The only words that made sense rose within her, begging to be spoken aloud. Foolish words. Words she may later regret. But she was beyond the point of caring. She set the pages she’d collected aside, somewhere strewn atop Mr. Kirkwood’s desk. And then she linked her arms around his neck, turning her face up toward his, her eyes dipping to his lips, so full and sensual, so kissable.
Hers.
That mouth was hers.
For tonight, even if it was now and then never again. She did not care. She would gladly pay any price for this one chance to sin with him.
“Then kiss me, Mr. Kirkwood.”
*
With pleasure.
He could not be certain if he spoke the words or if he thought them. All hewascertain of was that he was going to seize her offering. Duncan tarried not a moment more. The instant the invitation had been issued from her gorgeous lips, he had gone mindless.
Every intention he’d had to keep a respectable distance between them vanished, replaced by his mouth on hers. Kissing her was a horrid idea. Altogether wrong. He endangered his opportunity for vengeance with each reckless moment of abandon, and yet he could not help but to want more.
Her lips parted for his questing tongue. She sighed into his mouth. Lady Frederica Isling tasted sweet and dangerous all at once, a thousand times more delicious than the forbidden fruit that was responsible for man being banished from the Garden of Eden. The Bible verses came to him now as he kissed her with all the driving need inside him. Voraciously. Ferociously.
For dust you are and to dust you will return.
He would gladly be the dust for this woman. She was a confusing clash of innocence and an inclination to sin, of womanly curves and male attire, of nonsensical stories and soul-jarring clarity. She was temptation incarnate, it was undeniable.
His hands were on her, moving from the desk to slide beneath her coat. His palms found her arse, and it was high and full, soft yet firm. He squeezed gently, catching her lower lip between his teeth and giving her a gentle bite. She made a startled exhalation that ended on a breathy sound of need he felt in his ballocks.
He forgot she was an innocent. The daughter of a duke. The means by which he could achieve the one goal driving him since his youth. He lifted her, setting her atop his desk, not giving a proper damn what papers she sat upon. They were either covered in her flowery script or marked by his rigid scrawl, and he did not care if they blotted out every word in the English language with their lovemaking as long as he could keep her here and ravish her to his liking.
And ravish her, he would. As far as he could go whilst leaving her innocence intact. She never should have told him to kiss her. Never should have bloody well invaded his territory from the first, pretending to be her brother, dressing as a man, inventing preposterous stories that only made him want her more. Because now he could not stop.
He inhaled violets and dragged his lips down her throat. The cravat had to go. Duncan kept one hand on her waist, her heat and curves tantalizing him even through the twin layers of her waistcoat and shirt. With his left hand, he plucked open the knot on her neck cloth—not even a passable Mathematical—and tossed it to the floor, leaving the smooth skin of her throat open for his exploration.
“Oh,” she whispered, her hands landing upon his shoulders, her fingers digging into his flesh when he licked the place where her pulse gave her away. “You should not have untied that knot. I need to reuse the dratted thing.”
“You ought not to return here,” he felt compelled to warn against her skin, even as he licked her again. She tasted different here, flowery with a slight tinge of salt. The best damn thing he had ever tasted, including any miracle Lavoisier had ever managed to whip together. “Can you not see, Lady Frederica? Coming here the first time was a mistake. Returning? Sheer folly.”
She gasped when the hand on her waist traveled slowly along her curves until he found the buttons of her waistcoat and undid each one. But she said nothing. Offered nary a hint of protest. Her fingers dug into his muscles, spurring him onward, it seemed. Heat rushed through him, the desire rising as fast and furious as a flood, sweeping away all else. Nothing remained—no caution, no conscience, no honor—nothing but the way she responded to him. Nothing but her delicious femininity awaiting his discovery.
But he wanted to pace himself. Wanted to go slowly for both their sakes. The pleasure between them could not be rushed. He kissed her ear, finding the soft lobe and taking it between his teeth before bringing his lips to the finely formed shell above it. “You stole my paper and ink, my lady, and you heaved my books to the floor.”
Yes, he had noticed the small evidence of her destruction. When he had first entered his office, he had been torn between irritation at her thorough purloining of his private office—sitting in his bloody chair, using his pen and ink and paper, tossing about his books—and immense satisfaction at the realization she was jealous of the time he had spent with Tabitha.
“Your man of business told me I was to make use of your office,” she protested on a throaty sigh when he ran his tongue along the dip behind her ear.
He nipped. Licked. Kissed.Beelzebub and hellfire, she was a feast and he could not stop partaking. “Did he also tell you to throw my books to the floor?”
She stilled, swallowed in a ripple he felt against his open mouth as he worked back down her throat. “No.”
“Were you jealous, my lady?” Beneath her waistcoat, nothing but the fine layer of her lawn shirt between their bare skins, he swept his hand over her in a caress that ended over her bound breasts. His thumb pressed until he felt the compressed bud of her nipple. Using his blunt nail, he raked over it once, twice, thrice. Until she arched against him, responsive as ever. “Tell me, is that why you desecrated my office?”
“Why should I be jealous, Mr. Kirkwood? I am merely conducting research,” she murmured, fingers digging into his shoulders a bit harder. “How…interesting it is to see the side of life denied to me as a gently bred female.”
He did not like her answer. Did not like that she still had the presence of mind to goad him and match him wit for wit. Something had changed between them from the moment he’d swept open the door to find her seated in his chair, at his desk. A primitive sense of possession had blossomed, and with it, a desperate need.
For her.
Only her.
Four days. That was how long he had known her. That was how long it had taken for her to put her mark upon him. It was ludicrous and laughable, and yet there it was. Duncan Kirkwood, a man who had belonged nowhere and to no one, was so enthralled by one eccentric duke’s daughter that he could not concentrate on his club or even his retribution.
