“My basket is likely filling with water.”
He raised a brow, impassive as ever. “It has a lid.”
Her patience had been tested and stretched beyond its breaking point. Something inside her snapped.
“Did last night mean nothing to you, then?” she asked.
For it had, she could acknowledge to herself alone, meant a great deal to her. Nor had the reason been pleasure alone. It was him, as well. Theo, whose surname she didn’t even know, whose lips had taken hers with such tenderness and fierce hunger. Who had pulled her into his lap as if it were where she belonged. Who dared to make demands of her body and mind that she hadn’t allowed from anyone else in four long years.
“Last night,” he repeated, his voice low, and she felt it like a caress over her bare skin.
“Yes.” Warmth flooded her cheeks. “You know what I’m referring to.”
“Do I?”
“Of course, you do,” she bit out, frustrated, grasping handfuls of his lapels and tugging. “Don’t pretend as if you’ve forgotten. I trust I was the only woman you were kissing last night.”
Kissing hereverywhere, she might have added, but wisely did not.
It was scandalous enough, what she had done with him. What she wanted to do with him again.
“I’ll tell you whether or not you were, but only after you give me your promise.” His voice was smooth.
The scoundrel. He was doing everything in his power to extract the promise from her that she did not want to give. Not because she intended to cast herself headlong into danger, but because she didn’t like the notion of answering to him, particularly when he remained so aloof. And because the way he made her feel was so very new. New and unwanted. Inside her, there brewed a confusing sea of longing and guilt. She had always done what she was supposed to do. She had been a dutiful daughter and wife, and later, a proper widow. But she’d forgotten herself somewhere along the way.
“I need to retrieve my basket and go inside,” she lied, for in truth there was no hurry. She hadn’t any pressing engagements this morning, and Lady Virtue was otherwise occupied until they paid calls later in the afternoon.
“Stubborn,” he said, but there was an underlying tone of admiration in his voice that she didn’t miss.
And her stupid heart leapt.
Conversely, the more he wanted her promise, the less she wanted to give it to him. This little verbal clash meant she could have more of his time, more of his attention. She hadn’t remembered what it felt like to yearn for someone else, but she did now.
“Determined,” she said, giving his coat lapels a gentle tug. “Besides, I hardly think you intend to keep me here all day.”
He shrugged, as if they had all the time in the world and they weren’t standing beneath an overhang while rain pelted the earth just beyond. “The notion has its merits.”
His head dipped, bringing his mouth closer to hers.
“It’s cold,” she protested, breathless.
“I’ll warm you,” he said, and then he kissed her.
His lips were cool and soft. He angled them over hers slowly, tenderly. She didn’t require any coaxing to open. When his tongue slid inside, they sighed as one, the kiss quickly deepening. He stepped forward, pinning her more firmly against the stone wall, and she knew she would never look upon Hunt House again without remembering how it had felt to have her mouth plundered by Theo beneath the terrace as the rain lashed the gardens behind them.
The scent of the earth rose around them, but there was also him, citrus and damp wool and the sharp, clean tang of soap. She released her grip on his coat, her arms wrapping around his neck, fingers tangling in the ends of hair at his nape. He cupped her throat with one cool, bare hand, the kiss of metal against her skin as familiar now as his lips—the ring he wore on his forefinger. She tasted his morning tea as she ran her tongue against his, battling him without words just as she had verbally.
Between them, his cock was a prominent ridge, long and hard against her belly. The temptation to touch him there was strong, to cup her hand over the fall of his trousers, to undo the buttons, let him spring free. To lift her gown and petticoats and take him inside her right here, in the cold rain, nothing but the imperious stone wall at her back.
He was like a poison in her blood, and she very much feared there was only one way to cure what ailed her. More of him.
But then he broke the kiss and dragged his lips to her ear, breathing hot against it, catching her lobe in his teeth. “Your promise, Marchioness.”
She wanted to tell him to call her Pamela.
Wanted far more than that.
His mouth went down her throat, licking and sucking until her knees threatened to give out and she was aching for him. She understood now what he intended to do. He was seducing the promise from her. And he was succeeding, too.
