Page 72 of How to Start a Scandal

With his free hand, he carefully held the back of her neck, drawing her face higher once more to kiss her as his fingers moved over her with an expertise he had not used in many, many years.

Chapter Twenty

Violet should not have been lying on the grass in her garden with Seth next to her. Certainly she should not have allowed him to put his hands under her skirts or touch her so intimately.

But she did not have a single regret on the matter. Not with the way her body seemed to soar above that garden, above London, above any amount of morality that had been scolded into her throughout her life.

Seth’s mouth moved over hers while his hand... Heavens, she didn’t know what he did with his hand, but it was exquisite. Heat prickled at her palms and feet and every muscle in her body went taut with anticipation.

Her breath came faster and her heart slammed against her ribs so frantically, it was a wonder they didn’t crack.

‘Yes,’ Seth growled between their kisses. ‘Come for me, love. Come for me, my beautiful Violet.’

Love.

My beautiful Violet.

Even if he had pulled his hand from her at that very moment, his words alone were enough to tip her over the edge where she recklessly fell into utter bliss. Her body clenched in delicious spasms that spiralled her senses beyond a place they’d ever been before.

Seth kissed her again and again, muffling the sounds of her pleasure until she had control of herself once more. Spent and languid, her head fell back on to the soft, damp grass as she gazed up at Seth and the starlit dark sky above him.

Lord Fordson had never touched her like that. He’d never made her body react in such a way.

‘That was the most sensual, lovely thing I’ve ever seen,’ Seth said quietly.

Heat singed her cheeks. ‘You watched me.’

He groaned. ‘The pleasure on your face, those little breathy cries.’ Despite the gruff, blatant lust in his voice, he eased his hand from her and carefully smoothed her skirt into place.

A glance down at his groin confirmed he was still fully aroused. A thick column of hard male flesh strained against his breeches.

Violet bit her lip, eager to show her own attraction to him as he had so generously done to her. She pulled him closer and kissed him again, this time letting her hands roam further than she’d been daring enough to do before.

Her fingertips grazed the tip of the large bulge, but he caught her hand. ‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘I won’t take your innocence.’

She opened her mouth, ready to confess it all. To tell him about how she was already ruined, how she burned for him, how if she didn’t have all of him at that exact moment, she might go truly and completely mad.

Except it was at that exact second that the rear door to Hollingston House was flung open and her mother’s voice cut through the air. ‘What is the meaning of this?’

Violet jerked her hand away from Seth, hoping they were shielded enough by the shadows that her mother hadn’t seen... Her insides clenched with mortification and shame.

Oh, God, what had her mother seen?

‘I fell,’ Violet said quickly. ‘And Seth was—’

‘Seth?’ Lady Hollingston snapped.

Violet winced.

Seth jumped to his feet and helped Violet to hers. Thank goodness, he’d pulled the top of her gown up earlier. Or at least as well as he could with her lying down. If she faced her mother with her breasts draped over her neckline, she might truly perish from mortification.

‘Forgive me, Lady Hollingston,’ Seth said. ‘The fault is entirely mine.’

‘Come in at once, both of you.’ The Countess pulled the door open wider. ‘This instant.’

Violet closed her eyes and wished to be anywhere other than where she was.

Seth offered her his arm, as if they were in a ballroom preparing for a dance rather than having just enjoyed a moonlit tryst in a place where anyone could have seen them.