“Johanna McKenna,” he said softly, his gaze roaming her face, committing it to memory. “You are a special woman. Your gift is not just your beauty or your talent as an actress, but your heart as well.”
He splayed his other, free hand over her chest atop her thumping life-source. Her heart was beating fast. But so was his. Every interaction between them had led to this moment. To this breath. To this touch.
He wanted her so much, he ached with it. Need was a ravaging beast inside him, pulsing through his blood. His cock was hard and he had not kissed her yet.
“Do not say things like that to me,” she returned, squeezing their interlaced fingers. “You will make me fall for you even more, and I already know what is happening between us is not meant to be. It will make the inevitable end so much more difficult.”
Everything within him railed against the notion of an end for them.
Inevitable?
He thought not.
But then, he remembered all the obstacles in their path. The dynamite she had smuggled into England, the connection to Fenians, his duty to the Home Office, the untenable position in which he now found himself, falling beneath the spell of the woman he had been meant to use. And he could not deny what she had said.
“You cannot fall for me any more than I have already fallen for you,” he said instead, the admission torn from him.
Her heart was still beating a rapid staccato against his palm.
Her lips parted as she stared up at him. “You are falling for me? A duke, falling for an actress? Surely such a thing is not done in your society, Felix. Do not give me cause to hope when I cannot. I am not ignorant of the ways of the world. I can warm your bed, but I can never warm your heart.”
“You can,” he insisted, “because you already have.”
“Felix,” she murmured, a protestation.
“Johanna, I want you more than I have ever wanted another woman since my wife.” He stopped and swallowed against the knot of a rising tide of emotions he could not bear to face.
She stared at him, searching his face and his gaze for he knew not what. But whatever she wanted, whatever she needed to know, it was there and it was true. He had meant every word he had spoken.
Tonight had nothing to do with duty or obligation, not with the Home Office, not with Fenians or Drummond McKenna, not a bloody thing to do with dynamite or danger or fear. It was, entirely, about a man and a woman. Felix and Johanna.
And that was all.
“Kiss me,” she demanded.
“With pleasure,” he growled, yanking her the rest of the way into his body.
His lips were on hers as the last syllable left him. She made a sweet sound low in her throat, and then somehow, her hands were in his hair and his were in hers. Heavy, silken strands teased his fingers as he tunneled through her golden curls. His tongue was in her mouth. Hers was writhing against his.
Desire licked through him, running down his spine, settling in his groin. His ballocks were drawn tight, need a steady throb pulsing to life more and more with each kiss, each caress.
Their kiss deepened until it was less an act of wooing and more an act of sinful carnality. They were well-matched in their desperation, their mouths moving as one. Harder. More insistently. Open and hungry. He bit into the lush fullness of her lower lip. She nipped him back.
Their hands were traveling, exploring. He found the loosely tied knot on the belt of her dressing gown, and she seemed to discover his at the same moment. He felt his robe loosening, then gaping as the twain ends of her dressing gown went slack. Needing to see her, he broke the kiss, then watched with awe as he slid the fabric from her shoulders.
It fell away, pooling on the floor.
She was not wearing a nightdress beneath it.
Which meant…
Good Lord.A wave of desire so forceful it almost dragged him to his knees washed over him. She was a miracle of creamy curves. Her breasts were high and full, tipped with hard, pink nipples. Her hips were lush, her legs deliciously bare, bereft of stockings or garters. Golden curls shielded her mound from his view at the apex of her thighs, but he recalled the slick heat of her on his fingers, her sweet taste, and he wanted more.
She had prepared for him, he realized.
She had stripped herself of every piece of her attire save the dressing gown.
And she was glorious. Even more beautiful than he could have imagined—though imagined he had, every night since the first day they had crossed paths. He did not know which part of her he wanted to worship first. She had a mole, a tantalizing beauty mark, perfectly round, on her right breast. It mesmerized him, and he thought he might begin there.
