And in her belly…low, low in her belly…kindled a fire the likes of which she’d never experienced before.
“Why…” She paused to wet her lips. “Why is that?”
Exerting a steady pressure, he coaxed her toward him until the only thing separating them was a thin wall of shadow. His head canted, his mouth drawing impossibly close to hers as he murmured, “Because I can’t be trusted to do the right thing.”
Chapter Four
Like Hell Warmed Over
He was going to kiss her, Everett acknowledged the instant before his mouth settled on Daisy’s sweet, plump lips as if it had always belonged there. As if their kiss was already an inevitable occurrence, drawn up in time long before either one knew of the others existence. As if everything he had done and all of the sins he had committed had been leading him to this night, to this moment, to this woman.
This unconventionally beautiful, thoroughly complexing, utterly captivating woman.
Even as he accepted that he’d already broken his short-lived promise to Hollibrook, he decided that it would only be asmallbreak. Just one toe over the line instead of his whole body. After all, what was a chaste peck on the lips in the grand scheme of things? Besides, they weren’t even under a roof. They were standing beneath a tree.
But then Daisy moaned.
A mewling, breathy little sound that shot straight to his loins.
And, well, he wasn’t a bloodysaint.
Embracing her delicate face between his hands, he deepened the kiss, his tongue dancing along the seam of her lips. He could tell that she was unfamiliar with what he was asking by the stiffness of her arms. Virgins never knew what to do with their arms. Very bothersome. But holding Daisy…kissing Daisy…waiting for Daisy to open her mouth so that he could taste her…he wasn’t put off, or annoyed, or bored.
He was enthralled.
Every single inch on tenterhooks.
Then her hands–the ones he presumed she didn’t know what to do with–crept up his abdomen to splay around his chest, and she parted her lips, and he was in heaven.
Sliding his fingers into her waterfall of riotous curls, he kissed her with an unbridled passion that caught him off guard. In the bedroom, Everett tended to be every bit as cynical as he was in his daily pursuits. But here, in the shadow of an oak, with moonlight on his skin and a woodland fairy in his arms, he felt as achingly vulnerable as a school lad with his eyes pinched shut and his lips clumsily pursed in the hot, suffocating heat of a hayloft.
With quick nibbles and long, lingering strokes of his tongue, he explored the silken cavern of her mouth while his fingers leisurely combed through her hair until he found the slender line of her neck and gently massaged the muscles there.
A good kiss–an excellent kiss–wasn’t unlike a well-executed waltz.
There were certain steps to be made.
A rhythm to follow.
A balance to maintain.
But with Daisy, there was nothing but feeling…and that made it the best goddamned kiss of his life.
Everett couldn’t say how long it went on.
Time had ceased to exist the instant he swallowed that breathy sigh.
Seconds, minutes, hours.
Days, months, years.
An eternity, and it would not be enough.
Except all things, even perfect kisses, had to end atsomepoint. And when he dimly heard the hum of approaching voices above the rush of blood pumping through his veins, he knew that point had come.
“Enough,” he rasped, bracing his hands on her shoulders as he pushed her to arm’s length. “That’s enough, Miss White.”
In the darkness, he was unable to decipher the nuance of her expression. But her voice was pleasingly hoarse when she said, “I don’t know if we should have done that, but I liked it. Good evening, Mr. Everett.”
