His eyes burned.“All you can think about is what it felt like last night,” he said roughly.“In that carriage.With my mouth on your?—”
“Stop,” she gasped.
He stopped.
But his hand stayed on her face.
“Bea,” he said, voice low and strained, “if you want a saint, you have chosen poorly.”
“I don’t want a saint,” she blurted.
“Oh?”His mouth tilted.“What do you want?”
“You,” she said.The word came from somewhere low and unguarded inside her.“Just you.The infuriating, arrogant, overconfident man who drove me mad and then somehow—” She swallowed.“Somehow made me feel safe.”
His hand trembled against her skin.
“Say it again,” he whispered.
She met his eyes, heart pounding so hard she felt it in her throat.
“I feel safe with you,” she said.
That did it.
Whatever thin tether of restraint he’d been clinging to snapped.He closed the remaining distance and claimed her lips.
It was not a gentle, grateful little brush of mouths.It was deep and immediate and hungry, as if he’d been waiting for her permission for far too long.
Her back hit the wall harder as his body pressed against hers, solid and hot and entirely too welcome.Her hands found his shoulders, fingers clutching at the fine weave of his shirt as his mouth moved over hers in slow, devastating strokes.
This was a mistake.She knew it.Somewhere in the fogged corners of her mind, reason waved a frantic little flag and whispered,Tell him.Tell him now.Before it’s too late.
She opened her mouth to speak.
He took the movement as an invitation and deepened the kiss.
Words disappeared under the onslaught of sensation.His tongue stroked against hers, coaxing, teasing, turning her bones to liquid.The hand cupping her cheek slid back into her hair, gentle but insistent, angling her head, holding her as if he’d never let her go.
She made a small sound against his mouth.He swallowed it with a soft groan of his own.
“Wait,” she managed between kisses.“Nicholas, I have to?—”
“Later,” he breathed, mouth against the corner of hers.“You can tell me everything later.”
“I meant to tell you now.”She gasped as he trailed kisses along her jaw.
“Yes,” he said.“You also meant to not kiss me.We are both failing miserably.”
His teeth grazed the base of her throat where her pulse hammered, and her protest melted into a helpless shudder.His hands slid down from her face to her shoulders, then lower, palms spanning her ribs through the layers of her bodice.
“If you truly don’t want this, tell me now,” he said against her skin.“Say it now.”
She squeezed her eyes shut.“I…can’t.”
“Good,” he said, voice rough.
He kissed her again, and that was the end of coherent intention.
