The very tip of the ribbon brushed his mouth.
Then Jillian’s final movement dislodged the delicate strip of silk, and the ends slipped free.
Her lips collided with his.
For one bright, catastrophic moment, the world vanished. There was no drawing room, no circle of spectators, no chatter, no scheming aunts—only the warmth of her mouth pressed tentatively, hesitantly, against his. He tasted the faint hint of cinnamon from the biscuits served earlier, and something softer, something unmistakably her.
A shock ran through him—swift, searing, and entirely unwelcome.
He felt her inhale sharply. Her lips trembled against his, and that tremor, slight as it was and so nakedly vulnerable, undid him more than any bold gesture ever could have. He responded before he could stop himself, answering the contact with the barest, instinctive pressure, a whisper of something deeper thatrose unbidden from the depths of whatever part of him had always been aware of her. Bothered by her. Anything but what he had longed to be. Immune to her.
He drew in a breath—a sound caught between restraint and longing.
The clock chimed. Their time was at an end. The moment was gone.
She pulled back first, slowly, as though releasing something fragile. Her eyes widened with a confusion he felt echoing in his own chest. Her breath came the slightest bit uneven. A faint flush warmed her cheeks, and if he had not been so thoroughly shaken, he might have marveled at the sight.
He stepped back.
He had to.
He bowed mechanically, forcing words past lips that felt far too sensitized to form them. “Lady Jillian. My thanks for your forfeit.”
She dipped in a curtsy that was almost too controlled, as though she had constructed it solely to hide the fact that she was as undone by the moment as he was.
The room erupted into applause and delighted cheers.
Miles heard none of it.
His heartbeat was still too loud in his ears. His breath unsteady. His thoughts utterly impossible to reorder.
He had kissed Lady Jillian Hale.
And far worse—infinitely worse—was the truth he could not deny:
He wanted to do it again.
He turned sharply, regaining his seat with stiff-backed precision while the aunts murmured delightedly and the Hartingtons glared with enough venom to poison the mistletoe garlands. The noise of the room reassembled itself around him, but he felt suspended slightly above it, caught in the aftermathof a moment that, by all rational measure, should not have mattered.
But it mattered.
He felt it in the strange tightness in his chest. He felt it in the warmth lingering against his lips. He felt it in the startling thought that traveled, unwelcome, through his mind:
What might that kiss have become had it not been interrupted?
He exhaled slowly.
Dangerous thoughts.
Very dangerous.
Miles straightened his posture, clasped his hands, and told himself sternly that the entire ordeal had been a manipulation of circumstance—an accident of an absurd game, nothing more. But he could not shake the awareness that something had shifted between them. Something real. Something he had no intention of acknowledging and every intention of avoiding.
Unfortunately, avoiding Jillian Hale was fast becoming impossible.
And desire—true desire—was the most treacherous opponent he had ever faced.
Chapter
