She gulped and gripped the rung of the ladder at her shoulders. “Because you know the lessons I design for your niece and nephew will be more thorough.”
His laugh was a low rumble. “No, my little pragmatic schoolteacher. That’s not why I offered you full access to my collection.”
Jess could feel the heat flushing her neck and cheeks. “Then I’m sure your reasons were nefarious.”
He stalked closer, until he stood mere inches from the ladder, crowding her space. His thighs brushed against the rustle of her skirts when he placed his hands on the shelves and caged her in. “I’ve been dreaming of doing scandalous things to you while you’re perched on this ladder.”
“Scandalous things?” Jess hated how breathless she sounded.
“Scandalous things,” he repeated as his hand slid up her calf beneath the flannel petticoat.
“I thought we agreed to kisses.”
“This is a kiss, madam,” he said as he pressed his mouth to her knee.
He rubbed his knuckle against her skin and the ribbon securing her stocking. And then his lips feathered across her inner thigh.
“What are you doing?” She eked out.
“Kissing you. As we agreed. Are you brave enough to withstand it?” He asked against her thigh with a wicked smirk and eyes alight with laughter and challenge.
Jess had read of such things, but they’d seemed unimaginable. The scandalous etchings and poetry Arie shared with her sisters after her husband’s death had been titillating, but she hadn’t been able to visualize them until this man kissed her.
“Perhaps such kisses are a bit premature? Perhaps I’m not yet brave enough to withstand them?”
Something flickered in his gaze when he raised it to hers. If Jess hadn’t been so convinced he was a reprobate at heart, she would have called it guilt.
“Then I shall indulge my curiosity in other ways - until yours is as undeniable as mine.”
His fingers were on the buttons running down her back, swift and sure, before she had the chance to protest. Faster than she could blink, his deft touch was against her bare skin, sliding beneath the neckline of her dress to dip into her decolletage.
“I’ve dreamt of kissing you here as well,” he murmured as he pressed his mouth to the flushed skin above her cleavage. “And here,” he whispered against the cotton chemise stretched over the rise of her breasts. “And here,” he said as he tugged her dress to her waist and began unlacing her half-corset, pressing kisses along the path of the strings.
“These kisses seem premature as well,” Jess protested. She closed her eyes against the warmth of his breath on her skin. It was like the heat of the brazier against the soles of her feet on a cold night.
“They are not premature, they are an essential element of my strategy to disarm and disconcert you.”
“My reaction in the coatroom was an anomaly,” Jess insisted.
“Then this should not move you in the least,” he said as he dipped his head to her cotton covered left breast. He curved hispalm beneath it and lifted it closer, and then swirled his tongue around the tip.
Jess clenched the ladder so hard she was certain she’d have splinters as a reward. When he pulled the material tight she looked down and her nipple was like a rosebud under the nearly transparent cotton. She tilted her head back and let it rest against the ladder.
“Are you overcome with ardor, yet, dragonfly?”
“Speaking of dragonflies,” Jess answered. Perhaps if she talked about her studies she could focus on something besides his wicked mouth. “Did you know their vision is a complete three hundred and sixty degrees and it’s estimated they may have as many as thirty thousand lenses in their eyes?”
“Are you trying to distract me or yourself? I shan’t be distracted. If you feel the need to spout random facts in the middle of my seduction, I think it’s a sign you’re once again in danger of losing the wager.”
His lips closed over her breast once again, and he rolled the bead of her nipple against the roof of his mouth before he nipped it gently. His hand closed around the other one and tugged gently, until the abrasion of her dress against it nearly drove Jess mad. She clenched her teeth and nearly cried out when she bit her tongue as she tried to swallow a moan.
“I do not think you are unmoved, Jess Wainwright. Can you manage any more facts about your beloved insects without sounding short of breath?”
“The smallest dragonfly,” she paused to regulate her breathing, “has a wingspan of a mere seven tenths of an inch.”
“Go on,” he said as he pulled the ribbon loose from her chemise.
“Some entomologists believe dragonflies were flying about in the time of the dinosaurs.”
