She did not need to say it twice. He cupped her face in his hands and settled his lips over hers. The kiss began slow. A subtle exploration, as if he had all night. A gentle pressure, a slant of his lips.
She sighed into his mouth and opened, rising on her toes to press her mouth against his. She wanted more. She did not want restrained or tender. She wanted powerful, possessive, demanding.
She wanted him to eat her up, just as he had said he would.
To pitch herself headlong into his flame and get burned.
Tonight, he tasted of brandy. His tongue played with hers and she was bold, running hers right back along his. She suddenly felt as if she could not get enough of him. As if he were not near enough. As if she could not kiss him long enough or deep enough.
Hunger and frenzy mingled, uniting to become one.
He broke the kiss, gazing down at her with a glittering, blue stare. “Am I still bothersome, love?”
“No,” she admitted, her lips tingling.
She was alive, the wickedness coursing through her undeniable. Hunger for this man. Need for him. Why did he have to be so dratted irresistible? So handsome and self-assured? How did he always know just what to say, precisely how to touch her?
Because he is a rake, cautioned Pragmatic Grace.
“Do you still want me to go?” he pressed.
It would seem he would not stop until he had her complete surrender.
And she was going to give it to him. Because how could she not? He had routed her so completely, made his way past all her defenses, torn down all the walls of reason she had built around herself until nothing else mattered.
Nothing but his kiss, his touch.
“I do not want you to go,” she confessed.
“Thank Christ,” he said, and then his lips were on hers again.
Some part of her knew she should put an end to this. Or at the very least ask him what his intentions were. She could not allow him to do the deed. To take her maidenhead. Kissing him was one thing…the rest was…
His fingers tunneled through her hair, tightening on her in a possessive hold and angling her head to accept the seductive onslaught of his kiss. He bit her lower lip. Desire rolled down her spine, pooled between her thighs in liquid heat.
The rest was…
Wonderful came to mind. Exquisite. Forbidden.
Everything she wanted.
He seemed to sense the torrent of emotion coursing through her because he tore his lips from hers once more. “You do not have to worry, Grace love. I will not make this betrothal inextricable.”
“Inextricable,” she repeated, her mind fuzzy and dazed, struggling to comprehend.
“I am not going to take your innocence,” he elaborated. “All I am going to do is give you pleasure.”
He was going to give her pleasure.
The beautiful man before her, Viscount Aylesford, unrepentant rake, arrogant lord, maddening, alluring, and everything she had never imagined she would want so desperately, had just announced his intent to give her pleasure.
“Yes,” she whispered.
And then she kissed him.
There was no question this time of who kissed whom, of who made the move first, of whose lips slammed upon the other’s. It was Grace this time, all Grace, and she did not even care. Everything else fell away. The curiosity she had been doing her best to ignore was back and it was bolder than ever.
It refused to be ignored.
