Decker did not like it. Not one whit.
Because he wasa complete lunatic, Decker was lurking in a darkened chamber, awaiting his prey. The ladies had withdrawn, leaving the gentlemen to their port at the conclusion of dinner. But he had no wish to exchange words with a passel of lords, especially not lords who were as insufferably self-righteous as the Earl of Huntingdon. It was a miracle the prick had even condescended to attend a dinner party being hosted by Sin, a man who had been a societal outcast until recently.
Besides, Decker could not be certain he would be able to avoid planting a fist in the bastard’s mouth. To say nothing of Quenington, who had been eying Jo like a pie he longed to devour every time Decker had glanced in his direction.
He had taken a gamble in excusing himself from the gentlemen after he had spied Jo heading to the lady’s withdrawing room. Alone. Still, it was a gamble he was willing to make.
Especially when the reward came back into view.
He was probably watching her with the same ravenous hunger Quenington had exhibited earlier, and though he hated himself, it did not stop Decker from striking when she neared his hiding place. He stepped out of the chamber, slid his arm around her waist, clamped one hand over her mouth to stifle any cry of surprise she might make, and yanked her into the room with him.
He closed the door quietly behind them, and then spun them as one, not stopping until her back was against the door.
“No hollering,” he warned her,sotto voce. “It is me.”
Her lips were deuced soft beneath his bare palm. Her breath was hot and moist. Grounding his molars, he removed his hand.
“Decker!” she gasped his name, outrage seething in her voice. “What in heaven’s name are you doing?”
Excellent question. Making a fool of himself? Possibly. But when had that ever stopped him before when it came to this woman? The answer was simple, pitiful.
Never.
“Garnering a moment alone with you after suffering through three hours of dinner party hell. What does it look like?” he grumbled.
Had she truly believed he would pass at the opportunity to have her within his grasp after having watched her all evening from afar?
“I have no idea what anything looks like,” she shot back. “You hauled me into an unlit chamber. It is darker than ink in here.”
Admittedly, his choice of location had not been ideal. However, there was something about having Jo in his arms in the black-as-pitch darkness that honed all his senses to a heightened state of awareness and had his cock twitching to life.
Right.Who was he fooling? His cock was always hard when he was in her presence, and it had nothing to do with the darkness. It had everything to do with her, and this damned obsession of his.
Decker was no stranger to obsessions; however, in the past, his compulsions had always been limited to pictures, paintings, works of art. He had to have them, and then he hung them on his wall, and the fierce need was gone. Because they had been claimed. They were his.
“I wanted to speak to you,” he told her then, unable to keep his hands from traveling from her waist, up the small of her back. “You were too busy having your little tête-à-tête with Huntingdon for me to get in a word at dinner.”
“You were too far away from me,” she protested coolly. “If I had wanted to speak to you, I would have been required to holler.”
She was not wrong.
But he was still frustrated at having been seated so damned far away from her, and neither did he like the stiffness in her form, the ice in her voice. “You would not have had to pay the blighter so much attention, however.”
Her hands settled upon his chest, neither pushing him away nor drawing him nearer. “Do you mean in the same fashion you were hanging upon Lady Helena’s every word?”
Hmm. How intriguing.
He found the silken skin of her nape, caressing her there. “Were you envying Lady Helena?”
“No,” she snapped quietly. “I was enjoying my conversation with Lord Huntingdon.”
Stubborn creature.
“He was looking at you as if you were dessert,” he groused before he could think better of the words. “I thought he was already betrothed to someone…a Lady Melissa…or was it Amelia?”
Blast, but those words revealed too much. He knew it the moment they left his tongue. They seemed to hang there, between them, alive with meaning.
“Decker,” she said, a smile in her voice. “Never tell me you were jealous tonight of the Earl of Huntingdon.”
