“You give much of yourself to me,” she said. “You risk much that you want with this marriage. I think I should give back.”
“Oh? How will you do that?”
“You do not wish to stop, so we will not, but… I cannot risk your abused lip any longer. I was careless of it, poor thing.”
“It will heal,” he said, his voice husky.
“I’ll kiss you. Everywhere but your lips.”
His blue eyes turned to ice, then to warm summer springs full of laughter. “Where is that? Do you even know what you’re saying?”
She laid her fingertips gently on his shoulder. “Mm hm.”
His eyes narrowed. “I’m not an expert in these things, Lil, but I’m not sure you have a mountain of experience in activities of this nature, in order to speak as confidently as you do.”
“True. My experience with kissing is slender. Two kisses, you know. Not much to work with. But I’m highly imaginative. And well read.”
“Two kisses. As in two men you’ve kissed other than me?”
Her fingers curled in his cravat. How did one untie one of these? “No. As in two kisses total.”
“Two kisses… we’ve kissed twice. Before tonight.”
Thank heavens for the darkness to hide her blooming cheeks.
When he spoke again, the sound was guttural. “You’ve only ever kissed me?”
“A shame, I know, but—”
He slammed her body to his and buried his face in her neck, inhaling deeply and exhaling with enough force to blow her curls about. “No shame at all.” His hand found her jaw and cupped it, his thumb rubbing her cheek. “It feels, somehow, as if youchoseme.”
He liked that, it seemed, being chosen by her. She put the thought away for later study. Right now, she’d rather study him.
CHAPTER13
Lillian lifted her hand to her chin and tilted her head, studying Devon like he was a work of art in a museum. In many ways, heavens above, he was. But with his mussed hair and rapidly rising and falling chest, with that broad set of shoulders and saucy grin, she knew she’d never mistake him for fiction again. He was too real.
“I was going to begin with the neck and shoulders,” she said, reaching once more for his cravat, “but I do not know how to untie a cravat.”
He waved her hands away from the knot at his throat and untied it for her, fast and efficient.
When he had finished, she took the end of the cloth and pulled, mesmerized by the stark white sliding against the dark column of his neck. When the entire cravat lay pooled in her lap, she stared at his throat unabashedly.
“I have never seen your neck,” she said.
“Really? Surely I’ve taken my neckcloth off in the workshop.”
“Perhaps, but I’ve only ever seen it loosened or crumpled. Never”—she swallowed hard—“off. It’s like seeing you naked.”
The corner of his mouth tilted up, and his eyes gleamed. “It’s nothing at all like seeing me naked, darling. You will learn that later.” He winked.
She attacked him. Just a teensy bit, pressing him against the chaise and pushing his head back with her fingertips until it dropped against the back of the chaise. She kissed the tip of his chin, then kissed down the line of his throat until she reached the ridge of his collarbones, open to her gaze through the V of his shirt.
Then, unfortunately, she hit that V, and her progress stopped. She sat up and surveyed him. Where to next? For some reason, a memory from earlier, his legs straddling her body as she knelt before him cleaning his wounds, flashed into her mind. She hitched her skirts high, straddled him, and settled her backside on his lap. Her hot core pressed against the hard length of him, pushing against his fall.
“Damn, Lil,” he hissed as his arms wrapped around her and pressed her closer to his body. “You are imaginative, aren’t you?”
She kissed the corner of his lips—cautiously, so as not to damage the wounded area—she kissed the whispered remains of his words. Then she kissed the tip of his nose and each brow and stroked her fingers through his hair, pushing it away from his forehead. She turned his face to the side and admired his profile. She dropped a kiss on the top of his ear, hoping he could hear in the caress everything she did not say, everything she dared not say. Then she turned his head to the other side and repeated the process.
