“I know you’re proving you can be naughty, but please do remember I amunmarried. And you are unmarried. And though I may have heard worse from libertines on the Continent?—
“You have?” he growled. Jealousy hit like a fist to the gut. “I shall have to talk to Lady Chattaway about the company she lets you keep.”
“The companyshekeeps.”
“They couldn’t resist you, could they? The libertines?”
She pressed her cheek against his arm, hiding her face, and his heart pinged with some terrifyingly soft emotion.
“Did they pursue you?” he asked quietly.
“A few tried.” The tone of her voice said the unspoken—she’d put them firmly in their places.
He speared his fingers into the hair at her nape and cradled the back of her head. She wiggled out from under him, toward the edge of the rock, but he held her head, her slender neck, and he controlled her escape, moved with her.
“When men like me want to ruin a woman,” he said, “it’s more about what comesbeforethe final act. Acts one and two are of utmost importance.” He lowered her to the rock, where it sloped down toward the forest floor, and rested her head on a thick patch of summer-green moss.
The gasp that parted her lips widened her eyes, and her mouth remained open in a little pink O. Good. She wasn’t laughing any longer. Neither was he. She made afist of the palm resting on his chest, clutching at his waistcoat, his shirt beneath, and trying to pull herself upright. Her other hand shot to his shoulder, held on tight. Her throat bobbed on a hard swallow.
He crawled over her outstretched form, noticing how her skirts molded around her belly, her hips, how her breasts strained to escape the gold trim of her bodice as she arched down the boulder’s slope.
Gravity tugged at her breasts, and the weight of his knee on her skirts tugged at the bodice. He’d never seen Tessa King so exposed, and beneath the heavy warmth of the wine, despite it, his cock stirred. She was breathing heavy, clinging to him, and completely in his control, arched backward and spilling out of the form he knew so well, taking a new shape.
He needed to taste her.
“Say it,” he demanded.
“Very well.” He’d never heard her voice so breathy, so raw and foreign. “You, Remington Ives, are a rake.”
She didn’t mean it. Not a bit, the little liar. Her arched brow and rolled eyes said she was well equipped to deal with the likes of him. This the Tessa from childhood. This an entirely different Tessa too. Bold and brilliant and undeniably saucy.
His Tessa, butmore.
Holy hell.He needed more of her.
He caught her ankle and, through silk stockings, felt the delicate bones before closing his eyes and skimming his hand up the back of her leg. Shapely. Warm. The cocoon of her skirts a place he never thought to have become acquainted with.
She flinched away, bending her knee.
But she felt too good to release, and he smoothed his hand up the front of her leg, over her knee, and her skirts came, too, dropping off her knee to pool around herwaist and to reveal a rather startling sight—a deep blue ribbon tying her stockings up, and above that, the creamiest thigh he’d ever seen. He was harder than he’d ever been in his life, his cock as interested as a… as a bee in search of nectar—necessary for survival.
But it would have to become uninterested.
This wasn’t about survival or honey (oh God, she probably tasted just as sweet). It was about proving himself. This was about playing a part and, perhaps, scaring her a little.
He trifled with the edge of the ribbon—warm and sleek—then took the plunge. His fingertips met her skin first, and that first touch felt like a bolt of lightning to his heart. And parts more southern. God, she was soft. How’d he never known how soft she was? He ventured his entire palm, flattening his hand, squeezing, cursing when he heard the faintest whimper slip from his lips.
He felt like whimpering.
Damn wine.
“Admit I’m what I say I am, and mean it,” he said, harder than he meant to. He squeezed her thigh hard, too.
She bit her bottom lip, shook her head, her eyes flashing rebellion.
“Very well then.” He inched farther up her body until his legs were tangled with hers, until his cock pressed against her hip. It felt so damn good. “I’ll teach you…” He grazed his lips up her neck. “The truth.”
He tilted his head so their noses nestled next to one another. Their mouths so close, almost touching, both parted, both warm, both wine and brandy spiced.
