Madness seized him.
Kissing Miss Fox was unlike any prior experience he’d had. She kissed him with the same unbridled enthusiasm she applied to her every action. Her kiss was uncontrolled and wild and yet somehow deliciously heady. Nothing about it was proper. This was the unrestrained, passionate kiss a mistress would give, not the refined peck a lady might allow a suitor.
Not that Lion was her suitor or that Miss Fox was a lady. He most definitely wasnotcourting Miss Adelia Fox. He shouldn’t even be kissing her. Indeed, he ought to have been appalled, yet he was the opposite. He was entranced. Obsessed. His cock had never been harder, and that was a most unwanted discovery.
But still, he didn’t stop. He kissed her until he was breathless. Kissed her until he could scarcely remember his own name. Then he kissed her some more. He became attuned to her every breath and slight sigh, to the subtle pressure of her hand on his shoulder or her fingers grasping his shirtfront as if to hold him fast to her. She hadn’t any need to worry on that score.
Lion wasn’t going anywhere.
He was staying here on this blasted uncomfortable piano bench that had scarcely enough room for two, and his lips were never leaving Miss Fox’s. As long as he continued kissing her, his mind couldn’t be permitted to persuade him that what he was doing was wrong, ungentlemanly, and wholly improper. Because how could it be wrong when it felt so wonderfully, terrifyinglyright?
When her tongue slid against his, he groaned. His sinful mind whirled with what he might do next. Kiss his way down her throat to feel the velvet-soft whisper of her skin on his lips? Or cup a breast through her bodice? It had been so long since he had last been consumed by passion. These days, he was too mired in duty and obligation to allow himself to feel. And oh, how good it felt to be reckless, just this once. To taste this woman on his lips. To suck her tongue and make her whimper.To kiss her until she arched her lush, full breasts into his chest and threaded her fingers through his hair. Her nails scraped his scalp, and God, it felt wondrous, like the unlocking of a door deep within himself.
He nipped her lip and then strung a path of kisses along her jaw, eager to learn every part of her that he could. Her breath fell hot and rushed on his cheek, the smallest of intimacies and yet so very decadent. To be this near. To have her hairpins at the mercy of his eager fingers as he plucked them free from her coiffure, sending her golden mane tumbling down her back. To drink her scent into his lungs. To nuzzle her temple, to kiss her ear as she trembled.
The things he wanted to do to her. To do with her. To show her. He was drunk on lust. On her. She clutched at him, tipping her head back and making an erotic sound of enjoyment that had his ballocks tightening. He’d never been this tempted by mere kisses. Nor had he ever been more undone. He was at her sensual mercy. She may not have learned how to kiss from those Swiss suitors, but she had certainly learned how to ensnare him.
The sudden and distant closing of a door somewhere beyond the music room brought Lion back to himself with a jolt, pulling him from the edge of ruin. This wasMiss Foxhe was kissing. He had to stop.
Reluctantly, Lion tore his mouth from hers. Her green eyes were wide, her lips swollen from his kisses and darkened to the shade of summer berry compote. Her breathing was every bit as ragged as his, her breasts rising and falling from her uneven gasps. She looked as dazed as he felt and unfairly beautiful, too.
He swallowed hard. “My actions were most regrettable. Please accept my sincere apology for behaving in a manner so unbecomingly forward.”
She licked her lips. “No.”
Lion tried not to stare at her mouth. “No?”
“I refuse to accept your apology. Why should you be sorry? I’m not.”
She was equal parts mesmerizing and infuriating. Of course she wasn’t sorry. Miss Fox likely did whatever she wanted whenever the notion took her, regardless of aught else.
“It won’t happen again, I assure you,” he added stiffly.
What was wrong with him? Why had he kissed Miss Fox? And why was he so damned attracted to her? He had known beautiful women in his past. There was nothing unique about the hoyden American who had invaded his serenity with her bold presence.
“If you say so, Your Graceship,” she said in a breathless tone.
And then she had the temerity to wink at him, as if she were humoring his assertion and she didn’t believe him for a moment.
“It won’t,” he insisted.
Because he intended to keep his distance from Miss Fox for the rest of her stay here at Marchingham Hall. Obviously, he could not trust himself where she was concerned. The temptation was far too great.
Before she could convey further protest, he rose from the piano bench and offered her a hasty bow. “I’ll leave you to your music, Miss Fox.”
As he strode away, he licked his lips, and he tastedher.
And he wanted more.
Good God.
“It’sa terrible shame that there isn’t a tree or at the very least some festoons,” Addy lamented to Aunt Pearl that evening as they sat before a crackling fire in the library. “It’s as bleak as winter in this house. I cannot fathom such a grim lack of cheer.”
Dandy was snuggled on her lap, peaceful and lightly snoring. Reports from the stable earlier that day indicated that the snow had yet to melt, meaning that roads might not become passable again until a fortnight had passed.
They were still, quite possibly, going to be stranded with the duke for Christmas.
Marchingham had been conspicuously absent at dinner. After those scorching kisses in the music room, Addy didn’t know what she had expected of him. But it certainly hadn’t been for him to retreat and hide himself away.
