It was not the kiss a gentleman should place on a lady’s lips. This was meant to expose his desire and mark her with himself. His lips covered hers and he kissed the breath from her. Lifting to cant his head, he tasted her, filling her mouth with his tongue. Seeking hers. Tasting her mouth. Teasing her tongue to touch his. He felt the moment she capitulated to the passion.
Her body leaned against his and the feel of her breasts heaving against his chest aroused him more. Sliding his hands down onto her arms, he eased her closer until their hips were touching. Then, he rubbed to allow her to feel what she did to him—his erection between them could not be mistaken.
Had she found pleasure with Jonathan Logan?
The strange thought did not dampen his ardor. Instead, it made him want to show her the pleasure they could share together. To free the strong, passionate woman he could see within her to take what she wanted from a lover. To take what a lover had to give. Iain was determined to be that lover who would pleasure her as relentlessly as his desire and his body was demanding now.
Lady Clare leaned her head back, lifting her mouth from his as she stared at him. Her gaze moved over his face, meeting his eyes for a moment and then settled on his mouth. Her own lips were swollen from his kisses and he was pleased by that. There was a place just above her breast that he wanted to suckle and mark with his mouth, but that would have to wait. Now, when he expected her to end this, to pull away since she was tugging her arms free, she once more surprised the bloody hell out of him.
When she reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck, he stopped breathing. When she pulled him down closer, he could not but hope. But when she kissed him, he lost his wits and his control completely. At the first touch of her tongue exploring his mouth, he pressed her against the wall and thrust his hips. Rather than frightening her off, it seemed to encourage her own actions. Her tongue swept into his mouth as she tightened her hold on him. Then, she pressed her breasts against him and shifted her legs a half-step apart that allowed him to step between them and position his cock even more intimately. He kept his hands on the wall just above her head to keep himself from taking a step too far, but the next sound she made made his body shake from the need to.
“Iain,” she whispered against his mouth.
Iain lifted his mouth from hers and saw the passion in her gaze. Her lips were unmistakably swollen from passionate kissing. Her breathing was shallow and erratic, and her body still pressed against his hard flesh. The choice of how to carry this to its conclusion—a willing one from the look of things—gave him pause. And that pause was just enough time for him to hear the raised voices from his office down the hall.
The lady’s arms dropped slowly from his neck and, for a moment, she closed her eyes and leaned her head back on the very wall against which he’d pressed her. He swore to himself that when he finally had her, hewouldtake her against a wall. His cock throbbed at that thought and the image it shot into his mind.
The sounds of their excited breaths filled the chamber and a few moments passed before she opened her eyes. Slowly, movement by movement, the lady returned and straightened, shook out her gown and pelisse, pulled her gloves back into place over each finger and made a few other adjustments to her appearance.
The fire in his blood urged him not to end this so easily. If any other woman, he would... Bloody hell, this was not just any woman. He stepped back and ran his hands through his hair, and she slipped around him. For a moment he wanted to bash his head against the wall where she’d stood. If taking her by the arm just minutes ago had shocked her, what must she be thinking now?
As she reached for the door and sanity returned, Iain saw his entire plan falling apart because he could not control his cock. So much for the preparation, the targeting, the bribes, the threats, the investigations and collection of information for the past two years. The sheer extent of his efforts to get the properties that her husband had promised him in a gentleman’s agreement were at risk.
A rare mistake in those early days of bargaining, for Iain had slipped up and accepted without getting a written contract. In the thrill of the king’s honor and patronage, Iain had made a mistake. And now, all his efforts to finally acquire those properties might be for naught. All of it gone, wasted, fruitless, because he allowed his lust to run free instead of staying with his well-planned scheme?
“Bloody, bloody hell,” he whispered on a rough exhale.
Nay. He would not allow that to happen. There was a way to use this to further his plans, not stop them. The lady had enjoyed their encounter as much as he had. He could feel the way her body softened as he aroused her with his mouth. She opened to his kisses, and he had no doubt that, if there’d been more uninterrupted time, he could have taken them much, much farther in their mutual pleasure.
He would salvage this and not allow it to stop him. But still...
What had he been thinking?
Chapter Eight
What had shebeen thinking?
A moment more and she would have begged him to toss her skirts up and have his way with her!
Shocked at her actions, and his, Clare put some distance between them in the small chamber. Now glancing around it, she found it was some sort of closet for storing boxes of a sort. No furniture other than a few shelves on one wall. Empty. Smaller than an office and bigger and more private than an alcove, it had been useful for this assignation.
Did he use it for that purpose often? A man like him must have women by the dozens who allowed him to kiss them and... more. The blush at such thoughts tingled up to fill her cheeks. When he spoke her name softly, she faced him to find a usually-calm, controlled man wearing a very befuddled expression. He appeared as dazed and confused as she felt.
“Sir—”
“Lady—”
“I must go first, my lady,” he said. “I... took liberties and I apologize for my actions.” He sounded genuine in his words. She wanted to believe him and yet, having been the first time a man had ever lost himself in passion towards her, she did not want his regret.
Her body throbbed and her mouth both ached and hungered for the touch and taste of his. This encounter was not truly a surprise, for each of their previous ones had left her thrilled in some way. Either the mental challenge of confronting and engaging him or the physical awareness of him and his every move, she walked away feeling alive and energized in ways she’d not felt, well, not felt in years if ever.
Her relationship with Jonathan was even-keeled, respectful, loving. They did not confront or refuse—they cooperated and supported each other.
Any dealings with this man would never come close to what she’d experienced before. And that realization did not frighten her as it should.
Nay, it made her want to clash with him.
To oppose him.
