Yes, that was exactly what she wanted. Their last time together was seared into her memory, and she ached to be that close, that intimate with him again.
He waited for a response from her. She remainedsilent, but her gaze moved slowly over his face. It was impossible to deny the yearning he had caused inside her. She reached up and let her palm slowly drift down his cheek and across his closed lips, marking their shape with her fingertips. After she lowered her hand, he took the initiative, bowed his head, and tenderly kissed her briefly on the lips.
“Is that what you had in mind?” he whispered huskily.
“No,” she answered on a gusty breath. “This is what I had in mind.” Her arms slid underneath his coat and circled his slim waist. She lifted her lips to his and pressed ardently to show him she wanted to be kissed with passion. Her mouth clung to his while her hands slid up his wide, strong back.
Zane answered her kisses, and this time, held nothing back. His lips moved commandingly and hungrily over hers, his tongue probing and searching her mouth.
“Yes,” she whispered.
This was what she’d wanted. To be held tightly, kissed thoroughly. Her head fell back, and his lips moved over her jawline, down her neck, and back to her lips. His hands caressed all around her shoulders, past her nape to where his fingers slid into the back of her hair. He held her head steady as he deepened the kiss.
Flames of passion flared between them. His mouth sought hers over and over again with ever-increasing pressure and pleasure. His hands molded over the contours of her back, her waist, and around to gently, but firmly caress her breasts.
Brina shivered slightly and murmured another soft, “Yes.”
She clung to him as if some unknown force were trying to rip him away from her arms. This was the kind of devouring passion she wanted, and she gloried in theway it made her heart thunder in her chest and her head light. She took in the tension and urgency in his embrace and welcomed it, returned it.
Always, when she was in his arms, she came alive. Yet, all too soon his hands stilled, his kisses turned to short, parting pecks.
He lifted his head and stared at her with passion blazing in his eyes. “You have a decision to make,” he whispered on a deep, aching gasp.
Her breaths were labored and as short as his. An ache filled her chest and squeezed her abdomen.
“Do we continue this upstairs or go for a ride?” she managed to ask past a thick throat.
Inhaling deeply, he shook his head. “Whether you will release me from the promise of no women.”
No women?
Brina stiffened. She wasn’t sure she believed what she heard him say. “You are still going to hold me to that knowing we both want to be together right now in the privacy of my home?”
He bent his head again and placed his cool lips to the base of her throat and trailed soft, moist kisses all the way up to her lips, where he gave her a few more sweet kisses before whispering, “You’re the one I want. I’m trying to win your hand in marriage, Brina. Not just the afternoon in your bed. I must have the release from you.”
There was no reason for it to, but his bluntness stung. She had invited him upstairs and he was declining. And making it her fault! Pushing out of his arms, she stepped away and huffed a breath of exasperation.
“That is a terrible thing to say to me,” she said, tugging on the waistband of her dress as if somehow that would make her feel better.
“It was respectful and true,” he argued with no anger in his expression.
“How dare you make no distinction between a paid woman—a mistress—and a lady.”
He leaned in close to her. His gaze felt like a brush of velvet across her cheek. It was tantalizing. “I know the difference, Brina. It is you who must make the distinction. I will abide by your answer.”
Her chest heaved. Drat the man. He was right. She hadn’t made anything clear when she saidno women. At the time, she didn’t even know she was going to say it, much less try to qualify it.
“No bets are off between us, my lord,” she issued firmly. “Our bargain stands as is. You best get busy if you are going to have more than half of those bags of tea finished by the time I am ready to ride.”
Brina turned and headed for the stairs. She didn’t mind the soft rumble of a masculine chuckle that drifted from behind her. The more she was around the earl, the more she liked him—no, no. It was more than mere like she felt for the earl. She liked several men, including Mr. Inwood.
She wanted Lord Blacknight in the most intimate way.
It made her vulnerable. It made deeper feelings for him grow and fill her with longing she didn’t need but couldn’t deny. She’d known she would have to endure his courtship when she made her bargain with him. What she hadn’t expected was that she would find herself looking forward to it.
And why hadn’t the rake taken a drink or picked up a deck? His willpower was far exceeding her expectations. She never anticipated him to last this long. Surely he would give in to temptation soon.
Chapter 18
