“You sound like a long ago ancestor who lived in a cave.Sit,” she mimicked as she settled onto the boulder and gathered the Duchess’s voluminous cloak around her, her back to him.
His eye fell upon the exposed nape of her neck, her olive skin glowing ivory in the moonlight, delicate lines of tendon running below the surface up to the curved shell of her ear. His mouth went dry.
“I can’t have you skulking behind me all night,” she called over her shoulder without turning. “Sit.”
Percy smiled—he couldn’t help it—and against his better judgment, he sat.
Instantly, he knew it for the mistake it was. Sugary honeysuckle on a warm summer’s day reached out with its sweetness.
“What a lovely night,” she said. The group below began circling an area. They must have found the druidic stones they sought.
But Percy had little care for that scene, not when presented with the opportunity to study Isabel’s profile. It was worthy of the descriptorclassical, the sort one would find depicted on an ancient Greek coin. Long, patrician nose. Full, lush lips. Delicate, but firm chin. Hers wasn’t the simple beauty exhorted in tame Mayfair drawing rooms, but rather the wild, untamed beauty of a poem by the late Byron.
What was it he’d written?
She walks in beauty, like the night.
Of cloudless climes and starry skies.
That was the one.
After all these years, it seemed Percy’s poetic side hadn’t been entirely suppressed.
“Exquisite,” he found himself saying. He wasn’t speaking of Byron’s words.
It must have been the dark rasp in his voice that made her go still and then, very slowly, pivot to face him. Her eyes lifted to meet his and held, silently seeking, questioning. Movement at her lap drew his attention. She was removing her glove, methodically, finger by finger. Then her hand was reaching up and, before he took her intention, touching his right cheekbone, tracing along the scar gently as a feather.
“Was your war really such a lark?” Her melodious, low contralto rattled and warmed his insides.
“Was anyone’s?” he returned, his voice gone to gravel in his throat.
Unresolved pain flickered in her eyes, and all he wanted to do was take it away.
Instinctively, he understood that none of his actions from here would be guided by choice or reason. He took her hand and brought it to his lips, inhaling her sweet honeysuckle warmth as he kissed her palm. The breath hitched in her chest, but she didn’t pull away, instead swaying forward ever so slightly, enough for him to recognize surrender.
His lips trailed to the pulse point at her wrist, thin blue veins beating beneath his mouth. Unable to resist, he licked her, and she gasped.
“Shall I stop?” He didn’t know how he could, but he would.
Her hand broke from his grasp, and his gut sank to his feet. Then her fingers returned, feathering along his jaw, sliding around his neck, twining through his hair. She tugged him forward. Her mouth an inch from his, she whispered across his lips, “I think I would die.”
On a growl more animal than human, he took her face in both hands and claimed her mouth. Soft lips opened beneath his demand. She inhaled his breath on a quick gasp. That she’d taken any part of him inside her made his cock swell. He wanted all of him inside her.
One hand found the middle of her back to steady her as he pressed forward, his chest a hard contrast against the soft give of hers. His tongue began a slow, deliberate tangle with hers, and he slipped into carnality. She tasted of salt and sweet and woman.
A taste wasn’t enough. He wanted to ravish and devour every last inch of her with his mouth, with his body. Never had he been so hungry, sofamished, for a woman.
She moaned in the back of her throat, and a part of Percy’s brain that kept an eye out for his best interest knew that if he didn’t stop this kiss this instant, he might never be able to let this woman go. He would be irrevocably lost to his wickedness.
With great pain, he broke away from her, gasping for air. Her eyes flew open, alight with a confusion and a frustration that might match his own. “Lord Percival,” she whispered.
“Percy.”
She touched fingertips to kiss-crushed lips. If he didn’t know better, he might think this her first kiss given the fresh flush of her cheeks. But he did know better. Except . . . did he?
“You kiss like a—” He hesitated a heartbeat. “Virgin.”
Her gaze skittered away.
