He rested his fingertips beneath her chin and gently tilted her head up, the shine of her eyes like a beacon drawing him closer to something like safe harbor.
“But—” she began to say, but his lips stopped her with a kiss.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Valerie met Adrian’s kiss with a longing greater than any she had known, as if she had been waiting for an eternity to feel his lips on hers again. It was partially her own fault; she had made the mistake of letting the anticipation build after her brush with paradise in the carriage. All of the avoiding and distancing and skirting around the flirtations of the past few days had not dampened the embers of her desire, it had only fanned them.
I should make my excuses,a little voice in her mind warned, but she hoofed it out of her thoughts. There was no space for it as passion swept into her head, overwhelming everything else. All she wanted to do was make him forget the pain she had seen upon his face, and lose herself in him, with the hope that he, too, would lose himself in her.
Adrian’s arm caught her around the waist and pulled her close,herarms draping around his neck as their kiss deepened. The air in the room crackled like the logs in the fireplace, while the heat that sparked in Valerie’s veins meant that there was no need fora fire at all. She could warm herself perfectly well with him, and him alone.
“I should be punishing you,” he murmured as his head dipped to kiss her neck. “So many rules broken. What a wayward thing you are.”
She clung to him, pressing herself closer still, both of them on their knees as if they were about to pledge a vow. “Did I not say that I was sorry?” she gasped, her neck arching back so he could kiss her better, his hand smoothing over the swell of her bosom.
“You did,” he said with a dark chuckle. “But is it enough?”
“What would you have me do as penance?” she moaned, astonished and delighted at how… easy this all felt. Howrightit felt to be in his arms, to be kissed by him, to be unafraid of whatever he might reveal to her next.
He lowered his head to kiss over the rise of her breasts, teasing her as he let his tongue glide beneath the neckline of her gown, before letting his mouth wander up the column of her throat in scorching grazes.
“I could deny you another sense,” he murmured in reply, as if thinking as he spoke. “Touch, perhaps?”
“No,” she gasped, as she ran her fingertips through his hair, reveling in the sensation of his silky, dark locks against her skin.“Please, no. Do not deny me anything, Adrian. It is the season for forgiveness after all.”
She felt him smile against her throat, and wished she could grab his head and see that smile with her own eyes. But the more she learned about him, the more she understood why he was not someone who smiled or laughed much, if at all. He had been raised by a cruel father, removed for most of the year from the only person who had brought him any joy at all, and even then, when he saw his mother at Christmas, it must have been a bittersweet occasion. Knowing he would soon have to say farewell to her again, until the next year.
Maybe, it is not Christmas that I need to bring back to Blackwall Castle, but his ability to smile.
It was a warming thought, despite the challenge. She let it guide her as she held his face in her hands and kissed him hard on the mouth, melting into the tight grip of his embrace, imagining that he would never let her go.
As their kiss deepened and the stark study became a place of radiating heat, the stuffy air filled with the sound of ragged breaths and Valerie’s yearning moans, Adrian leaned forward. Slowly, his arm secure around her, he bent her backward to lie her down on the rug that stretched in front of the fireplace. A soft, pliant thing made of sheepskin, it seemed to mold around her as she lay there looking up into his eyes.
Eyes that made her think of summer, despite the snow falling outside.
“If I deny you nothing,” he said thickly, “does that mean I should give you everything?”
She swallowed. “Only what you wish to.”
“I do not think you understand the power of your words,” he murmured, pulling back.
For an awful moment, Valerie feared he was about to leave her like that, panting on the floor of his study, unsatisfied and desperate for more. He eased her fears a second later, when his hands carefully began to undress her, taking his time as if it were as much of a thrill for him as kissing her and touching her and tasting her.
He removed her shoes first, reminding her of a fairytale, and peeled away her stockings with intoxicating leisureliness, lifting each leg and kissing his way down her shin as he removed the gauzy fabric.
She wiggled her toes as a faint bite of cold nipped at them, but she soon forgot the sensation in favor of the infinitely more warming caress of his mouth upon her thighs. His hands smoothed up the sides of her legs and gathered her skirts upon his wrists, until his fingertips sank into the soft flesh of her hips.
Biting her lip, she braced for the lash of his tongue against her bundle of nerves.
Instead, he continued to push her dress and petticoats up, pausing only to tug away the ribbon, just below her bust, that got in his way. Hooking her arm around his neck as he neared, he pulled her up into a sitting position and, with a sly smile, he pulled the dress up and over her head.
“I should have tied a bow around you,” he said appreciatively, his eyes ablaze with a desire that poured fuel onto the furnace of her own. “A gift to unwrap.”
She blushed with delight, breathing hard. “There are plenty to spare.”
“Ah, but I do not have the patience,” he replied, his arms encircling her to deftly undo the knot at the base of her stays.
The undergarment joined her dress in a pile on the floor, the heat of the fire skimming over her bare skin, casting it in a molten glow.
