She rounded a corner. He could have—and should have—stopped then if he’d known how, but he didn’t.
Temptation glided ahead of him, and he couldn’t turn away.
Though the corridor was carpeted, she must have heard him, because she turned her head to look at him over her shoulder. She gave a little laugh and broke into a run.
Then he became aware of the staircase looming ahead and a chair against the opposite wall and a table beyond that, with a great china dragon standing on it—and scores of obstacles elsewhere. If she tripped and fell against the table, the dragon would fall on her head.
“Zoe, stop!” he called.
She stopped abruptly, dropping the train. She started to turn, lost her balance, and tottered toward the stairs.
He lunged toward her and pulled her upright and dragged her away from the stairs.
He pushed her against the nearest wall, solid and safe, and tried to calm himself.
Impossible. His heart was racing, churning with panic and anger and desire everlastingly put off.
Red garters and stockinged legs and the memory of her hands on him and the taste of her mouth and the scent of her skin. In his mind he saw her as she was long ago, galloping away, never to return. He saw her as she was yesterday, in his arms, yielding and eager and curving and soft and turning the cool spring day into summer.
“Don’t, don’t, don’t,” he said. He didn’t know what he was saying. Nothing made sense. But she was here, and he could feel her breath on his face. He could hear her inhale-exhale, fast and shallow, like his. He was aware of the rustle of silk and the gown billowing about him, a silken, feminine cloud.
“Damned hoops,” he said. Then his mouth was on hers and she gave way instantly, her lips parting to his, her hands reaching up into his hair. To hold him.
As though there was any danger of his running away.
He’d never run away. It was always she.
He had her now, though, and all the balked lust of yesterday exploded into life at the first taste and touch. Their kiss was deep and wild, nothing civilized about it at all, but he was worlds away from civilization at this moment.
He broke away from her mouth to press his face into her neck and drink in the scent of her while his hands slid over the silk and lace encasing her. He was heatedly aware of her hands moving over him. She wasn’t afraid to touch. She wasn’t afraid to explore his body. Far from it. Her hands stole under his coat and waistcoat, and dragged over the front of his shirt. Then those restless hands moved behind and lower, to grasp his buttocks and press him closer. She rubbed herself against him.
He slid his hands over the silk and ruffles and the frustrating layers between them. He wanted skin, but the dress entranced him. The silk draped over the hoops was the most sensuous and seductive of traps, yielding to the pressure of his hands and billowing up again when he released them.
He grasped a fistful of silk and ruffles and lifted up the front of the dress. The silk and lace whispered against his coat sleeve while he reached under and his fingers slid over her stocking and upward, to pause on a garter.
Red.
No drawers.
His hand stole upward, to skin.
She moved against his hand. He trailed his finger upward, to the junction of her thigh.
“Oh,” she said.
She was so soft in that softest of places.
“Oh.” She squirmed against his hand.
Then, “Oh!” she said, and pushed him away. Hard.
So hard that he dropped the front of her dress and stumbled backward.
Then he heard the approaching footsteps.
It was then that he came to his senses—or as close as he could get. He looked down in despair at the incriminating evidence: his cock standing at attention, a great bulge straining at the flap of his breeches.
He bent down and made a show of helping her gather up her train. He was explaining the most efficient way of carrying it when her father rounded the corner and stalked toward them.
