The terrace. She was escaping to the terrace. He realized he was moving before he meant to do it. Following her. Why, he didn’t want to examine. After all, he couldn’t begrudge her this attention. Couldn’t begrudge her looking beautiful and having others notice it. Delacourt had said it at the Donville Masquerade a few days before that he’d hoped Marianne might have still had a chance at something beyond the life of a spinster.
And yet Sebastian still found himself opening the terrace door he’d watched her go through moments before and stepping out into the cool night air to look for her.
She was standing at the terrace wall, staring out into the inky night. There were a few lanterns lit for those who might come out and in the dim light of the one she stood near, he saw her discomfort. Her overwhelm. And once again he was mobbed by questions about her recent behavior.
He stepped toward her and she turned to face him with a jump of surprise.
“Marianne,” he said, without preamble. “Why are you doing all this?”
She shook her head and lifted a hand to her chest, forcing him to follow the action almost against his will. “Sebastian, you frightened me.”
“Why?” he insisted.
Her brow wrinkled. “Doing…what? I came to a ball where I was invited and?—”
He shook his head. “The drinking, the swearing, the fighting, that—” He swallowed as he looked up and down her body now that he was close enough to really enjoy it. “That dress. Why are you trying to be someone you’re not?”
Her face fell at that question and the hurt was as evident as the fullness of her lips. “Someone I’m not,” she repeated. He nodded slowly. She folded her arms, her expression hardening from hurt to anger. “Because I could never be so interesting, is that what you mean?”
He drew back at her tart tone and the flash of her eyes. “No. I’d never say that.”
“No, it would be impolite to point out that I’m a dowdy spinster doing things she shouldn’t be out of some pathetic attempt to be someone she isn’t.” She tilted her head. “Oh, wait, that’sexactlywhat you just did.”
He flinched. “That wasn’t my intention. I worded it badly. Let me start again. Something is clearly wrong, Marianne. Or…different, anyway. Your friend died and suddenly you have started doing all these out of character things. I worry about you. As afriend.”
She shook her head. “Oh, please. No matter what you said to me before, no matter how you try to pretend otherwise, we both know that you are only my friend out of loyalty to my brother. And out of pity. Someone like you could never understand someone like me.”
He moved closer, almost impossibly close now. He could smell the lemon and rose petal scent of her hair, see the shine of unshed tears in her dark eyes.
“Iknowwhat it’s like to want to be someone different. Anyone but myself.” He heard those words he never spoke out loud leave his lips and wished them back almost instantly.
She stared up at him, but her expression remained doubtful, hurt, angry. “Liar,” she whispered, and then moved to step around him.
He caught her arm almost out of instinct and brought her back to him in one gentle tug. She fell against his chest just as she had in his boxing ring days before, and once again she stared up at him, her breath short, her pupils dilated, her fingers tense against his chest.
But tonight he had no ability to fight what he wanted. Tonight he cupped her cheek, splaying his fingers against impossible softness, bent his head and kissed her.
CHAPTER 9
Sebastian’s mouth came down on hers and Marianne was immediately drowning. There was nothing cruel in the kiss, despite the heated, emotional exchange that had somehow led to it, but there was nothing gentle either. It was…claiming. His lips were firm and warm, and when she gasped in surprise, he traced the entrance to her mouth with his tongue.
It should have felt strange, wrong, but it didn’t. It was like sinking into a warm bath after a long day or finally getting to have dessert after a boring supper party. Something she had been anticipating even if she’d thought otherwise and now it was here and it was everything.
She opened to him, she had no other choice, for she was being swept out to sea by an expert sailor. He tasted her, there was no other way to describe it and she shivered even though the way his tongue swirled around hers made her hot, not cold. He tilted his head, angling for more of her, like he wanted to devour her, like he needed her as much as he needed his next breath.
Certainly, she needed him. Her thoughts, her fears…they all faded away and she was left with only sensation. His heated mouth, his talented tongue, the way the fingers of one hand stroked her jawline so gently while the other hand shifted away from their grip on her arm and slid around her waist to hold her even more firmly against his chest. It seemed he knew she was being lost and he wanted to anchor her.
Her body shook, heat flowed from the place where they kissed, spread through her body like tendrils that touched every nerve, every limb, every place that could throb or tingle or tense with pleasure. She wanted more. She didn’t care that they were on a terrace at a ball filled with people. She didn’t care that her brother was only feet away. She didn’t care that this was Sebastian, a man who flirted and teased but never meant anything he ever said.
She wanted everything. She wanted the things married ladies stopped talking about when women like her entered a room. She wanted scandal and heat and passion like it was her birthright.
It was as if Sebastian read her mind, because in that moment he pulled away. He continued to hold her, but his mouth parted from hers and he stared down at her in the dim light, their panting breaths matching.
He said nothing, his expression revealed nothing. At last, he stepped back, steadying her carefully before he removed his hands from her trembling body.
“Forgive me,” he murmured, and then he pivoted and staggered to the door back into the ballroom, leaving her alone on the terrace once more.
She spun back around to look at the garden again, her hands shaking so hard that she had to press them into the uneven stone of the terrace wall to ground herself. Sebastian had kissed her. Kissed her like he was worshipping her, like he needed her.
