“And yet, you can’t tell me that we’re over,” he pointed out, more than a trifle smug. “You can’t say the words. Perhaps you should show me, then. Kiss me and convince me you feel nothing.”
Lottie inhaled, bringing the heady scent of him into her lungs, trapping it there as if she could somehow keep this part of him forever. Because that was what she wanted, even if she only dared admitting it to herself. She wanted the Duke of Brandon selfishly and foolishly. She wanted him to be all hers, only hers.Alwayshers. She felt dizzied from the maddening combination of his nearness and his mouth. She could not kiss him and remain unmoved. She knew it, and she did not doubt that he did too.
“I’m not playing games with you,” she told him.
He cupped her cheek, his leather glove cool on her heated skin, and she wished that his hand was bare so that she could feel him without encumbrance, this trapping of civility removed. “Yes, you are. And they must stop. Just as you must stop lying to the both of us that you don’t want me. That you want to put an end to what’s between us. It’s as much a prevarication as every one of your excuses these last four days.”
He was not wrong, curse his stubborn, beautiful hide.
What had she been thinking, allowing this man close? Rakes were like flames. Venture too near, and one was inevitably bound to be burned.
She held his stare defiantly. “Very well. I want you. It is only natural. I’m a woman with needs, and you’re a reasonably handsome man. You’re also skilled in the bedchamber.”
He chuckled, his breath falling over her lips. “Onlyreasonablyhandsome, darling? I would have thought you could do better than that.”
“Vain wretch,” she complained without heat. “You know how despicably gorgeous you are.”
“Perhaps I like to hear you admit it.”
Silence fell between them again, their gazes locked. “You know why we cannot continue, Brandon. Why are you still here?”
“For the same reason you have yet to tell me that it feels like we’re over.”
Another moment of heavy, heated silence descended. A quickening began, deep within her. A physical acknowledgment of the effect he had on her. Her nipples were hard beneath the stiff boning of her corset. And between her legs, she was embarrassingly wet. There was no question she desired him. That had never been her fear. Passion and lust were raw, elemental. They were physical aches like hunger, easily enough placated.
But the heart—that was what she truly feared most. Because she knew from experience that it could not be governed. The heart, that restless, foolish enemy. And hers knew what it wanted too well.
This man, it whispered insidiously.Him.
“Brandon,” she began, not certain of what she intended to say, only that she had to fill the quiet with something, that she had to protest before she did something truly dangerous and—no, she wasn’t going to—oh heavens, yes, she was…
She acted without thought, wrapping her arms suddenly around his neck and pulling him to her, pressing her mouth tohis. The kiss was so sudden and ferocious that it was almost painful. Her teeth were mashed against her tender inner lips. It didn’t matter. In the next breath, his tongue demanded entry, and she surrendered without hesitation.
Somehow, he performed the feat of gathering her from the chair and into his arms. Her book went sailing, landing with a thump on the floor. The world spun, their lips chasing each other’s hungrily, tongues writhing, and then he had whirled them about so that he was in the chair she had occupied and she was in his lap.
He broke the kiss for but a moment, rearing back to sear her with his potent stare. “We’re not over, Lottie.”
She swallowed, still reluctant to make the concession aloud, even if every part of her body and soul and all her stupid heart had already made the decision for her. Even if she knew to her core that they would never be over, that though they might travel far, and he would wed another, her body would always ache for his. She would forever want him.
A strange prickling sensation burned the backs of her eyes then. She refused to believe it was tears until she felt the hot, wet glide on both cheeks and her vision blurred. And though she blinked furiously to clear them away, he saw them.
Of course he did.
He caught them with his lips, drying each drop where it fell. Then he kissed her again, and as she tasted the sweet bitterness of chocolate and the salt of her own tears, she knew that the last of her defenses had shattered. Nothing remained. Not even pride.
And all the while, he kissed her as he had not kissed her before. Slowly, tenderly, but worshipfully too, as if she were indeed the goddess he had proclaimed her to be, and he a mere mortal at her feet. Lingeringly, patiently, as if he had all the time in the world to hold her thus, cradling her as if she werefashioned of finest crystal instead of weak flesh and bone. He made her feel revered in a way no one ever had. Not just desired, but needed too.
And that scared her.
Badly.
But she was too far gone for him to stop it now.
He kissed her and kissed her and kissed her. And though they had engaged in sexual congress many times before, his lips on hers somehow felt far more intimate than any other act. More intimate, even, than his cock in her mouth and his spend shooting down her throat. Because this was different. It transcended physical desire. He took his time, his hands caressing her with soothing motions, almost as if she were a horse easily spooked. And he made no move to undress her.
He touched nary a button nor a hook nor a tape. Her hem stayed where it was, her bustle crushed at an awkward angle beneath her bottom, his length buried somewhere under the layers separating them. All he did was ravish her mouth. Again and again and again until she felt delicate and new, as if one false move might destroy her.
No one had ever made her feel like this.
