“What else was I supposed to do?”
She suddenly wanted to kiss him. Soot and all. She clutched her skirts and returned her attention to the contraption. “When you heat it from below, as you have it now, what does it taste like?”
“Metal,” he admitted, “bitter metal.”
She winced. No good at all. “If you put the heat source inside the bucket that holds the grounds, and you let the steam saturate them from above, then steam gets directly into the grounds. The drippings still must fall through the net, but I think this will greatly reduce the taste of metal in the final brew.”
He stared at her. For a very long time.
She waved her hand in front of his face. “Has the shock of the explosion settled in late? I’ve seen that happen before, a delayed response.”
He waved her hand away. “Damn but you’re brilliant.” He swept her into his arms and kissed her soundly.
And because it was exactly what she had wanted to do mere moments before, she let him and then did some kissing of her own. He tasted of coffee. What else? When his tongue split the seam of her lips, she granted him entrance. He was pillaging her, and she might as well do a little pillaging herself, seeing as he was so casually dressed. Lillian ran her hands up his neck and then into the V of his open shirt, pressing her palms flat against his chest. The opening proved too small to accommodate her roving hands, so she reached for the extra material gathered in his waistband and pulled and pulled at the shirt until it was free.
She placed her hand on his taut belly. Astounding. So much hard muscle.
“Don't,” he gasped. “We shouldn't.”
“I want to,” she said. The truth.
“Damn,” he muttered, “me too. No, not fair.”
“Don't care,” she said, not knowing to what he referred. “Keep kissing.”
Their teeth and lips clashed as they talked, until they talked no more, and then they melted together, a result of perfect chemistry.
His hands moved to the loose bodice of her dressing gown. His fingers trailed the length of it from shoulder, across the rise of her chest, to the other shoulder, and back again. She did not like his arm between them swinging like a pendulum, no matter that his fingers trailed tingles along her skin.
“Stop.” She pushed his arm aside.
“No,” he said, pressing his fingers beneath the edge of her body and pulling her sleeve down her arm. He pulled away from her, putting space between them, and their gazes caught. “I'm going to kiss you elsewhere.”
She could guess where, with his fingers giving such good hints.
“Yes,” she pleaded.
His lips pressed against her shoulder. He inched her sleeve lower, and his other hand joined in the endeavor, lifting her breast into the cool night air.
She shivered, and then his lips found the sensitive skin above her nipple. She yelped. He lifted his head. Her fingers tangled in his hair, and she pulled him back to her body.
“Keep going,” she breathed.
“Bad idea,” he said against her skin. But he did not stop. That was the important point.
“Don't care,” she repeated. How was this reality and not a dream? They both must have died in that explosion. It was the only explanation. No, it had to be reality. In dreams, they would not bicker so while in the midst of passion.
“Get the hell away from my daughter.”
Lillian grew cold, and the man whose lips caressed her breast turned to stone. Neither moved.
“Now,” her father demanded.
Devon lifted, and Lillian righted her gown. They stood before her Papa like naughty children.
Papa appeared perfectly respectable and calm. He was dressed only in his shirt sleeves and breeches, and yet his state of undress—bare feet included—made him seem unhinged, lethal, despite his perfectly placid demeanor. Of course, there was the knife’s edge in his voice. No. Nothing so elegant as a knife’s edge. His voice was a fist to the face, blunt and brutal.
Fingers brushed against her own, and she looked down to the space between her and Lord Devon. His hand twitched near hers, begging to be held. She lifted her gaze to his. He stared at her father, mesmerized, and his throat bobbed up and down.
