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She really shouldn’t feel surprised to discover that kissing wasn’t as enthralling as described. Nothing was, not chocolate torte nor the quadrille.

They were standing so close together that his snowy smell seemed to surround her. Perhaps it was soap. Perhaps she should—

Without warning Silvester’s tongue slipped into Stella’s mouth, and his hands settled onto her shoulder blades, firmly drawing her closer. Just like that, a shimmer of desire turned into a forest fire.

She gasped, and Silvester made a sound in the back of his throat. A rough, needy sound that surprised Stella into opening her eyes.

His eyes weren’t scanning the ballroom to find Yasmin: they were looking directly into hers, so closely that she saw that the light gray darkened to a black line around his irises. His lashes lined his eyes as vividly as Specs’s coloring did.

One of his large hands slid from her shoulder to the back of her neck. He kissed her again, with a wild abandon that made heat unfurl in her stomach and spread throughout her body. Her heart was thumping as if she had run a race and her thighs instinctively tightened.

She recognized the warmth she felt from when she used to lie in bed imagining the moment when the Duke of Huntington would turn to her on the dance floor and declare his love. And other things.

That was before she knew him, before they were friends.

Longing roared down Stella’s backbone as the taste and smell of him drenched her senses. He tasted faintly of coffee as their tongues slid past each other in a ravishing intimacy that she’d never imagined. His hand on the back of her head pulled her mouth even closer, as a deep growl came from his throat. The sound stripped her raw inside, made her burn for more.

Their mouths clung together, and she didn’t think of anything other than the pressure of his lips, the domineering stroke of his tongue, the rough sound he made in the back of his throat when she nipped his lower lip.

On the verge of pulling him closer, Stella’s common sense suddenly revived.

The mouse.

The groom, presumably arriving any moment to take away the mouse.

Worse: her aunt’s warnings.

Silvester was kissing her because they were alone in her bedchamber. Not because he really wanted her. He as much as admitted it when he pointed out they were alone for the first time.

She pulled away and backed to the edge of her bed, bringing one hand to her swollen lips. “Stop,” she blurted out.

Silvester was looking down at her with an unreadable expression. She felt a spurt of resentment. After all, his adoration for Yasmin was nightly written on his face, so plainly that every person in polite society had registered it. But he looked at her, Stella, with all the emotion of a bishop surveying a parishioner.

“My aunt was right,” Stella exclaimed, stunned.

“If you are referring to my supposedly fraternal feelings toward you, I beg to differ.”

“Mrs. Thyme has told me time and again that, given an opportunity, a man will take advantage, no matter how unattractive the woman in his company.” Stella still couldn’t quite believe it. “I thought she was wrong. There had been no evidence—”

She broke off.

“Until I provided you with that evidence,” Silvester said, clearing his throat. “I beg your apology, Stella.”

“You were overcome by the lack of a chaperone? The bed?” She shook her head. “Even given the proximity of a dead mouse? It must be so uncomfortable.”

“What?”

“The ravening wish to leap on any woman whom you find yourself with.”

“‘Ravening’? No, don’t give me a definition. I can guess. I assure you that I do not feel a wish to leap on any woman with whom I am closeted.”

“Since you claim to have successfully avoided being closeted with marriageable ladies, your evidence is hardly persuasive.”

He moved quickly, almost a jerk. “I didn’t—”

“Moreover, you are courting Lady Yasmin. No: you are in love with Yasmin. People are merely waiting until the two of you announce your betrothal. Is that a fair assessment?” Her tone was sharp, but she owed herself that.

Silvester hesitated.