She drank in his breath, and it was sweet, with a hint of port. She couldn’t deny the unwelcome heat sliding through her and settling low in her belly. Undeniable, and thoroughly foolish. She was attracted to the Duke of Bainbridge.
The brother of her suitor.
A man she privately referred to as the Duke of Disdain.
The man who had just called her a wanton tart.
Before she could think better of it, she settled her upper lip into the seam of his, catching his full lower lip between her teeth. She nipped him. The breath hissed from between his parted lips, hot decadence to her senses.
A shock jolted through her like a current of electricity, sudden and dangerous. What was she thinking, biting the Duke of Bainbridge, regardless of how supple and sulky that lower lip of his was? Little wonder her mother and father despaired she’d ever make a decent match. But there was something about his arrogance that made her long to ruffle his feathers. He was so perfect. So dispassionate. So icy and rigid in his bearing and manner.
Before a further, coherent thought could form, his mouth moved, insistent, demanding. He kissed her as she’d never been kissed. As if he meant to consume her. As if he couldn’t get enough of her, his lips firming and claiming hers.
A growl tore from his throat. The hands on her waist tightened, and he yanked her into his chest so that her skirts crushed between them. The hard wall of his chest pressed against her breasts. His palm slid to her lower back as if it belonged there, forcing her closer. Another low sound of desire sounded between them, masculine and dark.
His tongue swept past her lips, smooth as wet velvet. This too seemed at once familiar and right. As though there was no act more natural than for her to stand in an Oxfordshire library and have her world as she knew it forever altered by his masterful kiss and knowing touch.
Her fingers slipped into his hair, those thick strands rich as chocolate and softer than any man’s ought to be. She raked her nails over his scalp, learning the curve of his head, relishing the intimacy and freedom. What was it about him that made her yearn to mark him as hers?
It didn’t matter. The kiss deepened. Her tongue touched his. He tasted as sweet and forbidden as she’d imagined he would. She sighed into his mouth, opened for him as he fed her kisses, owned her with his lips and tongue. Worshipped her. His hand splayed open, sweeping up her back, skimming the boning and laces of her corset, following her spine all the way to her bare neck. Here, he stopped.
The pads of his fingers brushed against her, drawing lazy, delicious circles that tantalized before tunneling into the elegant twists of braids her lady’s maid had fashioned earlier. Pins rained to the carpet. Plaits fell from her crown. More pins scattered. Bo didn’t care. Her every good intention fled, taking with it her common sense, intuition, and all her defenses.
She forgot about her book.
Forgot that she didn’t like this supercilious ice block of a man.
And she certainly forgot all about her promises to her sister Cleo that she’d endeavor to behave for the duration of the house party.
How could she think of anything but him? It seemed suddenly as if fate had led her to this moment. To this merciless onslaught of unexpected passion from Bainbridge. To his complete and utter dismantling of everything she’d thought she’d known. For she had never been properly kissed by any man before him, and she knew it now. This was no mere joining of mouths.
This was…
It was…
Transcendent.
Yes, that was the word her whirling mind wanted, a name for this wild burst of desire unfurling through her veins like honey on a summer’s day. Scorching, sweet, languorous. Her breath came in shallow bursts, and she was acutely aware of the kittenish noises emerging from her throat, of his scent and the way his chest rose and fell against hers, the way he hummed before tearing his lips from hers to drag them down her neck. The way he breathed her in, his fierce and hungry mouth on her skin as though he couldn’t possibly fill himself with enough of her.
“Witch,” he muttered as he found his way to the hollow behind her ear and licked.
Oh.
No one had ever done such a thing to her before, and now she wondered why. It made a frisson of something warm and potent shoot through her, settling between her thighs. She’d read enough illicit literature to know what it meant. She wanted the Duke of Bainbridge.
And the rigid length of him, prodding her stomach through his trousers and the layers of her corset and gown combined, told her that he wanted her too. Thanks to the book he’d thieved from her, she had a name for that particular marvel.
Tumescence.
He licked her again, drawing a moan from her. She wasn’t meant to be enjoying herself. She’d intended to distract him, fish her book from his jacket, and flee. That wicked tongue of his robbed her of thought. And the way he kissed. Lord in heaven, she never wanted to be kissed in any other fashion ever again.
But she ought to protest. Surely. After all, he had maligned her. Attempted to bribe her. He still held her book firmly inside his coat.
“Nodcock,” she whispered for good measure as he dragged his sinful mouth back down her throat. She couldn’t resist rubbing her cheek against his, relishing the scrape of his neatly trimmed beard. She inhaled deeply of his scent. How could one man, particularly a man as surly as the Duke of Bainbridge, smell so bloody good?
How unfair.
He didn’t seem to mind her insult. Quite the opposite, in fact, as he pressed into her with his tall, strong form. His hardness seemed more pronounced.Good. Heavens.Bo tried to squelch the fresh rush of desire her discovery created. She tried to recall the book she wanted to retrieve. He kissed along her décolletage, pausing at the swell of her left breast. This was madness, her conscience reminded her.
