But as he lifted one hand and touched his fingertips to her cheek while his palm came beneath her chin, sighing as he did so, Claudia realized that perhaps it was not.
She closed her eyes and his lips touched hers.
It was a terrible shock. His lips were warm and slightly parted. She could taste the wine he had drunk and smell his cologne. She could feel the warmth of his hand and of his breath. She could hear the nightingale singing and someone far away shriek with laughter.
And all her insides reacted in such a way that afterward she marveled that she had remained on her feet. Her hands clenched into tight fists at her sides.
It lasted for maybe twenty seconds—maybe not even as long.
But her world was rocked to its very foundations.
As he lifted his head and lowered his hand and took a step back, Claudia firmly repossessed herself of her equilibrium.
“There, you see?” she said, her voice sounding unfortunately brisk and overcheerful. “I was neither embarrassed nor afraid. So there is nothing inherently embarrassing or fearful about you.”
“I ought not to have done that,” he said. “I am so sor—”
But Claudia’s hand shot up, seemingly of its own volition, and she watched herself place two fingers firmly across his lips—those lovely warm lips that had just kissed her own.
“Don’tbe,” she said, and her voice was a little less forceful now. It even shook slightly. “If you are sorry, then I will feel that I ought to be too, and I am not sorry at all. It is the first time I have been kissed in eighteen years and will probably be the last time for the rest of my life. I do not want to be sorry, and I do not wantyouto be sorry. Please.”
He set his hand over hers and kissed her palm before lowering it to hold against the folds of his neckcloth. Even in the darkness she could see that his eyes were alight with laughter.
“Ah, Miss Martin,” he said, “it has been almostthreeyears even for me. What sadly deprived mortals we are.”
She could not stop herself from smiling back at him.
“In fact,” she said, “I would not mind at all if you were to do it again.”
She felt oddly as if someone else were speaking through her lips while the real Claudia Martin looked on in shocked amazement. Had she really said what she had just said?
“I would not mind either,” he said, and they gazed at each other for long moments before he released her hand and wrapped his arm about her shoulders while the other came about her waist. Claudia curled her own arms about him for lack of anywhere else to put them. And she lifted her face to his.
He was large and hard-bodied and very, very male. For one moment she really was frightened. Mortally so. Especially as he was no longer smiling. And then she forgot about fear and everything else too as she was engulfed in the sheer carnality of being slowly and very thoroughly kissed. Her body bloomed beneath his touch and she was no longer Claudia Martin, successful businesswoman, teacher, and headmistress.
She was simply woman.
She felt the breadth and hard muscles of his shoulders, and one of her hands twined into his thick, warm hair. With her breasts she felt the solid wall of his chest. Her thighs pressed against his. And between her thighs she felt a sharp throbbing that spiraled up inside her right into her throat.
Not that she analyzed each sensation. She merely felt them.
When he opened his mouth over hers, she opened hers too and angled her head and clutched his hair as his tongue came inside her mouth and stroked over every soft, moist surface. When he backed her against the trunk of a tree a mere foot or so behind her, she moved with him, and then she could lean against it while his hands roamed over her breasts and her hips and her buttocks.
When he pressed against her and she could feel the hardness of his arousal, she parted her legs and rubbed against him, wanting nothing more than to feel him inside her, deep inside. Ah, deep.
Yet not for one moment did she forget that it was with the Marquess of Attingsborough that she shared this hot embrace. And not for one moment was she deceived by any illusions. This was for now. Only for now.
Sometimes now was enough.
Sometimes it was everything.
She knew she would never be sorry.
She knew too that she would suffer heartache for a long time to come.
It did not matter. Better to live and hurt than not to live at all.
She felt his withdrawal as soon as he gentled the embrace, kissing her mouth softly and then her eyes and temples as he spread a hand over the back of her head and then brought her face against one of his shoulders, drawing her away from the tree trunk as he did so. And she felt both sorrow and relief. It was time for them to stop this. They were in an almost public place.
