Mercy straightened from her slump, her spotty vision clearing in slow seconds. Dazed, she crawled to her hands and knees, her hair choosing that moment to tumble past her shoulders in surrender. Slapping the thick strands from her face while trying valiantly to ignore the heat filling his gaze as he stared, she climbed to her feet. To say she was wobbly from their embrace was an immense understatement. “I’m confused.”
He gestured with the bottle. “What you said back there, during that explosion of a kiss, was all wrong. ‘The same as the others.’ That’s the deal, minx, there are no others.”
She pressed her hand to her brow. She was going to have to sit down again if he didn’t stop knocking the breath from her with his truths. Stalking across the room, she snatched the bottle from his hand and took a gulp. The liquor burned its way down her throat, but thankfully, restored a fraction of her faculties. “Are you saying…” She let the half-question linger, hanging by a stunned thread. “That is, do you mean…”
He retrieved the brandy, his eyes hot. “Yes,” he murmured after a pained sip.
She propped her bottom on a low table housing a variety of art supplies, her thoughts fighting to free themselves. How? What? When? Why? “But…but, you kiss like a master. Like a prophet. There could be no better kiss in centuries of kisses. The way you held me, your tongue, your lips, oh, your lips. You aren’t a man who doesn’t know how to conduct himself.”
“I’m marginally good at kissing, granted, and everything up to the fact, perhaps even better from practice, because it’s how I keep it from going further than I want it to. A woman who climaxes enough times from your tongue and your fingers doesn’t usually ask for more.”
Mercy paused, her breath taking flight. Absolute flight. She pointed, without pointing directly, to his still-impressive erection.
He leaned in, bracing his hands on the table on either side of her. She could not express how imposing—and enticing—he was at that moment. It said a lot about what lit her up when she was the most independent miss in England. Her blood fired so hot in her veins, she felt the blinding rush to her toes.
“As you know, I read. A lot. Combined with this knowledge, at a young age, younger than some due to having older brothers with reputations for excess, there were offers. Stolen kisses, touches, more. Every time I turned, some chit was there. My reticence made the situation difficult while my lust made it necessary. I never felt comfortable, not completely, something I have not admitted to another soul. My mind spun in those days, though it’s calming the older I get.” He frowned and tapped the bottle against the table’s leg. “Somewhere along the line, I mixed my knowledge from books, most of them a scandal but informative, and my love of detail with the real thing. To a point.”
“To a point,” she mouthed, pleased when his hungry gaze struck her lips.
“It was my preference, my wish, oh, fucking hell”—he gave the table a hard pop with the bottle—“I didn’t want sexual congress to mean naught when much of my life did. When it all did. I’ve spent years trying to back away from my membership in the Troublesome Trio. Another lifetime watching my parents tear each other apart. Lust I can solve for with a few firm strokes. Or someone can solve for me. A pair of talented lips circling my cock works quite well, if I’m allowed to be vulgar in an artist’s Fitzrovia loft. I don’t want you to assume I’ve been faultless. I just haven’t been tupped.”
“That exquisite scullery maid in Hampstead,” she breathed, trying to consolidate everything he was telling her into a sensible package. He was exceptionally experienced in some areas, but not in others. The word cock slipping from his lips wasn’t a happenstance she could easily overlook. Not when her body was on fire, images of him crawling atop her eating her alive. “What was her name?”
He rose to his full height, a furrow splitting his brow. “Please, please, tell me you didn’t spy on us in the stable that summer.”
Mercy’s temper began to simmer, emotions she realized weren’t appropriate to the situation. “She’s one of the many you’ve pleasured with your keen attention to detail. Don’t think you’ve not earned that Troublesome Trio membership, DeWitt.”
Carefully, as if he feared smashing it to the floor, Damien placed the bottle on the counter behind him. His chest rose with a full breath, his shoulders going back in a fighting stance. He had a physique unlike most of the rats she was forced to congregate with in society. “I would call Annie a tutor, of sorts, though I’m confident she wasn’t as accommodating as Pierre.”
Mercy blinked away the prick of tears in her eyes. What in heaven’s name was wrong with her? Had an exceptional kiss—the only to leave her weak-kneed—disabled her intellect? She had no relationship, outside the one she’d dreamed about, with this man. However, she couldn’t help but ask, “Did Annie make your hands tremble?”
Damien’s expression blanked. He held out his hands, and indeed, they were shaking.
What was going on behind a gaze gone the deepest, darkest shade of honey, she couldn’t say. Concern, fear, mysteries being solved, snatches of feeling rolling over him like a wave?
Whatever it was, he didn’t disclose. Or want. When had Damien DeWitt shared anything with the pesky neighbor from his past beyond a brilliant kiss she’d basically demanded of him?
Embarrassed to her core, Mercy didn’t call out as the door closed behind him.
She merely let the tears come.
Because her offer was too late. And his pride too formidable.
CHAPTER FOUR
WHERE A PROFESSOR MENTALLY KICKS HIMSELF FOR HIS IDIOCY
You’re a daft prick, DeWitt.
When have you been kissed like that, within an inch of your silly life?
Damien brooded from his guarded stance on the portico of Mercy’s Fitzrovia studio, having spent a restless night replaying every second he’d spent with her. Her touch calling to him until there was nothing left to do but take his cock in hand and let his fantasies ride.
He couldn’t get over how honest she’d been about her desires.
How charmingly vulnerable.
The former was nothing singular, the latter so singular it stung. Artlessness wasn’t standard in society dealings, and he’d been stunned by its appearance in the final stages of that astounding kiss. He’d almost seen into her soul when he lifted his head and gazed at her, his lips tingling, his body throbbing, her azure-blue gaze crushing him. He’d never felt protective, amused, lustful, and perplexed at once.
