He opened his eyes to find her more beautiful than when he’d closed them. Golden strands had slipped from a sinking chignon to brush her shoulders, her eyes bright and unguarded, her lips flushed from a kiss that had been anything but involved. The color in her cheeks and the way her fingers twisted in her skirts betrayed the vulnerability she tried to hide.
Bracing his fist against the doorjamb, he gave a small shrug. “The truth is, I’m not.”
She didn’t ask why. She drew in a tight breath that lifted her breasts, a sight that tempted him when he needed no further encouragement.
“I’ll be persuasive in public, sprite. Private is another matter. Showing you this side of life wasn’t part of our deal.”
“Fine,” she whispered, temper slipping through the word. “I only wondered. Something to compare to the others.”
He straightened from the door. “Others.”
It came out low and possessive before hecould stop it.
And there it was. Her mouth curved, slow and satisfied. “Others.”
“Ireton?”
“Of course.”
Ever tipped his chin and looked down at her. There was no chance she didn’t feel his arousal pressed hard against her hip. “This is a trap. I know you’re a chit who likes to spin them.”
“And yet,” Isabella murmured, “you’re still here.”
“Don’t,” he said softly. The word was for him, not her.
He broke his own command with a low oath.
He stopped fighting himself. His arm curved around her waist and guided her back into the door, his free hand braced high as his mouth took hers. The exchange was deliberate, unrelenting—meant to pin her there until she understood what she’d set loose, until he showed her the full measure of his wanting.
It wasn’t a kiss he’d ever give as a trial run, a test of chemical compatibility, a we-shall-see approach. This was possession, born of images of her with other men blazing through his mind.
He recognized her manipulation (jealousy) and his own (seduction) with brutal clarity.
And still he seized her like a man starved.
Chapter Seven
Where a curious woman tempts fate.
The embrace was exquisite.
Transformative.
It altered her the instant Everard Trentham curved his hand around her nape and drew her into a kiss that traveled leagues beyond any she’d known.
All of it within the first fiveseconds.
Bowing his long body, unapologetic, he pressed her—hip to hip—into hard oak as he ravaged her mouth. His tongue pursued hers without restraint, granting no quarter to her innocence; this was possession. Domination.
Her guileless maneuvering and his jaded surrender made the result explosive.
Not only did she accept his offer, Isabella demanded more.
She didn’t yet understand that passion could break you.
Her previous encounters hadn’t involved a man’s fingers curling around her hip and lifting her intohis hardening length. Or his hand sliding low to cup her breast, his thumb teasing the rigid peak of her nipple through layers she now longed for him to strip away. There hadn’t been a moment before when a kiss became too much and labored sighs spilled against cheeks and necks, into the wisps of hair at one’s temple. Followed by a mad rejoining, a rebirth, contact that ratcheted up two, four, six degrees, until they trembled, locked in combat, minds spinning with how much farther to go.
Breathless. Blatant need. Raw desire.
