Part III
“Ilove her and that’s the beginning and end of everything.”
~ American novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald
Olivia had been kissed three times in her life.
The first was a dry peck that had reminded her of a chicken.
The second had been wet and sloppy, like being engulfed by a salmon.
And the third… the third didn’t feel like a kiss at all, because if the first two had been kisses by definition, then this was… this was something else entirely.
Hoyt’s mouth was shockingly tender as he gently passed his lips back and forth, encouraging her own to part so that he could deepen the kiss.
On a small moan, she sank helplessly into his embrace as if she were sinking into the pages of an excellent book. A book that both thrilled her and warmed her heart. A book that she alreadymourned finishing before she was halfway through. A book that made her gasp with delight. A book so good that there were parts where she had to close the pages and then close her eyes to imprint the words upon her soul.
Hoyt’s kiss was a book.
A book that she did not want to end.
“Olivia,” he murmured, angling his head to trace a light line of kisses down her neck and then up again to her ear.
“Hmmm?” she said on a sigh.
“You kissed me back.”
Had she?
Yes, she supposed that she had.
“You’re still an arrogant American.” She was holding his waistcoat, she realized dazedly. Clutching the fabric in her fists as if the satin brocade was the only thing anchoring her to the ground. She slowly opened her hands as Hoyt shifted his weight onto his heels, his expression almost unbearably smug.
“You kissed me back,” he repeated.
When her fingers itched to brush an ebony swath of hair off his temple, she put her arms behind her and leaned against the railing, putting as much space between them as she could given he was standing right in front of her. A tall, towering scoundrel with a devil’s grin and the mouth of an angel.
“This doesn’t change anything,” she said quickly, lest he get a wayward idea in that thick skull of his. “I still don’t like you.”
“That puts us in a predicament, doesn’t it?” he said, clasping his neck where his skin turned to bronze above the straight edge of his collar.
“Why is that?”
“Because while you profess not to like me, I confess that I’m falling in love with you.”
Olivia’s mouth, still tingling from the kiss, fell open. “Take that back this instant.”
The corner of his lips twisted in a lopsided smirk that would have been adorable if her heart wasn’t lodged in the base of her throat.
“I won’t.”
“Youjustmet me this morning.”
“And in thirty years, when your exquisite red hair is beginning to shine with threads of silver, I’ll still be falling in love with you.” He touched her cheek. She swatted his hand away.
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not.”
