Her eyes had widened at his raw words. Then she shook her head.
“I see. You’re speaking only of the physical wanting. Of swiving.”
Again, she sighed, and he wondered what she would say if he told her how he also wanted to lay awake in the moonlight and talk to her about the world. He wanted to introduce her to his family. He wanted to discuss the news in the mornings over coddled eggs and share books and chess by the hearth in the evenings. He wanted to escort her around London, proudly showing her off as his lady love.
Except she wasn’t his. And he could not trust her if she was. She seemed happy to spin Fortune’s wheel and take up with whichever man was at hand, and her heart apparently played no part in her choice whatsoever.
“You only want me now because it is too late,” she said, her voice filled with outrage.
“It was already too late. May I remind you once again, you are engaged? Now to two men,” he added.
She shrugged delicately and closed her eyes for a second to complete the message of how inconsequential was her engagement.
James could only wonder whether the promise to Payton would be equally meaningless as that to Aberavon.
He could test her — only for his friend’s sake, of course! Or he could do the gentlemanly thing and leave.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Striding toward her, James saw her brown eyes glimmer, not with fear but anticipation. Her body turned to face him fully and her hands were holding onto him almost before he had her in his arms.
With something akin to rage, James claimed her mouth, harshly taking her lips under his. Yet she didn’t shy away. She gave it back to him, pressing the length of her curves and valleys against his body and firmly kissing him in return.
With his hands on the soft flesh of her bottom, he curled her hips into his, grinding his aching shaft against her soft womanly core.
She was his!
When he had to touch more of her, he reached down and bunched her chemise in his fist, dragging it up until he could sweep his hand underneath. Caressing her thigh, he felt her shiver. And with his first touch across her soft curls, instantly damp, she moaned against his mouth.
Slipping a finger between her silken petals, he stroked her along one side of her nubbin and then the other while she trembled against him. And when he flicked her little bud, she gasped, practically sinking to the floor if he hadn’t supported her.
Latching his mouth onto her nipple through the soft lawn of her chemise, he lathed it to a peak, still stroking between her thighs. Changing to her other nipple, he dipped a finger inside her slick channel, while continuing to caress where she pulsed. Her body tensed and her fingers grasped his shirtfront.
When she arched her head back and shuddered, he knew he’d taken her to the height of sensation. From start to finish, it had barely been five minutes!
It wasn’t enough. He ached to explore every facet of amorous pleasure with her. He wanted to teach her what their bodies could do for one another. He would breach her virtuous defenses and take her.
