"Because I don't want to." The admission felt like stepping off a cliff, terrifying and exhilarating in equal measure. "Because I've wanted this since you corrected me in Hatchard's. Because you're impossible and arrogant and you make me want to throw books at you, but you also make me feel more alive than I've ever felt in my entire properly regulated life."
He made a sound that might have been a groan or possibly a prayer, his free hand coming up to cup her cheek with infinite gentleness. "You terrify me," he admitted, thumb brushing across her cheekbone in a way that made her eyes flutter closed. "You've disrupted everything—my library, my peace, my carefully constructed walls. I haven't been able to think clearly since you marched into my house demanding an interview."
"I didn't march," she protested weakly, though she was swaying toward him like a flower toward sunlight.
"You absolutely marched. Like a general preparing for battle." His forehead came to rest against hers, their breath mingling in the small space between them. "I should have sent you away that first day. I knew you were dangerous the moment you started lecturing me about my library's organization."
"Why didn't you?"
"Because for the first time in two years, I felt something other than bitter emptiness. Even if that something was annoyance at your presumption." His lips were so close now that she could feel the words as much as hear them. "You made me feel again, Eveline. I'm not sure whether to thank you or curse you for it."
"You could kiss me instead," she suggested, then immediately wanted to clap her hand over her mouth because properly bred ladies did not say such things, especially not to their employers, especially not in libraries in the middle of the afternoons.
But Adrian didn't seem shocked by her boldness. If anything, his eyes darkened further, and the hand cupping her cheek slid into her hair, disturbing the pins she'd so carefully arranged that morning.
"I could," he agreed, and then he was leaning in those final inches, moving still with that deliberate slowness that made every second feel like an eternity.
Their lips met tentatively at first, a gentle brush that might have been accidental if not for the way they both sighed at the contact. Then Eveline made a small sound, embarrassingly close to a whimper, and Adrian's control seemed to snap. His mouth pressed more firmly against hers, coaxing her lips apart with gentle insistence that had her gripping the edge of the table for support.
She'd read about kisses, of course. Those forbidden books had been quiteeducational on the subject. But nothing she'd read had prepared her for the reality of it. The warmth of his mouth, the slight scratch of stubble against her skin, the way he tasted faintly of tea and something indefinably Adrian. Her knees went weak, like some swooning heroine in a Gothic novel, and she would have been mortified if she'd been capable of any emotion beyond desperate wanting.
His tongue touched hers, a gentle exploration that had her making another of those embarrassing sounds, and she felt him smile against her mouth. The hand in her hair tightened slightly, tilting her head to a better angle, and she forgot about Latin and propriety and everything except the feel of Adrian kissing her like she was something precious and desired and necessary.
When they finally broke apart, they were both breathing hard, and Eveline realized she'd somehow ended up pressed against the table with Adrian's body caging her in, though she had no memory of moving. Her lips felt swollen and sensitive, and she could still taste him on her tongue.
"That was..." she started, then stopped because she had no words for what that was.
"A mistake," Adrian said roughly, though he made no move to step away, his forehead still resting against hers. "A complete breach of every protocol, every propriety, every promise I made to myself about maintaining appropriate boundaries with you."
"Oh." The word came out small and hurt, and she tried to pull back, but his hand tightened in her hair, keeping her close.
"And yet," he continued, his voice dropping to that dangerous register again, "I want nothing more than to do it again. And again. Until neither of us can remember why this is such a terrible idea."
"Then perhaps despair suits you after all, Your Grace," she managed, trying to reclaim some equilibrium through wit, though her voice was embarrassingly breathy.
He pulled back slightly to look at her, and his expression was a mixture of desire and frustration and something that might have been wonder. "You're going to be the death of me, Eveline Whitcombe."
"Well, at least your library will be properly organized for your funeral," she replied, which startled a laugh out of him.
"Only you would think about cataloguing systems at a moment like this."
"I'm trying not to think about the alternative," she admitted, her cheeks burning. "Because if I think too hard about what just happened, I might spontaneously combust from mortification."
"Mortification?" He looked genuinely puzzled. "Why would you be mortified?"
"Because I just asked my employer to kiss me! Because I made sounds that would make a courtesan blush! Because I'm currently trapped between you and a table and I don't want you to move!"
The last admission seemed to break something in him. He made that groan-prayer sound again and stepped back abruptly, putting several feet of distancebetween them with visible effort.
"This can't happen again," he said, though it sounded more like he was trying to convince himself than her.
"Of course not," she agreed, smoothing her skirts with hands that weren't quite steady. "It was a momentary aberration brought on by... by excessive exposure to Cicero."
"Cicero."
"Yes. His rhetoric is known to have strange effects on susceptible individuals."
"I see." He was fighting a smile now, she could tell. "And are you often susceptible to the effects of Roman rhetoric?"
