Gawds, she smelled good. He angled his face toward her to draw in one more intoxicating sip. “What is that…fragrance?” he gritted out before he could stymie the inane impulse.
As if he’d startled her, she jerked her head unexpectedly toward him, knocking back the hood of her cloak, grazing her cheek against the tip of his nose, and then disaster occurred, and his lips brushed the corner of hers.
So soft.
She gasped, he groaned, stumbled back, all the while stammering out an awkward apology which summarily died on his lips when he came to a sudden, violent halt, thanks entirely to her hands fisting in the lapels of his coat.
For a timeless moment, she stared up at him as he braced for a thorough set-down. Watching in stupefaction as their breaths, small puffs of white in the frigid night air clashed and melded, it finally dawned on him that she appeared neither angry nor prepared to blast him.
Instead, she looked curious. Her eyes searched his, then dipped to his mouth.
His loins tightened with desperate longing.
He told himself to put a stop to this. To take control. And yet, he stood stock still as one of her fists unfurled, releasing his coat lapel to glide up his chest, higher and higher until her gloved fingers curved around his nape.
He knew what she wanted. Clinging to his sanity with his last vestige of strength, he somehow resisted. “Annabelle, you don’t know what you’re—”
“Please,” she whispered, inching closer and rising up onto her toes. Her body brushed against his, turning the blood in his veins to liquid fire.
“We shouldn’t. It isn’t right,” he choked, grasping her shoulders—to push her away, he told himself even as his hands flexed.
“No one will know,” she argued.
It would be so easy to take what she offered, so easy to give in to his body’s unrelenting clamors for a taste of her. But then what? “Why?” he ground out, trying to ignore his thickening erection.
The tip of her tongue darted out to dampen her lips. God, he wanted to feel those soft petals under his mouth.
“I’ve never been kissed. I’ve never even wanted anyone to try,” she said, the admission coming in a heated rush. “Until now. I…I feel as if I might die if you don’t kiss me.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying. This isn’t a game. Your reputation is at stake—as is mine.”
She gave an almost imperceptible whimper that threatened to buckle his knees.
“Oh, bother,” she muttered. And then she kissed him.
Chapter 11
Annabelle pressed her lips to his, lips so soft and ripe and searching there was no question but that he kiss her back.
After that, Sterling’s ability to think, to reason, vaporized. The desire he’d kept at bay through sheer will exploded within him, infusing every inch of his body, to leave him hot and weak and desperate—to taste. To plunder. To revel in every last exquisite morsel of her.
As if they had a will of their own, his hands hauled her closer—but not nearly close enough.
She wriggled in his grasp and for a heart-stopping moment he feared she meant to push him away. Then her arms twined around his neck, locking him to her.
A thrumming need to bring more of her into contact with more of him drove out all other consideration. Cupping the crown of her head to anchor her mouth to his, he wrapped one arm around her slender waist, lifted her off her feet and pressed forward ’til he crashed their straining bodies into the immovable parapet.
Heaven. Even separated by the thick layers of clothing, her body fitted with his in absolute perfection.
A shudder rolling through him, he deepened the kiss, sliding his tongue over the seam of her lush lips. With no hesitation she parted for him, and he slid into her moist heat, reveling in the slick underside of her lips. The taste of her, sweet wine and exotic female and unspeakable mystery, intoxicated his senses.
A groan sounded in his throat, half pleasure, half frustration. She was soft and supple, warm and inviting, and he longed to divest her of her many layers to run his hands over her pristine flesh, to explore every womanly curve, every hollow. He was on the verge of peeling off a glove when a creak sounded behind him. The door to the stair tower opening.
Hell’s teeth. He had lost his bloody mind.
Releasing her, he tore his mouth from hers, then took one massive step back.
Not that the distance he’d placed between them would fool anyone as to what they’d been about in the preceding moments, thanks to the combined cacophony of their harsh breaths.
