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“His lips touched mine.”
“Irrelevant.”
“Another time, I was taken unaware, preparing for a private discussion, and instead found myself fending off an overly amorous suitor.”
Now there were two men he might have to kill.
“The third was horrible. He attempted to put his tongue in my mouth.”
“Did he, now?”
“Indeed. When I asked the other ladies about it, they assured me ’twas normal. But I had not really wanted to repeat the experience.”
“That is all? Three kisses?”
“Mmm, no. Four. Just this summer a stablehand who had professed his love for me when I returned from Westminster suddenly kissed me after handing me Lady’s reins.”
“He forced himself on you?”
“Not precisely. I believe he’d been as surprised as I at his forwardness and immediately pulled away, apologetic.” Haydn crossed the stablehand off his list. “Why do you wish to know about my kisses?”
“To understand better why you are so scared. So let me tell you, wife, what to expect from me. I do intend to use my tongue”—she made a face—“to entice you to consummate our marriage this eve.”
Phillipa—his sweet, quiet, demure Phillipa—placed her hands on her hips. “There is naught,” she declared, “you could do with your tongue that would make me wish to consummate our marriage.”
Oh, how wrong she was.
“If you do not ask for it, we shall not do so this eve. Do we have a deal?”
Her hands remained in place. “Unless I ask for. . .”
“Relations.”
She did smile then. “Relations. I will remain a virgin this eve?”
“Aye. You will.”
She nodded, so satisfied with her pact, so unaware, that Haydn could not have been more pleased with their “deal.”
He closed the gap between them. Her hands dropped.
He cupped her face. Her eyes widened.
He lowered his head. Phillipa did not stand a chance.
At the first touch of their lips, she startled. Haydn resisted groaning at the simple touch so as not to scare her away. When he felt her shoulders relax, he began to take up the challenge. Running his tongue along the folds of her lips, as soon as she opened for him, Haydn took charge.
Moving his hands from her cheeks down to her shoulders, he coaxed her own tongue to his. When she touched him, so very tentative, he dropped his hands again, this time to her waist. Meanwhile, he showed her the dance. At first she simply touched her tongue to him, and then retreated it.
But he was a patient man.
Again his hands slipped, this time to cup her backside, pulling her toward him. If the press of them together scared her, Phillipa gave no indication of it. Finally she trusted him enough to give herself over completely.
That’s when he widened his mouth, delving deeper and deeper. Instead of a simple touch, now his hands moved of their own accord. Molding and pressing, Haydn somehow continued to hold back a groan. That might alert her to how affected he was, if the press of their groins together did not do so already. An innocent, she did not yet understand.
But she would.
By now Phillipa was no longer solely a bystander. She gripped his shoulders as if to hold on. Opened her mouth more widely, tangled with his tongue more readily. Their kiss could not be deepened, so instead he simply continued, over and over and over, to draw her in, and out. Just as he would when they finally joined together.
