“I’ve dreamed about kissing you here,” he whispered as his tongue curled around her earlobe, licking her before his teeth closed down in a gentle nip. He sucked the tiny fold of her skin into his mouth and teased at it with his tongue, his mouth hot and demanding, commanding her response.
“Oh!” Emma gasped, shocked at the sudden heat gathering in her belly. She’d never wanted a man before, nor had she ever imagined she would.
Until now.
That it should behim—a gentleman, an aristocrat, a man so far out of her reach he might as well be on the moon—would lead to nothing but heartbreak, but she clung to him, grabbing handfuls of his coat in her fists, her lips opening eagerly under his.
“Is this how an innocent young lady kisses a gentleman?” he growled against her lips.
“Is this how a gentleman kisses an innocent young lady?” She nipped at his full lower lip, the only soft feature in his otherwise stony face, that pouting lip the only hint there was a passionate man his underneath his cool façade.
He groaned and sank his hand into the mass of curls at the back of her neck. “Have you kissed other men like this? Brought them to their knees with that sweet mouth?”
“No. Just you, my lord.” It was both the truth and a lie at once. Another man had kissed her, had done whatever he wished to her while she waited, still and cold, forit to be over.
But Samuel was the only man she’d ever kissed because shewantedhislips on hers.
A hoarse laugh tore from his chest, and the hand on her throat vanished, giving way to gentle fingertips on her neck, caressing the bare skin with light, teasing strokes. Emma moaned, every inch of her skin quivering in the wake of those caressing fingers, clamoring for moreof his touch.
He sank his hands into her hair and urged her head back, baring her neck. “So soft, my lady, like silk,” he whispered as he trailed his lips down to the pulse point at her throat. “I’ve dreamed of tasting you here, too, every night since I first laid eyes on you. Does that gratify you, knowing you haunt my dreams?”
“No.”Yes. Emma closed her eyes, her lips parting on a silent cry as his teeth grazedher collarbone.
“Why did you chase those men into the garden, Emma?” He slid his hands down her neck and over her ribcage, letting his thumbs brush against the sides of her breasts before they settled on her hips and he jerked her harder againsthim. “Tell me.”
Did he think he could seduce the truth out of her? Weaken her with his drugging kisses until she told him all her secrets? Perhaps the two of them weren’t so different, then, but what Samuel didn’t know was the truth he demanded wasn’t hers to give.
But she’d give him as much as she could—as much as she dared. Emma melted against him, her soft curves molding to his hard angles, the long muscles of his thighs pressing into her belly. “I wasn’t following them. I told you, I got lost.”
She stroked her fingers back and forth across his neck, then slid them down over his chest. His stomach muscles tightened as her hands drifted lower, over his abdomen and under the edge of his waistcoat before coming to rest on his waist.
Samuel took her wrists and set her away from him, so he could see her face. His lower lip was swollen from her bite, his dark eyes blazing. “I doubt you’ve been lost a day in your life. Tell me who those men are to you. What do you want with them?”
Emma clung to him, feeling as if she were drowning. “I don’t want anything from them. Theydon’t matter.”
Warm lips touched her temple, but for all his tenderness, there was a hint of hurt in his voice. “Why do you always lie to me, Emma? What are you hiding from me?”
Emma gripped the thick, dark waves at the back of his neck, still amazed at how soft they were. Another lie rose to her lips, but this time, she couldn’t force her tongue to speak it. Not tohim. “I-I don’t wantto lie to you.”
“Do you want my kisses, my lady? Or do you want me to stop, and return you to your grandmother as pristine as you were when you entered the garden?” He pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth, the tip of his tongue making her shiver.
She wanted his kisses—wantedhim. It was the one thing she wouldn’t lie about, and the one thing she wouldn’t give up. Until she’d kissed him, Emma had never tasted desire such as this, had never believed it was anything more than a fantasy. She’d keep it now, while she could, hold it in desperate hands until it vanished again, like the quiet footsteps passing by them in thegarden beyond.
But she didn’t tell him this. She didn’t say anything at all as she drew him deeper into the alcove, the tall, thick shrubs curving protectively around them, shielding them from prying eyes. It was madness, utter madness, yet she took another step backward, then another until the back of her knees bumped intosomething hard.
It was a stone bench, tuckedinto the trees.
They both paused then. It was too dim for Emma to see his face, but she could feel his gaze on her, hot and heavy. She caught her breath as he dragged his fingertips along her jaw, and then he was kissing her—not the hard, demanding kisses of before, but slow, gentle, his lips brushing over hers again and again, soft and coaxing.
She sank her hands into his hair to drag him closer, her entire body leaping to aching awareness when his tongue slipped between her lips. He was warm, so warm, and his mouth so hot and sweet against hers.
It might have been the darkness surrounding them, or the dizzying press of his lips, but everything around Emma faded to nothingness then. She twined her arms around his neck and let it all go, her world suspended as she gave in to the pleasure of his caresses, hislips on hers.
“We need to stop, Emma. I need to take you back to your grandmother,” he murmured in a broken whisper, but he didn’t release her, nor did his mouth cease its breathtaking progress from her lips to her neck and down her throat, then lower still, until he was pressing open-mouthed kisses on the tops of her breasts.
Emma whimpered as he plucked at her sleeve, dragging it down and baring her shoulder and burying his face in the sensitive arch of her neck. “This is madness. Tell me to stop.”
But Emma didn’t tell him to stop. She pressed closer still, her body going limp against his as he lifted her and dropped down onto the bench, dragging her over his lap. “Oh.” Emma’s breath left her lungs in a rush at the hot press of his arousal beneath her.
