“There is no reason to laugh.”
“There are multiple. First, because we are terribly alike. I, too, keep a deck of cards in my satchel.”
“Because your sisters get bored—”
“When traveling, yes.”
They grinned.
He tucked his away for later as he stood slowly. “But we are also terribly unalike because I was not thinking of cards when you mentioneddiversions.”
Bent over her satchel still, she froze, then slowly straightened. “You still wish to teach me, to show me?”
Stepping toward her, his hip caught the tray, and he took a moment to right it. The little green and white vase had toppled, and water spilled across silver. The pink and green blooms lay limp on the tray. He picked one up, twirled it between his fingers as he stalked toward her.
When he reached her, she looked out the window, swallowed. “The rain is letting up.”
“The roads will be a mess.” Any excuse to remain here with her a moment longer.
“Should we risk going back to London now or…?”
“More rain could be on the way, the roads muddy. Perhaps some unpassable. We should not be too hasty.”
“Cards, then?”
“No, Em.” He’d once suggested suitors should never give ladies flowers, but now he drew pink petals across soft pinkcheeks, down a slender neck where a wild pulse pumped, and over plump breasts to the shadowed valley of her cleavage. “Not cards.”
She’d been hoping he’d say that, and when he stepped toward her, she stepped back, having discovered a new fun diversion. Not cards. Not kissing. Notonlykissing.
Teasing a stern man into smiling. Or into something else entirely.
Step after step, he waltzed her backward until she hit the wall, the breath breaking out of her as he lowered his lips for a kiss.
In her few encounters with him, she’d learned kisses could kill. She’d learned a man’s hands used just right could cause her to shatter. She’d learned words on a page did not compare to Samuel’s breath against her skin. What would she learn now? What would she feel as he gathered her wrists in one hand and pinned them above her head?
Delicious and needy, that’s how. Bold and beautiful, too, as he fluttered kisses along her jaw and swirled the head of the flower against the swell of her bosom.
He kissed her collarbone and trailed the petals up her neck and under her chin, the light caress raising bumps across her skin. “I have never given a woman flowers before.” He kissed the curve where her neck met her shoulder, then his tongue darted out to taste it.
Her head fell to the side, giving him more room. “She might sneeze. Or dislike them.”
“Hm. Yes.” He licked a hot line across her jaw from ear to chin, and she shivered.
Beneath his hands, her mind ceded control to her body, to him; he could shape her to his will, make her shiver or sweat or cry out his name—another lesson she’d learned.
His teeth tore at her earlobe, and the petals danced down her skin once more as he dragged her sleeve down her arm, lower and lower until the tapes of her gown were tugged loose, and her bodice snagged. He hummed, wielding the flower lower, painting the sound in his throat into her skin with the petals.
When he kissed her breast, she learned she liked that. No, notlearned. She’d done that last night. Today, it wasconfirmation. And when he drew the flower over her nipple, swirled it in circles, round and round, her nipple hardened to a peak, shooting desire low in her belly.
“Good,” she murmured. “So good.”
But when he took her nipple between his teeth, licked, and sucked…better. She arched, moaned, and he released her hands from where he’d imprisoned them above her head to grasp her hips, rock his own hips against her.
She curled her hands into fists at her sides. Her fingers flinched and flexed, wanting to touch him, but every time she lifted them to do so, he rubbed a hand up her ribs or down her thigh, or pressed the long, hard length of him against her aching center.
Useless arms, heavy and limp with coursing pleasure. Thumping heart as he held her face and kissed her long. His actions had become his words from the letters—passionate and needy. And she wanted to give him everything he asked for, wanted to choose him as he’d chosen her.
No matter the risks?
