Before he could consider all the ramifications, before he could remind himself of the tenet he’d always held sacred, never broken, he lowered his mouth to hers.
It was a mistake. In the same manner that eating too much cake was a mistake. There was certain to be an ache in his gut and regret later, but while the sugary goodness existed, he longed for nothing else.
Her lips were as warm, soft, and plump as he’d known they would be. He might have left off, then and there, after the initial touch, but she made a little mewling sound that sounded like desperation to his ears, and her arms entwined around his neck like vines clinging to a solid surface forsupport. He circled one arm around her waist and brought her in nearer as he enticed her lips into parting for him and deepened the kiss.
The heady flavors of sherry and scotch coated her tongue, but it was she and she alone who was responsible for the light-headedness that assailed him. He was no stranger to women, but he’d never experienced such an overwhelming need to take what was being offered and to beg for more. An innocence marked her movements, a tentativeness as she greeted his eagerness, and he was relatively certain it wasn’t because she was wary of him but because she was unfamiliar with the journey upon which they’d embarked.
Good Lord. Had her betrothed never taken possession of her mouth? What sort of saint had he been that he could resist the temptation of her? Beast had been right to call him a fool. He himself was neither saint nor fool, but sinner.
When it came to what passed between men and women, he held nothing back, was open to exploring all possibilities. Nothing was off-limits. She wanted him to teach her how to be seductive. He could show her how to destroy a man’s will, how to conquer, how to entice, how to manipulate, how to master.
Not that she required lessons. Here he was doing what he had sworn he wouldn’t do: inhaling her fragrance of gardenia heated with passion, feeling the outline of her body against his, memorizing all of her dips and swells and noting where they pressed so convincingly against the hard contours of his chest, his stomach... his groin. Her frock was simple, lacked an abundance of petticoats. She had to be aware of the effect she was having on him. Or was she so lost to the sensations they created together that they dominated her to such an extent she was cognizant of nothing beyond herself?
Her fingers scraped up the back of his head along his scalp, came around—
Grabbing her wrists, he carried her arms behind her back, which only served to lift her breasts more firmly against his chest. She was a duke’s daughter, and although she may have fallen from grace, it didn’t change the fact that she was born on the right side of the blanket while he was born on the wrong side of it.
No reason existed for her to be abandoned by her parents. A reason existed for him to be.
Tearing his mouth from hers, staring down at her lovely features, he wondered whatever had possessed him to think he had the right to touch so much as her little finger, let alone her mouth and every other part of her that was presently pressed up against him. Those lovely lips were damp and swollen, little gasps of breath escaping between them. In her blue eyes were the dying embers of desire.
She didn’t wanthim. She wanted only the lessons. His earlier assessment had been incorrect. Hewasa fool.
Releasing his hold on her as though she’d suddenly ignited, he stepped back. “We leave for the dressmaker at ten tomorrow morning.”
He headed for the hallway.
“Benedict?”
Increasing his tempo, he loped down the stairs, jerked open the front door, and stalked out into the night.
Idiot.
He’d kissed her. He enjoyed kissing her. He wanted to kiss her again.
As he was a colossal idiot, he’d also left without his greatcoat. Being too stubborn to go back to retrieve it, he hunched his shoulders against the cold, which no doubt made him appear more beastly, and strode on. He had a strong urge to strike something: a brick wall, a jaw, a gut. If he ran across someone causing havoc, he’d be only too happy to add to the mayhem.
In spite of his size, he’d never been in favor of violence except as a last resort. He meted out punishment. Tonight he had a strong need to be on the receiving end of it. He’d made a fool of himself.
She’d kissed him back.
Had she enjoyed it? Did she want to kiss him again? Or had she merely thought, “Ah, here is lesson one.”
Bugger it. Women didn’t generally get under his skin, but from the moment she’d told him she was none of his bleedin’ business with a Cockney accent, her acerbic tone had embedded itself in his mind and grown tentacles to reach every aspect of him that responded to womanly wiles.
That she had the most beautiful eyes he’d ever seen and dainty features that reminded him of the princesses in the fairy tales he’d read to his sister Fancy—fourteen years his junior—when she was a wee lass did not mean that Thea saw him as deserving of her or thought of him as a prince riding in on a white steed to save the day.
Thea. Thea seemed to suit her better, at least in his mind. Althea was for the lady she’d once been. Thea was the woman she was now.
Presently, she was under his roof, under his care. And his care should not include kisses that even now, in spite of the cold, managed to keep his lips warm. When he was daft enough to run his tongue over them, he could still taste her. Not the sherry she’d sipped or the scotch she’d gulped, but beneath it all a mixture of cinnamon, butter, and sugar, all things sweet, a flavor that was unique to her, that he would recall and savor until his last breath.
At the end of their time together, he was going to be a thousand pounds poorer, because he’d be damned if he’d teach her how to seduce another man into her bed.
Chapter 12
It was only a kiss. She’d carried a litany of those words into her slumber, and upon awakening discovered they still mocked her. It had been only a kiss in the same manner a feast was merely one dish or a storm a single raindrop or a blizzard a solitary snowflake.
It had been everything, all consuming, the brightest sun, the largest moon, a thousand upon thousand stars. It had been more than pliant lips moving in tandem, testing, gliding, settling in. It had been tongues and teeth, sighs and moans. It had reached beyond mouths to include limbs and breasts and that very sensitive spot between her legs that had been straining toward him, had tingled and pulsed, and seemed nearly ecstatic when she’d felt the hard evidence of his desire pressed up against her belly. It had warmed. It had been the spark that ignited passion. It had been like nothing she’d ever before experienced while at the same time it contained a familiarity, as though every aspect of her recognized that with him, she somehow belonged.
