“All my fault?” The outrageous man! Hemusthave struck himself silly. “You are the one who arrived at dinner in his cups and then proceeded to drown himself in wine and follow me into the lady’s withdrawing room. This is, indisputably,yourfault, my lord.”
But then, the rest of his words gradually permeated her mind. He had recognized she had not been wearing a corset on the day she had gone to meet Lord Algernon at his bachelor’s residence. And he had been thinking about it, apparently. And he had kissed her, just yesterday.
And his gaze, at this moment, had slipped to her lips once more.
She licked them instinctively.
He groaned again, and beneath her, she detected an unmistakable ridge. A prominence she had read about in the books she had thieved from Shelbourne’s collection. Her breath caught. She inhaled swiftly, and a rush of corresponding warmth slid through her, slow and molten. Could it be that he was not as unaffected by her as he pretended? That he did not, in fact, think of her as he would a sister?
Yes, said the wicked voice inside her.Huntingdon desires you.
“My weakness is your fault,” he countered, his hands sliding up her spine, fingers sinking into the careful upsweep of her coiffure.
His fingertips skimming over her scalp elicited a frisson of pleasure. She never wanted him to stop touching her.
“How?” she asked, breathless. Need for him rose like a tide. “You are your own man. I have done nothing more than attempt to free myself of the unwanted betrothal my father is forcing upon me.”
“Because you are so damned beautiful, and I should not want you, but I cannot help myself.”
His guttural admission pierced her heart like an arrow. Warmth sluiced over her. She became more aware of her position atop him, his big body beneath her, the pulsing evidence of his desire pressed to her hip.
Helena stilled. So did the world, it seemed. “Huntingdon,” she began, searching for the proper words.
What to say? What to ask him? Had she completely lost her senses? Could it be that this man desired her in the way she longed for him?
“Shut up,” he said, and then he pulled her head down toward his.
Their lips met, fused, and she was lost.
Bloody, bloody hell.
He had done his damnedest to give the bottle a black eye today. Never had he ever acted with such recklessness, such disregard for himself, for his hosts, for those around him.
But as Helena’s sweet mouth moved over his, kissing him back with every bit as much fervency, he could not muster the proper amount of regret. Indeed, not just the requisite sum of regret, but none.
Not a modicum of it.
All he could feel was relief. And desire. Fierce, overwhelming desire.
He cupped her head—even the shape of it was ideal, perfectly molded to his hands, and held her to him when she would have withdrawn. Because she wanted this every bit as much as he did. He could feel it in the eager response of her lips. He felt it in the bone-deep connection, the way their bodies melded together.
A realization hit him.
Struck him with the force of an unexpected blow.
He wanted her, as always. But he was not certain, now that he had tasted her lips and held her in his arms, that he could continue tamping down the need to have her. Resisting her, clinging to his honor and restraint, grew fainter, much like the stars of the night’s sky as the sun rose on the dawn.
I am in my cups. This is wrong. Tomorrow, I will regret this.
And yet, he could not seem to stop. Even with the layers of their garments between them, there was an undeniable rightness to the way their bodies fit together. But he wanted to be atop her. It was a base urge, elemental. One he could not deny himself.
Later, he could blame his actions upon the blow to the back of his head—still smarting—when they had fallen as one. Later, he could appease his sense of honor with the knowledge he would never pin Lady Helena Davenport to the floor of the lady’s withdrawing room and have his way with her unless he had struck himself dumb.
But those insistences would be lies for the benefit of his conscience.
Because he was insensate to anything but his need for her, raw, uncompromising, all-consuming. He rolled them as one, without breaking their kiss. Slowly. Tenderly. Until she was the one on her back, and he was leveraging his body over hers, his tongue dipping between her lips to tangle with hers.
Lemon and bergamot filled his head.
