She circled the button with her fingertip. The angle of his fall shifted. Colehaven might be holding himself as still as possible, but there was no hiding his arousal.
“I want to touch it,” she whispered.
A small groan escaped his throat.
“But I’m not going to,” she continued. “If we touch, we touch each other. We’re equals, or we’re nothing.”
He tilted his hips toward her palm as though to ask,doesthisfeel like nothing?
“Whatever freedoms you think you enjoy as an unwed gentleman,Ienjoy as an unfettered spinster. What I do with my time and my body is my business.” She ran her fingernails up his chest and lifted her parted lips to his. “I’ll share them when and how I see fit.”
The heat from his gaze melted her to her core.
She brushed her mouth against his. “Five minutes are up.”
“Thank God,” he snarled, and swung her against the closest tree.
Before she could so much as gasp, his hands were in her hair and his mouth slanted over hers.
This was no tepid, timid kiss between strangers. This was a claiming, raw and possessive. A demand for surrender.
She would not give it to him. She knotted her fingers in his hair and returned his kiss, passion for passion. Every lick, every nibble, every taste was a dance of fire, marking territory and losing ground as each grasp for control brought each of them closer to the precipice of surrender.
“I’m not yours,” she gasped between kisses.
He splayed his hands against her ribs, the pads of his thumbs rubbing indecently against the bottom of her bosom. “Right now, you are.”
“Careful,” she whispered, lowering one of her palms dangerously close to his tented fall. “If I’m yours, that makes you mine.”
“Then take what you want,” he growled. “I’ll do the same.”
His fingers cupped her breasts as he covered her mouth with his.
Pleasure emanated through her as he expertly teased her nipples. Pleasure, and an exquisite, torturous pressure building between her legs.
Intoxicated, she reached for his fall and thrilled to feel his hard heat pulse against her fingers. What would happen if she—
Music spilled into the garden.
“Are youmad?” giggled a female voice. “It’s freezing out here. Let’s go back to the ballroom.”
Diana and Colehaven jerked their hands off each other’s bodies.
“You bewitched me,” he whispered.
“You make me stupid,” she countered.
“Equals,” he muttered, and wrapped his arms about her to cradle her to his chest.
His heart was beating just as rapidly as hers.
After a moment, he curved his hands about her arms and gently set her free.
“Go,” he commanded. “Whilst some presence of mind still remains.”
She frowned. “What are you—”
“I need another moment or twelve out in the cold,” he said wryly. “Youhave a guardian who might be turning this residence upside-down in search of you.”
