His reaction was instant and instinctive. He cupped her face as he pressed his lips over hers. And sweet God,her lips. They were as lush and sweet and soft as he had imagined. They moved against his, beneath his, a revelation for which he found himself wholly unprepared. For a moment, he simply kissed her, his mouth taking what he needed from hers, all the succor, the comfort, the silken heat. But then he couldn’t resist teasing herlips open, his tongue sliding deep to taste her, to draw as much of her inside himself as he could.
She made a low, throaty sound, and then somehow, they were moving. Moving together, as if they were of one mind. Never taking his lips from hers, he guided Joceline backward to a nearby table, where some bric-a-brac was his only impediment to lifting her atop it. He swept it to the floor with an impatient swipe of his arm, dimly cognizant of the sound of breaking glass. Whatever it was, he didn’t care. It didn’t matter more than kissing her. Nothing could.
He grasped her waist and lifted her with ease, settling her on the table so that she was even with his height, all the better for him to ravish her mouth. Because he was suddenly ravenous for her. All the restraint he had been clinging to where she was concerned had been obliterated the instant she had kissed him.
She tasted sweet, like the afternoon tea she must have consumed, her tongue shyly moving against his. He was reminded that she was younger, certainly less experienced than he, and tore his mouth from hers, staring down at her with ragged breath.
“Forgive me,” he managed. “I lost my head when your lips touched mine. I shouldn’t be so rough with you.”
“There’s nothing to forgive,” she told him. “And you’re anything but rough. I like the way you kiss me.”
“Good,” he gritted, taking her mouth again.
This time, he tried to kiss her more gently, to smooth his lips over hers in slow, determined seduction rather than devouring her. But it was difficult. He wanted Joceline with a ferocity that terrified him. He wanted her despite all the reasons he shouldn’t.
Wanted her desperately.
She draped her arms about his neck, one of her legs wrapping around his hip to draw him closer. And he accepted herinvitation, pulling her to the edge of the table so that he could align his rigid length with the apex of her thighs. Although the barrier of skirts and petticoats and apron remained, he moaned into her kiss, giving her his tongue once more.
He was a beast again, but a different sort than the one he’d been. This beast was consumed by desire, his heart pounding, blood heated, the ache of need so sharp in his ballocks that he sucked in a breath as his cock ground against her voluminous skirts, seeking more of her. Seeking her sex.
The thought of flipping up her skirts and teasing the soft petals of her sex had him straining against her. He couldn’t do that, of course. This was too much, too quickly, and their circumstances were tenuous at best. She was in his employ. He couldn’t make love to her and then demand that she inspect his linens and crockery and oversee the sweeping of his bloody floors.
No, they needed time. Needed to make sense of what they were to each other, what they could be. He couldn’t afford to get swept up in desire. Not when so much was at stake for the both of them.
But that didn’t stop him from continuing to kiss her. It merely kept him from taking what he wanted. It kept him from sliding inside her and claiming her as his. Instead, he licked into the honeyed recesses of her mouth, feasting on her as he had been longing to do from the moment he had first set eyes upon her. And she was kissing him back with a fierceness that all but brought him to his knees. It wasn’t expertise so much as carnal need. This woman who had seen him at his worst, who had born his anger with such grace, whose determination had roused him from his self-imposed banishment.
She was a marvel, this woman.
Kissing him so sweetly, with wild abandon. Threading her fingers through his hair. He inhaled deeply of her scent, thatfloral, delicate soap that seemed so at odds with a woman of her profession and yet somehow felt at home on her. He wanted to wrap her in his arms and never let her go. To kiss her and kiss her and kiss her.
To—
Knock, knock, knock.
“Your Grace?”
Dunreave’s voice was on the other side of the door, the equivalent of a pail of icy water being dumped over the two of them. Quint and Joceline broke apart, their breaths ragged.
He was reluctant to let her go just yet. This was too new. Too wonderful. Her mouth was lush and bruised from his kisses. Her eyes were dark with desire, her black lashes low. A spirited curl had come free of her coiffure to rest against her cheek, and he instinctively tucked it behind her ear. She was so beautiful, it hurt to look at her.
“Pardon me, Your Grace,” Dunreave called again, more loudly this time. “Have you seen Mrs. Yorke? The household is in search of her as the dowager duchess has just arrived with her guests.”
Quint took a step backward at the telling note of pinched censure in his butler’s voice and the news that his mother was here as well. Dunreave knew damned well where Joceline was, and that was the reason he was politely knocking at the library door.Damnation.Quint had no wish to cause trouble for her.
Joceline’s eyes went wide, and she leapt from the table with a metallic jingle of her chatelaine, shaking out her skirts. Quint cleared his throat.
“Mrs. Yorke was just helping me with a small matter of grave import,” he called to his butler. “She will join you forthwith.” He frowned as the rest of the news Dunreave had imparted belatedly occurred to him. “Guests, did you say, Dunreave?”
“Yes, Your Grace. The Earl of Dreighton and his daughter, the Lady Diana Collingham.”
Good God, why had his mother brought the earl and his daughter along with her? Surely she must know that the last thing in the world he would have wished for was unexpected guests.
Poor Joceline looked stricken. Blast it, this was not what he had intended when he had called her to the library. None of it was.
“Thank you for the clarification, Dunreave,” he said loudly. “I’ll need just another few moments with Mrs. Yorke.”
“Of course, Your Grace,” his butler intoned, still distant and disapproving.
