“While I what?” he pressed, grinning. He knew, the blighter. He knew she was discomfited.
“While you seduce her into engaging in activities entirely inappropriate for a single man and woman to engage in,” she finally answered, quoting directly from the lectures of comportment her mother had made her attend after the almost-drowning-him-in-the-Serpentine incident.
Alexander looked at her in surprise for a moment before throwing back his head and bursting into laughter.
Olivia positively refused to let herself dwell on the strength of the muscles in his throat, or the husky sound of his laugh, and chose instead to be furious at his laughing at her.
“Where did you hear such a thing?” he asked, still grinning widely.
“I don’t know what you mean?” She sniffed.
He raised a brow and bent slightly to look directly into her eyes.
“There is no way such virtuous drivel came from the hoydenish Olivia Darington,” he said softly.
Blast the man. He was right, of course.
“I am a grown woman, Alexander,” she spat, not noticing she’d slipped and used his Christian name. “Not a little girl any longer. And I know, ‘how to conduct myself in a manner befitting a young lady of good breeding,’” she quoted again before coming back to her point. “As does Jane. And you and your debauched friend — well, you are trying to make her conduct herself in a manner absolutelynotbefitting a young lady of good breeding.”
He grinned again at her convoluted sentence.
“I’m not interested in anything to do with your sister Olivia, save keeping her safe. Besides, I shouldn’t worry too much if I were you. After all, our encounter in the gardens all those years ago didn’t steer you down a path of destruction, did it?”
The mention of that day seemed to suck all the air straight from Olivia’s body.
Why had he brought that up? She wasn’t prepared to speak of such things, especially with him.
She glanced up into his distractingly green eyes and was immediately irritated by the smug, knowing look in them.
The man had an ego the size of Westminster.
It was about time someone deflated it a little.
Giving her best, most believable innocent expression, she answered as sweetly as she could.
“I hardly think one, insignificant, thoroughly forgettable embrace would be enough to send me down a path of destruction,” she said with faux innocence. “Why, nothing even happened for heaven’s sake.”
Later, Olivia would wonder how she hadn’t noticed the sudden, dangerous glint in his jade eyes. She would wonder why his growl of frustration hadn’t been warning enough of his intentions. But she had paid no attention to these things, and so, when he suddenly reached out and grabbed her in his arms, pulling her body against his, she had been taken completely unawares.
As his lips had descended toward her own, his whispered words sent shivers down the length of her spine.
“Perhaps it’s time somethingdidhappen,” he said before crushing her lips beneath his own.
Four
Alexander knew that thesecond he felt Olivia’s lips beneath his was in far more trouble than he had ever been before in his life.
He felt every one of her emotions, even while his lips were pressed against her own. He felt her gasp of shock, following by her heavenly capitulation as her fingers moved to wind in his hair, pulling him closer still.
He almost combusted when her tongue tentatively reached out and mirrored the movement of his own.
Had he been in any sort of control over himself, Alexander would have wondered what the hell he was doing kissing the girl senseless in his garden.
But the second he’d tasted her, all thoughts, coherent or otherwise, were swept away by the tide of passion he was currently drowning in.
Had anything ever felt so perfect?
Damn but the girl had a way of getting under his skin. He’d kissed her out of sheer frustration. She got under his skin like no other. And the fact that he’d been walking around in a permanent state of lust since he’d clapped eyes on her again didn’t help to temper his actions.
