But the magic only intensified, pulling them closer together.
“Show me,” she said, daring to place her fingertips against the heat of his lapels. “What can those beautiful lips do?”
He answered with his body, rather than with words, angling his head closer, slowly, allowing her time to laugh and pull away and claim it had all been a game.
But she was no longer playing for points. She wasn’t playing at all. If she was about to have her first kiss, she wanted it to be him.
As his lips brushed hers, she felt herself falling back toward the bookshelves.
He caught her and pressed her to him, aligning their bodies indecently in the best possible way.
His lips were warm and firm and patient. But Priscilla didn’t want to wait. She wanted it all. No holding back. When she left, there would be no more kisses. But for now, could it not be an innocent indulgence like the letters they shared?
Perhaps not completely innocent, she allowed as she sank her fingers into the wild curls at his nape. One of his hands cupped her head, the other supported the small of her back. But she wasn’t going anywhere. Not yet.
He pulled his mouth from hers just long enough to ask, “What are your intentions with me, mademoiselle?”
“Carnal and dishonorable,” she answered, sliding her bosom against him as she rose up to bring her mouth next to his. “I’m a heartless rake who promises nothing and wants everything.”
His mouth curved into a wicked smile brimming with temptation. “Then let me give it to you.”
The next time he brushed his parted lips against hers, she parted hers as well. He tasted her mouth, her tongue, coaxing, giving, taking. If it weren’t for his arm about her waist and her hands twined about his neck, she could have swooned from the delectable sensations.
Except, no—she was far from swooning. With her heart galloping and her passions aflame, she had never felt more alive. This was life. This was adventure. Exploring the shape of his mouth, the taste of his tongue, the hardness of his muscles, the softness of his hair.
This wasn’t just a kiss. This was Thaddeus. She could no longer deny her feelings, if only to herself. Magic like this was something that could only be built together.
He was taking her to new peaks, showing her new climes. She had not known that a trail of kisses along the curve of her neck could be felt all the way to her core. She had not known about the sensitive spot behind the shell of her ear, or how the brush of his thumb against the side of her ribs would cause her nipples to—
“—library is just up ahead,” came a shrill voice from the corridor.
They flew apart, panting, their bodies still yearning to cleave back together.
Priscilla snatched the book on Africa off the shelf and hugged it to her breathless bosom.
“Go,” she whispered. “Before we’re seen together.”
He hesitated, then lifted a hand to her cheek. “If we were caught, I would have no problem with—”
“I would,” she interrupted, pulling away from his touch. “It can’t be more than kisses. I'm sorry.”
Chapter 8
It can’t be more than kisses.
Thad was trying very hard to return coherent greetings to all the friends he passed as he made his way through the Vauxhall pleasure gardens, but all he could think of were the last words Priscilla had spoken.
Kisses. Plural. That was a positive sign, was it not?
She had not said, “We’ll never repeat this” or “What was I thinking?” but rather seemed to imply that as long as he could content himself with clandestine kisses, Thad could have as many of them as he liked.
He very much liked. He could think of nothing else in the days since the Everett ball.
Their letters had not slowed in number, but of course made no mention of how it had felt to finally find themselves in each other’s arms. That was not the sort of missive Priscilla would wish intercepted by her grandmother, and if Thad were honest, scandal was not his first preference on how to visit the altar.
When he wed, it would be to a woman who chose him, not one who was forced to settle for him. Perhaps that meant Priscilla wasn’t the one.
He felt more entwined with her with each exchanged letter. Watching her sail off for Africa would wrench a heart-sized hole in his chest. But he would not force her to pretend something she did not feel. To accept a life she did not want. He would rather be lonely forever than ruin two lives with one marriage.
