She smelled like honeysuckle and tasted like fresh tea. Had he thought he hated the flavor? He adored it when it came from her lips. No amount of sugar could compare to the sweetness of her mouth, the fierce rush of her fingers twisting in his hair.
Something fluttered in his chest, an unfurling, a rebirth. He explored the contours of her mouth, mapping each hidden corner to remember later, to revisit in his mind when he could not have her in his hands.
Both palms now cupped her cheeks. Not to keep her in place but to stop himself from skimming his eager hands down the column of her neck, the hollow of her back, the flare of her hips.
If he touched her there, he’d be tempted to pull her closer. To leave no doubt that kissing her was no fleeting impulse but a gale-force temptation he barricaded himself against every time he thought her name or saw her face.Thiswas what he had hungered for. Her. Beneath his fingers.
Kissing her was as inevitable as the rain falling from swollen clouds, and just as impossible to hold in one’s hands forever.
He forced himself to wrench his mouth from hers, panting. He touched their foreheads together and tried to regain his breath. It was no use.
“Now you know.” The words were a growl, a plea. “All I can give is a moment’s passion. Do not ask me to uncage myself again, unless that is what you want.”
15
Chloe’s pulse skittered unsteadily as her carriage ferried her toward the Ainsworth residence. Her lips were tender and still tasted of the Duke of Faircliffe’s kiss. Her head swam every time she let herself remember the feel of his strong hands holding her face, the sensation of her own fingers rumpling his hair as though he were hers to dishevel.
“I ‘accidentally’ wandered into two different rooms,” Tommy was saying, “and not only haven’t I found our portrait, I have glimpsednoart at all. Does Faircliffe despise creativity? He wouldn’t have tossed our painting into the fire, would he?”
Ah, yes. This was what Chloe was supposed to be thinking about: pillaging the duke’s estate, not offering him her body.
“Why would he burn it?” she mumbled.
“Idon’t know. Because peers are madmen?” Tommy toyed with the stolen key ring, then shoved it back into the basket. “Maybe he didn’t read our letters because he anticipated our logical request and could not possibly respond, ‘Sorry, dropped your family heirloom into a fire. Saved the ashes in a nice tin, though.’”
“I really don’t…” Chloe frowned. “Tommy, are you all right?”
“I’m frustrated,” Tommy admitted. “I thought this would be easy—that the painting would be hanging on a wall. You’d distract him by whatever means necessary—clever touch with the kissing—and I’d filch the canvas. What if he’s hidden it? Searching nooks and crannies will take forever, even with a set of keys.”
Chloe’s cheeks burned. She had heard only part of the explanation. “You saw us kiss?”
“I’m so sorry.” Tommy patted her hand. “It must have been torture.”
A wondrous, delicious, toe-curling torture. Chloe’s skin heated at the memory. She would be replaying every moment to herself tonight, and the next night, and the next. Her skin still tingled where he had touched her.
“By the by, wherever did you find this stupendous overdress? And these baubles!” Tommy admired the pearl comb in Chloe’s hair. “I thoughtIwas supposed to be the master of disguises, but you’ve outdone me by far.”
It wasn’t a disguise: these prized treasures from her secret collection were the closest to the real Chloe any family member had ever seen.
“Poor dear, you look miserable.” Tommy added another pin to her white-haired-grandmother wig. “It might take an age to exhaustively search each room for hiding places, but I’m working as fast as I can. As soon as we find Puck, life will return to normal.”
Huzzah?
Chloe clasped her hands in her lap. Before she could examine her complicated thoughts on the matter, the carriage pulled to a stop before the Ainsworths’ house.
She took a deep breath and shoved her basket to the floor.
When the door swung open, it was not their tiger Isaiah ready to hand her down from the carriage, but the Duke of Faircliffe.
A chill breeze whipped his dark hair asunder, but his blue gaze was targeted on her. Knowing, now. Possessive. He had learned things about her she had never divulged to anyone. How her heart skipped when he touched her. How her mouth was his for the taking.
“Allow me.” He offered his arm.
This time she knew how it would feel beneath her fingers. The warm contours of his muscles were no longer a mystery but a favorite memory. She had touched his shoulders, his face, his hair. Surely her fingertips could curve about his elbow.
Yet she hesitated. “Are you certain you should walk me to the front door at all?”
“My coach happened to arrive right before yours. I’m offering aid to a fellow guest, as any gentleman worth his salt ought.” He lowered his voice. “Don’t worry, no one will imagine the two of us arriving together on purpose.”
