“Oh, my dear, you look so very lovely. You will be the delight of the dinner party.”
Haven laughed. “Millie, thank you. I’m a little nervous. I’ve never been to a dinner party before. What if I say the wrong thing, or eat with the wrong fork, or sneeze into the soup?”
“We've all dealt with fears and insecurities before. While you'll find this hard to believe, I haven't always been a graceful, wise, and well-behaved hostess. I was young, scared, and clumsy once.” She laughed, a warm sound that filled Haven’s heart. “I remember my very first dinner party. I attended with my brother, mother, and fifteen of her closest friends. I was so nervous I accidentally spilled my claret down Baron Gladstone's obnoxious peacock-blue waistcoat. He sputtered so horribly that he turned a mottled red before the footman could get there to help him pull back his chair. He was rather large and couldn't rise without the strong arms and backs of several young footmen. In a failed attempt to help him stand, one of the footmen slipped, loosening his hold on Gladstone's arm, and the most esteemed baron fell flat on his pompous ass. You should have seen my mother. She was so embarrassed she spent the remaining hours of the party gallantly trying to hide a case of hiccups. She hiccupped when she became overwrought, you see.”
Laughing until tears spilled, Haven croaked, “Now,thatis a terrible story.”
“That is only one of the hundreds of stories I could tell you, but since we are expected downstairs, they will wait.”
Millie led Haven from the safety of her room.
Holding back a shudder of trepidation, she tipped back her chin, and squared her shoulders. It was just dinner, talking, and some after-dinner musical entertainment. She knew she could survive. But why, when everything sounded so tame, did it feel like she was headed into the lion’s den?
Laughterfrom the top of the stairs alerted Logan to the approach of the woman who had weighed most on his mind over the course of the day. Unable to peel his mind from their blazing and intense encounter the night before, he had spent the day avoiding her. He hid away in his study, wishing he could relive last night, and re-experience the pleasure again and again, only this time he wouldn’t stop. He wouldn't have just touched her breasts; he would have devoured them, making them wet and swollen beneath the onslaught of his tongue. He wondered what she would taste like, if she would be as sweet and addictive as he had dreamed. His mind kept returning to their heated and wild kiss. A kiss so sensual he could still feel her lips against his all these hours later. Her ripe, red mouth crushed against his in a way that changed his life forever. He’d never be the same, but he was determined to forget it, leave it be, and pray the taste and erotic promise would fade from his memory.
Like hell.
It was chiseled into his soul.
Clasping his hands behind his back, he glanced up the stairs to the landing.
His lungs failed him.
She was a vision.
Forcing his mind to form thoughts, he pushed past the lump in his throat, and stared as she descended the staircase, one delicately slippered foot at a time. Her dress was the perfect backdrop on which the rest of the masterpiece was painted. The green of the gown emphasized the creamy olive gold of her skin, and the richness of tone and complexion. Her lustrous hair was a shimmering crown atop her head, adorned with emerald hair pins that twinkled like captured stars in the twilight of her locks. Her cheeks pinkened with a deep red blush that enhanced the image of refined lady, but her eyes dashed the image of a proper woman to pieces beneath the heady and wanton gaze of a sorceress.
Dear God.
This was going to be the longest dinner party in history.
He reached to take her trembling hand, and nearly smiled at the satisfaction her nervousness brought him. He bowed, and their gazes met over her supple, white gloves.
He brushed his lips along her knuckles, and almost groaned when the blaze in her eyes exploded into a firestorm. Sensations blasted through him.
He couldn’t fathom it; she desired him, and was just as affected by him as he was by her.
Tit for tat.
He smiled, thoughts of her trembling beneath him flooding his mind.
Chapter Thirty
Haven’s plan to saunter haughtily down the stairs and ignore the duke altogether, as he had ignored her all day, died at the heart-stopping sight of him waiting regally at the foot of the sweeping staircase.
It should be illegal to look so good in formal wear.
He wore a black suit coat over a pristine white shirt, and an equally white cravat was tucked expertly beneath his square chin. His black trousers did nothing to hide the power, strength, and utterly lip-licking outline of his thighs. Holy hell, how was she supposed to sit through dinner with him? Her dilemma became more perilous when she saw his face, one that should’ve been harsh because of the Roman angles, but was breathtakingly gorgeous. Full lips were like a delicious prize beneath the arrow of his straight nose. His black eyes telegraphed messages of hot, bone-melting sex. Her legs liquefied under her weight, and the once dry space between her thighs welled with unwelcome slickness.
Shit.
She wouldn't make it through the evening if she had to spend the whole time fighting back the desire to finish what they’d begun in the parlor.
The trip from the landing felt more like a march to her execution than a simple placing of one foot in front of the other.
When she reached the final step, the duke held out his hand. What else could she do but take it? Her hand burned within his grasp, and the palatable heat ratcheted up a few notches when his mouth grazed her knuckles, sending hot rushes of want to her already scorching core.
The sounds of Millie descending the staircase behind her made her blush. How could she forget the dear older woman standing right next to her?
