“You don’t have to.” She placed her palm flat on his chest, feeling the thunderous pounding of his heart. “I’m yours, Henry. All you have to do is take me.”
He took a sharp breath, and she thought he might step back, putting distance between them. Instead, with a noise that was almost savage, he caught the back of her neck with his free hand and brought his mouth against hers.
The world suspended. His lips were warm and soft despite the roughness of the kiss, and after a second, they settled against hers as though they had found a home there. She had never been kissed before, and she knew he had not either, but it was as though this was an old, familiar dance; they knew the steps. His hand slid to her cheek, fingertips rubbing against the tender skin of her temples and her jaw, tilting her head slightly so her mouth could slide against his.
Sothiswas what it was like to be kissed.
He made a low rumble in his chest, a desperate noise that kicked the need in her belly up a notch. This was not the rigid, stern, controlled Henry Beaumont that she had come to know. The urgent movement of his mouth was a song, and she rose to meet its melody, arching her back so her chest pressed against his. She dug her hands into his hair, holding him against her. His hand slid down her shoulder, down her arm, and settled on her waist, hauling her closer, his fingers flexing. She could feel every press through the layers she wore.
If someone were to find them now, they would be ruined, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. What did reputation matter when she had Henry Beaumont’s hands on her? When, second by second, she was unravelling the self-control of the most disciplined person she knew?
A low, involuntary groan rose in his throat as she opened her mouth, inviting his tongue in. Perhaps she groaned, too. Need pounded through her veins in time with her heartbeat. His fingers scraped against her back as though he wished to bring her still closer, but didn’t know how.
With a frustrated growl, he moved them both, easing her backwards until her shoulders collided with the wall. And then he was kissing her again, his body lining up with hers. His hips rocked, an involuntary thrust that had her gasping into his mouth. She was melted wax in his hands, soft and malleable. He could unmake her then reform her into something new, and so long as his mouth was on hers, she would let him. She would be whatever he needed her to be, so long as he would not stop kissing her.
He rocked into her again, something hard and firm pressing into her stomach, and this time he was the one to groan. Louisa wrapped her arms around his neck, wishing something could be done about the sensitive weight of her breasts and the liquid throb between her legs, knowing that Henry was the answer but not knowinghow. She shifted against him, and his palm slid down her side to her thigh, adjusting her so—
A plant pot fell to the ground, shattering with acrackthat cut through the haze of lust that surrounded them. Henry jerked back from her, breath coming too fast, lips red and swollen, eyes wine-dark and just as drunk.
For a moment, they stared at one another. His hair was dishevelled, looking precisely as though she had been combing her hands through it, and there was a bulge in his breeches that drew her eyes, even though she was certain a proper young lady would not dare look.
“Louisa,” he said, and her gaze returned to his face. His expression was tortured. She touched her mouth, pressing the last of his kiss there like a stain.
“Do not apologise,” she said, feeling the vulnerability in her words as she said them. A silent plea she couldn’t articulate, but that she knew he could hear anyway. She could still feel the pressure of his hands on her and the urgency of his mouth. Asthough he had been dying and she was the cure, his last grasp on life, his only hope of redemption.
For another moment more, he stared at her with a desperation she understood. Then he shook his head, clearing it of its dazed expression, and the stern lines of his mouth softened into something tender. He brushed his fingers along her jaw. “I wouldn’t know how to go about regretting it,” he told her. “Though perhaps I should regret breaking the plant pot.”
She laughed, and standing on her tiptoes to kiss him again felt like the most natural thing in the world. He caught her about the waist, holding her against him, and the press of his lips was so sweet it made her heart ache.
“Will you marry me?” she asked when he pulled away. “For the sake of the broken plant pot?”
He shook his head, but she could see it was an effort not to smile. “I have very little to offer you.”
“You have you. Andthis.” She looked down at him meaningfully. “I would hardly call that ‘very little’.”
The flush that suffused his cheeks made her want to kiss him all over again. “What am I going to do with you?”
“Marry me, I hope.”
“It may be some time before I’m in a position to support a wife.”
“I would marry you even if we had to steal away to Scotland,” she said. “Whether it takes three years or five.”
“No.” He looked at her with unwarranted seriousness. “If I am to risk your future by allowing you to marry me, then I cannot risk your reputation. If and when we marry, we will not invite scandal to our door. Promise me that.”
Her dear, upright, straitlaced Henry. How could she not love him? “Then we will wait,” she said. “Until I am one-and-twenty. But mark my words, Henry. I will have you one way or the other.”
Chapter Nineteen
PRESENT DAY
April 1815
So this was what he had been denying himself all these years.
Louisa’s mouth opened under his, welcoming his tongue, and he gave himself to her wet heat. Desire kicked through his body, unnervingly potent. After so many years of denial, he had become an expert in frustrated lust; he had thought he knew all there was to know about wanting.
He had been mistaken.
