And then he took her lips with his own.
There was no hesitance as there had been that first time. His lips matched the hunger in her belly, his fingers digging into her face as he pulled her closer.
And Josephine no longer knew decorum.
The thought of being stumbled upon didn’t exist. The knowledge she knew she didn’t have no longer mattered. There was only Henry and his lips against hers, only his body pushing her back until the backs of her shoulders hit the wall behind her.
A strangled, breathy sound left her, lifted between their lips as her hand on his chest turned into a claw, her fingers knotting in the fabric as his lips parted.
His tongue was warm and unexpected, tracing the line of her lips until they opened beneath it. Tasting her as she eagerly met with her tongue against his.
She had no idea.
She didn’t know what to do with her hands. With her lips. With her tongue.
But he gripped her with such reverence, with such passion. His hand fell to her hip, his fingers curling over the curve of it as he pulled her body to his, all hard plains and eager need. She could not string two words together to think.
All she could do was meet him where he kissed her, her tongue sliding questioningly against his as his body pushed further forward.
She could feel every inch of him, every breath that he breathed into their joined lips, every centimetre of his desire.
She arched into him, her hips pushing off the wall, her fingers pulling him by his shirt closer to her.
The points of his teeth dug into her lips, eliciting another, more strangled sound from the back of her throat.
And with it, everything screeched to a halt.
Henry pushed back away from her, his chest heaving as he stalked another few steps back, groaning as he ran his hand over his face in aggravation.
“My apologies,” he ground out, the words sounding as if they were forced from him.
“Apologies?” Josephine repeated, her own voice foreign to her ears. “You want to apologize for that?”
Henry laughed, the sound choppy as he looked at her, his green eyes glimmering in the lamplight. “No,” he admitted, his voice all gravel. “What I want is to back you through that door and into your bedchamber.”
Josephine’s whole body blushed with his words, her lips parting in a silent ‘o’ as she felt her heart rate if it were possible, double within her ribcage. She knew she should be shocked by his words, and she was, but more than anything … more than anything, she wanted him to make good on them, which scared her more than anything else.
“Which is why I am apologizing,” Henry muttered haltingly. “You deserve better than to be taken advantage of so.”
“It isn’t taking advantage,” Josephine breathed. “Not if I wanted it.”
Something dark and savage passed over Henry’s face, his eyes wild before he groaned again.
“I’m going to need you to stop saying such things,” he begged in a low voice. “You deserve better.”
She no longer knew if he was saying that for her or to remind himself.
“You make me feel things I’d thought I was long past feeling,” he continued in a low, uneven tone. “And though I wish nothing more than to repeat what just transpired …”
“We ought to wait?” Josephine didn’t know why she phrased it like a question. It shouldn’t have been. It was smart towait. It was what was done. But her heart raced, and she wanted to argue with him more than anything else.
She was almost giddy.
You make me feel things I’d thought I was long past feeling.
His words gave her a hope she didn’t know she had been searching for.
“You deserve a man who is not so confused by his own emotions,” Henry told her slowly, keeping the distance between them despite the reassurance in his words.
