‘If you do not desire me enough to kiss me, I shan’t take offence.’
‘It isn’t that,’ Thorn huffed out, and part of Hypatia relaxed, not that she would’ve been truly offended. She’d found many persons were democratic to say the least when offered certain intimacies, however, not everyone was thus. ‘It’s only… You caught me off-guard, and I’ve never kissed someone on command.’
‘I do not command you now, sir.’
‘I think the proper form of address ismy lord,’ he commented with a grin, relaxing. ‘And I’m afraid, Miss Hypatia Quincy, you’re rather mistaken. For you do.’
Before she could entirely decipher his meaning—not that it wasn’t patently clear, however, the implication, that she, Hypatia Quincy, could command such another being within a few minutes of meeting them was patently unfathomable—he’d scrunched inwards to lower himself, slid an arm around her waist, and pulled her into himself, as his lips descended unto hers.
Given the certainty, confidence, and admitted rapidity of the movement, some part of Hypatia expected the kiss that followedto be on the more roguish, passionate and sweeping scale—the sort one read about in books when handsome pirate captains ravished lost maidens. However, though there was cheekiness, passion, and quite a lot ofsweeping off her feet, the kiss which followed was nothing like what she’d expected, in the best way.
It was tender, questing, and simple. A teasing, a slow sort ofhello, let us get to know each otherkiss. Her hands found their way, and stability, resting on his arms, just below his shoulders, where she could feel every muscle and sinew move and tense beneath the layers of fabric. Breathing into her, he relaxed as she did into the kiss, a simple dance of the lips slowly becomingmore. Teeth nipping, tongues seeking and finding—for mere seconds before retreating. Fingers brushed along her arm, then below her ear, and her cheek, as the kiss deepened, and liquid heat and pleasure spread through her veins; warm breezes and lazy brooks waking the land after a long winter.
There was comfort in him, in the kiss, that she hadn’t expected; that same natural ease, the instinctual moulding of herself within his sphere, the pleasantness of his taste and scent—notes of all the best things in life in both, from the ripest sun-touched berries to the sea winds she’d never smelt but that gulls carried on their wings when they came to visit inland.
Someone moaned, or perhaps they both did, and grips tightened, and—
‘Patty!’
Blast and damn and hell.
‘Patty!’
Groaning her annoyance, she peeled away from Thorn, his reluctance making itself known—and warming her heart even more than it already was—by his arm remaining around her, as he tried to clear the desire from his eyes.
‘My sister,’ she explained, and there was that single-lined frown again.
‘She calls youPatty?’ Hypatia nodded, and he released her slowly, pouting his disgust. ‘Appalling does not even begin to cover my thoughts on that sin.’
‘An opinion I wholeheartedly share, unfortunately I must go before she finds me. Here. Thus. With you.’
A nod, and Thorn slowly released her, though not before placing some of her errant curls back into place—a useless task, really, particularly considering no one would ever consider their disorder a result of such activities as she’d been partaking in—and finally running his thumb along and around her lips, as if to cleanse them of any traces of their kiss, which was disappointing, and yet dangerously seductive. As was the thing he did next, which made her insides jolt, and told her in no uncertain terms, that she’d rather underestimated the rogue, and deliciously dangerous nature of this particular man.
He placed his thumb into his mouth, and savoured the remnants of themselves upon it as though it were a taste of the finest ambrosia.
‘Your verdict then, Miss Quincy? Find you my taste as abideable as I do yours?’
‘Yes.My lord.’
Thorn grinned—or perhaps it was a self-satisfied smirk—either way, it too was dangerous, and thrilling, and made her smile brightly.
‘Patty!’
‘I must go.’
‘Until we meet again, at our wedding, Miss Quincy. Thank you for a most—perhapsthemost—intriguing and strange evening of my life.’
‘Until then, goodnight.’
And with that, though she dearly wanted nothing more than to remain there, perhaps always, for the oddness, beauty, simplicity, and strangeness of those minutes she no longercounted, Hypatia scampered off back into the maze of hedges, heading for her sister’s voice.
‘Patty, where are you!’
Here, for now, though not for long, if tonight brings all it promised.
Especially an end to being called Patty.
Well, perhaps not especially.
