, then rushed off to complete whatever project they’d been working on at the moment.
Not Tobias. He tilted his head to the side and pressed his lips firmly against hers. He sucked her bottom lip between his teeth and deepened the kiss.
“This is a game for two, Princess,” he whispered. “Care to participate?”
The words opened something in her. She surged forward, gripped his lapels, and gave as good as she’d gotten. He tumbled backward, pulling her atop him. His hard body beneath her felt better than the mattress ever had.
He wrapped his arms around her and rolled them until she lay under him. He rested his weight beside her on the bed, his long body close, but not close enough. He dipped his head for another kiss, and when she greedily met him halfway, he slipped his tongue between her lips. She gasped, he chuckled, and she delighted in the feel of mirth that rumbled through them both.
“You’ve been kissed before,” he said.
She nodded, craning her neck to encourage him to continue.
“But not like this,” he growled.
“No, not like this.”
He ran his fingers down her neck and, pulling the fabric of her banyan to the side, placed a kiss on the exposed skin.
She shivered at the pleasure of that small touch.
“You like it.” He breathed the words into her skin.
“I do.”
He lifted his head and made sure she looked into his eyes. “This is why we should marry. It will not be a sterile marriage. It cannot be. It is about honor and saving your reputation, but it’s also about this. Do you feel it, the tension strung taut between us? I’ve felt it since I saved you from the wardrobe the other day. Your body”—his hand drifted lower than it had all night, over her shoulder, down her arm, over to the indentation of her waist and across the curve of her hip where it stopped, settled, flexed, fingers pressing into her soft flesh—“seems made for mine.” He pulled her close so that her belly pressed against the firm length of him. He placed his face to the hollow that connected her neck and shoulder and inhaled. “We will have fun together. I’ve spent more hours than I should admit to imagining ways I would pleasure you.”
She whimpered. Humiliating. Yet unavoidable. She wanted to know. “How?”
“Ah, ah, ah. That’s a secret for mywife.”
