“Wait. Do not send me away yet. Stay awhile. Here. With me. Let me cheer you up.” He ran his hand through her hair, pushing it away from her temple and brow. “When you do go to bed, it will then be with a smile on your face, and that smile will be there because of me, and that will put me in your dreams. Once there, I’ll—”
She muffled his words with a hand over his mouth. “None of that. I will not let you into my dreams to do the sort of thing you’re thinking of.”
He pulled her hand away from his mouth, flipped it and kissed the knuckles, then flipped it again and pressed a longer kiss into her palm. Then he looked at her, mischief in his eyes. “You would enjoy it. See, I’ve already got you smiling. Imagine what I could do with a bit of dream space.”
She already knew what he could do with a little dream space. He would never know it, but he regularly visited her there.
“May I kiss you?” he asked.
My, her skirt was interesting this evening, andmy, she suddenly felt shy. “We are engaged.”
“That does not answer my question.”
“Kissing will hurt your lip.”
“I do not care. May I?”
“Why would you want to do that?” The question revealed too much of herself. Nothing she’d ever done had made her as visible as this question did. Why would Lord Devon wish to kiss her? The man had barely registered her existence until several months ago. Why would he, a truly incomparable man, want to kiss her, a wallflower pretending to be otherwise, a fairy godmother pretending to be a princess until the stroke of midnight.
“I think,” he said, turning her face up to his with a finger beneath her chin, “it’s because when I said I could not remember to dislike you, what I truly meant was that I find it impossible to dislike you.”
“You’ve beentryingto dislike me, then?”
“Yes. Yet, I do not dislike you even a little. I’ve never wanted to kiss a woman as much as I want to kiss you right now.”
She managed a disbelieving snort. “You tease me and cart me about like baggage.”
“I showed you Frederick’s,” he countered. “I’ve never taken anyone to Frederick’s, not even my brother. I admire you. Sometimes, I’m in awe of you. Mostly, and especially right now, I desire you. May I kiss you?”
How could she say no? Especially when it was what she wanted most of all? “Yes. Please do.”
He watched his hand pull hers out of her lap. He wrapped her arm about his shoulder and rested her fingers at the base of his skull. Her fingers knew what to do there, tangling in the short, silken hairs. He closed his eyes and rolled his head back lightly into the embrace, then slowly opened them again. His hands traced their way up her arms, up her neck, and threaded together behind her head. He pulled her inexorably closer to his coffee scent, his consuming warmth, and his masculine strength overwhelmed her.
She wanted to be overwhelmed. Her body thrummed the closer they drew. As his eyes dropped, the lowered lids hiding his expression, she pressed forward, meeting his mouth with a hunger only he could satisfy. Was this what she’d imagined months ago when she’d first met him and been able to think of little else but his easy smile, his gentle quips, his long, hard body?
No, it was better. She’d thought of him then as the realization of every prince she’d ever read about. Those men were dreams, untouchable.
She was very much touching this man. Her fingers not involved in massaging his neck had decided, at some point, to explore the hard planes of his chest, that interesting groove between muscle that slid over a too-fast beating heart and down to a taut, flat stomach. She’d never imagined what princes looked under their clothes. She imagined now. More, she wanted desperately toknownow. She’d felt him the night of the explosion, and she meant to feel him again.
She wanted more than last time. Skin on skin.
She pulled his shirt from his trousers, pushed it up, and pressed her palms flat against his torso. Silken skin dusted with hair, hard muscle, warmth, strength. She scraped her nails around his sides and proceeded to explore his back, pulling herself flat against him in the process and deepening the kiss that had seemed to become a way of breathing, a way of being. His tongue tangled with hers, and her own tongue retreated. He chuckled and teased her lips with his teeth until she found her courage and flicked her own tongue at his mouth. He moaned, and the sound ignited the hot space between her thighs. She bit down on his bottom lip.
He hissed in pain.
She flew upright, jolting away from his body like her father had caught them once more. “I’ve hurt you. I’m so sorry. We shouldn’t be doing this.”
“No, no. We should.” He reached to pull her back to him. “I’m well. I promise.”
She peered through the darkness at him. “You’re bleeding. We shouldn’t.
He pulled her back, pressing his lips to her forehead. “We should.”
A reversal of their roles the night of explosion. Then, he’d pulled away, and she’d pushed forward, and look where it had landed them.
Right in the middle of a passionate encounter. Another one. More than that—right in the middle of a mess, each wanting something, threatened by a marriage they could not escape.
Not that either of them had tried particularly hard. Interesting, that.
