She sucked in a breath.
“Do you want me to stop?” he murmured.
She shook her head.
So he kissed her.
No sloppy, brutish kisses, these. He knew better than to startle her with too much, too fast. Just slow, seductive, open-mouth kisses, where he could occasionally catch the edge of her lower lip gently between his teeth and taste the spicy flavor of Miss Susan Stanton.
Then she started to do the same.
Her lips parted, her mouth opened beneath his, she bit his lower lip—much harder than he’d nibbled hers—but followed the brief sting with more kisses. One of his hands slid to the back of her head, destroying her prim coiffure, locking her into place. Soft hair spilled across his hand, tangled in his fingers.
Something clinked against the wooden floor. Some useless frippery, fallen from her hair. He didn’t pause. Neither did she. Her hands gripped his sides, his shoulders, his back. Pulled him closer.
Perhaps she wouldn’t beverystartled if he swept his tongue inside, just for a second. He tried it. Her breath caught, and for a moment he thought he’d gone too fast. Too far. He retreated into the safety of his own mouth.
Her tongue followed his. Sweetly. Tentatively.
Evan groaned, kissed her again, holding nothing back this time. He kept one hand cradling her head, slid the other down her spine to the curve of her arse, and pressed her to him.
The door swung open.
Chapter 16
Before the iron hinges on the apothecary door had time to finish creaking, Mr. Bothwick had scrambled backward as if jerked by a string, leapt over the impressively tall medicine counter, and disappeared through a window Susan was fairly certain wasn’t meant to be an escape route. The capricious good-for-naught was leaving her on her own to deal with—
Red?!
The ghost floated inside, causing Susan’s mind to boggle for the third time in as many seconds. How the dickens...? But right on Red’s (quite invisible) heels were the two women Susan was least hoping to see: the porcelain doll, Miss Devonshire, and the neighborhood witch, Miss Grey.
Spectacular. Susan lifted a hand to her swollen mouth, although whether she intended to wipe away the kiss or seal it there forever, she wasn’t sure.
“Ho,” Miss Grey cackled, jabbing her spindly black umbrella in Susan’s direction. “Look at her trying to hide the evidence!”
“Where is he?” Miss Devonshire demanded, her voice as thin and frail as her delicate body. “Where did he go?”
That was a bloody good question, now, wasn’t it? A flash of anger welded Susan’s spine ramrod straight. Next time she saw that man, she’d push him off a cliff. She rubbed at her mouth, disgusted with herself for letting him maul her like that. Even if it hadn’t felt precisely like mauling in the moment.
“He can’t just disappear into thin air,” announced the witch, whose magical talent appeared to be pointing out the obvious. The razor-thin tip of Miss Grey’s umbrella thrust toward Susan again. “Askher.”
Red danced between them. “Tell her! Tell her now! Say ‘Your brother Red—’ Or Joshua Grey, if you like, but those who knew me best knew me as Red, and there ain’t none that don’t know a man as well as his own family, says I, so if I was you, right now I’d say, ‘Your brother Red—’”
Susan’s hands flew away from her lips in order to gesture him off. He jerked backward, eyes wide, hands in the air.
“No-ho, you troublesome bit of baggage. You’re not doing that to me again. Not until you’ve kept your promise to tell my sister I’m now one of the dearly departed.”
With her head still abuzz from Mr. Bothwick’s kisses—and subsequent cowardly defection—it took Susan a moment to decipher what it was that the ghost didn’t want her to do. Then it hit her. Rather, the first time, he’d hit her... and then promptly disappeared. The second time, she’d done the honors herself. Which meant if she could just... reach... him, she could get him out... of... here—
She missed her mark, lurched to an awkward stop, and realized both women were staring at her as if even bats would be too leery to reside in her belfry.
“I...” Susan was at a loss to explain her actions.
Miss Devonshire rounded on her, perfect ringlets bouncing about her perfect face. “Don’t think you’re going to win him from me,Miss Stanton,because you’re not.”
Susan had never heard her name sound more like an epithet.
“I don’t fancy him.” No point pretending she didn’t know of whom they spoke.
