His lips didn’t settle on hers right away, though, as she expected. Hot breath warmed her neck. “I’ve been dying to kiss you here.” Her breaths became short and shallow, hitching when those bumblebees she’d harbored all afternoon took flight.
“So soft.” He skimmed his mouth up her neck to her jaw. “You smell so good.”
She licked her lips. “Thank you.”
He’d barely touched her, and yet already her heart felt as though it was going to explode inside her chest. Was it possible he felt the same?
“Have you done this often, then? Do you have a good deal of experience?” She knew that most titled men had mistresses, and if they didn’t have mistresses, they found release with women in brothels. With Christian, she had no idea what to expect.
“Not often.” His lips trailed to just below her earlobe, along the edge of her jaw. “Some.”
Oh, but that was no answer at all. Lillian tipped her head to the side so he could continue his sensual onslaught unimpeded. “As in weekly?” she persisted. “Would you say you’ve done this hundreds of times? More?”
Somehow, she felt the effects of the vibration of his chuckle in her very core. She pressed her thighs together.
“My experience,” the heat of his mouth dragged toward her lips, “has come in spurts. Less than one hundred. But more than once.” He teased the edge of her lips. “And what of you, wife?””
And then his tongue slid along the seam of her mouth.
She gave him intimate access to her mouth, allowing him to explore behind her teeth and mingling the taste of the champagne they’d both drank.
“I have been kissed,” she somehow managed an answer just before he bit down softly on her lower lip. “But I have not done the other.”
He emitted a low growl and reclaimed her mouth.
She arched toward him when his hand settled on her waist. The warmth of his palm penetrated the fabric of her dressing gown and night rail.
“Do you wish to eat first, Lillian?” He seemed quite intent upon their current activity, but if he required sustenance, she did not wish to deprive him.
“I don’t mind.” His mouth abandoned her lips to journey down the length of her throat again. Lillian was all but horizontal on the loveseat now, his weight pressing her into the cushions. “Unless you are hungry?” Lillian closed her eyes, giving herself over to his experience.
He paused and drew away momentarily. She blinked her eyes open to stare into his smiling ones. “You are not hungry?”
She shook her head, in a daze. But then another question plagued her. “You will keep your spectacles on… during…?”
“I’d rather not.” His cobalt eyes teased her. “My sight isn’t so impaired that I cannot see you from this distance.”
Lillian took it upon herself to grasp the metal arms and slide them off of his face. “You can still see me, then?” She held them close to her own eyes and tried to view him through them. “Are they uncomfortable?”
“The benefit surpasses the annoyance.” He watched her as though her curiosity fascinated him.
The smooth silver that wound behind his ears felt warm from his skin. She hadn’t considered how touching them was, in itself, an act of intimacy.
A foreboding slide down her spine. This was the emotional intimacy that threatened to hurt her. It would make losing him even more difficult to endure. She studied his lashes, the skin around his eyes, the small red mark across the bridge of his nose.
She liked him.
Very much...
Having known him might also make the pain of all of this worthwhile. If everything went as planned, she would have a child. She could tell her child—their child—about his father. The thought trickled away when he removed the spectacles from her fingers. He dropped them onto the nearby table and then hungrily claimed her lips again.
This kissing. It was nice. He seemed to be in no hurry as he tasted her mouth, and then her throat, and then returned again to her mouth.
“Christian?” She was enjoying herself—immensely—and yet she could not help but wonder when he would get to the business at hand.
“Lillian?” he teased but pulled away to look into her eyes once again.
“Um. Perhaps if this is going to take a while, we might wish to eat first after all?”
