Page 59 of Rules for a Wicked Wager

He held her hands still. He wasn’t going to let her cover her words. “I enjoy your thoughts immensely. I dislike it when you wear ugly colors and pull your hair back like that. And I hate that you tie back the best part of yourself.”

“My hair?”

“Your everything.”

She blinked back more tears. “I spoke without restraint, and now Mr. Camden has lost his patron.”

“Lord Rossgrove would be a nightmare of a patron.”

“I said something stupid in India as a child and cost my father a great deal of money.”

“Your father should not have let a child know important things.”

“He didn’t. I snooped.” She bit her lip, and he felt a surge of lust at those even white teeth on the dark pink of her lips.

“Do you know all your father’s secret places, then? Where he hides his important things?”

She nodded. “I even know where the secret ledger is.”

He frowned. “You have been in his offices that much?”

She grinned. “He doesn’t keep it there. It’s not even in the library at home, but in his bedroom underneath his favorite chair. He pulls it out at night when he can’t sleep.”

He released a slow whistle of admiration. “Clever girl.”

“Bored girl.” She sighed. “Wayward girl.”

“Shall I tell you a secret?” he whispered. “Being wayward is not a flaw. I call it attractive. Mesmerizing.” The last word came out on a sigh.

They were eye to eye now, with him drawing closer by the second. She didn’t pull back. Indeed, she didn’t do anything but look into his eyes and part her lips. It wasn’t an invitation. The woman was too innocent to know what she looked like with her hair tumbled about her shoulders and her eyes liquid with emotion. But he took it as one anyway.

He cupped her face in his hands. Then he pressed his mouth to hers, needing to taste the sweetness there.

She sighed against his lips, her breath tart with lemon. That was a surprise. It was likely from a drink she’d had recently, and he told himself he was simply exploring how deep the new taste went. He pushed his tongue between her teeth, thrusting enough but no more. She met him there, and they played, tongue to tongue.

It was a quiet kiss. A sweet one that did not ask too much of an innocent girl. But then he lost himself. Hunger roared in his blood, and his thrusts became bolder.

She released a sound somewhere between a mew and a groan. Was it desire? He couldn’t tell, not with his heart pounding in his ears and her hands clutching him.

She was holding onto him, gripping his shoulders and pulling herself closer. Yes, that was permission. So he let his hands shift. He abandoned her hair to cup her shoulders, to slide down her arms, and then he molded her breast between his fingers.

She gasped against him, pulling back with her eyes wide. She didn’t need to speak. He knew the sight of a startled virgin. But he also saw a need that echoed his own.

“There is pleasure in being wayward,” he rasped. “I can show you.”

She shook her head. “I shouldn’t.”

Not quite a denial.

“I won’t take your virginity. No one else will know.”

He saw the struggle in her eyes. Passion against prudence. He dropped his forehead to hers.

“What I show you can be done alone too,” he said. “Something to pleasure yourself when no one else is looking.” He tilted her chin up. “Do you know about this thing? Has your mother never told you?”

She shook her head. “But my sister…” She bit her lips.

The Wild One. “Does she know?”