Page 28 of One Night with a Rake

“Milady’s fine. She’s a big girl,” Mercy said. “She can certainly manage a gentleman like Lord Nathaniel or I’m much mistook.”

Instead of heading down to the common room below stairs, Mercy began climbing the steps.

“We’re not going back to join the others?” Reuben asked.

“No.”

“Then where are we going?”

She stopped on the step above him, turned around, and cupped his cheeks with both hands. Then she kissed him, right on the mouth.

It was hard and quick, a resounding bass drum bang of a kiss. It reverberated through him, clear to the soles of his feet.

“Ye’re a fine figure of a man, Reuben Darling, and we’re going to my room,” she said simply. “Now don’t ye say another word. Or I might just change my mind.”

Reuben clamped his lips shut and purposed in his heart not to utter another sound, if his hope of heaven depended upon it.

He suspected it truly did.

Twelve

The room swirled around Georgette in a soft blur. Nathaniel tried manfully to hum, but he was as poor at staying in the same key as she was at playing the pianoforte.

It didn’t matter. It seemed she could almost hear the tune he was attempting to hum played instead on shimmering strings.

The gentle swish of her skirts. The warm glide of muscles moving together. The heat of Nathaniel’s gaze as he looked down at her.

Georgette was no longer capable of coherent thought. All she could do was register impressions in disjointed images of the ballroom and their place in it. Her body was flush against Nathaniel’s as they turned and dipped in perfect concert.

She was born to waltz with this man.

And it didn’t feel at all lewd. It felt natural. Meant to be, somehow.

Wonderful.

Then the tempo slowed and Nathaniel raised her hand to signal a final underarm turn. She twirled slowly back into a close hold position as they came to a stop. Her skirts continued to turn for a moment, brushing against her pantalets in a silk-on-silk caress. Then the fabric swirled back into the stately column her modiste had meant for it to resemble.

Nathaniel didn’t move. He simply went on holding her with one arm around her waist and the other sheltering her hand against his chest. When he looked down at her, his gaze was strangely hungry. As if he’d like to start nibbling on her around the edges and not stop until he’d consumed her entirely.

I suspect I’d like that.

She ought to say something. Do something.

But that would mean breaking the spell, and who knew when a moment this perfect would ever come again? She couldn’t bear to leave the protected circle of Nathaniel’s arms.

“Georgette,” he said softly, his deep bass resonating through her. The way he said her name gave her the shivers. It was as if he were making love to the syllables. Rolling the bits of her name over his tongue, tasting them, caressing them.

What if he were to do that to the rest of her?

Her chest constricted. She didn’t trust herself to speak, but she raised herself slightly, rocking up on her toes.

“Forgive me,” he said huskily.

She didn’t have time to wonder what he was asking forgiveness for. He closed the distance between their mouths and rational thought fled.

A kiss doesn’t require forgiveness.

It was exactly what she wanted. Needed.