Jealous? Decker?
Fuck.Yes, he was jealous.
“You scarcely glanced in my direction,” he said, fully aware he sounded like a petulant child, and damn well feeling like one too.
He was not accustomed to being ignored.
“I did enough to take note of all the smiles you were sending Lady Helena,” she countered, her fingers gliding over his chest in slow, maddening strokes.
“I was distracting myself from the torture of being seated so far away from you,” he admitted like a complete fool.
“Did you miss me?” she whispered.
“Every bloody second since I saw you last,” he breathed.
He had to kiss her. Now.
One dip of his head, unerringly, even in the darkness, and he sealed his mouth over hers. Her fingers tightened on his waistcoat, drawing him nearer. Orange blossom and the seductive scent of woman filled his nostrils. He told himself to go slowly, tenderly.
But the moment her lips parted, the already-frayed reins of his control snapped. He sucked her lower lip into his mouth, then nipped. She moaned. Everything else faded away—the dinner party, their fellow guests nearby, the real possibility of discovery at any moment.
All that remained was desire and the woman in his arms. Each time he held her, she felt more like home than the last. Stupid, this affinity he shared with her. Reckless. Savage and wild, too. Impossible to stop.
Runaway locomotive, barreling down the line—that was what Decker became as he sank his tongue into her mouth. Her tongue rubbed against his in sinuous seduction. She tasted of chocolate and raspberries from the dessert course. He pinned her to the door, without thought, without compunction, and ravaged her mouth with kisses.
She clawed at him like a ferocious wild cat. His hands were all over her, memorizing the curve of her breast, the softness of her throat, her waist, her silken hair. This time, he restrained himself and just narrowly avoided plucking at her hair pins. Some faint part of his brain recalled they were at a social function, that this could not go on, and that if she returned to the drawing room looking as if she had been thoroughly ravished, tongues would wag.
But for now, this moment, he had her right where he wanted her. Her gown was crushed between them, and he had never been more tempted to lift a woman’s skirts and plunge into her cunny than he was now. His heart pounded and his cock ached with thwarted lust.
You cannot take her against a door.
No, he could not. And so he kissed her instead. He staked his claim upon her. Kissed her until they were both as desperate for more as they had been the night before. And then, a noise in the hall—voices—gradually filtered through the fog of desire hazing his mind.
He forced himself to stop.
To release her.
Decker took a step in retreat, and slammed straight into the punishing edge of a table. He bit his lip to stifle the howl of surprised pain that threatened to be unleashed.Fucking hell, that hurt!The next time he hauled Jo into a chamber, he would make certain there was a goddamn lamp lit within it.
The next time?
Your time is limited with her, arsehole.
“Decker?” she whispered hesitantly. “Have you injured yourself?”
“Do not worry,bijou,” he returned, rubbing his aching rear where the offending table had bit him. “My arse does not hurt nearly as much as my cock does.”
Or my ego.
He ought not to have spoken with such vulgar familiarity with her, and he knew it. But she was the one who wanted to be wicked, was she not? Besides, he had already said far worse to her, and he had shown her his collection of erotic art.
“Shall I rub it for you?” she asked.
Decker almost swallowed his tongue. His prick twitched.
“My arse or my cock?” he could not resist querying, his voice hoarse and thick with lust.
Good God, she could rub both for him. Either. And never stop.
