He held her gaze. He did not move toward her; he waited.
Something inside her loosened then. The part of her that had been starved for gentle touch, for being wanted without being owned, took one clear, decisive step.
She went back to him.
Her hands found his coat again, and she rose on her tiptoes, closing the small distance between them. He met her halfway, his mouth capturing hers with greater surety, the question already answered.
The kiss deepened quickly, taking on an urgency that startled her almost as much as it thrilled her.
Heat surged through her and pooled low in her belly, making her tremble. His arms came around her, pulling her in, but not so tight that she could not break away if she chose to. The knowledge that she could made it easier not to.
She leaned back without thinking, seeking something to brace herself against. Her hips met the solid front of the pianoforte. The keys beneath them protested with a dissonant cluster of notes, a startled musical gasp that made her laugh against his mouth.
He laughed too, a low, rough sound that she felt rather than heard.
Eventually, their laughter dissolved into another kiss, more consuming than the first. Her hands slid upward, her fingersbrushing the warm curve of his neck where his cravat would normally sit. He had left it looser tonight.
A small, wicked satisfaction bloomed at the thought that she had been the one to disturb his careful order.
His mouth moved with greater urgency now, yet still he checked himself, drawing back for a heartbeat as if to be certain she wished to continue. Her answer was in the way she tipped her chin, in the way her fingers tightened, in the soft, helpless sound that escaped her when he returned to her.
The keys gave another protesting tune as their combined weight pushed the bench closer.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, a sensible voice remarked that she was behaving in a way that would give the ton sufficient fodder for a decade. The rest of her did not care. For the first time since her father died, she did not feel small or helpless. She feltchosen.
When at last she tore her mouth from Victor’s, it was because breathing had become a pressing necessity, not because her desire had faded. She pressed her forehead against his shoulder, her eyes closed.
“This is indecent,” she whispered.
“Sinfully so,” he agreed, his breath warm against her temple.
She should have stepped away then.
She did not.
They remained like that for a long moment, the only sound their uneven breathing and the soft mutter of the pianoforte’s strings still settling from their abuse.
At last, Victor drew in a slow breath and drew back, just enough to look at her properly.
“Night three,” he murmured. “I had intended it to be an examination.”
She managed a weak smile. “An examination? How unromantic.”
He smiled back. “I am not a romantic man.”
“And now?” she asked, her voice a little husky.
“Now, I find I have mislaid my sense,” he replied. “And I am not certain I wish to find it again this evening.”
Heat rose in her cheeks. She turned slightly so that her hip rested against the instrument rather than his body. The absence of his full warmth made her feel oddly bereft.
“You should not say such things,” she murmured.
“Why?”
“Because I might believe you.”
He considered that. “For tonight, believe that I am capable of being ruled by something other than arithmetic.”
