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“And I am not one of your stupid cows!” she snapped. “I am not paid to do exactly as you like, and no law on earth obliges me to do so. I shall say whatever I please, and at this moment, it pleases me exceedingly to infuriate you. Because that is precisely how I feel. You have ruined my evening. I should like nothing better than to ruin yours, you spoiled, selfish, spiteful brute!”
She kicked him in the ankle.
He was so astonished that he let go of her arm.
He stared at her tiny, booted foot. “Good gad, did you actually think you could hurt me with that?” He laughed. “Are you mad, Jess?”
“You great drunken jackass!” she cried. “How dare you?” She tore off her bonnet and whacked him in the chest with it.
“I did not give you leave to use my Christian name.” She whacked him again. “And I am not a ha’pennyworth of a chit, you thickheaded ox!” Whack, whack, whack.
Dain gazed down in profound puzzlement. He saw a flimsy wisp of a female attempting, apparently, to do him an injury with a bit of millinery.
She seemed to be in a perfect fury. While tickling his chest with her ridiculous hat, she was ranting about some party and somebody’s picture and Mrs. Beaumont and how he had spoiled everything and he would be very sorry, because she no longer gave a damn about Bertie, who was no use on earth to anybody, and she was going straight back to England and open a shop and auction the icon herself and get ten thousand for it, and she hoped Dain choked on it.
Dain was not certain what he was supposed to choke on, except perhaps laughter, because he was certain he’d never seen anything so vastly amusing in all his life as Miss Jessica Trent in a temper fit.
Her cheeks were pink, her eyes flashed silver sparks, and her sleek black hair was tumbling about her shoulders.
It was very black, the same pure jet as his own. But different. His was thick and coarse and curly. Hers was a rippling veil of silk.
A few tresses shaken loose from their pins dangled teasingly against her bodice.
And that was when he became distracted.
Her apple green pelisse fastened all the way to her white throat. It was fastened very snugly, outlining the curve of her breasts.
Measured against, say, Denise’s generous endowments, Miss Trent’s were negligible. In proportion to a slim, fine-boned frame and a whisper of a waist, however, the feminine curves abruptly became more than ample.
Lord Dain’s fingers began to itch, and a snake of heat stirred and writhed in the pit of his belly.
The tickling bonnet became an irritation. He grabbed it and crushed it in his hand and threw it down. “That’s enough,” he said. “You’re beginning to bother me.”
“Bother you?” she cried. “Bother? I’ll bother you, you conceited clodpole.” Then she drew back, made a fist, and struck him square in the solar plexus.
It was a good, solid blow, and had she directed it at a man less formidably built, that man would have staggered.
Dain scarcely felt it. The lazy raindrops plopping on his head had about as much physical impact.
But he saw her wince as she jerked her hand away, and realized she’d hurt herself, and that made him want to howl. He grabbed her hand, then hastily dropped it, terrified he’d crush it by accident.
“Damn and blast and confound you to hell!” he roared. “Why won’t you leave me in peace, you plague and pestilence of a female!”
A stray mongrel, sniffing at the lamppost, yelped and scurried away.
Miss Trent did not even blink. She only stood gazing with a sulkily obstinate expression at the place she’d hit, as though she were waiting for something.
He didn’t know what it was. All he knew—and he didn’t know how he knew, but it was a certainty as ineluctable as the storm swelling and roaring toward them—was that she hadn’t got it yet and she would not go away until she did.
“What the devil do you want?” he shouted. “What in blazes is the matter with you?”
She didn’t answer.
The desultory plops of rain were building to a steady patter upon the trottoir. Droplets glistened on her hair and shimmered on her pink-washed cheeks. One drop skittered along the side of her nose and down to the corner of her mouth.
“Damnation,” he said.
And then he didn’t care what he crushed or broke. He reached out and wrapped his monster hands about her waist and lifted her straight up until her wet, sulky face was even with his own.
And in the same heartbeat, before she could scream, he clamped his hard, dissolute mouth over hers.
The heavens opened up then, loosing a torrent.
Rain beat down upon his head, and a pair of small, gloved fists beat upon his shoulders and chest.
These matters troubled him not a whit. He was Dain, Lord Beelzebub himself.
He feared neither Nature’s wrath nor that of civilized society. He most certainly was not troubled by Miss Trent’s indignation.
Sweet, was he? He was a gross, disgusting pig of a debauchee, and if she thought she’d get off with merely one repellent peck of his polluted lips, she had another think coming.
There was nothing sweet or chivalrous about his kiss. It was a hard, brazen, take-no-prisoners assault that drove her head back.
For one terrifying moment, he wondered if he’d broken her neck.
But she couldn’t be dead, because she was still flailing at him and squirming. He wrapped one arm tightly about her waist and brought the other hand up to hold her head firmly in place.
Instantly she stopped squirming and flailing. And in that instant her tightly compressed lips yielded to his assault with a suddenness that made him stagger backward, into the lamppost.
Her arms lashed about his neck in a strangle-hold.
Madonna in cielo.
Sweet mother of Jesus, the demented female was kissing him back.
Her mouth pressed eagerly against his, and that mouth was warm and soft and fresh as spring rain. She smelled of soap—chamomile soap—and wet wool and Woman.
His legs wobbled.
He leaned back against the lamppost and his crushing grasp loosened because his muscles were turning to rubber. Yet she clung to him, her slim, sweetly curved body sliding slowly down his length until her toes touched the pavement. And still she didn’t let go of his neck. Still she didn’t pull her mouth away from his. Her kiss was as sweet and innocently ardent as his had been bold and lustily demanding.
He melted under that maidenly ardor as though it were rain and he a pillar of salt.
In all the years since his father had packed him off to Eton, no woman had ever done anything to or for him until he’d put money in her hand. Or—as in the case of the one respectable female he’d been so misguided as to pursue nearly eight years ago—unless he signed papers putting his body, soul, and fortune into said hands.
Miss Jessica Trent was holding on to him as though her life depended upon it and kissing him as though the world would come to an end if she stopped, and there was no “unless” or “until” about it.
Bewildered and heated at once, he moved his big hands unsteadily over her back and shaped his trembling fingers to her deliciously dainty waist. He had never before held anything like her—so sweetly slim and supple and curved to delicate perfection. His chest tightened and ached and he wanted to weep.
Sognavo di te.
I’ve dreamed of you.
Ti desideravo nelle mia braccia dal primo momento che ti vedi.
I’ve wanted you in my arms since the moment I met you.
He stood, helpless in the driving rain, unable to rule his needy mouth, his restless hands, while, within, his heart beat out the mortifying truth.
Ho bisogno di te.
I need you.
As though that last were an outrage so monstrous that even the generally negligent Almighty could not let it pass, a blast of light rent the darkness, followed immediately by a violent crash that shook the pavement.
She jerked away and stumbled b
