She clung to him tight, and he tasted every inch of her he could. The cavern of her delectable mouth, her plump lips, her pert chin, and cold cheeks. He nibbled her earlobe and traced the curve of her ear, the line of her neck with the tip of his tongue. She wiggled in his arms and gently pushed the cap sleeves of her gown over her shoulder and down her arm. Smooth, round shoulder. Wished he couldseeit. He kissed it instead. She smelled of cream. Strawberries. In winter?
“Lovely,” he murmured. He reached his hand into her lowered bodice and found a small but perfect breast. He freed it. She gasped.
“Stop?” he asked, freezing, praying.
“No.” Her lips found his, and she urged him on with no more words. And while she explored his mouth, he explored her nipple, already puckered in the cold. He rolled it gently between his fingers, and she arched into his touch.
He left her lips only to see what his fingers found so fascinating. To feel. To taste. He laved a circle round her nipple with his tongue, never touching it, then he pulled it gently between his teeth.
She yelped.
“Hurt?” He soothed her hair back, kissed her temple.
“No.” She arched toward him once more, inviting.
It would be rude not to accept such an invitation. He freed her other breast and rubbed the side of it in smooth, soft strokes.
She shivered and moaned.
She shivered.Damn.
He jolted away from her, breathing heavy, panic lancing through his skull. He’d partially undressed a lady outside in the bitter cold. He’d breathed her moans like the very air that sustained him, awash in an incomparable euphoria. And at what cost?
Sheshivered.
Jane leaned against the wall, her eyes closed. “Did I… did I do something wrong?”
“No.” He, in stark comparison, had done everything wrong. He’d let himself get carried away, sought pleasure in a passionate addiction from which he may never recover, at the cost of Jane’s health and comfort. It would not do. He stepped back several paces. “You are perfect, Jane. It is not you. I—”
Her features trembled, shaking away the pleasure that had softened her eyes and plumped her lips. She seemed set in stone now. She waved her hand carelessly in the air. “You were right to stop. We should not take this dalliance any further.” She pulled her sleeves up and covered her breasts.
He stepped forward and reached for her. She recoiled, and he dropped his hand, helpless, to his side. He took a breath and closed his eyes, willing his jaw to relax. The anger roaring through him would solve nothing. He needed to be calm. Controlled.
“Can we sit?” he asked. “And talk. As I had originally planned. There is something I must tell you, and it is difficult for me to do so. But you deserve to know.”
Her eyes volleyed back and forth, searching no doubt for someone to save her or for some method of escape. She looked everywhere but at him, then her gaze froze, her lips parted.
A breathy “oh” puffed clouds around her mouth as she stared at something behind him.
He turned to see what it was. Just the hedge maze at his back. He turned back around.
“What is it, Jane?”
She stepped backward and away from him. “The maze. Of course, that’s it.”
“You’ve lost me.”
She grinned. “I’m going to losethem. Or try not to lose them. Either way, whoever loses will not get me or my dowry.”
“Speak sense.”
Her eyes finally met his. “The final round of my enhanced courtship system.”
“Charades. In the maze?”
“No. Blind Man’s Bluff.”
She turned and fled into the house.
