Page 45 of One Thing Leads to a Lover

Her pulse fluttered like a bird in a snare as he trapped her beneath his steady, stern regard. Resistance flared in her, along with a forbidden tingle of anticipation.

For what seemed an eternity, they stood at a silent impasse: cat and mouse, just as he’d said, his eyes raking over her, that hint of a sardonic smile curving his lips. When she could bear the weight of his imperious stare no longer, she lifted her chin, drew back her shoulders, and said, “Well?”

With one swift movement, he switched the position of their hands, so that he now gripped her arm. His other hand settled over her ribs, just beneath her breast. Could he feel her heart race?

“Right now,” he murmured against her ear, his breath stirring the curls clustered there and shooting sparks of awareness across her scalp, “you seem to imagine that you may flirt with danger, dally with it, and still escape unharmed. But the life I lead is not for you. I am not for you.” Once more, he nipped her earlobe, sending a bolt of lust to her core. “What must I do to make you understand?”

“You’re the tutor,” came her impudent reply.

At least, that was what she had intended to say. She rather feared that her words had been lost in an incoherent groan of pleasure as he nuzzled at a particularly sensitive spot beneath her ear.

“That’s right,” he growled. “I am.”

And with that, his lips trailed over her throat, along her jaw, and found her mouth at last, his kiss just as rough as he’d threatened.

Or had intended to threaten.

To her mind, he was merely keeping a promise, a promise to reveal something of her, something to her, something she could not otherwise have discovered. The way the scrape of his bristly jaw along the delicate skin of her neck, followed by the press of sharp teeth—sensations she once would have dismissed as discomfort—made all her skin come alive. She was pure sensation, drunk on his touch.

And perhaps that was his object, to overwhelm her senses, the way one let a child have too many sweets, until he was heartily sick of them.

But her appetite had gone unsated for so long—had never been sated—she could only press hungrily against him, willingly supplying the answer his kisses demanded. She hid nothing from him as he plundered her pliant mouth, whimpered with pleasure when his teeth snagged the plump curve of her lower lip. Nothing gentle, nothing coaxing. Just scorching heat and salt and a hint of brandy.

Oh, sweet heaven. Who could have imagined that amazing range of voices and accents were not his mouth’s greatest skill?

Nor were his hands still. The palm at her ribs rose higher, skating over her breast to the bare expanse of her décolletage. He hooked two fingers in her bodice and tugged. The sound of popping threads only ratcheted her need higher.

She threw back her head, craving the torment of his hot mouth on the nipple he’d freed, and then…

Out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed the library door.

Had she locked it?

No, of course she hadn’t. To have done so would have made it seem as if she had been expecting—

Oh, God.

He pinched her nipple between the knuckles of his first and second fingers, bringing it to an urgent peak as his lips drifted lower, lower.…

Her back arched again as the decadent pleasure of his tongue consumed her. So good, so—oh.

Once more the door caught her eye.

She squeezed her eyelids shut, trying to focus on Langley’s mouth and the pleasures yet to come.

Still, the mental image of the unlocked door intruded. What would happen if someone, a servant, her mother, came in and caught them in…in…? She couldn’t think of the proper words, or rather the improper ones, to describe their current situation. In—something…

His other hand slid up her arm and settled at the base of her throat, its pressure yet another sensation she had not known to crave, yet impossible to ignore. “Is something distracting you, Amanda?” he whispered coolly across her wet nipple.

She could hardly catch her breath to explain. “The—the door isn’t locked. We could be caught in—in flagrante delicto! That’s it, that’s the phrase I was trying to remember. Though it hardly seems adequate to the purpose, does it?” she added with a nervous laugh. “Well, perhaps the flagrante part. Delicto, too,” she added reassuringly. Oh, what was the matter with her? This was no time to be showing off her knowledge of Latin—

He lifted his head from her breast and favored her with a smile that sent a shiver up her spine. “You said you wanted to live dangerously, did you not?” As he spoke, he brushed the pad of his thumb over the pulse thrumming in her neck.

“Yes,” she confessed breathlessly. “I want a night with the rogue. But if we’re caught, you may be compelled to act the gentleman.”

“And you wouldn’t want that.” Was it her imagination, or did he sound disappointed? “Then I suppose you’re right,” he said, straightening. “We’d best not risk it.”

Despite the fact that she had been the one to point out the perils of their present position, a wail of protest rose in her throat. Before it could escape, however, he was kissing her again. His arms came around her as he stepped forward, propelling her backward, until her hip struck not the immoveable bulk of the desk, as she’d expected, but the door itself. One thunk, as the panel settled against the frame beneath their combined weight, recalling the illicit, eager lovers the night of the ball.