On a groan, he pulled Lillian in closer while her hands anchored to his chest, fingers digging into the silk fabric of his waistcoat as she returned his kiss with wild abandon and pinpricks of light danced behind his closed eyelids when she took his lower lip between her teeth and tugged. He snarled in response, more animal than man when he backed up against the balcony and captured her wrists, pinning her arms to the side of the railing so that he could ravish her properly. So that he could indulge in all of the dark, wicked fantasies that his mind conjured during those nights when his hand was wrapped around his cock.
Wrenching free of her delectable lips, he kissed her jawline before skimming up toward her ear to take the small, sensitive lobe in his teeth. She gave a soft, almost imperceptible mewl when he licked, but he caught the sound nonetheless and his body thrilled at having summoned it, loins pressing ardently against her skirts where layers of silk and chiffon hid what he truly coveted.
Releasing her left arm, he palmed her breast, holding the full, plump weight of it while his thumb stroked across the hard point of her nipple. She arched her spine, leaning backward over the balcony as their mouths crashed together yet again. Canting his head, Abel deepened the kiss, shamelessly taking what he wanted without reservation. Dimly, he registered that Catherine would have already been a withering pile of nerves. His gentle lady wife had consistently shied away from passion in all of its varied forms. But Lillian met his tongue thrust for thrust, and he nearly pushed them both off the terrace when she used her free hand to cup his groin, her teasing fingers tracing the outline of his rigid manhood through his trousers from base to tip.
It was too much.
Shewas too much.
In every possible way.
In every wonderfullysinfulway.
When had he ever been this close to losing control?
Bloody hell, when had he ever kissed a perfect stranger at a ball?
Never.
The answer was a firm, resolutenever.
But damned if he didn’t want to do it again even as he made himself relinquish his hold on her and take a step back.
“I’m…I’m terribly sorry,” he rasped. “I don’t know what that was.”
In the snow-flecked darkness, Lillian’s garnet eyes gleamed. “That, my dear duke…was theater.”
Chapter Four
Lillian was nota virgin.
Shehadbeen, until the age of eighteen, when she fell deliriously in love with Arman, a trick-rider from a traveling circus. They’d spent two lust-filled weeks together and then she’d woken to a rose on her pillow and a letter filled with token remarks of remorse.
He’d spelled her name wrong.
After that, Lillian had guarded her heart–and her body–more carefully. She’d indulged in flirtations (she was a stage performer, after all) but had made a rule that she would not fall for a performer ever again. Being one herself, she knew how fickle they could be. How quick they were to fall in–and out–of love.
Which was why, when she turned twenty, she had an affair with a doctor. The handsome, albeit pompous Dr. Theodore Cartwright came calling after he saw her performance as Grace Harkaway inLondon Assurance. They’d enjoyed strolls through Hyde Park, dinners at the Albion in Covent Garden, and a memorable seven-day excursion to Bath. But Dr. Cartwright had wanted marriage, and while she found him pleasant enough (more so out of bed than in it, where he’d been rather stiff), there weren’t any of the sparks she’d had with the trick-rider.
Since he’d stormed off in a fit of bruised ego–and subsequently married a debutante six months later–Lillian had made it a point to focus solely on the theater. She didn’tneeda man, and aside from a few casual kisses here and there that hadn’t led to anything else, she’d gotten along just fine without one.
Until she walked out onto a terrace…and was kissed senselessby the Duke of Dorchester.
On the stage, first impressions were everything. You had seconds to capture the audience’s attention and then an hour to hold it. What they saw they had to believe, even though theyknewthey were watching a fictional production. Voice, tone, body language…it all had to come together to tell a story.
The duke’s story had started as a stodgy gentleman that had vaguely reminded her of Dr. Cartwright. But when he’d yanked her into his arms and then shoved her against the balcony…that had been Arman and then some. With his passionate embrace, Abel Taylor Roberts, Duke of Dorchester, had succeeded in capturing her attention. She wanted the show to continue. But she also needed to remember why she was here in the first place.
A glance over her shoulder at the French doors revealed that the front hall had largely emptied of guests, indicating that the dancing had commenced. If she was going to find a benefactor, it would be in there, amidst the sheen and the shine of old wealth and new. Unless…
“You wouldn’t happen to be seeking to fund a failing theater house, thus ensuring the survival of its acting troupe and stage crew, would you?” she asked pleasantly.
Abel blinked slowly at her from beneath a heavy lock of ebony hair dotted with ivory snowflakes. “Are you…asking for money?”
“Buckets of it. Trunks, really.”
His eyes–a truly mesmerizing shade of green, he would have dazzled the ladies on stage–narrowed slightly. “Is that why you came out here and kissed me?”
“Youkissedme,” she reminded him.
