Page 21 of One Night with a Rake

“It’ll be my pleasure.” He squeezed her hand and she suddenly withdrew it from his grasp as if she’d just realized he was still holding it.

“Oh!” She leaned toward the window and peered out. “How long has the cab been stopped?”

“A while.”

“We ought to be going in then. Madam Reynard will close soon.”

“In a moment. You asked some penetrating questions earlier,” Nathaniel said. “Even though I’m not the Duke of Cambridge, I’d like to answer them.”

He took her hand again and sandwiched it between his. She stiffened briefly, but then relaxed her fingers.

“Now let me see if I can remember them all,” he said. “The best book I ever read was Robinson Crusoe. I don’t like either cricket or lawn bowling. Fencing is my game. My first pony’s name was Thistle. The fat little beast was a demon on four hooves and wasn’t happy unless he ran me under a low-hanging branch at least once a day.”

“Oh, I remember him! What a good judge of character Thistle was.” She laughed again and this time her cheeks bloomed with that glorious pink as well.

“And my favorite color,” Nathaniel said, leaning toward her slightly, “is whatever color your eyes happen to be at the moment.”

“Oh.” Her mouth parted softly. “That may well be the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

“Then the world is full of fools.” He reached up and cupped her cheek. “You really are extraordinary, you know.”

“Am I?”

“You are. And you should be told so often enough for you never to doubt it again.” He bent to kiss her again and brushed her lips lightly. “We’ve known each other for a long time, and yet I feel in some ways as if we’ve just met. I remember the girl you were. I’d like very much to know the young woman you’ve become.”

And not only in the biblical sense, he finished silently. He moved closer and would have followed up that light buss of her lips with a deeper kiss, but she put a splayed hand to his chest.

“Nate, do you think…I mean…is this wise?”

“Wise? Probably not. But didn’t I just tell you the world is full of fools?” He claimed her mouth again.

This time she didn’t stop him.

Nine

This is so wrong. I shouldn’t allow it.

But the wrongness of the kiss didn’t seem to matter at the moment. Nathaniel understood her as no one else did. When he looked at her, he saw only her.

Simply Georgette. Not an alliance with a powerful peer. Not a shadowy possible heir. Not the ephemeral crown of England.

Just her.

She grasped his lapels and drew him closer.

His mouth was a whole world. Warm, wet, and insistent. She dove in with abandon, lost in the mystery of a shared breath, a sigh that could have come from either or both of them.

Her hand slipped inside his jacket, smoothing over the superfine of his waistcoat and the fine lawn of his shirt. His hard-muscled chest radiated heat to her fingertips that shot up her arms and finally settled to swirl in her lower belly.

How wonderful a thing is a man’s body, all hard and strong and unyielding.

Yet his lips were soft on hers, beguiling, teasing. He slipped his tongue into her mouth, then dared her to chase it back into his. They played a game of tag that quickly lost its lightheartedness when Nate began to thrust into her mouth with more force.

She welcomed him, suckling and nipping.

The warm tingle in her “nethers” started again. Then it deepened into a dull ache that was far from unpleasant. She was hollow with nameless longing.

So this is what Mercy meant when she talked about aching.