Because otherwise, he would not be a notorious rake.
“I could release you,” he murmured, his gaze settling on her lips. “Or I could keep you just where you are. And that seems far more pleasing to me at the moment, Pru, I must confess.”
It did to her as well, but that was the problem. She liked this man too much. And liking him would lead her only down the wrong garden path. The irony was not lost on her.
“Youshouldrelease me,” she managed to say thickly.
Her mind was waging war with the rest of her. Because her mind knew everything about lingering here in the maze with Lord Ashley, out of sight of her sister and the duke, was dangerous. It was like an invitation to sin.
Much like the man himself.
“I should,” he agreed, making no move to do so, the scoundrel. “But much like you were tempted by that ribbon, I am tempted to steal what should not be mine.”
She swallowed hard. “I am not for sale.”
“Nor are you for me,” he said softly, his stare intense upon hers. “Still, I cannot seem to resist you, Pru. I should not want to kiss you again, either. But I do.”
His admission sent a wave of heat crashing over her from the inside out, chasing the cold of the snow and the frigid air. Chasing everything but the man before her, the tantalizing promise of his lips on hers once again. Had she ever wanted anything more?
If she had, she could not recall it.
“That is against the rules of proper courting,” she whispered.
But she made no move to extricate herself from his embrace either. Because she liked being precisely where she was. She liked the way his tall, lean body fitted against hers. The way he stood a head above, the way he looked down at her as if she were something he desperately longed to devour.
This man was bad, and she liked it.
“I am beginning to suspect that proper courting is a deadly bore,” Lord Ashley said then, tipping his head toward hers. “Just as I always thought it was. There are far more interesting ways to spend one’s time, Pru.”
“Oh?” She wetted her lips.
They were icy and yet aflame. She was cold and yet hot. She did not want him and yet she did. It was such a confusing dichotomy, rolling through her. Overpowering her in a way she had never before experienced. Rather like an unexpected storm.
“Oh, yes,” he said, that wicked mouth of his twitching into a scoundrel’s grin of sensual promise.
But before he could kiss her as she so desperately longed for him to do, the sound of Christabella’s and Coventry’s laughter reached them, along with the shuffle of their feet through the snow. It was a warning both she and Lord Ashley heeded.
They sprang apart just as their siblings appeared, snow-covered and giggling.
“That was the best snowball fight I have ever had,” Christabella declared.
“It was the only one I have ever had,” Coventry muttered, looking suddenly bemused.
Pru swept toward her sister. “Amusing diversion though it was, it would not do for either of us to linger here in the cold.”
Linking her arm through her sister’s before anyone could protest, Pru practically hauled her from the maze.
