Her mouth remained stubbornly closed, her eyes mutinous.
“Come now, my love, we’re amongst friends,” he cooed. “Why deny yourself?”
And he realized with no small amount of bewilderment that he wanted this—to feed her.
He’d never fed a woman in his life.
A tense beat of time ticked past.
At last, she relented—and opened her mouth.
He felt the pull of a wicked smile as he slid it inside. She bit down. Unable not to, he watched her chew and swallow.
Then he noticed… “You have a smudge of jam just…” Without thinking, he reached out and pressed his thumb to the corner of her mouth. “Here.”
And that would’ve been the end of it.
Except her tongue had the same idea.
So, in the instant he swiped, she did, too—and licked him.
Her tongue slick and soft against his thumb.
There was nothing soft about the lightning bolt of desire that streaked through him straight to his cock.
The moment stretched the limits of a single second as their gazes held, knowledge within, knowledge of each other…
“Oh, you must tell us the story of how you met,” exclaimed Mrs. Shaw. “I’m certain it’s incredibly romantic.”
Beatrix dropped her gaze and turned her head subtly enough so his thumb no longer had an excuse to touch her. “It’s not a terribly fascinating story,” she said, quelling. She glanced toward the sky. “The clouds are beginning to look a little fearsome. Maybe we should go?—”
“As usual, my sweet Bea is being too modest.” He saw what she was trying to do and wasn’t about to let her. “We met in Hyde Park.”
Mrs. Shaw shifted forward, already rapt. “Oh?”
“In a rainstorm.”
Mrs. Shaw looked ready to swoon.
“She’d turned her ankle.” He decided it best to leave out the part where he’d nearly run her down with his horse, thereby causing said turned ankle.
“Oh, dear.”
“In fact, this ankle here…” Guided by impulse, he reached down to where Beatrix’s legs were folded to the side of her bodyand traced his forefinger along her boot and up to her slender ankle.
In a more formal setting, it would’ve been shocking. but Dev thought with the right charming smile curving his mouth he could just get away with it.
With that swipe of the tongue across the pad of his thumb, she’d sparked a match to flame inside him and he was powerless against adding kindling to the fire.
He needed to touch her.
“Then what happened?”
“Well, as you may have noticed, my sweet Bea has a stubborn streak the length and width of the Atlantic Ocean?—”
“Don’t forget the depth, my darling,” said Beatrix with a sugary smile.
“But I was able to convince her to ride my mount.”
