Yet, as he drank in the sight of Miss Christabella Winter, and as he felt her so vital and luscious in his arms, he could think of nothing but her.
“Only you,” she said then. “If you wish it, of course. I thought it would help us both, you see.”
“Help us?” Somehow, his hand was traveling up and down her spine, stroking her. Bringing her closer. “How?”
“We shall both of us be the better for our practice.” She grinned.
Her hands remained on his shoulders, resting there. He liked the weight of them, so small and dainty. Liked the way her face tipped back to accommodate for his greater height. Liked those delicious freckles on her nose. Liked her proposal. These kisses she suggested.
“Practice,” he repeated, turning the word over in his mind.
It made sense. If he were able to properly kiss a woman, perhaps he would fare better in his mad quest to obtain a wealthy wife. How was he to compete with charming rakehells like his brother if he could neither speak to a lady nor show her his intent in other fashions? Ash said the fairer sex adored kissing.Everywhere, the rascal had said, grinning triumphantly.
Somehow, he thought of kissing Miss Winter. Everywhere. From the tip of her nose, to her sweet lips, to her smooth throat, all the way to her full breasts until he found his way to his knees, and from there he would lift her skirts and press his face between her thighs…
Curse it, such thoughts were ill becoming, and he knew it.
Gill was not ignorant of what passed between a man and a woman. He was merely incapable of performing it. His brother had brought London’s most famed courtesan to him, and still, the affliction had returned, striking with a vengeance. The memory served as a bitter reminder that even if he now held Miss Winter in his arms and the notion of practicing kisses with her beckoned like the beacon of a lighthouse to a ship in distress off shore, the affliction could seize him at any second.
Rendering kisses and practice and everything else impossible.
“Practice,” Miss Winter was saying now, her bright gaze firmly on his lips. Her voice was a seductive rasp. “Yes, we shall be a boon for one another. It is the perfect plan.”
He could not think of a moreimperfectplan.
Gentlemen did not practice kissing ladies they had no intention of wedding.Devil take it, they did not practice kissing ladies at all. Only scoundrels did, and that was so they could find their way beneath said ladies’ skirts.
Gill needed to find a proper, wealthy bride.
He needed to turn his mind to accomplishing his task before the estates went into further ruin.
But Christabella Winter’s eyes were burning into his once more. And she was a decadent temptation in his arms. He could still speak, breathe, and move. It was rather a miracle, of sorts. Or perhaps she was. A temptation, for certain.
What would be the harm?asked that damned voice inside him.
One kiss.
That is all.
Or perhaps two. Three? Mayhap even four…
“Very well,” he found himself saying. “One kiss. For practice, you understand. Nothing more.”
She beamed.
His inner sense of caution returned like a smack to the face. “And pray, do not think to entrap me into marriage with kisses, Miss Winter. It will not happen.”
Her lips twitched, almost as if she were suppressing laughter. “You have no fear on that score, Your Grace. I am marrying a rake. Hence, the necessity of practice. I should hate to disappoint my future husband with the kisses of a tyro.”
Here, now.She was betrothed? That was certainly news. He had heard nothing of the sort.
Even so, something inside him was irreparably broken. Because the knowledge did nothing to relieve the uncomfortable state of his cock as it ought.
“I cannot think your husband would approve of you kissing another gentleman, even if he did not appreciate a neophyte,” he told her, giving her a frown.
Truly, the chit was incorrigible.
“Fortunately, he shall never know,” she said, confirming his deduction. “That is the beauty of kissing practice. It ispractice. For both of us. Just as my future husband will have no notion I ever learned how to kiss with the Duke of Coventry, your future wife will have no inkling your first kiss was with one of the wicked Winters.”
