She cocked her head, ignoring his framing of her as a ‘prize.’ “Trouble? You find my company troublesome, Mr Deverell?”
“Exceedingly so,” he replied with alarming readiness. “The sort of trouble that deprives a man of sleep… makes him forgethis Latin… drives him to lurk behind hedgerows like a lovesick schoolboy.”
“A pitiful state,” she said, glancing idly down the shaded path. “Perhaps you ought not to pursue trouble with such enthusiasm.”
“Alas,” he said mildly, “I was lured into it by a siren.”
“Were you? Hmm yes, I suppose youweredrawn in against your better judgment, quite helpless in the face of superior influence.”
“I would not go so far as helpless—“
“Oh, but you must,” she interrupted sweetly. “A siren, Mr Deverell, is not to be resisted. It would be most ungracious of you to imply otherwise.”
He laughed and then regarded her for a long moment. “And what,” he asked at last, “does such a creature demand in return for her… influence? It is said, after all, that a gentleman always repays his debts.”
She studied him in return. A breeze stirred the folds of her riding habit, and she adjusted her parasol slowly. It was, she reflected, far more fun to be the one who held the advantage.
“What shall it be, Miss Tolliver?” he said, his patience clearly fraying. “You have won our wager, and I am bound—willingly, I assure you—to grant whatever favour you see fit to name. Shall I deliver the forfeit here and now, or must I endure suspense?”
She tilted her head, considering him with provoking leisure. “It is tempting to make you endure it… but indeed, I believe I shall collect.”
His eyes dipped to her mouth, before returning to her eyes.
“I confess,” she continued, “I am curious to know what you shall say if I ask for something truly... improper.”
“I would be honour-bound to oblige, naturally.”
There followed a pause so delicious it seemed almost a game in itself.
“Then,” she said at last, folding her hands neatly upon the handle of her parasol, “I shall not be cruel.”
“How exceedingly merciful.”
“Indeed. I ask only this, Mr Deverell. Remove your gloves.”
His brows lifted. “My gloves?”
“Yes.” Her smile deepened. “Both of them. Slowly, if you please.”
She watched, fascinated, as his expression shifted from confusion, to laughter, back to wariness, to desire—until finally, he let out a breath and dropped his hat softly to the grass.
“As you command,” he said, and began to peel one leather glove from his hand, finger by finger.
Lottie meant it as a trivial jest—an impudent dart meant to surprise him at its innocence, when she might have asked for anything at all—yet, as he obeyed with such excruciating patience, she felt something coil low and hot in her belly. There was something indecently deliberate in it, that slow peel of leather over knuckle and joint, the flex of his bare hand once it was free. He had turned the matter into a performance.
Really, Lottie thought, it was becoming quite scandalous.
The first glove fell to the gravel, and then the second. His hands were strong, veined and sinewed, the tendons shifting beneath the skin with every flex. They were not idle hands, she thought. They were the hands of a man who knew control—a man who rode, who fenced, who gambled and fought and touched, and knew precisely how much force to use and when. She rather liked that thought.
“And now?” he asked, his voice pitched low.
“And now,” she said, “you are to kiss me.”
He lifted his gaze through lashes darker than any gentleman had a right to possess, and without a word he reached for her.
One bare hand claimed her waist. The span of his palm covered the narrow curve of her back, drawing her in until theirbodies met. His other hand rose, not to caress her cheek, but to slide around the back of her head. His fingers threaded into her hair firmly, tilting her head back with the sort of masculinity that made her knees go weak.
Lottie let out a gasp, her mouth falling open involuntarily as her spine arched under the pressure of his hand. She had never felt so small before, so deliciously overwhelmed by a man, and he had not even kissed her yet.
