He did not touch her with his hands; didn’t wrap both arms around her and hold her up as Grandmama had promised. He met no part of her body but her suddenly sensitive lips. And he courted her. Gently at first, a quick brush, a meeting, a nibble from lips that were impossibly soft and warm. Lips she suddenly wanted to explore herself. So, she leaned in, laying her hand against his chest to find that his heart was suddenly racing almost as fast as hers. Why would that be? He should be used to this kind of thing. She knew better than to think this was his first time sharing a prolonged kiss.
She couldn’t help it. She backed away, leaving her hand right where it was against his heart. “Your heart is simply galloping. You cannot be frightened.”
His smile was wistful. “Can’t I?”
That brought on a scowl. “Don’t be—” She shook her head. “I know. I already said that. I am very new to this,” she said. “I had assumed you are not.”
He finally lifted a hand to stroke her cheek. “Truly? You’ve never sneaked down a garden path at a ball to enjoy the embrace of some young blade?”
She felt as if all the air in her lungs was caught in her throat. “Not like this.”
That just widened his smile. “Good. It’s selfish, I know, but I was hoping to be the first to see those amazing green eyes go languorous.
She blinked those green eyes, feeling more and more confused, frustrated, uncertain. “But it’s not new to you. Why is your heart beating so fast?”
“Because, my inquisitive wife, it is new withyou.”
That did not calm any of the turmoil that battered at her. “But...”
“I can see that I didn’t sufficiently make my point.” Lifting her chin, he stroked the corner of her mouth with his thumb. “We may not...without...but I am very anxious to show you how lovelywithcan be.”
Even now she couldn’t quite escape her logical mind. “In a moving carriage?”
He grinned. “There is something enticing about the sway of a coach.”
His eyes were like lights in the shadow, compelling, incandescent. She couldn’t seem to look away, even as his thumb strayed, tracing its way down her jaw, her throat, to come to rest on the first button of her pelisse.
“If you allow,” he murmured, “I’d dispatch with this. It seems to be in my way.”
She opened her mouth to answer and somehow couldn’t manage to make a sound. She was still caught in those ice-blue eyes whose pupils had dilated as he spoke. As he used his finger and thumb to ease the button out of its hole and open the material a bit at her throat. As he slid open the next and then the next.
She should have been at least chilled. There was a late afternoon breeze sweeping in through the windows. Thankheavens, was all she could think. It was the only thing keeping her from incinerating on the spot.
His thumb...his fingers stroked along her collarbone, back and forth, inciting showers of chills that tightened her nipples to buds that were suddenly unbearably sensitive against the silk of her dress. Her breasts seemed to grow heavy and taut, just from his touch along her perfectly innocent collarbone, and she realized that if he didn’t move that hand soon, she would rip the bodice of her own dress to give him access. Sweet lord, what was he doing to her?
He was bending forward to drop a kiss where his thumb had rested, right at the hollow of her throat. And then...oh, was that his tongue? How could he…but he was, licking at her as if sipping up water from the cup of a leaf. And suddenly she lost the strength in her spine. Her body was arching quite without her permission so she could allow him better access. So he could explore beneath the fairly modest collar of her dress. So he could kiss her collarbone and then run his tongue along the slight ridge, and…sweet God, was that her moaning?
“Should I stop?” he asked, his breath skimming against her slightly damp skin and setting off more chills that glittered through her like fireworks.
She grabbed his hair and pulled him against her. “Don’t you dare.”
His chuckle resonated right through her. She was suddenly having trouble breathing, and her own heart had long since outpaced his.
Oh, his hair. She hadn’t thought of how luxurious it would be. He kept it so neat, but it was like thick silk, curling just enough to cling to her fingers as she winnowed through it. She wanted nothing more than to explore him herself. His throat, his chest, that hard, flat belly that was so well served by his beautifullytailored uniform. She loved that uniform. But she wanted it off. She wanted everything off.
Again, she pulled back, gasping for air and good sense. “You promise me,” she demanded. “Your oath.”
His smile this time was the stuff of a mother’s nightmares. So sultry and sinful that it curled her toes in her slippers, and she felt a sharp heat low in her own belly. Very low. Exactly where she didn’t want him to be.
“On my oath as an officer and a gentleman,” he purred, dropping a series of small kisses along her jaw. “I am quite talented enough to instruct you in every way your grandmother promised without you risking pregnancy. Of course, it would help if you did some participating of your own.”
She sighed. “I was hoping you’d say that. It’s just…”
He slid his forefinger around the shell of her ear.
“Stop that. I can’t think when you do that.”
He chuckled. “Which is the precise purpose of doing that.”
